Metal Mage 15, page 1
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Chapter 1
The room was so silent, I could hear the echo of my stomach growling from the other side of the cellar, and I shifted my weight so I could brace my back against the stone wall.
Dragir’s brow was deeply furrowed while he stooped over the Elven Scrolls, and beside the silver-haired elf, Wyresus rubbed at his temples like he was the one doing all the work right now.
Barnik just belched from his post in the corner of the underground cellar, and when I glanced his way, he offered me a mug of Rosh yet again. Then I yawned and turned down the offer for what must have been the fifth time, but Dragir didn’t move an inch.
The elf kept his fingertips slowly trailing the script Wyresus had translated from the ancient documents, and based on the amount of focus he put into this, no one else would have guessed it was the third time he’d studied the same four papers in a week.
Deya’s brother had a better understanding of rune magic than anyone I knew, and since he even knew a few things more than the head of House Orrel, I was glad to leave him to his work.
Bored out of my mind, but glad.
We were so close to solidifying our design, and with the proper balance of elements, the rune we created would be able to counter the four runes we found concealing a portion of the Master’s fortress from view.
An achievement like this could be the difference between life or death once we got to House Orrel, so the two of us had spent most of this past week working to address the issue. The rest of the week was spent building our arsenal for our upcoming massacre, but now that I was hours away from being done there, finalizing the rune was our last task.
“Okay,” Dragir sighed as he straightened up, and I could hear the bones in his back cracking while he stretched the kinks out of it. “You are certain these three words at the bottom are not inverted in any way?”
“For the last time,” Wyresus groaned, “I stand by my translations, Master Dragir.”
The elf nodded. “Then I suppose we are done here.”
“Really?” I asked.
“I do not know,” Dragir muttered, and Barnik sprawled in his chair like he’d been shot in the chest.
“Just make the damn thing,” the Aer Mage growled. “Ye’ could probably recite half those scrolls from memory by now.”
“Rune magic is a precarious art,” Dragir informed the man. “If one of these cohesion lines is misplaced, then all of our work has been for nothing. Have you ever found yourself up against an invisible force?”
“I’m a fuckin’ Aer Mage,” Barnik snorted. “What do you think?”
I chuckled around my next yawn, and then I pushed myself off the wall and headed for the door.
“Don’t get him started on magery versus rune magic,” I muttered to Barnik.
“Yes, because you will lose,” Dragir mumbled, and he slid the Elven Scrolls back to Wyresus. “Frail man, you will go through these translations another five times to be absolutely sure.”
“F-Five?” Wyresus whimpered. “Master Dragir, you cannot be seri--”
“Five times, or the duke will have you drawn and quartered,” Dragir cut in, and the pale mage at the desk slumped a few more inches.
I sighed as I propped the cellar door open for the elf, but I eyed the former head of the Order before I left. “Three more times, and you’re done.”
“Thank you, sir,” Wyresus said as he perked up. “By the way, how is Miss Shoshanne doing with the Beriel volume I lent her? There is a particularly in-depth chapter on infant Lux Mage behavior that I thought she would find fascinating. ”
“Already finished,” I answered. “She wants you to stop by Falmount as soon as we’re done in Nalnora to talk about it.”
Wyresus’ thin lips spread into a pinched smile. “It would be my pleasure. Miss Shoshanne really is one of the brightest and most--”
“Did she try drainin’ the oxygen from a man’s blood like I taught her?” Barnik asked with a half-crazed grin. “It’s a fun death, I’m tellin’ ye’.”
“I’ll ask her for you,” I chuckled. “She did manage to alter the nitrogen content in the air, though, so she can suffocate someone without them even noticing until it’s too late.”
Barnik let out a malicious laugh. “That’s our girl.”
I shook my head as I closed the cellar door, and Dragir didn’t look up from the slip of paper he held inches from his face while he fell into step beside me.
“You need to stop using my new title to threaten people,” I told the elf.
“No,” Dragir mumbled. “According to Miss Cayla, the best perk of having a title like yours is forcing others to enact your will through threats. Now, I think this balance of elements is sound, but be very careful with this last cohesion line. Do you see the slope of the upper hook?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed while I eyed the paper.
“I am fairly certain we will both be blinded if you alter that slope by even a fraction of a millimeter.”
I raised my eyebrows while Dragir folded the paper and handed it over, but I nodded my understanding as we headed down the library steps and into the streets of the Oculus.
“So… you’re fairly certain of that,” I led, “but are you positive this rune will make it possible to detect anything the Master’s concealing.”
“No,” the elf admitted. “There is no positivity in creating new runes unless you can test them, and I maintain we are already being too lenient with our time frame. The Master has shown he can accomplish much in only a matter of days, and we have given him a full week to collaborate with Luir. We must go.”
“I agree,” I muttered. “I’ll see what I can do about getting the sights built by the time we reach House Aelin.”
“And you will uphold our agreement?” Dragir checked.
