Chapter 55: Before the Storm (2/2)

Varska turned around and watched the massive flower.

“Yes. My most precious work. It can be saved.”

“Let me help.”

With extreme care and the help of Varska’s maid, they packed the essentials in record time. There were not a lot of them, Viv realized. It was a bit tragic how the mage’s life and legacy could hold in so few luggages. She had even left her favorite tea set behind.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take it?”

“I know when to prioritize life, my dear. Come on, finish everything and then we will go to the training fields. I need to teach you a few things if we are to hold off earth users.”

Varska’s stuff was left on one of the temple’s carts and the two were soon walking to the training grounds.

“Has Ganimatalo recovered yet? She is the mayor, we kind of need her,” Viv said to fill the silence.

“I did not ask, but I have not seen her since the incident. Corel has taken over her responsibilities for now. You must understand, she never married and spurned her original family. Kazar was all she had, and it’s gone now.”

“It’s not gone yet.”

“It is. You may not realize it, but it is. We cannot hold it. The mayor knows it and she sees all her plans going up in smoke because of something that she had little opportunity to anticipate and no opportunity to stop. Just imagine spending twenty years growing something and the local authorities just legally confiscate it.”

“I’d be mad.”

“She is old, Viv. You can only get so mad. In any case, where are Marruk and Solfis?”

“They should be at the meeting point. I only picked up Arthur.”

Varska turned and glared at her as they passed by a smith lowering his anvil on a cart, his arms straining with the weight.

“First lesson. In a war situation, you never leave the secure compound without an escort. Never. That’s how they get you.”

“You think they would send assassins to pick us off?” Viv asked, a bit ashamed that she had not thought of it.

She immediately felt stupid for asking.

It made perfect sense. In fact, that’s exactly what she would have done on earth. Fighting monsters instead of humans was dulling her strategic edge. It was not because the people of Nyil didn’t have guns that they didn’t have brains. Taking down a caster would always be a great boon, even in more civilized places where war mages were sure to be more common.

“It does not matter what I think, dear. If you are part of a military force, you get yourself an escort. Period. If you must remember one thing from this lesson, remember that. The Kark are losing against the Pure League because their shamans keep being taken down by an order of assassins, not because they have inferior armies.”

“If mages are so strong, can the two of us not defeat the foe?”

Varska stopped to consider the question.

“You know, if every last fighter on our side is willing to die, if Solfis goes on a rampage until he runs out of energy, if the enemy snipers are disabled properly, and if the Prince has not brought a dangerous bodyguard, then yes, victory is possible. Most of us would still die, though. Are you willing to try it? I am not.”

“When you put it that way…”

“Good. Bide your time.”

The pair went to pick up their bodyguards. The communal field was slowly getting filled and a line of carts was already heading out onto the road leading to the mountains. There were a lot of crying people, including children, but most of the folks were too shell-shocked to show much emotion. Marruk left the sled where it was with the suncult marea resting on it. The view would have been comical in other circumstances.

Stress settled in Viv’s stomach when they arrived at the training grounds. Her gaze returned to the edge of the trees as if drawn by a magnet, the familiar vista now hostile and threatening. It felt like a betrayal.

Varska did not wait.

“Red mana users will throw fire at your face, but brown mages will use the ground around you to attack, if you let them. Fortunately, people with a good command of mana like us can fend it off. You need to saturate the ground with your own mana as soon as you feel a spell going off. You do not have to use everything you have, merely enough to disrupt the spell. Now, spread mana in the ground around you.”

“Just sending raw mana?”

“You can just spread a tendril, like you normally do. Try it.”

Viv did. Sending mana out of her body was instinctual by now, but she had never tried to send one below. It was actually not that difficult. There was significantly more resistance than sending one through the air, but nothing insurmountable. Now that she thought about it, her mana was not really pushing the air away when it came out of her body, though it was still affecting it.

Viv shook her head and gave up on exploring the physics behind mana shaping. She didn’t have that sort of time right now.

Varska said a few words, drew glyphs that Viv recognized as ‘earth’, ‘direction’, and ‘push’ and Viv felt the ground shake under her feet. The mana spike bounced against the construct, and won. The spell petered out.

“Ah yes, I forgot that black mana is the most disruptive of all. This will serve you well. Now, you must train to detect the attacks. I will let the mana build up first. We will do this slowly.”

Varska trained Viv for an hour, then she went to meditate for another under Solfis’ vigilant protection. The golem had simply deployed and walked to the edge of the forest where he had disappeared, and Viv felt sorry for any poor bastards trying to sneak up on them. The practice continued throughout the afternoon.

Detecting a spell build-up was not too hard, but aiming the spike at it was, sometimes. Viv had to force it. As soon as she believed she had things well in hand, Varska started to use feints and multi-directional attacks. After that Varska used less mana to make Viv more sensitive. It was close enough to the way she trained mana sensitivity to be easy to handle. Although her skill did not progress she still felt like she was making headway.

“Enough for today,” Varska said as the sun set, “you are… passable.”

“Lies. The enemy casters cannot do what you do,” Viv replied.

“Of course not!” Varska clamored, then she realized her mistake. “It does not mean that you should not try your best. Who can the most can the least!”

“Yeah yeah.”

They headed back to the tower, alone. Varska settled in the greenhouse to say goodbye, Viv guessed.

“Will you spend the night?” Varska asked.

“Here?”

“We still have the linen. And tea as well as my favorite tea set. What more can you ask?”

That was such an easy trap. Viv placed a hand on the small of her lover’s back, where it curved gently.

“You, of course,” she whispered in her ear.

“You know,” Varska said with a scowl, “it would be rather terrible if I thought you didn’t mean it.”