Edwin: 20 Eleasias
In the lower reaches of the Cloudpeak Mountains their company was five days from the town of Crimmor and they expected the battle with a numerically superior force of the Amnian army to approach by the time they ventured into the Barcel Pass.
Anchev was somehow here. Not exactly, somehow; the grey-robed infant Semaj was present with him. The beardless mage simply could not be older than that idiotic paladin and therefore was an inferior wizard; Cythandria hinted at savant-like skills possessed. A necromancer by specialty who apparently possessed the capability to repeatedly teleport Sarevok Anchev up and down the Sword Coast at his desire.
Four days ago he had blazed through Nashkel. Fireballs from his hands, upon the pitiful mining town's pitiful defenders. Occasional faces that he happened to know of from his brief and unwanted sojourn in its barbaric-to-non-existent comforts offered. In one not entirely cautious fireball he had seen briefly a launderer girl to whom he had once given a two-copper tip for an acceptable cleansing of his robes, her screaming mouth visible in the glint of the flames moments before... His powers had increased, he told himself; Cythandria's talk of sulphur ratios had given benefit and the somatics and sonorous verbals and twisting of materials produced flames more glorious than ever before. (They could all suffer! They would all suffer! Zulkirs commanded a thousand upon a thousand pitiful lives of mere mortal peasants too stupid to live with a twitch of the smallest fingertip.)
The soldiers of Baldur's Gate had taken possession of the scorched garrison of Nashkel and the iron mines it governed in comparative ease. Edwin had naturally volunteered his services to maintain the territory; as a wizard he had the power to terrify the pathetic mage-denying Amnians to submission and as a noble by birth clear natural aptitude for governing it. Denied brutally and with cuffs by fighters who dared come close to him and to illustrate the point that a mage isolated from apelike protectors and with no summonings quite ready to hand was vulnerable. In the hierarchy of the military he was somehow considered no greater than the meanest common-born recruit for all of several days from the lowest of barbarian city streets; given orders, and to disobey would have invoked other mages in the ranks as well as those who viewed intelligence to be located in the biceps.
They marched with heavy packs, and if the captains could not quite match Shar-Teel for sheer brutal dictatorship the company was larger, and therefore far less pleasant. Or those few female members of the Flaming Fist far more of the Shar-Teel build than charms of dark elves or trim neatness of overly spoiled brats. But who could set the mind on such memories that felt like fictions in the face of hours of marching past the heat of the day, yelling and the prodding, foul field rations and fouler makeshift privies used by hundreds of others, waiting for the attack of armies that outnumbered.
A skirmish two days past, and Edwin had received an arrow in his lower back and lain useless and fainted for the battle. They had found him in the mire by a fallen body, and used him for the butt of jokes of the mud that he had still not been able to wash from his robes. That time the Amnians had been overcome, a mere desperate group from Nashkel who were routed by the greater amount of their soldiers. He had taken a healing potion Cythandria had gifted to him to ease the terrible pain of it. There had been seven left; then five, and then down to four as some fool had thieved from him. (And he had not yet discovered it! No doubt it had been consumed already by one who had to want his life far less than Edwin craved his own; to breathe and to walk in the light and have what he deserved for his genius one day.)
They had assembled for the man who led them above all, who to some credulous imbeciles was an object of worship for that ridiculous amount of power he appeared to wield and that great dark sword that shone as if it pretended to be one of those legendary ones of world conquerors. (Edwin looked away from the gold glowing eyes; simply into the distance above them, so that none would see and attack him for not being willing to behold.)
Sarevok Anchev spoke, and needed no magic for his deep bass words to sound across the clearing like cracks of thunder, or earthquakes rending the earth in pieces. It was almost, Edwin thought, like the course of a spell that held the men in battered armour to its thrall.
"On this day you will murder," the actual words said; but the tone, Edwin thought, it was far more that animating tone of them that brought men to heed... "On this day I have brought you here, and in my name the fields of Amn will be soaked by blood. On this day you do murder, call my name as your battlecry, and affix me in your thoughts as the guiding hand of your strength to slay the enemy. Let there be death. Let all be unafraid of death. Let armies die, let Crimmor be left bare and salted and barren and a charnel-house. Slay the Amnians. Let all behold death. All shall know death. Take death for your cry in battle; and allow me to hear!" And from many throats came the blood-soaked roar in response, Edwin's own a weak strangled cough.
Men were beasts, Edwin thought; men were like beasts and baying for slaughter even were the slaughter of themselves. Some even raised symbols as if for deity. They all belonged to Sarevok Anchev irrevocably.