“No battle dragon,” I confirmed. “Deya’s fine with the arrangement, though. She’s seen me kill Luir’s owls before, and she’s already experienced the result of getting injured while transmuting. She knows we’re working in her best interest. Besides, I think she’s more in the mood to use her bare hands than her fangs lately.”
Dragir smirked with pride as we scaled the walkway that led to the stone gates of the Oculus, and the elf paused to admire the sight of the underground city before he left it.
Then he exchanged a fist bump with Big Red outside, and the two of us headed through the darkened tunnel and out into the castle courtyard.
“You are sure you will make it to House Elyn by tonight?” Dragir asked. “Because even with Rhys’ warriors, we will not have nearly enough men to take on the whole palace alone, and if we’re discovered lurking outside all night--”
“We’ll be there,” I assured him. “I just need to address a few last details at the shop, and it won’t take me long. I looked over the route you marked, too, and I’m banking on getting to House Elyn before dark. I don’t think I’ve ever met the head of their House, though. I might have seen him once at House Aelin, but I only went there and to House Pree when I visited Lyralus.”
“There is not much you need to know,” Dragir snorted. “The leader, Eylish, is a decrepit old bastard, and in his younger days he was most well-known for forcing himself on any woman who was caught trespassing in his territory. If it was a man they caught, the man was drowned, and the women of his family were dragged in for Eylish instead. Then he would have them hanged from the rafters of the great hall to ensure his heirs would not have to split their inheritance if a child was conceived. His residents held celebrations in honor of their leader for each hanging, and this practice went on for a couple hundred years before one of his victims stabbed him in his dick ten times.”
I slowed my pace as we neared the castle gates, but the elf shrugged when he caught the look on my face.
“That is the story I believe, anyways,” Dragir clarified. “Some say it was twenty times, others say she cut it off in one swipe. Either way, he changed his tactics after that, and now, trespassers are brutally tortured for weeks on end during their celebrations. So, do not be late for the invasion tonight.”
I unlocked my clenched jaw. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Then we entered the streets of Serin, and the wave of bowing heads that greeted us brought an appreciative grin to Dragir’s face while I nodded to a few of the citizens in passing. Mostly, though, I focused on scanning the lower quarters of the capital to check on Bobbie. It wasn’t that I thought anyone would have vandalized a car everyone in five regions knew belonged to me, but she wasn’t used to being left alone in the middle of Serin. By now, she could have tried to plow her way through the streets for all I knew.
I sensed the frame of the Mustang right where I’d parked her, though, and she still had a little metal knight strutting across her roof doing back flips for the crowd.
So, I took my time meandering through the upper quarters of Serin, and I counted three new Stan statues posted in various power stances along the way. Initially, Temin ordered only one monument to honor Sir Stan, but the citizens were so enamored with the little hero that sculptors all over the city were adding their own tributes.
The monument Temin commissioned the royal sculptors to make of my women and I hadn’t been started yet, but as I craned my neck over a passing horse, the area he’d set aside for the final product had twice as many bouquets laid around it as it did just two days ago.
I didn’t have a chance to check if they’d named the main avenue after Stan’s dragon yet, though, because Dragir suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to point directly at a merchant who was walking away from the main road.
“You!” Dragir called out. “Unarmed man in the ragged hat!”
The merchant turned around with a smile, but he looked shaken to his core when the formidable elven warrior threw his arms up in disgust.
“Why are you not bowing?” Dragir demanded for all to hear. “Look around you, and you will see everyone is bowing to Mason Flynt. Pay attention!”
I sighed as the merchant abruptly removed his hat and bowed to me, and then I dragged the elf down the street to spare the other merchants he hadn’t called out yet.
“You really shouldn’t do that,” I muttered out of the side of my mouth.
“Yes, you should be doing this,” Dragir agreed. “You have to remain vigilant, or these civilians will not know what to do with themselves. If you had addressed this sooner, we would not have had the incident from this morning. Now, look. We are walking in the hot sun, and your Mustang is covered with bodies.”
I chuckled while we wove our way through the bowing crowd, but the elf had a point. Before the siege at the Master’s fortress, I’d never been unable to drive to the Oculus, but the last few trips to Serin had been notably different. The number of people who refused to stop crowding around Bobbie when I arrived was staggering, but on the plus side, walking through the streets turned out to be easier.
The citizens were so busy bowing, I didn’t have to crawl through them.
Either way, it was nice to take my time in Serin anyways because I rarely had the opportunity to walk around the place after I’d set my sights on taking the Master down. It wouldn’t be long before I could rejoin the land of the living, though, and I could hardly wait to escort my beautiful women around Serin so they could revel in the fanfare of an entire capital for a while.
Not that my lovers needed the ego boost. Ever since they confirmed they were pregnant, my women didn’t need any lavish compliments from me to remind them they were all goddesses in my eyes. They were goddesses in their own eyes now, and something about a crowd of people wishing them well in their pregnancies made them twice as frisky for me.
