The battle of alaburg al.., p.1
The Battle of Alaburg (Alaburg University 4/4), page 1
The Battle of laburg
LABURG UNIVERSITY
BOOK FOUR
GREG WALTERS
Book Four
War has engulfed Razuclan. Every day, hundreds of undead Vonnyen land on the coasts and quickly devastate whole areas. Soon the dark sorceress will destroy the last source of magical energy. The Driany Order watches it all seemingly unconcerned. It falls to the students of laburg University to stop the dark mage. For Bryn and his friends, a race against time begins, until the Seer of Colors is faced with the ultimate choice.
Volume 4 of the Alaburg University
Author
Greg Walters, born in 1980, began writing fantasy stories while studying history and politics. His debut novel, “The Secrets of laburg,” delighted numerous readers and conquered the bestseller lists.
Together with his wife, his two little daughters, and his red-blonde Labrador Lenka, Greg Walters lives in Brunswick, Germany, where he is currently working on the fifth volume of the laburg University series and other exciting young-adult fantasy series. More about the author: www.greg-walters.com
Novels
laburg University:
The Secrets of laburg (laburg University 1)
The Legend of laburg (laburg University 2)
The Chronicles of laburg (laburg University 3)
The Battle of laburg (laburg University 4)
The Order of laburg (laburg University 5)
Demon Summoner
Demon Summoner: Apprentice (The Demon Healer 1)
Demon Summoner II: Journeyman (The Demon Healer 2)
Demon Summoner III: Master (The Demon Healer 3)
© 2023 Gregor Timme
Author: Greg Walters
Cover design, illustration: Giusy Ame
Translator: Justin Beckham
info@greg-walters.com
www.greg-walters.com
All rights reserved. This work may be reproduced—even in part—only with the express permission of the author. This work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. Any exploitation is prohibited without the consent of the author. This applies to electronic or other reproduction, translation, distribution, and public use.
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NEWSLETTER
Contents
1. A Summer of Friendship
2. A Look at the Enemy
3. All Together
4. New Masters
5. In the Bestiary
6. Refugees
7. The Fate of the Samuusen
8. The Burden of the Gift
9. The Delegation
10. The Order of laburg
11. One Last Breakfast
12. The Right Way
13. The End of the Seven
14. The Poison Swamps
15. With the Waramen
16. Blue Magic
17. A Night on Fog Island
18. The Path of Graves
19. The Guardian of the Mountain
20. Trapped Under the Mountain
21. The War Begins
22. Lost in a Dream
23. The Orc Council
24. In the Heart of the Enemy
25. The Landing
26. The Siege
27. Black Magic
28. The Traitorous Master
29. Family Ties
30. The Last Source
31. The Guardian’s Hoard
32. Defenders of the Last Source
33. The Fate of the Seer of Colors
34. The Last Exam Results
35. The Languages of Razuclan
Also by Greg Walters
1
A Summer of Friendship
Come on, just as far as Gerald’s hut,” Morlâ said with a grin as he spurred on an exhausted and sweaty Filixx. “You said you wanted to start exercising more. Just in case we ever have to travel to orc territory again where you can’t use magic.”
“True, I did want to get a little fitter …” Filixx leaned forward, propped himself up on his thighs, spat, and took a big breath, “but not … compete in the elf … Midnight Moon Run right away. Also, I ate almost nothing … for breakfast.”
“You ate plenty,” Bryn contradicted his overweight friend, “you could eat all the fruit you wanted.”
“And that was quite a lot,” Morlâ teased.
“But I need meat, or at least cheese, to have the energy for this stuff. Mmmm … do you remember that goat cheese Ralph made?” Filixx licked his lips.
“Sure we remember. Especially Morlâ—he was practically dating Manfred the goat. Good thing Gwendolin doesn’t know about that,” Bryn replied, and everyone burst out laughing. “Come on, Filixx,” Bryn motivated his friend after the short break. “I have the feeling we’re going to need all our strength this semester.” He thought of the Samuusa’s warning from the end of last semester. With the desecration of the temple of Clanrü, the realm’s third source of energy has been severely damaged and is bleeding out. If the fourth and final source of energy is destroyed by the enemy, we, Samuusen, will no longer be able to exist on Razuclan and magic will be gone forever. You are the last hope of this dying continent. Everything now depends on you and your gift!
"Okay, okay," replied Filixx. They had been pondering for weeks what their enemy was up to. Bryn’s aunt, the dark sorceress Caoimhe, was gradually destroying all sources of magical energy on Razuclan—but why? It was also unclear to them why Bryn’s mother Davina and his beloved Drena had been kidnapped by their powerful opponent and what role they still had to play. The only clear thing was that their adversaries were quickly becoming more powerful and that the continent of Razuclan was in great danger.
