The Line of Illeniel

Chapter 21

It was almost dusk by the time we reached the area where Shepherd’s Rest joined the main valley. I hadn’t been there in years but the place looked much as I remembered. The ground was rocky and littered with boulders near the river as it passed through and there was a good fifty yards on the southern side of the river before the hills rose up again. The northern edge of the river was nearly flush against a massive stone face where the mountains met it.

“That’s a lot of open ground to fill,” I commented.

“It could be worse,” Royce answered. “If it was easy everyone would be building dams.”

“How deep is the river here?” asked Penny.

“Not sure. Let me borrow that big stick of yours Mordecai,” my father said. I could only assume he was referring to my staff.

“No need,” I replied. “I can feel it. It’s about five feet deep at the middle and maybe two foot near the banks.”

“Damn useful talent,” my father remarked.

“I wonder how high it is,” I mused looking at the rock walls on the northern side. I walked closer and spotted some sage growing a few feet from the river. Never one to waste an opportunity I decided to take some back for my mother. She always needed extra seasonings for her cooking. I was embarrassed to discover I had forgotten my knife. “Hey Dad, do you have a knife on you?”

“I’ve got my pants on don’t I?” he snapped back. I should have seen that one coming. He grinned and handed the blade to me. “Can’t believe you forgot your knife. I thought I raised you better than that!”

I cut a large section off and tucked it away before handing the knife back. “It has to be over a hundred feet high on this side,” I said looking up again.

“Yeah but it’s only thirty or so on the other side,” Royce pointed. “We’ll have to extend the length once we get over that. Still, it looks promising.”

Penny gazed eastward into Shepherd’s rest, “The river doesn’t look big enough to fill that up in the time we have.”

“You’re forgetting the spring thaw. Once the mountains warm up the river will be swollen with snow-melt,” Royce reminded her. “It’s getting dark. I guess we’ll have to camp here tonight.”

“I can see in the dark,” I told them. “If you don’t mind riding a few more hours we can sleep in our beds. Besides, I want to be there when the visitors start arriving tomorrow.”

The next day moved slowly at first. I was anxious to see what help we could expect from the Lancasters. When I had last seen James he hadn’t yet decided what his response would be to the King’s call to arms. He had planned to meet with King Edward the day after we left and I was nervous about the outcome of that meeting.

Chances were high that he hadn’t returned yet from the capital, which meant that Genevieve would be forced into making decisions that could possibly go against his wishes. Either way it had the potential to become an awkward situation.

Since I had nothing else to do with my morning I decided to work on my new idea. Our planning session had highlighted the fact that we needed a way to force the enemy to avoid the road and march through the low part of the valley. We also would need a way to destroy our new dam when the time was right. I thought I had something that might achieve both goals.

Last year, during the battle against the cultists in Lancaster Castle I had used a spell I lovingly called a ‘flashbang’. I know… the name could use some work, but I had yet to find a better term for it. In short it involved creating a small focused point of energy that would flash outward, producing an intense light and a thunderous sound. It wouldn’t actually damage anything nearby, there wasn’t any explosive force involved, but it would blind and deafen anyone within a short distance of it.

Of course what I needed now would require explosive force as well. That would be easy enough, my command of Lycian was much better now. I could easily craft any number of variations on the spell, adding fire and a physical explosion would be simple, even if they did require more energy. The big problem was that I couldn’t possibly be everywhere I would need to be when the enemy arrived. Driving the enemy from the road would be done primarily at the western end of the road, while at the same time someone would have to be destroying the dam on the eastern end of the valley. I couldn’t be in two places at once, and it was at least a six hour ride from one end to the other.

This also ignored the fact that I had a fair idea that so many violent uses of power would exhaust me before I had completed either task. What I needed was a way to set the explosions up in advance. My previous experiments with enchanting had given me an idea though. I had created a paring knife that drew in heat energy and stored it. Unfortunately it had exploded spectacularly after drawing in more energy than the enchantment could contain. I thought I could replicate that feat by removing the ‘heat absorbing’ component. Essentially I would set runes upon a small object to store energy, which I would provide, and then release it at the appropriate time. Depending upon the runes I used I thought I could manipulate the type of release, fire, light, etc…

I tried it first using a small block of wood. I inscribed it with simple runes to contain the power and encircled those with a second set of symbols. Hopefully those would channel the energy released into a fiery explosion. Once I had it ready I began focusing my will upon it, pouring as much energy into it as I thought it could contain.