These days, my women pawed at me constantly and pouted so hard when I told them I couldn’t just spend all day fucking them, I had to build a spare shop with a lock on it just to get any work done, and with a flock of pregnant beauties all vying for my attention, I was lucky I even got out of bed in the morning.
Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t purposely steer them through a few needless crowds over the last week.
What mortal wouldn’t?
At this point, I’d accomplished an endless number of feats in this realm that I never imagined myself capable of, but finally getting all five of my women pregnant topped them all. I had the most gorgeous women I’d ever known, the largest bed I’d ever seen, and according to my lovers, the most world-dominating offspring on the way.
I was closer than I’d ever been to the careless and kinky life of my dreams, but first, I had a handful of enemies left to vanquish, and this was the notion that made it possible for me to get dressed in the morning. It kept me walking out the bedroom door despite all the little moans trying to lure me back.
I had this one last ill-advised slaughter-fest to embark on, and then I would never have to jump out of my enormous bed of women ever again if I didn’t want to.
So, I took a deep breath to pull my mind out of the gutter, and the sea of people surrounding Bobbie parted for me while Dragir nodded in approval at the dozens of bowed heads. Then we climbed into the Mustang with Stan and started her up, but getting her turned around and out of the capital proved to be more difficult.
Eventually, the elven warrior in the front seat began growling his opinions out the window, though, and things moved a little faster.
I just grinned and dumped as many coins as I had with me into the grimy hands of the kids jogging beside my door, and once we finally reached the gates of Serin, nothing but emerald hills and the open road stretched out ahead of us.
The cheering in the city streets faded into the distance as we crested the first hill, and Dragir let out a long sigh that proved he wasn’t actually irritated at all.
“Let me guess,” I muttered. “This is what Nalnora will look like in a week, except you’re the one driving the Mustang.”
“Certainly not,” Dragir replied. “If we do our work properly, Nalnora will be in shambles, the capital will be deserted save for the independent merchants, and I will be sitting in my cave by the sea learning everything possible about rune magic. I will never have to worry about getting killed on my way to the market, my greatest concern will be the beasts and the plants killing me instead, and I will rest easy at night knowing Deya is free to live her life as she pleases with you.”
“That does sound like a hell of an improvement,” I mused. “You really don’t want to rule Nalnora, though? I kind of assumed…”
“No, the whole point of slaughtering the Elite is to destroy the rulers,” Dragir informed me with a stern look. “Nalnora needs no ruler, and do not get any ideas, either. Just because you are assisting in dismantling the bullshit hierarchy of my nation does not mean you will be sitting on any thrones when this is over.”
“Hey, I don’t want a carnivorous jungle to look after,” I assured the elf. “I’ve already got a kingdom in the south I’ll be ruling with Cayla, and Falmount’s expanding faster than I can keep up with at the moment.”
“Ahh, that’s right,” Dragir recalled. “I forgot you have a kingdom waiting for you. Deya will be a queen there as well, yes?”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I admitted, and I nodded to the guards at the entrance of Falmount.
Then the forty-foot steel gates I built a few days ago began to open, and I admired the expanse of solid black marble arching over them. The whole display made the entrance to Falmount even more prodigious, but the battlements lining the thirty-foot walls on either side of the structure were the cherry on top. They added an extra element of “don’t even fucking try it” that I appreciated.
The Defenders saluted from above before I drove Bobbie through the gates, and with two miles of road left to travel down, I couldn’t help grinning to myself while I took in the view of the southern bounds of Falmount.
It had only been a week since Temin tripled the size of my fief, but my residents and allies didn’t waste a day before they began asking about what updates they should start on. So, I sent plans to anyone who wanted to help, but after I let my generals have creative rein, every hour brought a new surprise whenever I ventured out.
The daily storms from Rekekis left my Flumen Mages with plenty to work with these days, and General Kin had them form a sprawling array of riverbeds through the oaken foothills to manage the flooding. Now, the dappled light that fell through the oaks glittered over rushing streams and cascades wherever I looked, and the stout brambles seemed to have grown twice as thick in a week.
The terrain surrounding Falmount was getting so wild and overgrown that the new huts of my serfs were hardly visible from the road, and from what I could tell, none of my latest residents minded the strictly local storms at all. They gathered rainwater for cooking and cleaning like Rekekis was blessing them, and they thanked me every time I came to the market for the lightning rods I installed on all their homes.
Hearing the distant laughter of the families settling here made me twice as proud that Falmount wasn’t the battlefield it had been not too long ago, and the constant patrol of my Defenders and automatons ensured it would stay that way for quite a while.
My favorite part of the drive into Falmount was the road itself, though, because Haragh and the dwarves had tracked down a reserve of dark red rock with a heavy amount of iron oxide in it to grind into a substrate. Thanks to Pindor’s crew of mages, the paths from the gates of Falmount all the way through the lanes of the village were a deep red hue that cast a warm glow around my land all day. Then it turned a mystic purple in the evening, and when the storms showed up, the lanes looked blood red with rushing waterways lining them on both sides.