"Then go forth. Go forth and do murder. Know that Sarevok stands with you. Watch my fight and see how the slaying is to be done. Take each breath to be the stealing of life—"
So repetitive, Edwin's critical faculties decided to note. The words could so easily have been meaningless syllables for the same response to Sarevok Anchev to be gained. The army of the Flaming Fist were puppets to him. Simple demagoguery, Edwin thought. The presence and the way...
Were, of course, convincing. Edwin looked both to the right and the left at the yelling and screaming soldiers crying worship. The gift to take this sum of people. Perhaps, he thought, in this respect Anchev had something that was enviable; some skill that he himself could perhaps learn if truly he wished to be zulkir one day... Or he could simply master more enchantments. No matter, Edwin thought. To listen to this must cease at some point, although then there would be the true fighting.
And then he was in possession of his orders doubly by command and by the binding upon him. With a score or so of fanatics; with another score-and-a-half-over of lesser fanatics; to take the form of the invaders of the Barcel Pass expected by the Amnians surrounding it.
A suicidal plan. Most were blood-soaked by faith in Anchev, some simply resigned as soldiers. Edwin was a caster—to enchant them, in connection with one other of the Flaming Fist—to foolishly try to keep these monkeys alive through Sarevok Anchev and his foolish plans where the number that would die would simply be the greatest possible.
Briefly he saw both Anchev himself and the caster Semaj within that black tent decked out for command.
"Odd... Odesseiron, it is," spoke the infant mage, a brown beard scantily covering his darker chin. "You are escorting to Witch's Teat."
The name, indeed, of a hill with wide open spaces that any monkey archer could aim at the robes of a mighty wizard.
"Correct," Edwin growled, almost spitting the word. They sent him almost to his death—they wished to send him to his death—would that he could... He must remain calm and in careful consideration. He had perfect control over his thoughts and his speech, or would so very shortly. "I realise that you and I had few common projects within the city; but we are surely the nearest peers to each other at hand. (Or you the nearest peer to my perfect magic, however far that gap—but no, now is not the time.) I thought that perhaps we could engage in studying together. (I hear you know well your Teleports, for one.)"
"I do not think I want to, at the moment," Semaj replied. "But would you like me to show you my teleportation methods?"
"(Yes!) Perhaps, if you are certain." Rogue stones he had not seen since the capture of poor foolish Philias; Cythandria had given him potions but not... (He still did not actually have the spell within his book! If he could learn it properly and perhaps even steal or beg or borrow or promise a vice-zulkirdom for the sake of the components of Semaj's version...)
"Afterwards, then, if you live," Semaj said. "There may be a little time before Sarevok returns to the city to conduct the battles there, or there may not. E—excuse me. There's a corpse I have to animate." His necromancer's peculiarity was a marked slurring form of stutter, which doubled or tripled if the person he talked to was female. Edwin glared at the grey shoulders and the last chance of escape flitting away with a calmness born of despair.
(No. No, he would not simply surrender and lie down and die. No. He would use his brilliant mind and he would act as himself, obeying Anchev's orders but as his own large brain, as all that it was possible to do...)
"Now run, you fools and sons of fools!" he howled, his boots meeting the stony ground of the pass; the storm of Amnian arrows broke open from the army who had expected an entryway to the only viable pass to Crimmor. They were—the foolish, suicidal, distraction. Edwin's stoneskin was up; his three mirror images likewise; and his haste spell upon them all had taken a strong and secure hold. The Flaming Fist caster was a short-haired woman who ran alongside them, likewise with stone upon her body, armoured by pauldrons and leg guards she seemed to carry with little to no effort. Her name was Ethel. All soldiers had been caught; no stragglers. Edwin sought to catch and retain his breath (immense arcane powers were more difficult to draw upon than the common peasant would suppose!). Stoneskin. Mirror Image. Dimension Door within the memory, in case of desperation and where he was no longer obliged to serve Anchev's orders in this instance. All his remaining casting strength. Four healing potions. He ran.
The first soldier screamed and fell with an arrow in the back of his neck. More missiles behind and around them, above their heads. Inanimate objects couldn't know mirror image from real; Edwin saw an arrow bloom through the shoulder of one of his doppelgangers, which then blinked out. A second and third death. They ran along the bottom of the open pass. Edwin cursed his boots upon the rough stone, but had hardly any breath, still less to curse than he would need to...
One running beside him fell to an arrow in the back; Edwin looked across in horror that it could have been him. Then the man lifted an arm to beg to be dragged along, crying out (it was audible and clear, a part of his mind wondered if the hasting influenced vocal cords and hearing speed—) and Edwin ignored him. The other wizard's stoneskin had an arrow embedded within its grey rock; she shouted a curse to Mystra and ran on.
