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

door. Trevor began to cut down the defenders as the Jarkanese magician shot lightning bolts at the Maskumites. Trevor wished that Win was at his side, but that would be remedied in a moment or two, Trevor thought as they reached the gate, still fending off the enemy. Trevor managed to lift the heavy timber holding the door in place and twisted the latch.

The door flew backward into both of them as Jarkanese soldiers flooded through the door, pushing the defenders back as Trevor and the magician struggled to keep the defenders off them. Suddenly another fighter was next to Trevor.

Win gave Trevor a grin, “Now the final work begins!”

“Attack the rear gate from the inside!” an officer commanded, and soon there were a few hundred soldiers cutting down the Maskumites from the inside as the Maskumite soldiers kept their attention on the soldiers massing on the outside of the walls. Trevor and Win took a squad of soldiers east, fighting their way toward the palace’s rear gate, which was more heavily defended than the smaller side door, but after fierce fighting with more magicians involved on both sides, Trevor waded through the exchanges of lightning bolts and spears of fire leading troops to the big double doors. Trevor used all his strength, helped by Win and others, to crank the bars of the door open. Viksaran troops flooded through to join in the conflict.

The officers recognized Win. “This is Trevor Arcwin,” Win said, his chest heaving from the heavy fighting.

“It’s time to invade the palace itself,” Trevor said, deciding on the spot to fight with the Viksarans. “The lethality of magicians will increase when we enter the palace. Do you have an extra shield?”

One of the officers took a shield from a fallen comrade and shoved it into Trevor’s arms. “Make his death mean something,” the man said.

Trevor nodded solemnly and slipped his arm through the straps on the backside. There were now hundreds of allied soldiers inside the palace walls. Trevor looked up. The fighting had finally reached the outside walls, and soon all that remained was taking the potentate’s palace.

Win spotted a set of stairs leading down half a flight. “Undoubtedly, the kitchen. I know all about kitchens.” He raised his sword and shouted. “For Azar Zutterak!”

The battle cry was repeated among many of the Viksarans as they followed Win. One of the battle magicians went to place a ward on the door and was blown back against the wall. “I’ll go,” Trevor said. He used the pommel of his sword and the reinforced metal point at the bottom of his shield to break the latch and kicked the door open.

Streams of lightning bolts, all silver, and white, converged on Trevor, but he ignored them all and plunged into the potentate’s kitchen. The Viksaran soldiers flooded into the room, fighting magicians who weren’t warriors. The ferocity of Viksaran warriors neutralized the Maskumite magicians’ incredible powers.

The kitchen filled up, and soon more officers entered, leading squads of men out through the various doors leading upstairs to the palace. Trevor spotted a door that looked like a closet, but he hoped it was a servant’s passage. He threw open the door and looked into the dark space. Win lent a magician’s light to illuminate the stairs leading upward.

“To me!” Trevor shouted, and soon fifty or more troops were behind him as he ran up the steps two at a time until he reached a small landing. “Some of you go through here but be careful of magicians.”

One of the soldiers grinned and pulled out a fistful of charms and stuffed them back into his tunic. Half of the men were out of the stairway and back into the fight. Trevor led the others, with more men joining them, to the second landing. He pulled the latch, but the door was blocked. It should have opened from the inside, but it was stuck.

“I need a ward!” Trevor said.

A soldier dressed like the magician-soldiers Trevor had to run from in the Gnarled Wood so long ago ran up. “Get back!” the woman said.

Trevor ran up the stairs to avoid the effects of the blast. The sound was loud, but when the smoke cleared, the soldiers pushed aside a shattered dresser or chest of some kind from in front of the door. As soldiers began to shove the massive piece of furniture from the opening, a silvery bolt illuminated the stairway from above. The bolt splashed against Trevor’s head. He turned to see three magicians on the landing above him. The men’s eyes grew when their victim looked up at them. Trevor ran up the stairs. One drew a knife, and in the close fighting, he nicked Trevor in the arm, but in a moment, all three of Trevor’s enemies were down.

Trevor spotted a Viksaran officer coming up from below. “Take a company up to the next level,” he said, not knowing if the officer knew who he was or not, as he stepped into a central corridor, surrounded by fighting. The servant’s stairway had opened onto a large hall with high ceilings and ornate carvings. Across the way, soldiers were backing away from a newly warded door. Trevor helped defend some of his fellow soldiers as a Viksaran magician triggered the ward and blew the doors open.

Trevor finished off a palace guard and looked into the potentate’s throne room. It overlooked the sea, and Trevor could see a crowd of people rushing toward the potentate’s ship. As much as he would have liked fighting to finish taking over the palace, Trevor located the most senior-looking officer in the room, who happened to be a Jarkanese officer.

“Get men to attack that ship from the dock. We have ships in the harbor to stop them but capturing is better than killing.”

The Jarkanese leader nodded and began ordering men out of the chaos of