Mageborn The Line of Illeniel by Michael Manning (top novels of all time TXT) 📗

voice rang out as the men of Washbrook pushed the gate wide and stepped up. Two held casks of lamp oil while the rest carried torches and swords or axes. The two small casks were thrown forward smashing onto the ground a few feet to either side of where the mob of undead held Dorian down. Lamp oil spilled out, washing over the ground and splattering on those nearest where they struck... then the torches landed and the world went up in flames.

Burning bodies thrashed as the flames blinded the undead. Dorian fought his way free of the ones holding him as the militia men waded in, hacking and cutting at the enemy with axes, swords, and in a few cases scythes. Parts of his legs had burning oil on them but it hadn’t burned long enough to get through the padded gambeson underneath his mail yet. “Over here Dorian!” Royce called to him, holding a heavy wool blanket soaked with water.

He staggered through the press of men and undead to reach the blacksmith and let him throw the blanket over him. Royce wrapped it around his legs, beating to smother out the flames there. “What the hell is going on?” he shouted.

“We just pulled your bacon out of the fire boy,” Royce laughed.

“They can’t hold them!” Even now Dorian could see some of the men had already fallen prey to the unnatural creatures. Without enchanted armor such as Dorian wore, it only took a hand on an arm to quickly render a man unable to fight.

“Then you best make sure we do!”

Dorian stopped arguing and went back into the fray. He moved carefully to avoid the worst of the burning bodies, picking his targets. He moved back and forth, hacking away the monsters that had gotten ahold of townsmen before they could drain them utterly. A large number of their enemies were just wildly thrashing bodies, burning silently on the ground now. The rest were soon reduced to helpless body parts.

It finally dawned on him that they had won. This is what strength is Mordecai. This is the power of the people you are entrusted with, he thought to himself. He wished Mort could see them now, faces flushed with excitement as fear turned to the thrill of victory. Almost all of them had gotten a taste of the undead touch, and now they understood better what they faced. Having survived, and won, they were full of life. Someone began to shout, “Dorian... Dorian... Dorian...!” and soon they had all taken up the chant.

Long minutes later he finally calmed them down, “Enough! This was your victory, and don’t forget it! Now you know what your lives are worth, and more importantly, the enemy knows we won’t sell ourselves cheaply.” Some of the townsfolk nodded at this, but in their hearts they knew they would have lost but for the burly warrior in shimmering mail.

Dorian turned on Joe, “What were you thinking opening the gate? Everything could have been lost...”

Joe didn’t let him finish, “It damn near was, but I wasn’t gonna let ‘em have you dammit. I’d do it again too and not think twice about it!”

Dorian stared at Joe. He didn’t have an answer for the man’s stubborn pride. Instead he switched subjects, “whose idea was the lamp oil?”

“That was old Royce there. He’s a quick thinking son of a bitch!” Joe slapped Royce on the shoulder, drunk on adrenaline.

Dorian leaned over to Royce, “What are we going to do with him? I thought he was level-headed but he’s crazy as a hatter.”

The old blacksmith grinned, “Can’t fix stupid son, and maybe you shouldn’t try.”

They spent several hours after that, gathering up the bodies and pieces of bodies. They discovered that the still moving flesh was dangerous yet, but luckily Royce had a surplus of tongs and iron bar-stock in his smithy and they used those to move them. When they had finally created a single pile they used more lantern oil and some deadwood to create a funeral pyre. Nothing would be left of the things that had attacked them.

Once all was said and done the town of Washbrook had lost two men, David Tanner being the first. The second man, Seth Colburn, had gone down during the rush to save Dorian and had died before he could be rescued. From the rough count they made of the enemy it appeared they had dismembered and burned almost twenty eight of the undead. Several had escaped at the end when the fight turned against them.

It was a victory, but a small village like Washbrook could hardly afford to lose anyone and the families of those lost would be mourning for a long time to come.

Chapter 11

I rose early the next morning, anxious to check the books in the library once more. I knew I had little time before we would have to return to Washbrook and this would likely be my last chance to examine the writings left here... unless I learned to create a matching teleport circle when we got home.

I started searching the shelves for anything I might find regarding the creation of such circles and by chance I got lucky. A slender volume proclaimed itself to be ‘A Definitive Guide on the Creation and Maintenance of Teleportation Waypoints’. It looked to be just the thing, although the author seemed a bit self-important. I set it aside to bring with me on the trip home.

Having accomplished my primary goal I rewarded myself with some time reading ‘The History of Illeniel’:

Those powerful enough to speak to the earth came to be called ‘archmages’ and the arts they employed were fabled to be so great that no modern scholar can rightly credit the truth of the stories about them. The ‘shining gods’ of humankind were young and weak in those days and wizardry so common that few sought to worship them. The gods of the She’har, now called the ‘dark gods’ were powerful but malignant to humanity. The