Rune mage

Chapter 46: attacks

The caravan left as they had planned. I had given them runes on their wagons to keep them all healthier and avoid damage to their wagons.

We were, for a few nights, lost without them. As though we had in two nights' time gained family and friends, and then were now bereft.

We didn't have more time than that to miss them, however. The enemy had returned to plague us.

They did not attack with large numbers, not like they had before. It felt like we had started over, and they were sending only small squadrons against us to harass or test us.

We didn't lose anyone the first day. Nor did we lose anyone the second. The enemy couldn't get close without triggering runes that ate at them.

By the third day I was beginning to hope- none of my men had died.

And the forth day saw the enemy depart.

I watched them go, a weight in my stomach. Why would they do so little? Why would they leave so soon?

I learned soon enough.

My healers came to me two days of silence later.

They had two men in cots, dying from an unknown illness. Their magic could only delay the inevitable until they could figure out what the illness was and how to treat it.

I pushed magic through our wellness runes every hour for the next five days. I drained my personal stores of power, not sleeping so that every hour I could send a wave of power to every wellness rune I had made. I was not allowed to come near anyone who was sick, for they revered me as the only one who could keep them alive. So I could not see them struggle. I could not hold their hands or give additional runes of strength and wellness.

Most of my men became sick.

Five died. Including a healer. We laid them under stones out front of the fort, runes of health and peace over the healer and strength over the warriors.

The rest some how got better. There was no magic cure, no herbal remedy, no reason why some died and some didn't.

I couldn't at that time know if the enemy had some how found a way to send an illness to our walls. I walked our battlements, empty of sentries and placed cleansing runes down so that nothing could become infected. I reinforced the pest repellent runes. Added extra protection to our water well so that regardless of where the water came from, when we drank it there would only be water.

We were on our feet and decently strong when the enemy walked onto my land again.

I let them walk, watching their casual attitude. They didn't expect any resistance.

Which meant they had given us illness some how.

I pulled the stone of peace from its pouch and placed it down on the stone in front of me.

Then I pulsed the stone with the power held in the fort.

The walls themselves began to sing with the hauntingly beautiful song. At least it seemed that way.

I gave my enemy peace.

And then when they stood, blinking in confusion with their feelings on their faces, I killed them.

I could indeed weaponize peace.

The runes once used to destroy an entire army rose to full power and wiped out every man below us.

The next day more men came. They did not approach the walls. They simply looked at us.

They watched through the day and night.

Perhaps they were counting or planning. As long as they stayed away, I did not care.

Except I did care because I wanted to know what they were doing. I wished I could know their intent.

They watched.

I watched them back.

They were still there the next day, one step closer but no more.

"I don't understand what they're doing?" I growled to my sergeant.

"Neither do I." He admitted.

So we watched them, and they watched us.

And on the next day they pulled forth someone who was struggling.

A young person, hard to tell their gender or exact age.

"Surrender or the boy dies." The man closest shouted.

I could not kill them quickly enough to save the boy, but I could freeze them, so I did, though the power needed to do so at this remove drained me until I was shaking.

The boy ran away from his captors.

And away from us.

I let him run.

I didn't want his life on my hands.

Once the lad was gone, the enemy was reduced to lifeless shapes in the dark, and then my runes ate at them until only bones remained.

There were now so many bones in the land surrounding us that you couldn't take a step without setting foot on a femur or a finger.

I began playing the peaceful song at night to ease my men into sleep.

My own sleep suffered of course.

My sergeant could talk me into sleeping from time to time. At other times he worked with the healers to ambush me. I would be awake one moment and asleep the next, no memory of how it happened. I resented the need for sleep but hadn't yet found a rune that could make it unnecessary.

The enemy tried again with a similar tactic, pulling a pregnant woman from who knows where and demanding we surrender or she and her babe would die.

Those men.

They did not get a peaceful end.

Nor did the woman, unfortunately. She gave birth to a child in our healer hall. But the healers could not save the mother when she bled and bled and bled.

We had no goat for milk and no means of feeding the child. We tried many a thing, but the child could not survive.

We buried them out front, together under a stone that felt like love if you stood on it long enough.

The weather began to change. We had almost been there a year. It had felt like a lifetime.

The enemy had tried to sneak in.

They had tried with force.

They tried with Illness.

They tried with hostages.

The weather turned freezing and the snow kept them away.

We huddled around fires, around runes I designed to hold heat captured by both fire and sun. We slept under layers and layers of blankets no longer needed by the dead. Wore layers of clothing until our movements were sluggish.

We knew the enemy was unlikely to attack. It was winter. And winter in these mountains were fierce.

We were nearing the end of our stores, stretching our food out to one small meal a day.

We hadn't been killed by the enemy but the lack of food would do the job if we didn't find a solution.

My solution was to send three men to the nearest town. It was the town where my page had once lived, hours away. In this weather it would take a whole day.

I'd little hope Longslim and Whistler and Carver would return. Given messages to send and mage torches to trade, we hoped they would at least send someone our way with supplies. But if they didn't, at least we had three fewer mouths to feed.

We expected them to be gone a few days. But as the days passed, they did not return.

And then the day came I had been there a year.

No one came to replace us.

No one brought us supplies.

We were alone and forgotten.