The Hedge Wizard

“I must admit, I’m not sure I’m particularly fond of this mission,” Bud whispered.

“You and me both,” Hump said.

The two of them were seated against two demonic trees, staring out across the ravine of bones and down at the fort below, mulling over the fate that awaited them. A few hours had passed since they’d arrived, and there was still no sign of either Marshall Merrick or Drexel’s squads. Not that Hump expected them to give away their position. The entire point of approaching the fort from separate angles was to ensure that at least one squad made it inside.

The plan was a simple one: Get into the fort by hiding beneath a spirit veil, locate the essence source powering its defences, and destroy it. After that, they would cause as much mayhem as they could and distract the defenders as the main army entered the dungeon through the gate.

“Oh, stop whining about it,” Emilia said. “I understand Hump’s apprehension, but Bud, surely this is the heroic assault of a demon fortress that you’ve always dreamed of.”

“Sneaking across open ground and then scrambling over the walls is hardly a heroic assault,” Bud said. His eyes roamed back to the fort. “And that’s a lot of open ground to cover in heavy armour.”

“I assure you that my veil will not fail,” came a woman’s voice from behind them.

Hump and Bud both stopped talking and turned to see Lani—they hadn’t realised she’d returned. She was a tall, lithe woman. Her leather armour left her arms bare, revealing well-toned muscles. Hump had seen her in action with her javelins now and knew she packed a whole lot of strength into them. Theron stood at her side, his face filled with amusement. The blood warrior hardly looked ready for battle in his fine red robes, but Hump had seen him survive a hole in the chest as if it were nothing. He supposed armour became unnecessary at that point.

“The success of the veil is what makes me nervous,” Hump said, then frowned as he realised how his words might be interpreted. “I just prefer to avoid anything to do with the Spirit Plane and the death god… Not that I have anything against Rathlar, of course. His role is obviously very important.”

Hump’s frown deepened and he glanced at Bud for help.

“We meant no offence,” Bud said, nudging Hump to shut up. “Sneaking is not usually a strategy I employ with a huge amount of success, so it has left me nervous. I’m very much a run in through the front, sword swinging, kind of man.”

“You and I are similar, Robert.” Theron said. “If Lani’s veil fails, that’s when we can give the demons a darn good bashing!”

“It won’t,” Lani chided, narrowing her eyes at him. “Men are always so eager to break things, even when a subtle approach is far better suited.”

“You’re talking with a tin knight, a man that tanked a spike through the chest, and a mud-headed destruction wizard,” Celaine said. “I’m not sure they do subtle.”

“I can be subtle,” Hump protested.

Celaine snorted. “He said after melting an entire lake full of imps and demons with a river of lava.”

“Anyway,” Bud said, redirecting the conversation. “We shall happily put ourselves in your hands, Lani. When the fighting begins, you shall have my sword.”

“It is the hands of Rathlar that shall hold us and see us to victory,” she said. “He has never led me astray. And if we fail, we will only find our way back to his comforting arms even sooner.”

“As lovely as that sounds,” Hump said. “I’d rather stay out of his arms as long as possible.”

Lani smiled. “Fear of death is natural, Wizard Humphrey. I would expect nothing less.”

They chatted for a while, but soon came the same quiet that so often settled before battle. Even amongst a squad of powerful Chosen, Hump saw the same fear in them that he felt. The waiting never got any easier. No matter how much combat he saw, the minutes before the action were always the longest. Hump’s chest felt tight, his heartbeat quickened, and adrenaline jitters made it impossible to relax. He spent the time meditating on the River and Waves, visualising the essence coursing through his body, and trying to calm it. In those minutes, Hump wished they would either stretch on forever or be over in an instant—anything but the wait.

“It’s time,” Anara finally said. “Is everyone ready?”

Few words were needed as they gathered in the trees, sheltered out of view of the fort. The air was thick with anticipation. The fear Hump saw before had turned to focus and resolve.

Lani stepped into the centre of their circle, her presence calm and assured. With a swift, practiced motion she drove one of her spears into the ground, pale smoke puffing through it and into the ground. The earth seemed to shudder in response. Essence steamed from her in streaks of pale blue and green. It thickened in the air, wrapping around them all like a cool, winter’s mist. Something about its touch was unsettling. As the mist grew thicker, Hump’s senses were bombarded with the strangeness of it, his connection to essence becoming more distant.

