by SJB Gilmour
‘Then we must distract her,’ Mautallius decided. He waved at Cromwell. Go fetch the Hazelwood child and its parents. We will see to it that the Golden Mane has no chance to interfere.’
Oliver did not smile. He simply bowed again. ‘Consider it done, My Lord.’
Mautallius gestured negligently towards the ground at his mismatched feet. A portal appeared, out of which poked an enormous feline head. The body following that head was perhaps one of the most hideous of all the demons at his disposal. It was much the same as any of the large cat species; lithe and muscular, but instead of fur, it had spines dripping with deadly poison. Its tail was spiked and its claws were long and serrated.
‘What do you want, servant of Herpethia?’ the demon growled. ‘The Felis Pride has suffered enough doing your bidding!’
Mautallius ignored the defiant tone. ‘Go to Lentekhi,’ he ordered. ‘Take as many of your pride as you can and kill the Golden Mane.’
The felis demon laughed. ‘No way, Usurper! The Golden Mane is at Lentekhi and she has Apollo at one side, Amazons at the other and Wolfenvald behind her. Your request is but suicide!’
Mautallius didn’t care how strong the demon thought Coppernick was or how many demons died. ‘Do it!’ he thundered.
The demon and the sorcerer glared at each other in a test of wills. The demon lost in moments and was forced to submit. ‘We’ll do your bidding, Master,’ the demon growled, bowing its head.
Mautallius smiled coldly. ‘Good.’
It didn’t take Oliver Cromwell long to get to Crete. Instead of simply flying into The Labyrinth the way Marzdane had done, he gently probed the vast caverns with his mind until he found the nursery. As always, Alexander was guarded by several minotaurs and his parents, David and Susan Hazelwood were not far away. Susan’s cursed mother Cassandra was also firmly ensconced in the nursery. She’d obviously had some form of premonition of danger. By her feet, she had a tame Grey Coat werewolf.
So, they were expecting trouble eh? Well he knew how to get past them all. Oliver Cromwell Senior’s true strength was not that of necromancy, even though that was what he spent most of his time practising. No, Cromwell’s real talent lay in trickery. He was a master necromancer to be sure, but he was even more talented at creating illusions. His former master Loki, the Trickster God of the Norse, had taught him a great deal about how to stir up mischief. What better way to do it than by using illusions?
Ahead of him in the cave entrance, Cromwell created an illusion of a band of marauding trolls. The image was so lifelike, so real, it looked, sounded and even smelled exactly like the real thing. He sent the noisy illusion out in front of him, while he assumed the much less noticeable form of a bat, just as Marzdane had done, though without the pee.
Felix heard it first. Then he could smell it. Something was approaching — something evil, but he could not detect its exact location. Next the minotaurs picked up the scent. They barely had time to ready their weapons when they saw a troop of trolls storm through the hallways to the nursery. Instead of staying to fight, they kept running past the nursery and deeper into the caverns. Of course, the guards at the nursery door immediately gave chase.
Unseen to Cassandra, David, Susan and Felix, who were all now quite aware that something was happening, a dark mist began to drift into the nursery. In the shadows of the dimly-lit room, that mist was not seen or smelled by any of them. While the mist settled there all unseen, Oliver fluttered in and settled on the ground, barely noticed by everyone present. Then around himself Cromwell created an image of Marzdane that stood there, proud and defiant in the middle of the room. To Cassandra, the Hazelwoods and Felix, the image of Marzdane was as real as they were. It looked and sounded exactly like the sorcerer who had so recently been hauled away. Little did they know that the image of the former Chairman of The Sorcerers’ Guild was every bit an illusion as the trolls the minotaur guards were chasing, and that underneath it was the far more dangerous and powerful enemy, Oliver Cromwell.
Oliver smiled coldly at them all and then turned to Susan. ‘Congratulations,’ he told her.
Growling, Felix bared his fangs and padded forwards to stand between the disguised Cromwell and the family. Cromwell’s Marzdane disguise sneered at the werewolf, and with far more power than Marzdane had ever been able to summon, blasted a bolt of lightning at him. The bolt struck Felix solidly in the chest and he was hurled backwards against the wall, dead. Susan screamed and Alexander began to cry.
‘Stickum!’ Cromwell bellowed at Cassandra. The ancient seer found herself rooted to the spot unable to do more than watch as Cromwell’s mist rose from the shadows and enveloped David, Susan and Alexander.
Oliver Cromwell glanced at the still form of Felix with cold satisfaction. One less werewolf to contend with, he thought to himself smugly. He then created a large portal to Conundrum Gate and levitated the mist-encased Hazelwood family through the portal to deliver them to his new master.
