Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 09:34:29 +0000
From: Magnus Seagreen <seagreenmagnus@outlook.com>
Subject: Magnus the Mage 23

Chapter Twenty Three: The Battle of the Red Pass

Chereskar and Callixtus both ran outside to find the camp in chaos and
confusion.  From the pass ahead, flashes of flame and loud shouts and cries
showed that battle was in progress, but it was difficult to make out what
was happening amidst the smoke and dust of conflict.  But other similar
sounds gave indication that the camp was also under attack from their
right.

Chereskar frowned.  "I do not understand.  We seem to be under attack not
only from the front, which I expected - although I thought we would have
had more warning - but also from the flank.  I do not see how the enemy
could have got there, unless they have somehow come through the secondary
pass which the Angiskoris were guarding.  But how could they have got
through undetected, and what has happened to the Angiskoris?  I must go
aloft and find out."  And so saying, he raised his arms, and in moments his
body sprouted white feathers, and he launched himself into the air in the
form of a crane.

The huge form of Shalmaneser was easily spotted, his milk white body nude
and whole, although a bandage remained around his thigh where the
Rhenoussian arrow had injured him in the Battle of the Tulip Field.

"Callixtus!" called the unicorn.  "The Fire Giants have used sorcery to
surprise us, and they are pouring through the Red Pass to our front.  I
will engage them there, but you must find Magnus on the right, and assist
him - we are also under attack from there! Mountain goblins have swarmed
over the secondary pass - the Angiskoris have betrayed us and fled!"

Callixtus raced past the scenes of confusion.  Fireballs were exploding
nearby, and the screams of injured men and horses were everywhere.  Within
a few minutes he had scrambled across to the top of a slope where he saw
Magnus standing by the contingent of crossbowmen from the Free City of
Cantazeno, who were calmly firing crossbow bolts into a thick swarm of
goblins who were rapidly approaching with shrill battle cries, blowing
horns and banging their scimitars on their shields.

The crossbowmen were firing volleys, and when they had fired they turned as
one, presenting their backs to their enemies, as they knelt to cock their
weapons.  They wore large rectangular green-and-white shields strapped to
their backs, which gave them some protection from the red-fletched goblin
arrows which were whistling towards them, but nevertheless many of them
were hit, though green-robed women healers moved among them, tending to the
wounded.

Magnus looked grim.  "Fire into them, Callixtus!" he called, and with
trembling hands the boy notched his bow and started to shoot into the
advancing enemy.  Magnus extended his staff and a bolt of lightning shot
forth which hit a group of goblins, who fell twitching and writhing to the
ground.  As Callixtus continued to shoot, gradually becoming steadier, he
and Magnus joined the crossbowmen as the goblin dead started to pile up
below them.  But on they came.

Just then Magnus was hailed by a deep voice which carried over the noise of
battle, and they turned behind them to see Baron Makris of Volantia at the
head of a regiment of Volantian heavy infantry.  "Magnus! I am taking my
infantry to engage the fire giants, but my slingers will have little effect
on the creatures.  Take them and use them on this flank - the goblins will
present them with an easier target!"  So saying, he motioned forward a
swarm of naked young slingers, looking pale but determined.

Magnus ordered the slingers to position themselves beside the Cantazene
crossbowmen and to direct their fire at the advancing goblins.  Firing down
the slope, their pellets carried further than the small goblin bows, and
they soon began to extract a heavy price on the enemy.

Meanwhile Makris led his infantry on a charge straight into the heart of
the enemy to their front, who were tangled in a confused melee with a mixed
group of allied soldiers who had lost cohesion in the surprise of the
attack.  Here there were also goblins, but also huge fire giants - some of
them eight feet tall - roaring through their orange beards and laying about
them with great clubs, although many of them also paused to cast fireballs
about, to which they and the goblins were immune.

Now, looking aloft, Callixtus caught sight of Chereskar, in crane form,
flying high above the battle.  But even as he watched, an enormous fire
giant stood back a little from the melee and brought both his hands
together to point skywards.  He gave a loud roar, and a ball of flame burst
from his hands to arc upwards.  As Callixtus watched in horror, the
fireball caught the crane a direct hit with a huge explosion of flame, and
Chereskar became a blazing mass of feathers, spiralling downwards to the
ground.  Callixtus choked back tears, but was forced to return to his bow
as the goblins surged ever closer.

Meanwhile in the centre Lendulio was also in the melee, fighting side by
side with the huge unicorn.  Shalmaneser was roaring and laying about the
fire giants with a giant club, and at intervals he held up his free hand
and sent bolts of lightning which sent many of the giants twitching in
death throes, with crackles of electricity sparking all over their bodies.
But the unicorn had been scorched badly by enemy fire magic, and was also
streaming with blood from great bruises and lacerations caused by hits from
the clubs of the enemy.

Lendulio was darting about with incredible agility, repeatedly slashing at
the fire giants and their goblin allies with a machete.  Incredibly for
such a slim and slight looking figure, the power of his blows opened gaping
wounds in the giants, sometimes hamstringing them so that they fell to
their knees to be despatched by the spears and axes of the allied soldiers;
and as for the goblins, many of them had heads and limbs entirely severed
by his blows. Every cut and blow that came his way he seemed to dodge with
acrobatic skill, but nevertheless his beautiful body was marked with burns
and scorches, the results of near misses from enemy fireballs.