Fortunately I had the sense to try my experiment outside while holding a strong shield around myself. Before I had managed to get half the energy within it that I ‘thought’ it could contain it blew up in my face. I was sent tumbling back almost twenty feet while flames raged around me. My shield protected me from the worst of it but two trees nearby lost most of their leaves. I made a note to have them cut down. We would need the lumber anyway.

I tried again, this time maintaining a more respectable distance. It was a bit harder charging it with power from twenty feet away, but I managed without too much difficulty. This one also exploded at about the same time. Although the explosion was impressive, even at twenty feet it knocked me down, it was still nowhere near what I hoped to achieve.

I used a larger piece of wood for my third test, reasoning that perhaps the overall size of the object might be related to the energy it could contain. It did hold a bit more before it blew up, but still I wasn’t satisfied. Finally it occurred to me to use a different material, so I tried using a rock the size of my fist.

This time the explosion was powerful enough, even at twenty feet to send me flying. The force of it threw me into a tree and caused my shield to collapse, a shard of stone tore a lovely gash in my cheek. I won’t go into what I said when that happened, but I had been studying my swearing diligently ever since the day Cyhan had inspired me with his nautical prowess.

By this time my ‘show’ had drawn some spectators, my father among them. “You nearly killed yourself that time,” he said clapping me on the back. “Keep working at it and you’ll succeed I’m sure.”

“Thanks Dad,” I said sourly.

“Try doing it downhill over there, there’s a big boulder you can shelter behind. That way you’ll have something stronger to shield you from the blast,” he suggested.

I could have kicked myself for not thinking of that already, “Good idea, but I’m still not getting what I want out of this thing.” I explained what I had been doing. Although he knew nothing of magic my father was very experienced in many other ways. I thought he might have a better idea. Turns out I was right.

“Sounds like the strength of the material is the key, or maybe the density,” he mused, “either way you won’t find anything stronger or denser than iron around here.”

“I don’t want to destroy your bar stock,” I told him.

“Nah… just use some of the slag left over from when we made those necklaces of yours. I probably have twenty or thirty pounds of the stuff waiting to be re-smelted,” he offered. Slag was the bits of melted iron and dross left over from casting objects. Unless it was re-used it was nearly useless.

After a short search I found a piece the size of a child’s fist. It was highly fractured and would probably shatter the first time a hammer struck it but it might do perfectly for my test. This time I gave myself a thirty foot safe zone and hid behind the boulder he had pointed out. I poured power into it for almost fifteen minutes without results. I had already put in twice what I thought I would need for a decent explosion and still it was holding it. That suited me fine since I planned to stop and create a second spell to release the energy on command later, but I thought I should find out what the tolerance was before doing that. I didn’t want to have any accidents later by trying to put more in than they would hold.

Another five minutes and it finally shattered. The resulting explosion deafened me and shook the ground. I’m pretty sure the boulder saved my life. When I peeked over the top to look at the result I was shocked. The ground for ten feet around the center was gone, leaving a deep depression. Beyond that the grass and soil had been scoured clean for another fifteen feet. The side of the boulder facing the explosion was blackened and pocked with holes where debris had struck it.

Penny ran up and seemed to be yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear her over the constant ringing in my head, “What?!” I shouted back. I couldn’t hear myself either. Eventually she gave up and led me back to the castle where she found some paper to write on.

“Are you stupid?” she wrote in her barely legible script.

“Maybe,” I wrote back, and then I added, “I’m definitely deaf.”

She began writing again, “I’m not deaf. You don’t have to write your answers down for me… idiot.”

Our conversation got more colorful after that, but honestly I was enjoying it. I suspect she was too, although she was definitely worried I would kill myself by accident. In the end she convinced me to stop for the day, at least until my hearing returned. I made a mental note to use a sound block on my ears before doing any more experiments.

My hearing returned slowly that afternoon. I had checked my eardrums, thinking they might be ruptured but they were still intact luckily. About the time I began to make out voices again Cecil Draper came running to inform us that Dorian had returned with the duchess. We hastily went down to meet her.

Penny and I greeted her just outside the door to the main keep, “It’s a pleasure to see you again Genevieve!” I said.