“I think you’re right that we’ll need all our strength. And soon.” Lost in thought, the dwarf-elf wiped the sweat from his brow with a cream-colored cloth embroidered with flowers.
“Then you can run the last bit to Gerald’s hut, right?" asked Morlâ, already sprinting away.
With a long sigh, Filixx followed him. Together with Bryn, he jogged through the large university gardens, panting.
Later, they sat together in the common room. “Commoners,” Morlâ exclaimed, “please bow low. The chief of chiefs has decided to grace us mere mortals with his presence.”
Ûlyėr answered his dwarf friend by dumping him out of his chair.
Morlâ watched from the ground amid laughter as the orc sat in the now empty seat.
“How were your private lessons with Tejal today, Ûlyėr?” Bryn asked when things had settled down again.
The muscular student gave a gruff growl.
“She’s getting to you, huh?” asked Filixx, reaching into a small wooden box of dried fish. He threw an anchovy in the air and deftly caught it in his mouth.
Ûlyėr contorted his face to show his fangs and muttered softly, “That's one way to put it, I guess.”
“Don't worry about it,” Bryn tried to comfort his friend. “It was the same for me in my first semester. Don’t forget, she is a fantastic sorceress and can also draw on the special powers of laburg. Even a GünDa’kin could never defeat her.”
“I think it’s good that someone is putting you in your place for a change,” Morlâ said. “I can’t stand the way the other orcs fawn all over you now. I miss getting that surge of adrenalin when I see ₱yzu or Kuelnk on campus. I was always up for a fight. But now they greet me kindly, because I am part of the great chief's pack." He sat down on a wobbly wooden chair.
“I can order them to treat you the way you used to be treated, if you like,” Ûlyėr replied with a grin. “But you’re right. It’s strange that all the orcs in laburg treated me like I was invisible for years and now all of a sudden, I’m supposed to be their unquestioned leader. It took a lot to convince Ñokelä not to have bodyguards protect me day and night.”
“By Mother Earth, that would have been terrible. Our little basement here can’t handle more than one orc,” Morlâ smiled at his friend.
Ûlyėr threw a handful of dried fish at the dwarf as punishment, which earned him a nasty look from Filixx. The Combat Master still can’t believe that I want to live here and not with my own kind in Řischnărr.”
“Well, that makes two of us who are too good for this place,” Morlâ countered. The wobbly chair collapsed beneath him.
Over the gleeful laughter of his friends, Ûlyėr said seriously, “But I’ll have to do my duty sooner or later. My people need a leader. War is in the air; Clanrü was just the beginning. Evil is gearing up, even if no one knows where it will strike first.”
An oppressive stillness fell. That one word made them all sink into silence—war.
Nevertheless, Bryn remembered the next few days of vacation as the best of his entire time at laburg. He couldn’t tell if it was the calm before the approaching storm that made the friends feel especially exuberant, or simply the fact that it was a gloriously warm summer with no obligations. Or maybe it was because the four of them were spending their vacation together for the first time within the walls of the university. As always during the semester break, most students traveled to visit their families. Therefore, Bryn, Morlâ, Filixx, and Ûlyėr had the entire campus almost completely to themselves. They took advantage of this by making numerous large and small outings around the extensive grounds. They went swimming in the fire toad pond in the university gardens. Filixx had mana
On other days, they played magical hide-and-seek on the huge campus. One of them searched for the other three with the help of magic. The hiders, however, were allowed to cast counterspells to remain hidden. Ûlyėr was amazingly good in this game. Morlâ, however, grew sick of hide-and-seek after he couldn’t find Bryn, Filixx, and Ûlyėr for almost an entire day, because they were simply sitting in the common room of the defense tower. Their house was shielded against any kind of magic, and it had not occurred to him to look for them there.
With Gerald’s help, they also fulfilled a long-held dream. Bryn’s foster father allowed them to climb the giant defense tower in the middle of the laburg courtyard and enjoy the spectacular view from the top. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood on the narrow viewing platform and marveled at the green Panra Valley at their feet and the mountains rising behind it, whose highest peaks were white even in midsummer. At that moment, Bryn felt an incredibly strong connection to his four friends.
Filixx spoiled them with very elvish food. As he had resolved, he ate significantly less meat and exercised regularly. Bryn could not see any changes in the overweight dwarf-elf, but Filixx himself claimed to have already lost quite a bit of weight.
Bryn didn’t know whether to look forward to the new semester of study or not. On the one hand, he could now study all seven subjects again, since Tejal had lifted all of Jehal’s restrictions. On the other hand, Bryn wasn’t sure how long they would be able to study in peace this semester. They had not seen the Samuusen during the entire vacation. This could be a coincidence, since the little fairy creatures always decided for themselves who they showed themselves to. But it could also be the events they had warned Bryn about causing their disappearance.