His heart hammered in his chest, each beat echoing with a wrongness that crept up from deep within, but he forced himself to remain calm. The cold seeped deeper, sneaking into his body like icy tendrils, reminiscent of the gorger’s touch. Only this time, he did not resist. He let it in. As he fought to maintain his awareness, he realised why it felt so off—the cold of the mist was the same as the cold of essence overuse; a chill that pierced the very soul.

Soon, even his eyes started to betray him. The world shifted. Light faded into a pale, eerie imitation of itself, becoming desaturated. The vibrant colours of the physical realm dulled, replaced by a spectrum of greens and greys. The once crimson sky took on a sickly pink tone, while the towering gate seemed even more brilliant than before, the green veins that streaked through it pulsing with unnatural brightness. The trees of the demonic forest became ghostly silhouettes, while the red essence inside them lit up in glittering streaks of white. The jellyfish-like spawn were beacons floating through the mist.

“Welcome to the Spirit Plane,” Lani said. “Enjoy your stay, take in the sights, and try not to dawdle. It’s best we don’t stay here too long.”

Hump felt a weight settle on his shoulders as the air changed, the world becoming obscured by thick mist. The essence around him was no longer that of the chaotic dungeon, but heavy and rich with an ancient intent. In a way, it felt like the earth: timeless, unmoving, without end; but there was an inevitability of this place that was haunting. He strengthened the defence around his soul, preventing the power of this plane from reaching him for he was not sure what would happen if it did.

“What happens if we stay here?” Marcela asked. The woman was studying her hand, mist rising from it as she swayed it back and forth in the air.

“The beings that dwell here will be drawn to souls bound to the flesh like sharks to blood. With a party this large, we probably only have a few minutes.”

Then let us be off,” Anara said.

The flower druid led the way across the ravine of bones, her dangling ball of petals dangling from the end of her staff one of the few things that seemed undiminished in this world, still vibrant and pink.

They descended the hill toward the fort, all of them sticking close to Lani. Nisha raced at Hump’s side, excitement, fear, and anticipation flooding through her. The fort appeared like the shadow of a mountain through fog, with towering spires sticking up into the air. Beneath their feet, Hump could barely make out the red grass through the thick mist, its blades as pale as the pink sky. Standing out in the open and hardly able to see, Hump felt exposed. All it would take was a powerful demon searching for essence fluctuations to detect Lani’s blessing and then they would be caught out on an open plain with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. At least the dungeon offered some protection from such detection, its chaotic essence filled with so much fluctuation that Lani’s blessing was just one more aspect of the turmoil.

“How strong are the creatures of this realm?” Bud asked as they walked.

“Some are nothing but wisps of essence, nothing more than those jellyfish spawn we encountered earlier,” Lani said. “And then there are others that would see our entire squad as nothing but food. The Spirit Plane is a dangerous place, and it is only thanks to Rathlar that our souls remain safe.”

Hump leant closer to Celaine and whispered, “Doesn’t bode well for you and your people.”

“Our souls return to Owalyn and the earth. We have no need to concern ourselves with this ‘Spirit Plane’ of yours.”

“Ah. Of course.”

Hump activated Spirit Sight as they drew closer, searching the fort for large sources of essence. The fort was designed to keep even the most powerful foes out of the Infernal Halls, and magic that could repel the likes of General Korteg and Count Daston would certainly leave some mark. He found it in the keep at the centre of the three layers of walls.

“There is a powerful source of essence coming from the lower right quadrant of the keep,” Hump said. “I expect that is our target.”

“That lines up with Drexel’s information,” Anara said. “Everything is going according to plan.”

As they drew closer, the mist thinned slightly and Hump could see the orcs and demons on the walls clearer, their figures glowing with the faint sheen of life force that the surrounding stone walls lacked. Their target was a small section of wall at the corner of the fort, where two towers created a blind spot to any but the defenders stationed there. One of the orcs looked Hump dead in the eyes and Hump’s breath stopped. The orc was a particularly big one, its hair cropped around the sides of its head and tied back into a ponytail. Two large tusks protruded from its lower lip. Tattoos patterned one side of its face.

For a few seconds, Hump was sure the creature had spotted them. Any moment now and the alarm would sound. Yet soon, the creature looked away, staring off at some place behind Hump. Whatever physical prowess the orc tribe might possess, they were still only warriors, and it seemed they lacked the capacity to see through one of Rathlar’s blessings.

The squad reached the fort walls undetected. Hump admired the spidery runes etched upon the walls in fascination, their lines flowing in cursive script. The letters were mostly connected, creating elegant, continuous lines, many of the characters accented with distinct dots and markings.

