Chronicles of a Mage, Book One

Chapter 39: Swift Victory

"Are you really sure this is going to work?" Eeuna questioned me as I drew a magic circle on a town wall under the cover of darkness. A day of travel has passed since Celrith taught me this remove stone spell, so I haven't had the time to properly test the spell out. I kept glancing between a page in my spell book and the circle I was drawing. It's a bit hard to see though and I can't risk summoning anything more than a small flame for light, lest the hostile guards keeping watch over Ilonleena spot me and try to arrest me or kill me. Celrith and all the others are probably watching me from the forest, about 100 meters behind me, waiting for my signal.

"Only one way to find out" I finished drawing the intricate runes and patterns. All I needed to activate the spell was to say the incantation " O terreni spiritus, exaudi petitionem meam et teleportaum lapis" I whispered those words and the circle came to life, glowing green until the area of where I'd drawn the circle (which was just large enough to fit one maybe two people at once) vanished. Of course, that left a space with nothing in it in it's wake, also known as a vacuum which pulled me and the air around me forwards and I was launched through the other side of the wall. With a quiet "oof," I looked at my surroundings. I was in a quiet little area surrounded by a few buildings. I'd expected someone to have a look at the noise created by my spell but there was nobody here. Still examining the area, I took out a whistle. One of Celrith's magic items. It creates a noise audible only to a single person attuned to it. Indeed, it was silent as I blew into it.

"Hey look there, on the wall." Eeuna pointed out a ladder that was behind me to the right

"Hmmm. I could climb up there and gain the advantage of higher ground." So I climbed the ladder onto the wall. A soldier wearing a yellow uniform (Just yellow. Not yellow and black like our uniform) and holding a bow looked at me and he had a shocked face and reached for an arrow in his quiver.

"Hey you're not supposed to be up- BLAARGH" A beam of white light, similar in colour to the moon shining above came from the Ilwood and hit the soldier, turning his body to ash but leaving his equipment unharmed. That was a spell Celrith showed me called moonbeam. It was a long ranged beam of energy that shone from the caster and damaged anyone in it's path. The advantage of the spell is that it only damages living beings, so anything valuable the target may have been carrying would still be usable afterwards. It's a useful spell for people who are in desperate need for equipment like us. The only drawback was that it was usable only at night, though.

I peered over the wall and saw our troops moving towards the hole I made. There were 600 of them so maybe I should've made the hole bigger? Well there's no fretting over that now, I should see what I can do from up here.

The rest of the day flew by quicker than expected and we won the day with few casualties. That's only because the town garrison wasn't at full strength and because we attacked at night. Had we tried laying siege to the town, we would've been wiped out. Most of the day was spent trudging through the town, trying not to kill civilians but also trying to find out who was an enemy. Thankfully a majority of the soldiers were either on patrol or resting in the barracks. Some died but most of them surrendered. Of the 150 that surrendered, 100 of them decided to join us. The other 50 made it clear their loyalties were with the Count and we would've executed them, had Mathra not stopped us and told us to simply leave them in jail.  The locals here were also very welcoming to us, hailing the Sun Bringer of Ilhalas. But more importantly they gave us weapons, food and manpower. In total now, we had around 200 trained soldiers and 600 militiamen, leaving us with 800 troops total. It's certainly not bad, but Gualmalon has almost 1000 troops and 20 mages. If we tried to fight the enemy at Gualmalon we would certainly lose, but we have a plan for that. What is that plan you ask? Well, just be patient.