Wizard's Tower - Arc 3 - Chapter 51

The tavern I left was in the center of the third ring, near the walls of the second, but neither the street nor the buildings nearby were left unmarked. The soldiery of different noble houses marched down the street with urgency, and the scent of death, blood, and magic hung heavy in the air. Injured soldiers and mages were being carried back from the wall that separated the third and fourth ring, and I could hear the shouts and screams of battle even from this side of the circle. 

It was a poor sign that there was fighting along the walls of the third ring. It meant that the fourth and fifth rings of Sena City were lost. The grim faces of those around me spoke of an expectation that it wouldn’t be long before the third ring was lost as well. I dropped the illusion of a commoner I had cast, and instead opted to cast an invisibility spell followed by a flight spell. I had come to Sena City to gather mages to help save dwarven clans, but without seeing the scope of the city’s predicament, it was unlikely I would be able to.

As I rose into the skies, my stomach turned in knots. The fourth and fifth rings weren’t lost to just any enemy. The Pestilence had arrived in full force, and those once tall and beautiful walls were now nothing but rubble. In more than one place, I saw where the [Field of Spikes] spells had been used to corral beasts in one direction or another to slow them. Streaks of blackened stone or toppled and smoking buildings spoke of flame spells unleashed.

The walls around the third ring weren’t doing well either. Hydras were throwing themselves against the stone or trying to chew their way through. Mages atop the walls slung spells at the horde, and archers fired arrows as quickly as they could draw their bow, but to little benefit. For each monster that fell, its body attracted ten more of the starving creatures that feasted on the remains. 

Alongside the mages and archers, warriors of all kinds – from adventurers to the retainers of nobility tried to fight off any that reached the top. The monsters slithered over, under, and around each other in a growing pile against the wall, and those that rose to the top of the pile and could reach over the battlements resulted in a savage melee that often did little good against the hydra’s regrowing heads.  

The one thing I didn’t see were the soldiers and mages of the kingdom. None of the royal colors showed on any of the fighters, and only a handful of city guards fought alongside those on the battlements. I doubted the entirety of the royal forces had fallen with the first ring and cast a dubious glance back towards Sena Castle. 

There, I could see a few royal guards standing watch on the turrets or before the entrance, but nowhere the numbers I expected. As I flew higher, I did get to witness something spectacular. Outside the walls of the third ring, standing about half the height of those walls—around that of a two-story building—were ten sand golems. Each one was fighting the hydra with the abandon that only a creature that didn’t feel pain could, and I stood amazed. 

The golems of that size and quality required a skill that I doubted even Alred possessed, and I could only surmise they must have been relics from the Age of Seafolk. It made sense, after a fashion. What better type of golem to fight seafolk with? They were beautiful creations, modeled after some heroes of old, and I immediately wanted to obtain one to research. A futile desire, in truth. While each one fought tirelessly against the swarm, the enemy was unending. What they lacked in killing power, though, they made up by keeping hydra away from the walls where they stood. 

My mind turned in consideration of what I needed to do. I could join the battle. While [Finger of the gods] might be more suited to killing a single powerful creature, [Heaven’s Descent] would be perfect for clearing away much of this horde—temporarily. No doubt the bodies of any dead monsters would only serve to attract more. 

And that was if I could adjust the spell to leave a circular hole in the center so that it didn’t strike the city’s defenders as well. I didn’t know that I had time to do that and trying an untested spell with so much at stake could easily lead to disaster.

No, better than joining the battle, I needed to raise the remainder of Sena City onto a plateau. A task made nearly impossible with the defensive wards woven into the castle. I resolved myself to the task though. If I needed to turn off the defensive wards myself, it would be better than letting those around me suffer. I could only hope that the new king, whoever he is, would be more reasonable than the last. 

I drew the king’s summons from my Magical Bag and flew towards the front gates with no lack of uncertainty. 

In the throne room, I met with yet another surprise. The Grandmother Regent was a stern woman with heavy wrinkles to accent her dour expression. Grandmother of the current king, mother of the last, Queen Regent Sobina sat on the throne with the seriousness one would expect of a person in her position. 

