For prisoners cut off from the outside world, time flows differently, it stretches unbearably slowly, like molasses. Only for wizards, this circumstance does not play a special role, because each of them has several very useful features, such as, for example, an internal chronometer. The wizard always knows how much time has passed and how much is left, day behind the walls or night, where is north and where is south. However, it is still unknown why, with all these most useful properties, magicians so often manage to be late or come too early?However, Talbot the Angry came just in time. The sun was barely below the horizon when a tall, lean old man strode down the corridor to Thobius' cell and began opening the doors.— Char Talbot?“Time is short, no questions.Chains and Estrian gloves fell to the floor, and Tobius almost ran after the elder mage, relieved to feel his strength returning to him. They walked past the jailer, frozen like a statue with glazed eyes, and climbed the nar
They ate silently and with concentration, and only insipid vegetable food without a strong smell. Talbot explained that on the third day of his first sortie, he had to run for several hours from a pack of small animal lizards chasing him, until he guessed to throw all the jerky out of the bag.“I expected to see you with a party,” Ser Richard said as they sat down in the semi-darkness, well fed and tired.- It's pointless. You can’t lead a detachment through the forest, except perhaps by beaten paths, but barbarians also use them, and what is a detachment capable of against that horde that you and I saw on the hill? You say zulans don't go to the thicket?- One-eyed - no. They drive on roads, but among the trees they are crowded. But small freaks feel good here. They are engaged in foraging, hunting, dragging venison and poultry to their owners. And I'm looking for them.Have you killed many?“Three hundred in all the time of the war,” Hoss said, without a hint of smugness or pride. “
Tobius raised his right hand to his face and marveled at how much thinner it had been compared to his left. The skin on his long fingers was stretched, the nails were almost black. To the touch and color, the hand resembled a prosthesis carved from bog oak. At the same time, the limb obeyed perfectly, all the fingers were bent, nothing hurt, did not fester, only the sensitivity practically did not recover, which caused some problems. Something stuck inside after being bitten by the shadow, and what it was, Tobius certainly wanted to find out. He was faced with an unknown kind of sorcery, and who knows when the bite will still remind of itself?Occasionally letting his eyes rest, but maintaining concentration, the wizard continued to carry out his patrol. In the heavy night stuffiness, the soul prayed for a gust of cool wind. Before, he could even have asked the few spring breeze spirits that hovered around idle during those summer months to help him, but not now that every spell came
The forest knight looked around and without thinking twice began to climb the thick trunk, clinging to the strong bark with hand hooks. The oak tree was too tall, even its lower branches were much taller than a man, so Ser Richard had to pant for a high vantage point.“You know, I thought that civilized magicians couldn’t,” he panted, finally reaching a branch strong enough to sit on, “be where the pagans make their temples.“You know very little about magic, Ser Richard. In other words, you are a layman.Tobius blissfully basked in the center of a magical whirlwind of energy, pure as the icy water of mountain springs, which filled his head that had stopped hurting with the smell of forest needles, resin, fresh rain, damp earth, moss and rotten leaves. He enjoyed getting rid of a heavy burden, blissful under the trills of birds, the chirping of crickets and the buzz of beetles flying back and forth.- I have not been to the south, but I was taught that there, even in countries loyal t
“It turned out… unbelievable, I was afraid that the amulet was weakened in the conditions of the astral anomaly, but this place of power nourished it!” Are you saved...“The God-Forge has protected us, unbelievable!”Berlobog stopped, and people froze like mice under the floorboard, on which the seasoned cat stood. The wizard's face was covered with perspiration."Ser Richard," Tobius whispered through quivering, bloodless lips, "you damned imbecile!" He's smart! He's smarter than both of us! We are in his house, we are strangers, and we remember the name of the one who once hunted him and his kind!“But… this amulet, it protects us…”The owner of the forest turned to the people, forcing them to be silent, carefully surveyed the mortal creatures with the gaze of blind eyes piercing eternity, and then suddenly pushed off the ground with his front paws. When Berlobog again sank down on all fours with all his weight, the earth shook so much that people, along with part of the soil and st
When Thobius Moth found himself on the walls of the walled city in the light of a magical flash, with his right hand firmly on the shoulder of Ser Richard Hoss, and in his left clutching the still warm wrist of the dead Zulan, the world shuddered from a truly powerful thunderclap, merged with a volley of artillery.The black clouds covering the sky turned the day into night, the belated thunderstorm broke out in earnest, as if trying to take revenge on all the forces that held it back, showing hitherto unprecedented fury. The heavens rumbled and roared like the stomachs of starving mountain giants, sky-high waterfalls poured onto the ground like a solid wall, and only flashes of dazzling lightning made it possible for the shortest moments to very clearly see the picture of the battle unfolding under the walls.Two armies fought there, but if you look closely, you could see that there were still three armies. Below fought the barbarians of the Savage Land, one-eyed man-eaters and chari
Opening the spell book to the right page, the wizard brought down a wave of fire on the selected area near the walls of Tephrask, after which he sank lower and, with several transmutations, turned the space dotted with charred corpses into a flat stone platform. He took out from the bag and with a sweeping gesture of the sower scattered around a dozen red crystals, which immediately turned into fire elementals and formed a protective circle that took the blow of the Zulan horsemen.Using the head of the staff as a stylus, Tobius drew a huge circle on the selected area, inside which he inscribed a regular heptagon and connected all its corners with straight lines, forming a complex star-shaped figure. On the outer circle, he drew a long incantation with a secret rim and placed a stabilization seal next to each intersection of the main circle and the corners of the heptagon. Reading unfamiliar word formulas from the book, he entered the spell inside the star-shaped figure, weaved the
With a loud roar, he announced his presence, and the ogre, as if forgetting his first enemies, answered with his own roar. The giants rushed at each other, Thobius was a third smaller than the monster, naked and unarmed, but a fierce fire raged in his body, and when he crashed into the ogre's chest, he was seared by a wave of hungry fire. However, the ogre resisted and pushed the wizard away, after which he brought hammers down on him. Tobius managed to intercept one of them by the hammer and set fire to the tree. The second hit him in the ribs, and the wizard rolled on the ground. One of the spells, Heal, began to splice bones, but it worked poorly due to the altered physiology of the wearer. Avoiding another blow, the magician rolled over himself once again, feeling a sharp pain in his left side. Raising himself on his right arm, Tobius belched out a torrent of fire and ignited the armor of the ancient monster.“Magi… I hate it!” I will crush!- Come on! You were born to live under