2
A Look at the Enemy
Just one more day,” Morlâ muttered softly to himself as he wrapped himself in his blanket.
“I didn’t know you were so excited for the semester to start," Bryn said, pulling on his pajamas.
“What?” Morlâ said, confused.
“You said, ‘just one more day.’ And then Tejal’s speech and the new semester begins.”
“Oh, that. No, I’m not looking forward to that boring speech. Although it is nice that we White House students get to go again this semester. She’ll just blabber on about peace, love, and understanding.”
“Then what did you mean by ‘just one more day’?” asked Bryn, summoning two colorful werelights. The light in their small, shared room had just gone out. Lights out had begun.
“I think you can guess,” said Morlâ with a beatific grin.
Bryn laughed out loud. “Of course I can. Your Gwendolin will finally be back from vacation. You haven’t seen each other in quite a while now."
“Almost five weeks,” Morlâ emphasized. “But her family insisted that she go home to visit. She had to go to some elvish festival in honor of the ancients that’s always held in the summer. She couldn’t get out of it and stay here. Although she could have come back before the very last day of vacation.”
“You could have gone with her and met your future in-laws,” Bryn said with a big grin.
Morlâ threw his pillow at Bryn. “Haste makes waste,” as my grandma always says. “A dwarf together with an elf—that’s not easy. The enmity between our peoples is far from over. Gwendolin has had to endure some hostility from some of her fraternity brothers and sisters because of our relationship. Most students don’t really mind cross-ethnic relationships that much anymore. But we still can’t tell any of the old, conservative elves about it yet.”
Bryn could not believe what he was hearing. He had always envied his roommate for being able to be with the girl he loved. But things were more complicated than they seemed for him, too. “So, what do your parents think of your new girlfriend?”
Morlâ cleared his throat and lost in thought, let a cobalt-blue werelight rise to the ceiling. “Um … I haven’t gathered the courage to write to them yet that I’m dating a beautiful elf. I could probably tell my mother, but my father is,” he paused for a moment and deftly made his magic sphere fly a figure eight around Bryn’s, “very old-fashioned. I think he already arranged a match for me years ago with our neighbors’ chubby daughter. So, I’ll probably wait another decade or two before I tell him.”
Bryn grinned at his friend. “Coward.”
Morlâ nodded. “You’re right about that, my friend. But I am really looking forward to seeing Gwen. Here at laburg we can be a couple without any secrecy. Maybe this semester we’ll actually manage to stay here the whole time without any stupid missions or other adventures.” With these words he turned to the wall.
This was a clear sign that the conversation was over, and the dwarf now wanted to sleep.
Bryn fell into an uncertain sleep and began to dream. He lifted into the air and started flying. He flew far above a dark, gray sea so churned that whitecaps appeared on the water. Bryn felt a searing cold wind and tasted damp, salty air. He moved quickly across the seemingly endless sea. Oddly enough, he had no fear of falling. Time also played no role in this dream world. Suddenly, his trajectory changed. Slowly and in a controlled manner, Bryn descended. As he went down, Bryn saw an island almost completely hidden in dense fog, on which stood a huge fortress. Off the island, he glimpsed anchored ships through the fog. Most were pitch black and had dark sails. There were hundreds of ships around the island. But the dense gray fog made it impossible for Bryn to count them exactly.
The dark fortress was dominated by a tall tower whose top disappeared into the clouds. As he flew toward the stone structure, he saw a dimly lit window. This was exactly where Bryn was headed. He landed gently on the windowsill. Inside, he saw three people: two women who were obviously twins, and a stern-looking older woman wearing a green headscarf. Bryn panicked a bit that he had arrived so suddenly and completely unprotected. In his sleep, he moaned and tossed and turned. But the three women did not notice him at all. Bryn listened spellbound to their conversation.
“It’s too soon,” began one of the twins, whom Bryn instinctively identified as his Aunt Caoimhe.
“Why are you so timid?” the old woman asked sternly in a high-pitched voice. “We almost conquered the continent once before.”
“Almost,” the other woman interjected.
Bryn’s heart beat faster when he recognized her. It was his mother, Davina.
“After all, your silly little rebellion was put down very quickly by the Order, Mother. Do I remember correctly?”
“Your beloved Gerald played a role there. Besides, you betrayed us,” her sister hissed angrily.
“It’s debatable who did the betraying,” Davina replied with a scowl.
“Enough bickering,” said the old woman. “Your father would be ashamed of what our family has become.”
“He’s been ashamed of you all his life,” Davina hissed at her mother.
The old woman straightened up. Her hands were suddenly engulfed in dark red flames.
Bryn became afraid. The frail-looking old woman appeared to be a strong sorceress and looked ready to attack Bryn’s mother. Bryn turned in bed so restlessly that it creaked loudly.