Another fallen by him. Then a cry from one in the centre of the group, raising high an arm and medallion—obviously making himself a target, Edwin's mind thought in fear. "For Sarevok! For the—Lord of Murder fights by us!" the man called, though there was actually no sign at all of Sarevok fighting as he had promised.
(what was the death Anchev had promised, Edwin thought; but he would come through this, he would not lie down to cease his life in patience—)
An answering shout; and their still-hasted run increased in speed. The human shields about Edwin had thinned considerably. He panted, and when next he looked to his side not one of his mirror images remained.
"—The Witch!" cried the other wizard. The Witch's Teat is beyond the Barcel Pass— Edwin thought, frantic passages of his last night's study of the battleground; the Witch's Teat, the open hill. They crossed from the stones of the pass to the grass underfoot of the hill as if they sought to make it to the cover of trees. No; they ran hoping to make it to the cover of trees, for Edwin knew enough that to trust Sarevok Anchev to spare life was a fool's act. The Amnian archers and men had pursued along the cover that guided them down from the pass, shouting their own idiotic battlecries and rough commands. Even now it was hard to see them, while by their arrows and blows now less than half of the original armoured monkeys remained.
"To the Witch's Teat!" took up one with the greatest lung capacity to yell orders even in this extremity; and there was even a ragged reply— It was mostly the fanatics who yet had the fool's luck to live, Edwin thought, the ones who called the name of their lord—
And then the haste spell wore off and Edwin felt bruised knees and elbows even through his stoned skin; and an arrow fell near him. He struggled to his feet, exhausted.
"—Renew the casting!" he heard the order come, and the woman took it up—better her than him, Edwin thought, then the armoured fools surrounded her with shields raised and he saw the advantages of protection. He himself brought out the mirror images at a cost of great pain, drawing it desperately from the memory and demanding it of himself to concentrate. Even as he finished, she was chanting; more men from their number died, an agonisingly long time for it— In spite Edwin aimed a set of missiles in the vague direction of one of the Amnians, and knew not whether it would hit.
Then at last (incompetent casters! Surrounded by incompetents all!) the fresh hasting took hold. They ran across the grass, through the swell of the witch's breast (an odd reflection for the edge of death—witch's breasts, cream-pale and perfectly round and small-nippled—) Then an arrow came, more than ordinary, and it pierced through the other caster's head and then the flames exploded around her. Edwin awkwardly flung and rolled aside, warned about this, standard warning for a fireball, the female caster's body consumed even through her skin of stone, dissolved to ashes with yet more of their force— Five men besides he picked themselves from the ground. The mirror images were no more from the force of the blast, his lack of concentration; the stoneskin blackened and almost destroyed.
They ran nonetheless; the haste spell of the former Fist caster had not been destroyed by her loss. And at last there were sounds and screams from above while they kept to the hill. For the Amnian pursuit had come themselves to clearer land for Anchev's archers; for the Amnians were now in less than their perfect formations, and it was Sarevok Anchev's armoured figure that towered above all. It was not that he had come to save them: that he had found the best way to soak in Amnian blood.
It was more than past time to seek cover. Edwin's half-relief at the reinforcements was busily trickling down his legs. Then before them was a cowled figure, standing on air, and although he was an incredibly powerful and mighty wizard he had already cast and maybe now he would be dead—
Even so Edwin cast simple misslies at the enemy simply to show his anger, and then cried out in pain himself as they rebounded directly upon him. The Cowled Wizard's form glittered subtly with the magical shield upon it, a reflector against spells. Edwin tried to summon the mental resources for a dispelling; the wizard called, meanwhile, the bodies of Anchev's fallen rose up from the ground like a necromancer truly gone mad. Some of the monkey-men tried to fight their way through the fallen.
Dispel... Edwin reached for a scroll, reading; it helped the casting. The shield goes down, Amnian fool! Simian! Simians!
It spread white-hot from his hand and reached out through the Weave. It did not unwrap all of the protections of his enemy, but at least that strong one glistening purple-black in mage-sight, fallen and spread apart so at least Edwin would not be hurting himself—
Then an arrow made from fire hit him, and as he slumped to the ground he thought:
I see. It's not truly better than fireball. The little brats were always lying to me...
