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

each street that Atrouseon led him along.
    Another turn brought his attention to some stone spires reaching to the ceiling. Though there were dozens throughout the cavern city, these were near the center and hundreds of feet across. In the dim light, Palose could make out light coming from squared windows on the large columns and he realized that not only had the denizens used the stone to brace the ceiling they had created organic castles within the spires. He guessed that, if every inch of the rock was used, the central column would be more than double the height of Windmeer’s tallest tower.
    When finally they entered one of the smaller spire castle’s to the side of the central column, Palose found hallways and doors like any other castle he had been within, but less decorated. Art seemed unimportant and, though there were carpeted hangings, they were quite plain and simply used to reduce drafts and minimize the cold. Carpets lined the halls in long rectangles pushing back the chill in the stone floor and the mage became a bit more impressed with the scope of the attempt. It was rare for the tough northerners to bother carpeting their halls, though most bedrooms had at least one placed beside their beds.
    Their long walk ended in front of a pair of guarded doors. For Palose, the brown skinned orc guards were perhaps his biggest surprise. After living with the humans of Southwall all his life, it was strange to think of the beasts they had fought against so long as being intelligent enough to guard anything. They were killers of men and any other place in life seemed impossible to him.
    At the sight of Atrouseon, however, the brown skinned guards moved to open the doors as any human guardsman would. Palose tried to avoid making eye contact with the creatures as he entered a large room. More guards lined the walls. Stocky, powerful orcs made up the main ranks, but two trolls stood to either side of a dais with a throne like chair set upon it. The seat was vacant, but a table on the lower floor held three men seated before a table and they all looked up at their newest guests.
    The man in the center dressed in black, with dark hair and tightly trimmed beard, looked up blank faced at the interruption with his black eyes; but he said, “Atrouseon, I hadn’t expected to see your return so soon. I take it the attack failed.”
    Palose heard no surprise in his voice and doubted that this man would show it even if he was. He was one of those who hid his emotions from lesser men. His power in magic was palpable and the mage thought in his previous life it would nearly be blinding. Somehow in his return to life Palose found his own strength had increased beyond his once meager battle mage level. Still, stronger or not, this man’s power was so far beyond his own that it was like comparing a lit candle to a forest fire.
    Atrouseon bowed from the waist looking at the floor motioning behind his back for Palose to follow his example, so the mage bowed as gracefully as he could. It wasn’t a motion often used by the soldiers and mages out in the field or training at the schools where nobles were rare.
    “My Lord Devolus, we think that a large force that was supposed to be north of the wall returned before our army could take Windmeer castle from within. My new apprentice said that he knew they had returned and my use of sight magic confirmed that a new group of nearly as many soldiers as we sent inside were enough to repulse our forces.”
    The dark haired man seemed to frown with nearly every word of the warlock before him. He frowned at the word apprentice being used for Palose, though the young man was unsure exactly why. He frowned at the information of an army destroying their best attempt at taking the castle in over a hundred years and he also frowned hearing Atrouseon putting so much faith in his “apprentice”.
    “You would call this thing an apprentice now, Atrouseon? He is little better than a wraith or some other