Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) Read Free

look smug and tell his maker ‘I told you so’, Palose controlled his face and simply nodded. Let the warlock believe that it was his own conclusion or perhaps Atrouseon simply didn’t feel that he needed to confirm the younger man’s opinion. Either way, Palose figured that it would win him no favors to anger the warlock.
    He followed Atrouseon through the glowing doorway and felt his body being pulled. His ears heard a rushing wind and his mind said he was falling a great distance. When his lead foot felt stone underneath that split second later, the world changed and his body readjusted to the feeling of a return to this reality. Where they went to travel to another place on Alus, he didn’t know, but even that split second of using another dimension felt alien to him.
    A moment later and Djerah followed him before the glow of the gateway began to flicker. Atrouseon waved off the two men holding the Ensolus side and they released their hold. Palose watched the floating doorway flicker one last time and die out like it had never been there at all.
    Palose noted a handful of warlocks along with the pair holding the gate. There were no more bodies for sacrifice since the Windmeer side had already paid the price for the spell, but the mage noted that this room would have held nearly three of the storeroom that they had just been in moments ago. He had witnessed the hundreds of creatures spilling into the far off storeroom and had to believe this place was a gathering center for Ensolus’ forces.
    The resurrected mage had never been to Ensolus or even the Dragon Spine Mountains where it was said that the city lay. He had been a citizen of Southwall from birth and only recently had he traveled north of the wall on missions as a cadet in the falcon corps. It was there that he had fallen from his horse fleeing from the enemy forces and died. It was there that Atrouseon used a controversial spell and returned Palose from the dead as well.
    Waving Palose to follow him, Atrouseon led the young man from the massive chamber out into the streets of Ensolus. He attempted to take in his surroundings even as he kept up with the quick pace of the warlock. Where he was being led meant little since Palose had never been in the city and knew virtually no one there. Even his maker Atrouseon and portal partner Djerah were near strangers to him though he had spent part of a week being trained to summon the portal that he had used to lead the army into Windmeer. The coordination of Ensolus with the agents in the field had even managed to arrange a large army near enough to the castle to draw out a large amount of defenders to weaken them for the assault from within.
    So much preparation and still the taking of Windmeer had been foiled.
    Looking about, the first thing Palose noted about Ensolus was a stone ceiling hundreds of feet above them. The capitol city had been built within the mountains inside of a cavern made large by his wizards and warlocks. After so much time, even stuck between the multiple stories of stone buildings, Palose could tell that Ensolus surpassed other frontier cities like Windmeer in sheer size.
    The second thing he noted soon took over his senses and that was the smell. Earth and stone blended with a certain smell that reminded him of decay. Ensolus wasn’t healthy and, whether it was the evil of the emperor or simply so many creatures trapped in one place, the young man didn’t know.
    They made a turn and Palose spotted a lake inside the cavern. The buildings were nearly in the water it seemed from his vantage point, but however the city was situated, the lake seemed to occupy a large part of the cavern. He guessed that was Ensolus’ water supply and such a lake could probably provide for a huge population while being used for crops as well, though Palose had no idea what kind of crops they would grow in the cave. While there was light coming into the city, it wasn’t bright and lanterns driven by magic lined