Chapter One The Bell Of Minden’s Hall -2

As I hurried to arm myself I prayed to Isha and Briga and Trygg that I would not be facing one tonight, hungover and tired. The gurvani style of magic is crude, by Imperial standards. So are the iron maces they carry. Both are also extremely effective.

It wasn't that I wasn't confident I wouldn't prevail against a shaman. I just wasn't in the mood. I just wanted to go back to bed or throw up, the cider in my stomach protesting all this vigorous activity.

When I was dressed in my harness I took only a few more moments to locate the box of knives, darts and daggers that completed my arsenal. I kept imagining my Training Ancient screaming in my ear as I did so, yelling about how slow I was and how many people were dying because I wasn't moving with more alacrity.

I tried to ignore it and focus on what I was doing. There was no time to distribute my weapons properly, so I pushed a sack of iron spikes into my belt pouch, tucked a dagger behind my back, and tossed a gaudy foot-and-a-half-long Farisi war-knife I'd acquired as a souvenir to Tyndal. He looked nervous and scared as he automatically caught it, but he was ready to follow his fearless master into the night, where the screams were picking up in frequency and volume and the demon disguised as an alarm bell was ringing ever more frantically.

It occurred to me that an apprentice who was frozen with fear and ill with drink would be little use in his first fight. There isn't much I can do to bolster the resolve of someone else before battle, outside the magical equivalent of a pep-talk, but I could at least mask more of the symptoms of drunkenness.

I grabbed his face, looked deep into his eyes, summoned a little more power and whispered a charm over him. His eyes came into focus and color returned to his cheeks. I included myself in the charm and immediately began to feel better. It didn't get rid of our hangovers – but it did make us not notice so much. I added a spell of alacrity for myself, on the premise that I would need quick wits and sharp reflexes before dawn. Tyndal looked relieved. He was still scared – Briga, so was I! – but he was less likely to pass out, now.

When I turned toward the door I once again realized that I was a bit drunk myself as the room swam. I was just feeling better about it. I almost took the time to do a more thorough job on myself, but I didn't want to waste any more energy than necessary. This wasn't the first time I would fight hung-over. I kind of think it gives me an edge. I could be fooling myself, too.

"Thank you, Master," he said gratefully. "What should we do, now?" Tyndal asked, his voice breaking and his eyes darting around wildly.

I looked at him oddly. "Goblins are attacking our village. We go fight them, of course," I said as I threw open the door to the stairs below. "Let's go!"

As I left the bedroom I held out my hand and called my staff and it floated obligingly to me. It's a built-in spell that takes hours and hours to do, requires a ridiculously expensive piece of yellow knot coral to work, but the effect is incredibly impressive to the average ignorant peasant.

Most magi carried a staff – it's a symbol of our profession, much like our silly hats – and most spellmongers kept a useful array of spells on them for emergencies. Being a former warmage, mine had more nastiness than most, including a number of useful defensive spells. I hadn't bothered to refresh them recently and wondered idly if the spells were sour yet. Like bread, magic can go stale. I could always hit someone over the head with it, I decided.

The two remaining wands on my sword belt were far more deadly than my staff. I took just a moment to make certain they were there and at the ready. One slim willow wand, about fourteen inches long, stained dark with linseed oil and sweat and covered in carefully inscribed runes, was capable of launching at least a score of slender bolts of magical force (about the size of an arrow, with similar effect) against which few mortal armors were proof. The thick oaken wand on the other side of my belt could deliver a massive wave of force akin to being struck by a kicking horse, and could do so two dozen times before it was exhausted.

I hadn't used either one in over a year, but the magical tingle I felt as I drew the willow wand from its scabbard told me that time had not dimmed their effectiveness. If magic can go stale like bread, then war spells are more like hardtack than bread.

We paused by the door to gather our wits and draw weapons – Tyn clumsily nocked an arrow and I took an instant to caress the cloth-wrapped hilt of my magesword – Slasher, I had named it – across my shoulders and adjust the harness. It occurred to me that six months as a well-fed village Spellmonger seemed to have caused my harness to shrink a bit. Then I opened the door and we pushed outside.

All was chaos. I've been in better-organized riots.

People screamed in terror at shadows, and the shadows screamed fearlessly back. Fires were starting to erupt from a few of the homes, despite my carefully laid spells, as people panicked and spilled lamp oil or dropped torches in panic. And something was still pecking relentlessly against my warding spells, I could feel it.

We burst through the door and into the street, wands blazing and arrows flying. I elected to toss my staff like a spear into the back of the head of a passing gurvani, his club raised angrily to the height of my heart. I grabbed a wand as I felt an arrow whiz past my shoulder. The willow crackled and hissed in my hand as it sent two invisible bolts into the furry pelt of the next goblin I saw, half-turned in surprise at our sudden appearance.

Nor was he alone. Tyndal's first shot had caught one in its narrow jaw, a painful and annoying but not mortal blow, but he was screaming and had dropped his weapons and was an easy enough target to finish off. The third looked at me, dumbfounded by the sudden assault. He and his mates were crouched over the body of someone on the street before we interrupted, probably looting it.

I took two steps toward them and nearly slipped. When I glanced down I saw the body of Goodman Horlan, a cheesebuyer, separated by a few feet from the top of his head. I had skidded in his brains. It took me a moment to realize it, and by that time – luckily for me -- my body had already taken over before my stomach could react.

I had helped Horlan unload a few blocks of salt just this morning. Now I was treading on his brains. And now I was really angry.

So were our invaders, as a few more darted from the shadows and attempted a countercharge.

Automatically I dropped the willow wand and drew my blade as I "called" my staff back to my hand to throw a defensive spell – nothing serious, just a "you stay away!" type of thing. It's not a battlestaff, after all. But even noncombative wizards put some simple offensive and defensive spells on their staves in case of bandits, beggars, or irate clients, if they're wise. Being a former warmage, mine were just a little more . . . thorough than most.

It wasn't enough to stop a charge, not really, and I was soon fighting hand-to-hand. My sword clanged on the iron haft of his weapon, and before I knew it I was face to face with my little black-furred attacker.

The specimen in front of me was about four and a half feet tall, naked save for a leather belt and iron ornaments, covered in a matte of thick black hair that was shiny in the fire light with fresh human blood. His face was full of fangs and rage as he growled savagely, and his eyes glowed like a madman's. In his furry little fingers he gripped a roughly forged iron mace, which was raised over his shoulder as he stopped my blade. He was clearly intending on braining me as he had my late neighbor.

Slasher, thirty-eight inches of enchanted government-issued high-carbon alloyed steel, had stopped his attack, and for a few seconds I remembered everything my swordmaster every told me. With a twist of my wrist I passed the razor-sharp tip cleanly through his throat. I felt a wave of revulsion roll over me as his blood (darker than a human's, but no less red, hot, or sticky) splashed over my clothes.

It occurred to some part of my brain that less than five minutes ago, I had been peacefully sleeping – this was not my preferred way to wake up. A twist to make sure he wouldn't wake back up again and we were out of immediate foes.

"Where to, Master?" Tyndal asked, looking around frantically. There was blood and black hair on that Farisi knife.

"Bell tower," I grunted, scanning the area with magesight to be sure there were no more goblins lurking. "If for no other reason than to silence that godsdamned bell!" That was the rally point for fire or other disaster, and that's where all the able-bodied men would be gathering. It still hurt my head like a demon. Tyndal nodded and followed me as I plunged into the darkness.