Lord Skanderos was gathering together his cavalry to make a charge.  It was
no easy task: the sloping and uneven ground was far from ideal - such a
contrast to the Field of Tulips - and to make matters worse the cavalry
were also being hit by fire bolts cast from the giants, disordering their
ranks and panicking the horses.  Kari, looking pale and grim, was sitting
on Skanderos's horse, gripping his mane with one hand while with the other
he launched repeated lightning bolts at the fire giants - though they
lacked the power of the ones cast by Shalmaneser or Magnus, and it often
took several hits on the same giant before it toppled to the ground, its
bright red skin blackened and crackling with blue sparks.

At length, the cavalry were got into a rough order, and Skanderos called
the charge.  He gave a great shout as Moonlight reared and leaped forward,
Skanderos and Kari both sitting together on the noble warhorse.  The
Companions - still naked except for their blue cloaks - and all the
remaining Megaran cavalry charged with them, making the mountains ring with
their battle cries of "Megaros! Skanderos!  Death or Glory!"  They smashed
into the fire giants, and were soon embroiled in a whirling melee, in which
many were unhorsed - although fire giants too were toppling under their
determined onslaught.

On the right flank a goblin chief, larger and fiercer than the rest, urged
on his companions with a bestial cry and hundreds of them sprang forward to
sprint across the remaining distance that separated them from Magnus and
the crossbowmen and slingers. But Magnus sent a lightning bolt at him which
exploded in a huge ball of electric energy, frying the goblin instantly and
causing at least a score of others to fall as well.  The goblin surge
paused, and the Volantian boy slingers redoubled their efforts, so that
hundreds of goblins now lay dead on the slope, and the remainder started to
waver in dismay.

In the centre, the tide was also turning in favour of the allies - though
at heavy cost - as one by one the fire giants were brought crashing down.

A great fire giant, his red skin steaming from multiple wounds, swept a
huge club towards Skanderos.  Moonlight reared up, and the club caught the
horse fully in the chest, smashing it in instantly.  Kari was thrown clear,
but Skanderos fell to the ground under his mangled and dying horse, the
fall breaking his leg and trapping him.  As he lay there helpless, the fire
giant brought his club high above him, and brought it swinging down with a
roar - but at that moment Kari, who had with difficulty scrambled to his
feet, dived in front of Skanderos and launched a bolt of lighting directly
at the giant's face. The bolt entirely obliterated the giant's head in a
crackle of blue sparks, instantly killing it, but its huge club, powered by
an overwhelming momentum, had already started its downward descent.  With a
sickening crunch, the club smashed into Kari's chest, lifting him
completely off the ground and hurling him a considerable distance, where
the boy's mangled body smashed into a pile of rocks.  And the headless body
of the giant, dead before the boy hit the ground, toppled full length
across the helpless trapped Skanderos.

Soon after that, it was all over.  The fire giants fought to the very last,
but long before the last one was brought roaring and toppling to the ground
by a final lightning bolt from Shalmaneser, the surviving goblins had all
fled, with shrieks and howls of dismay.

The Megaran Companions pulled their injured commander, pale and bloodied,
from underneath his dead horse and the prone body of the slain fire giant .
"Kari...Kari...where is Kari?" said Skanderos.

Callixtus and Magnus had both rushed over to Kari's crumpled form.  Both of
them were unscathed, but Magnus was white and drawn with exhaustion.
Callixtus was shivering and weeping as they looked down at Kari.  His face
stared up at them, his eyes misting over, and a bloody froth bubbling on
his lips, which had turned blue.  His chest was smashed into a pulp of bone
and gore.

"Magnus! Magnus! Heal him!" cried Callixtus.  "I am sorry Callixtus...he is
beyond help."  And the mage, weeping too, held Kari's hand as he knelt at
this side.  "Oh Kari....Oh Kari..." he wept.  But the boy spoke no
more. His small ruined frame gave a convulsive gasp, and his final breath
shuddered from his body. His green eyes were open, but fixed in the glassy
sightlessness of death.

Lendulio appeared at their side.  Though somewhat burned and scorched about
his limbs, he was relatively unscathed, considering how he had fought in
the thick of the action - thanks to his extraordinary agility. But
Shalmaneser, who came snorting with him, was in a very different state.
His white skin had flushed a deep shade of pink with the exertion of
battle, and he was mottled with great bruises and gashes, and streaming
with bright red blood from multiple wounds and abrasions.

"We have won a great victory", said Shalmaneser, "and the Fire Giants will,
as Chereskar foresaw, trouble us again no more for many generations of men.
But Chereskar is dead....as is poor Kari...and many others."

The unicorn gave a great sigh, and continued - "Alas, many have lost their
lives today.  Almost all our regiments have suffered grievous losses, apart
from the Cantazene crossbowmen and the boy slingers of Volantia - thanks to
you, Magnus - and you too, Callixtus.  But Baron Makris is dead, as are the
greater part of his infantry.  I fear many of the boy slingers whose lives
you saved will weep for fathers and brothers lost this day."

"And Skanderos?" said Magnus.

Lendulio replied, "The healers say he will live - his broken bones will
heal in time.  Though I fear the wound to his heart will take longer to
heal.  If indeed it ever does."