Rune mage

Chapter 48: war goes on

The enemy didn't attack when we expected them to. The first warm days came and went, and the snow melted.

I had forgotten how the bones would look, forgotten under the snow but now visible again.

I tested out some runes that would turn the bones to dust. After a few small explosions I had something workable. I laid them down at night while using my unseeing rune. No one could be near when the runes were activated, as I hadn't been able to distinguish between bones that belonged in living bodies and dead. So once the runes were laid down, I returned to my fort and waited for sunrise.

The bones disappeared into ash.

The ground still looked desolate, so I returned during the night and added a small number of seeds of the prickly bush that hopefully would lead to berries. I put most of the seeds in a small patch of grass inside the walls. Because it was unlikely anyone would want to eat food that grew out of the remains of the dead.

The enemy appeared at the outskirts of our land. They could not skirt us by without my knowing, nor could they use the pass. They would send a scout and the scout would walk onto my runes and die.

And then the others would disappear again, only to reappear another day.

They brought a mage, his body language spoke volumes about how well he thought of himself. Arrogant and annoyed just being asked to be there.

He died the moment his power flared. That was a surprise to them, because as far as they knew they'd been standing behind my lands.

I had expanded.

On nights when I couldn't sleep, when nightmares haunted me and sleep would just serve to open wounds I kept carefully closed lest my darkness spread to my men, I skipped out and added spirals and spirals of runes, webs that touched other webs that could then touch other webs. While the enemy had waited for warmer weather, I had traipsed out in the cold and placed runes in places I wouldn't be able to reach when the snow melted. There once would not have been enough power to run half of them, but I had learned by watching nature and designed accordingly. I had more power available to me than I could hold, running through runes that ran across the land and the fort.

By the time they sent that arrogant mage, they had lost ability to step on a full five miles surrounding my fort without me knowing.

And if they did step upon my land, I could end them.

I didn't always, but the mage had to die.

So my runes came to life and sucked his power away so fast he couldn't even scream. Then his own power fueled the runes that ate away at his body. I hadn't dared put the bone dusting rune down that far. That one was a last resort close to our walls.

They left again with speed, shouting at each other and not bothering to pick up the bones of their mage.

And they left us alone.

The days became warm, the weather pleasant headed towards hot.

The prickly bushes began to grow.

And the pass held.

We lost no men to war when this time last year I had already lost ten, perhaps fifteen.

I sent two men to the town. One of them returned. Whistler had stayed. He had fallen in love and stayed with plans to travel west, away from war.

I couldn't stay angry at him.

But I was hurt.

Carver had returned and with him he brought news. The war continued in the south. Tales of a fire mage leading the fight on our side made me smile. The stories didn't name him, but the description fit.

I was glad Fredric found his place.

Our lives were about the same day to day. We watched the shadows for signs of infiltration. I hadn't told my men that I could now feel the land so well there was no need to stand watch and would know the moment danger approached. They would watch me go to the tallest battlement and peer out over the land.

They said I had intuition, because I always knew when they would try for us.

We didn't lose anyone to death in battle that entire summer. Two men served as messengers and didn't return, first Whistler and then Fletcher.

I lost one to a fever that came with a tooth so badly infected we couldn't do more than pull the tooth and hope. The infection had seemed to fade but then Cook was gone overnight to fever and we were left trying to eat our own fare.

When the first hint of cool air flowed over the mountains, I expected another onslaught.

It never came. The enemy skirted the edge of my lands, and made no attempt to pass.

We had been forgotten by our king and army, and now even the enemy.

At least the village remembered us.

I did not need to send men for goods. They brought us three wagons full.

And my page's parents.

I had etched his name upon the stone. His was, at first, the only one with a name, which had bothered me. So then I had looked through my records and found the proper names of the others buried, and gave them back their names as well.

The mother and child I simply named mother and child. Their names would unfortunately be lost to history.

I had briefly thought to return to calling the living men by their names, but could not. Their names were swallowed by anticipatory grief.

One of my men left when the villagers left, a healer. He was old and had thought he would die in this fort, but now found waiting for his death worse than before- the lack of fighting was allowing him to think and thinking let him notice his age and pains and regrets. So I sent him away lest he fling himself from the battlements.

And so this was how our second year went. The caravan arrived and we sat and enjoyed their company, and when they left, two of mine went with them, Blade and Boots.

When supplies were sent for or brought, I would lose a man.

I was losing them to life. In reports I made, I listed them as being sent as messengers seeking help. They carried messages to deliver and be absolved of any accusation of abandonment by the army. The army had abandoned us. I could not despise my men for leaving. They were given new hope after years of expecting to die. Having survived, I released them to the choice to live.

But I still mourned them. We had defended the fort together and wept together and huddled to keep warm and it felt like losing them to death because I would likely never see them again.

The fort and pass were mine to protect. I did not need fifty men or even, as it turned out, twenty.

When the enemy came at the end of the second year, there were twenty of us standing in the walls, watching.

The enemy numbered in the hundreds, a small number compared the onslaught we once faced.

If I had had no magic we would have been overwhelmed.

But instead we all watched as the army advanced on land I had marked. When the final man had stepped upon what was mine, I sent out a verbal warning echoed over the land: leave or die.

The enemy at the front began to surge forward, but my runes had already started to take from them, their movement sluggish. When they started to fall, screaming, the ones behind tried to stop their forward momentum but were pressed upon by others.

So I froze some in place in waves so that anyone wishing to flee could. Some did.

The rest died with no chance to engage with my men. We watched them, standing silent witness to their failure and death.

And the next time I sent for supplies I lost another man to freedom.