I was once again on a walkway made of pearls, and surrounded by the sycophants of the court, those much less in number now than before. Guards lined the hall, though they were fewer as well.

“Now you arrive, [Wizard]?!” She asked incredulously with a sharp barked laugh. Her frilly royal gown shook with her movement.

Still in a deep, respectful bow, I answered as calmly as I could, “I have been otherwise occupied, and regret the delay.”

“Arise.”

I stood, and let the woman take me in. Her sharp eyes not dulled with her age traveled from my face, to my staff, and then to the feather accenting my robe. “I remember you from when I was but a child, you know? A hero of the kingdom who established a magic academy. An orphan who rose through the ranks. Oh, how Count Debrail hated your name after his son’s academy failed to outshine you.”

I said nothing as she seemed to look back in memory. The Debrails had been a noble house sixty years ago before the name was lost to marriage. Ginoths now, if I remember right. Still, it didn’t surprise me at all that some count I had never met had disliked me. I wasn’t the most likable person at the time.

“You know my son has named you outlaw? That your life has a bounty?”

I raised an eyebrow and acted surprised. “Truly? For what reason?”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand and a bitter face. “It doesn’t matter now. Our treasuries are empty. Our library pilfered. Our vaults were plundered by my grandchildren as they fled the city like rats from a burning barn. My own family left me here to die. Powerless beyond a few guards and not the gold to pay them with. Why they haven’t turned on me to rob what little remains allude me.”

The guard to her left stiffened and dropped to a knee. A woman’s voice spoke from beneath a polished helm. “Grandmother Regent, our loyalty cannot be bought!”

Calls from the other court officials in the audience echoed the thought, though some less adamant than others. The woman pounded her hand on the rail of the throne she sat, until the voices fell away. 

“Enough, enough! Your king has run off with the army and the royal knights and the city guards because his eyes only see that twit of a girl. I wouldn’t blame any one of you should you turn your backs on us.”

I glanced around quickly, but returned my attention to the royal grandmother. “Your—”

She spoke over me before I could finish, “Our country is at an end, and you have come before the throne warning us of such before. My son was a fool to ignore your words, certainly, but what can change the past? No, you are here for more than to belatedly answer his summons. You want something from me, but I fear I have nothing left to give. A pardon? What good is that if there is no kingdom left? No. You are here to either witness an end to this dynasty or offer to save it at a price I doubt we could afford to pay. Our souls maybe? Ha! I doubt mine is any less wrinkled than I am.” She shook her head and then sighed. “Tell us, [Wizard], what is the price you ask?”

It was a few hours later that I floated above the center of the castle and watched as the wards protecting it fell one by one. Some remained, old enchantments carved into the stones themselves, but I didn’t need to bother with those. It was the largest wards, the ones meant to stave off attacks from the sea gods themselves, that I needed disabled. The movement of stone underneath the city wouldn’t affect those small enchantments. 

Little adjustments needed to be made to the Plateau spell, the circular shape of the city making it easy to cast. A few of the hydra may be caught and lifted as well, but I had to trust the defenders to rally when they saw themselves being lifted away from the bulk of the horde. 

The negotiation with the Grandmother Regent still echoed in my mind, and my hand stroked the Magical Bag now filled with a walkway’s worth of pearls. Her suspicious nature made it so that any talk of moving mages away from the city was unlikely to take place until the city itself was safe. This made it so that I had to be creative in what I asked for as payment. Asking for no payment would have been an offer she would see as too good to be true, and too much would have seen as—well, even now I wasn’t certain that all the ancient weapons of House Sena had been lost. I wouldn’t put it past the wily woman to have something prepared if she suspected betrayal.

What irked me most about the entire conversation was how she welcomed me to the family at the end of it. How was I to know that the new King Sena was to wed Princess Lilly of the Quad Isles? I knew immediately of whom they spoke, and it set my mind to racing. I was pushing myself to finish here so that I could race along to find the King’s Army. I hadn’t seen my surrogate daughter, and I worried what games the royal family might be playing with the young lady. I had lost too many too recently to allow them to toy with my adopted daughter.