His fingers gripped the grass, uselessly. Healing potion—if he had the strength—
"Lord of Murder grant me the power!" he heard the yell of one of the remnant, and raised his head to see that one had fought his way through the undead and placed a hand upon the forehead of the caster. Then a red glow came to that hand. Edwin watched in horrified fascination as the clerical spell boiled the eyes out of the mage's head, the gauntleted hand squeezed the skull in a way that few magical shields could protect against—
The Cowled Wizard was dead and for the arrows not quite landing near him perhaps they thought him too; numbly and without daring to inspect his injury Edwin gulped down a precious potion, and felt the burn upon his chest recede in its intense pain. At long last he was not far from some kind of cover; his dimension door carried him safely from the thick of the fray. He heard the cries for Sarevok Anchev, and only then with a sick feeling recalled his duties; he aimed an acid arrow of his own into the corpses that still moved after their master's death, so none could say that he had shirked his role, and remained behind trees and as far away from both Anchev and the Amnian forces until it was done.
They had lost nigh a quarter of their own, and massacred the force of Amnians. Those who cried the name of Anchev to give them power were stronger, and Anchev's eyes had become more greatly difficult to look upon... Or perhaps it was a trick of the light. Perhaps a trick of the light, Edwin thought.
He went to Semaj's tent in the night, after a change of clothes. To his shock Anchev was there also: he had speech-made again, congratulating upon the crushing defeat and deaths adminstered, claiming that Crimmor would be wide-open and under his blade any would fall. (The ridiculous thing was that one did not doubt that it was entirely true. Edwin had seen him fight this battle; a Cowled Wizard's spells had gone through his thick hide and armour to absolutely no effect at all, and every time he struck it seemed as if he'd killed some hapless fool, or even more than one with a single blow...)
Within the early days of their acquaintanceship Cythandria had employed Semaj's name to him as a threat, but of course with what he had come to mean to her she would never truly have done that. (Or—did she? Would she? Like any other western barbarian she was his social inferior, take her admittedly fairly stunning body and her mage's skills and there was nothing else to her— Would it have mattered in the least to her if he had so failed today to return from her lover's war? She was a golden key in an lake of white glass, an opaque egg secured from sight— Best to banish such thoughts where pliant women's bodies were so far from him.)
"Fellow caster, I s-see that you live," Semaj said cheerily. "Care for a glass?"
Anchev downed a third of the contents of a bottle Edwin noted as exceptionally expensive, and then slammed the decanter to break against a shield upon the wall. Wine, indeed; deserved for his day's experience, Edwin knew, and accepted the inferior vintage offered by Semaj. As his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting of the few candles that burned inside here, he saw a figure in a Fist uniform bound and gagged in a corner of the tent. Perhaps a traitor or a cowardly deserter; certainly none of the figures present paid it any attention, though the man whimpered once in a while.
"It was no victory," Sarevok declared; he remained in full armour, too tall and broad to belong within the tent's fragile confinements, and his golden eyes burned. "Nothing has yet changed."
The black-robed diviner shook his gaunt head. "There will be enough death to satisfy. Ride on the wings of the chaos you bring. I have felt your power grow since the day I discovered you."
"Making promises of word to a god, wizard? You stand among the greatest of fools," Anchev spoke. Perorate allowed the threat to pass, and there was certainly reverence mixed in with the gaze he gave to Sarevok.
Semaj gave a nod to Edwin. "You s-spoke of my teleportation methods, I think..."
"Yes, yes, you solemnly oathed upon your magic to show me," Edwin said hastily, "now do so to keep your word."
"I d-don't think that I quite did that, you know," the infant-wizard said; he smiled emptily, twisting his damp, long-fingered hands across each other. There was that, somewhere about him— Edwin could feel a great number of Weave-threads gathering in the necromancer's tedious grey wake, and looked with more care at the source of the teleport spells. Something of a savant, his previous assessment had been... "But when I t-take the three of us I don't mind if you watch. I like it when people watch," Semaj said. He waved a hand, and suddenly the body of the bound man jerked forward to rest at his feet. Anchev stood impatiently ready; the diviner Perorate by his side...
Then Semaj seized at necromantic energies for the sake of his teleport, and Edwin saw clearly that it was a necromantic spell indeed and beyond him, beyond him by specialist school because conjuration was the king of all schools and also because he was apparently not that sort of savant...
He did not look away from it, still clinging to his idea that with the knowledge of the spell he might stand a better chance of living. The Fist was not a deserter or a traitor, simply a loyal man's death a spell component; and the silenced screams that Semaj used to fuel the teleport in place of a gem began first with skin shredded, and then to teeth and eyeballs still attached to the skull until they went dark and blood and slits and things of pure dark magery-black-shadows that ate piece by piece across bared nerves and tendons...
Edwin watched the three disappear, and stepped out of the tent and vomited on the grass.
—