A Clash of Magics by Guy Antibes (read this if txt) 📕

Worto scribbled something on the back of Brightwork’s letter and took out a seal. He stamped it on a blue ink pad and pressed it into the backside. “Brightwork reports directly to you. You passed his test by not opening the envelope before you gave it to me. Is that all you want?”

Trevor shook his head and asked Lissa to pull out a map of Maskum. “I quickly marked this up before I came. We are meeting resistance all along the way, but all the units are moving as planned. We will attack the western part of Khartoo when we are in position.”

King Worto looked on with interest as Trevor pointed out the current progress and the forces’ expected arrival into position.

“You came up with this plan?” Worto asked.

Trevor nodded. “I came up with the concept, and the army commanders took care of the details. I’ll be personally leading a division of your forces attacking the western side of the enclave. It is the roughest terrain, but we will keep them from escaping. We won’t be giving the magicians any quarter,” Trevor said. “We won’t get all the magicians, but we should put an end to their meddling in the world’s affairs before we leave Khartoo.”

“And you think all the magicians are in this enclave?”

Trevor nodded his head. “An ambitious magician wouldn’t be elsewhere and expect to retain his place unless he has the support of one of the many cabals.” Trevor talked about his experience in the enclave in more detail than he had the first time to King Worto.

“Finish off Gareeze Plissaki if you haven’t already. He is responsible for the spy institute in the mountains and your friend Boxster’s death.” Worto raised his hand to forestall a comment from Trevor. “I am ultimately responsible for the assassination of Rory Pierce, I know that, but Plissaki was the one who pushed me to take this throne, and I know there was some magic behind that. I know I’m a hard man, but not that hard, now that I’ve been free for some time.

“I will do my best,” Trevor said, “if I haven’t already.”

Worto nodded. “Is there anything else before I call my lackeys in? I am working on getting Brachia back to where it should be.”

“Check in on Keith Garman. He is my regent in Listenwell,” Trevor said, “and make sure there aren’t any more invisible magicians.”

“Both of those are at the top of my list, and may you have all the luck Dryden is willing to give,” the king said, coming around from his desk and shaking Trevor’s hand and then Lissa’s. Trevor would have never expected a gesture like that from the man he had once considered his arch enemy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

~

F ighting was mostly light as the Brachian forces restarted their march. Potur Lott took Trevor’s friends and three hundred soldiers along a lane in an obscure village and then entered a track through a gap in the woods. Their pathway rose farther west into the mountains until they came to a fork in the road.

“This takes you directly west to Ternus,” Potur said, “and that one will turn south to Khartoo.”

“And when we get to that point?” Win asked.

“It is cross-country to our goal,” Potur said, “almost all of it difficult travel. We could follow the main road south and then move west along the moat, but then you’d lose the element of surprise.”

Trevor assembled the officers and his friends. “From here on, we conserve our supplies. We have no idea how long it will take us to get into position, and we have to make sure we can handle a siege of two weeks, but I don’t think we will be idle that long. Our mission is to keep the magicians bottled up.”

“And if the other forces can’t break through in two weeks from the first attack?” one of the Brachian officers asked.

“We can always create a breach of our own. Can’t we, Custik?”

“The Maskumites aren’t the only powerful magicians, you know,” Custik said with a twinkle in his eye.

Trevor didn’t worry about his friend, but he didn’t want the Brachian soldiers massacred. Glynna had volunteered to join the Brachian medical people since Trevor expected a tough fight for the headquarters of the Maskumite magicians.

Two and a half days later, a scout rode toward the column; his horse’s flanks were foam-flecked, and the man had an arrow in the back of his arm.

“They protect a magician’s manor,” the scout said, wincing in pain.

The soldier grimaced as they helped him off his horse. Glynna ran up and began attending to the wound as Trevor, Potur, and the Brachian commander stood around the scout.

“I was close enough to sneak up to a window, and then I was struck. I didn’t even see the archers. The manor must have magicians inside,” the scout said, his face beaded with sweat and smeared with blood.

Potur pulled out a map and had the scout show where the manor would be on the map before sending the man off to a healer.

“We will move the force south so that we are positioned to cut off a retreat from the manor and from the enclave,” Trevor said.

They rushed past the track to the manor, and Potur took troops a bit farther south in case there was another escape route. Trevor, accompanied by Win, Volst, Lissa, and half of the twenty best magician-soldiers moved up the lane leading to the two-story manor. When a white lightning bolt scorched the ground at one of the soldier’s feet, Trevor ordered a retreat, backtracking out of the magician’s range.

The injured scout, now bandaged, volunteered to circle the manor. Win went with him on foot, and the pair disappeared into the trees. Trevor wanted to go, but he would