It astonished him that wherever he went, he found a new language of magical runes. It was a constant reminder at how vast the world was, and how small a part of it he had seen. He wondered about the similarities of such powers. All of them were a unique way to manipulate the world to one’s will. Did that mean that they were all based on the same thing? Perhaps a single language was the origin of all of them.

No matter how much he studied the runes, it seemed his spellbook wouldn’t react, and now wasn’t the time to be noting the runes down manually. The tap of orc feet came from above, and the distant grunts and snarls of their language as two of the creatures directly above them spoke quietly.

Pressing his back against the wall, Hump glanced over the rest of the squad. Marcela caught his eye and smiled, giving him a nod. Even if Lani’s blessing failed, they were out of sight of anyone using the roads here. Their only concern were the demons directly above them, along with those in the two towers on either side of them.

The walls towered high overhead. There was no way Hump would be able to climb up himself without the use of magic, and such a thing would give them away.

“Marcela, it’s time,” Anara said.

Marcela gave a nod—she had been assigned command during the next step. Celaine, Emilia, Dylan, Faelor, Teff, and Raya gathered with her. They were the only ones with the mobility to get onto the walls undetected. Hump was surprised when Nishari approached Celaine’s side, glancing back at him with a questioning look.

Hump looked at Celaine who gave a shrug and seemed to approve of her presence.

Go, Hump told Nisha, and the doubt left her eyes, replaced by intense focus. Hump sensed an excitement in her, but there was a quiet confidence too. The scent of the orcs and demons in the fort filled her mind with confusing images.

Together, the group made their way onto the walls, either through freakish climbing capabilities or by jumping. As they went over the top, Lani removed her veil from them, leaving them to their own devices. They landed in the blind spot between two large towers where only a few guards were keeping watch. The murmurs of orc chatter went silent without so much as a thud. The silence dragged on, yet Hump assured himself that silence was a good thing. His heart raced with worry as he wondered what was going on above. He caught glimpses of Nisha’s thrill, the adrenaline racing through her, the taste of blood.

Almost a minute had passed when Marcela poked her head over the parapet and dropped a rope to them. Celaine leapt down, landing silently amongst them. Those of them without a method of carrying their weapons handed them to her, and she stored them in the Belt of Storage about her waist. Anara climbed up first, then the majority of the melee fighters. Theron, the blood tank of Anara’s party, would be second last just in case they were discovered, while Lani would bring up the very rear, maintaining her veil until the end.

As the others ascended, Hump glanced back as he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. In the distance, a colossal spider stalked closer, its form an indistinct shadow with faintly glowing green eyes and spindly legs that seemed to drift through the mist. The air around it appeared darker, with a trail of shadow left in its wake as it moved. An aura of malevolence and cold radiated from it, sending a shiver through Hump’s soul.

“Go, Humphrey,” Lani said softly. “It is better not to look.”

“Is that…”

“It is a denizen of the Spirit Plane,” she said. “Now go.”

Hump climbed. He dragged himself up the rope, spurred on by a primal fear. While the old him might have struggled climbing up a rope like this, with his dragon blood he felt light and at ease, quickly pulling himself over the top of the wall and landing on the battlements. Before he could rise, Nisha rushed him, throwing her body against him and nuzzling him happily. There was blood around her mouth, and it only took a moment for Hump to find the source. Over ten orcs lay dead, piled up in a small room in the tower to the right. It wouldn’t be long until the bodies were found.

After retrieving his staff from Celaine, Hump snuck up to the inner edge of the wall. The defences were weaker here than around the gate, with only a single layer of walls for defence. He supposed the demons didn’t anticipate an attack coming from within. Below, fellspawn staggered back and forth, hauling supplies mindlessly.

To the right, Hump saw the three layers of walls that formed a box around the gate. Beyond them, the path leading up to the gate had to be a hundred paces long and two dozen wide. It was packed full of demons and fellspawn as they worked on all manner of traps. The walls that loomed on either side of the path formed an area of death that Hump dreaded the thought of walking into. One moment, the army would be in their world, the next, they would be here, bombarded by projectiles and arrows from the walls, while magical traps exploded right where they stood.

“If the army comes through those gates, it will be a slaughter,” Bud said quietly.

“Yeah,” Hump said. “Good thing we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Now that they were in, all they had to do was get into the keep undetected. The plan had sounded terrifying when Drexel had first briefed them, but standing atop the walls, flanked by demons on all sides, Hump couldn’t help but let a moment of doubt set in.

He cursed himself for such foolishness. A wizard must never doubt—what needs to happen would happen. That was fact.