She answered but I couldn’t quite make out what she said. Her voice was muted and unclear. Penny saw my confusion and stepped in to help, “She says she came as soon as she got word!” Then she turned to face Genevieve, “I’m sorry your grace, he’s half deaf at the moment, you’ll have to shout to make yourself heard!”

The duchess flinched at the volume of Penny’s voice; she wasn’t used to being shouted at herself. She recovered quickly though and replied, “I can tell there’s a story here you’ll have to share with me!”

I laughed at the picture of the two of them shouting back and forth for my benefit. “Let’s go inside, there are some things I need to discuss with you.”

A short while later we were sitting in the antechamber to my rooms. Penny had found some wine so we could offer the duchess a bit of refreshment, but Genevieve waved her away, “No thank you dear. It’s too early in the day for me. If you have tea that would do nicely, the road left me quite thirsty.”

I wasted no time and while Penny was off searching for tea I informed the duchess of our plans. It took a bit of time to relate them all, but thankfully she wasn’t hard of hearing, as I was. “I know this puts you in an awkward position your grace, since James hasn’t returned yet, but I need your help.”

She leaned forward to shout at me, “James wouldn’t desert you Mordecai. We haven’t forgotten what you did last year; none of us would be here otherwise. This dam of yours reminds me of something you asked me to do back then.”

“What would that be?” I asked.

“You want me to help you draw a line again,” she replied. She was referring to the line she drew to help create a spell I used to kill the cultists that had attacked us. It was a touching way to remind me of how we had worked together then.

“Exactly,” I said.

“What do you need?” she added.

“Men,” I said simply. “Every able bodied man and woman you can spare. We have to build that dam as quickly as possible and what we sorely lack is strong backs and sure hands.”

“What you ask is difficult. This is mid-autumn, every man I have is busy with the fall harvest. I can spare most of the guardsmen to help you, though they’ll grumble at doing menial labor,” she pursed her lips as she thought.

I had been thinking on that subject already, “I need them all. I’m planning to buy up all the food and grain I can get my hands on before winter sets in. I believe I can afford enough to keep us from starving before the first spring crop.” It had been an exceptional year for farming so I had plans already moving to have Rose purchase as much food as possible before the roads closed in the winter.

Genevieve Lancaster frowned as she considered my idea, “Do you know how much that will cost? You’ll have more than a thousand mouths to feed till the first harvest next year.”

“More than that,” I informed her. “I’m also recruiting as many men as I can get, so I plan on buying enough to manage at least two thousand.”

“That would cost several thousand marks. Even with as much as James and I have saved we would be penniless if we did such a thing, and that’s assuming the king doesn’t take offense at your buying up valuable supplies right at a time when he needs them himself,” she frowned.

“Frankly I don’t give a damn. King Edward and I are not on the best of terms right now anyway. If we don’t survive this war it won’t matter anyway.”

Penny returned with a tray laden with tea and a selection of sweet biscuits. I couldn’t help but wonder where she had gotten them. The cook never had sweets around when I came hunting. She set the tray down and offered a cup to Genevieve who took it gratefully. Penny moved to sit down beside me but yelped and almost jumped off of the divan instead. I had stealthily placed my hand under her bottom before she sat down. She glared at me and sat down a bit further away without saying anything. Very likely she didn’t want to offend the duchess.

Genevieve raised an eyebrow as she glanced at me over the rim of her cup. I thought I could detect the hint of a smile on her face but she declined to comment on my antics. “Very well Mordecai, I will help you ‘draw the line’ again. You shall have every able bodied man I have to spare. The women of Lancaster won’t be idle either; we’ll harvest what we can while their husbands are working on your dam.”

“We won’t disappoint you, your grace,” I said gratefully.

“You never have Mordecai. You’ve always been my favorite nephew. Whether we succeed or fail I will always be proud of you,” her eyes misted a bit as she said it. She took another quick sip of her tea before setting the cup down and rising. “I’d better be going.”

Penny rose hastily, “But you haven’t even finished your tea!”

“The one thing we have is time, but I don’t think we can afford to squander it. I’ll start making arrangements this evening after I get home.” Genevieve leaned forward to give Penelope a quick embrace, whispering in her ear as she did so, “Good luck my dear, I think you have your hands full with this one.”

I was confused as Penny and the duchess both glanced at me. I couldn’t hear a word for they had spoken too softly. “What?” I said.

Penny gave the duchess a knowing look, “You have no idea!” she said, and they both laughed at that.