I also grabbed my hat, the standard four-pointed affair that had been a fashion rage three hundred years ago. It was now the unofficial headgear for professional spellmongers and other magi. Three of the points were smaller than the last, and were sewn to the conical center. I felt a little silly wearing it, but the more important the man, the sillier the hat, my father always told me.
I grabbed my staff from where I had dropped it last night and decided I was ready to meet the lord of the land. I tiredly tripped over the threshold as I left the shop, so I stopped and hung a cantrip that would make me appear alert, awake, and refreshed, in utter contradiction to the way I felt. It used nearly every scrap of energy that a few hours of sleep had restored, but I couldn't appear before His Excellency, Sire Koucey, Lord of Boval Vale and Liege of Brandmont looking like a wastrel.
I was greeted along the way with solemn nods and grateful smiles, and even a bow or two. There was a new respect in the eyes of my neighbors, thanks to my efforts in the attack. Several made a point of thanking me.
Yay, I'm a hero, I thought dully, trying to ignore the wailing cries of those who had lost family in the night, or the moans of the wounded where they suffered from their beds. I saw several men who had fought the previous night, and made a point to nod back to them – they were the ones who deserved the praise.
It's easy to take a man who has been trained to fight and put him in danger. It is much harder to rise to the occasion when the toughest fight you had ever been in had ended with a mug of cider and nothing more serious than bruises. The thirty-odd victims of the gurvani had been a severe blow in a hamlet so small, but they carried on as if it was the day after Market Day. The stoic mettle of the Bovali impressed me. Many of these sturdy mountain people were going about their business as if nothing had happened at all.
A knot of men-at-arms in the livery of the Lord of Boval Vale – a white cow on a green mountain – were loitering around outside, and I nodded sagely to them as I passed. I was surprised when they snapped into a loose approximation of attention. I just didn't warrant that kind of thing.
I saluted automatically, and then grinned self-consciously at myself when they returned the courtesy. It had been a while since I had done that.
Lord Koucey and his dour Castellan, Sir Cei were inside, puffing away on their pipes while they looked over the stacked bodies of the raiders. There was a nasty, cloying odor of death, blood, and burnt hair that was truly nauseating. Live gurvani smell fairly pungent, and death does little to help matters. I understood immediately why they were smoking so early in the day. I bowed to the gentlemen before quickly moving to light my own pipe.
"Master Minalan," the Lord of Boval said around his pipestem in his high, reedy voice. "My thanks for your expert work last night. Had you not rallied the people and plyed your magics as you did, I would have found Minden's Hall a smoking ruin and been shy several tenants here this morning." He bowed his silvered head in a gentle salute, revealing the beginnings of a thin patch in the center of his pate.
The Lord of the Vale was a short man, but well-muscled, and he had seen at least fifty summers in this valley. He had sharp, penetrating eyes that held equal measures of intelligence, wisdom and wit. He was also an adept warrior, good with a lance or sword, and an excellent combat leader.
When I had first met him during the Farisian Campaign, he also proved an excellent drinking companion in addition to being a competent officer and a fierce fighter. His men, mostly doughty archers and tough country knights, likewise impressed me both in battle and in camp. He had brought two hundred, mostly peasants retrained as infantry or archers. He had brought more than half of them back from that hellish province, which is more than many commanders from that bloody campaign can say.
When I took him up on his invitation to settle in his remote little valley I became even more taken with the man as a liege. He proved to be a good overlord in peacetime as well as being a good war leader. His people didn't quite love him, but they did accord him far more respect when he was out of earshot than most nobles warranted from their subjects. In the six months that I had lived here as village Spellmonger, I had witnessed him dispensing judgment and making shrewd decisions that convinced me that he had the best interests of his people and his lands in mind, not his own aggrandizement– a rarity among the nobility anywhere.
Sir Cei, on the other hand, was a tall, hulking, sulking, bitter-faced man of thirty summers or so, a distant cousin of Koucey's from Gans. Sir Cei was typical of many of the "country gentlemen knights" of the Alshari Wilderlands in most ways, but he had a flair for organization. He was an excellent manager of his lord's estates despite his famously sour disposition.
He hadn't accompanied Sire Koucey to Farise (someone had to stay home and tell the peasants what to do, I guess) and I could see now why Koucey had been so jovial on campaign. He may have been an excellent Castellan, but having Sir Cei around was much like being a teenager under the eye of a matronly and disapproving aunt.
"It was my duty and pleasure to serve, my lord," I said, lighting my pipe by flashy cantrip, and then bowing. That sort of thing impresses the layman, you know. "I am only sorry I could not have saved more of your people." Almost two score of his subjects were dead, and twice that many were egregiously wounded.
"I blame them, not you," he grumbled, kicking a black furry corpse with his pointed horseman's boot, causing his spurs to jingle. I winced when I noted that there was still a large splotchy vomit stain on it. "Particularly that witchdoctor. He was quite potent, it seems, to do so much harm so quickly – though not as tough as our Spellmonger!" Koucey laughed, slapping me appreciatively on the back. I didn't think it was that funny.
"He was the most powerful mage I have encountered since Farise, my lord," I said, seriously. "You recall we we encountered the gurvani in the jungles of Faries," I said. He nodded. He never tired of mentioning the war and the grueling campaign, although he saw it a damn sight more loftily than I recalled. "Their shamans were good, but not nearly that good. That shaman was handling far more power than any single mage in the Duchies. I cannot tell you where he came by it – perhaps he was just abrim with Talent – but that kind of power would have almost classed him as a Master Mage. . ." I trailed off as a horrifying thought suddenly occurred to me.
Farise.
"Quickly, where is his body?"
"Over there," Sir Cei grunted. "The men wanted to start lopping off heads for warning spikes, but I insisted that all bodies be thoroughly examined first." Probably for loot, though he was too darn noble to say it. Cei likes being thorough, but he's also utterly incorruptible. When anyone is watching.
"Excellent," I muttered absently, and began the unsavory process of hunting through body parts and disemboweled, furry little corpses.
I was looking for one particularly gruesome limb. Thankfully it didn't take me long to find it. I pulled a leathery black fist, severed midway between elbow and wrist, from under a pile of other discarded body parts. The cut was clean and sharp, which meant it was most likely the one I was looking for. The axes of the villagers and the lances of the horsemen made wounds far less neatly than Slasher.