He paused and sighed to himself bitterly for a moment. It was done. His own carelessness had allowed Mautallius to take control of his free will and now he was Mautallius’ just as Mautallius was Herpethia’s. He sighed again and marched through the portal. As he did so, he turned one last time to look over his shoulder at the nursery. He caught a final glimpse of Cassandra tearing herself free of his spell. His portal disappeared before the old seer could blast it. As he walked calmly up to Mautallius, he knew that several thousand kilometres away, Cassandra the legendary prophet of Crete, was howling in grief and anger.
Chapter Eighteen
The emergency alarm woke Sarah at dawn. She leaped to her paws, growling before she had blinked the sleep from her eyes. Lentekhi was under attack! She ran for the parade ground. She knew that there she would be given her orders. All around her, heavily-armed Amazons were running for the perimeter of the building. Beyond, there were screams and howls and the unmistakable sound of fighting.
‘Kopernik!’ a voice yelled from behind her. Sarah stopped and looked back to see General Sally Troy running towards her. ‘More felis demons! Get to the front gate!’
Sarah didn’t need any more encouragement. Still in her Golden Mane werewolf form, she pelted as fast as she could to the fighting. Dozens of enormous cat-like demons were tearing through the walls of the compound. Three had managed to break through and had quite literally ripped apart every Amazon that had confronted them.
Blood and gore was scattered all over the place. Amazon archers were firing arrows as fast as they could while sorcerers within the ranks fired bolts of lightning and jets of flame at the horrid demons. None seemed to have any effect. Every now and then, a demon would shake its spiny coat, sending hundreds of poisoned barbed missiles out in every direction. Those barbs pierced through armour and shields like skewers. In minutes, hundreds of Amazons were down.
Sarah leaped into the battle without another moment’s thought. She caught one of the demons by the hind leg and wrenched with all her might, tearing the wicked beast’s leg away at the knee. Both the demon and Sarah howled in pain. The demon, with vile green blood gushing from its wound, writhed on the ground, sending more deadly barbs in all directions as it died. Sarah, whose mouth was now full of dozens of the wretched poisoned spines, yelped and clawed at her chops to get them out of her mouth. She could taste the poison in her mouth.
Rage filled her and she began to glow with golden fire as her body heated up to burn away all traces of the poison. Within moments, she appeared as if she had simply turned into a wolf-shaped inferno.
‘I can fight you as a wolf, demons, or I can kill you as an Amazon!’ she growled, changing into her human form. Her armour and weapons appeared on her body. Just as quickly, her leathers and boots burned away from the intense heat given off by her body. The silver piece of The Star of Planes and its chain fell to the ground with a clatter, along with what was left of her shield and helmet. Her sword also landed at her feet. Now nude but too angry to care, she reached down and picked up t
he piece of The Star and her sword.
‘Dammit,’ she muttered to herself, draping the amulet about her neck once more. Then, gripping her sword, glowing red hot and angrier than she’d even been in her life, a naked Lieutenant Sarah Coppernick flew into battle.
Many of the Amazons fighting were quite seasoned warriors but none of them were quite prepared for what they saw next. Sarah attacked as fast as a quickling and deadly as lightning. Her eyes blazed with bright yellow fire. Two of the horrid felis demons fell to her sword and she had taken on a third before the first demon’s head hit the floor. Several more tried to engage her and they too were chopped to pieces.
Such an awesome display did not just catch the attention of the Amazons. The remaining fourteen demons circled her and began to attack. Before long, Sarah had slain another four, leaving only ten. The demons roared and hissed at her. Instead of one attacking at a time, now three more pounced on her at once. They fared no better and the ten were reduced to seven in very short order.
Sarah did not hear General Troy or Queen Penethelia give orders for the troops to fall back. Nor did she hear Angelina beginning to cast a powerful and very dangerous spell in an attempt to capture one of the demons. Instead, she danced, slashed, feinted and lunged at the demons as fast as she could. Foul green blood and gore flew in all directions. One of the demons managed to get in a lucky swipe at her. Its razor-sharp, serrated claws simply burned away on contact. Its howl of pain was cut short as Sarah thrust her sword through its head. That left only six of the monstrous fiends.
Angelina had managed to hold one of the wretched demons in a containment orb. The spiny cat demon howled and clawed at its new confines in fury. There were now only five for Sarah to deal with.
The demons backed away from her. It was useless they realised now. Instead of trying to carry out their orders, all they wanted to do was escape. They bolted away from her until they reached the gate, which had just been repaired and locked shut.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Sarah grated. She levelled her sword at the bunch of five felis demons. The mortis spell would not be enough to satisfy her rage. Instead of using a spell at all, Sarah simply blasted the demons with more lightning than she (or any other sorcerer for that matter), had ever been able to produce. The result was spectacular to say the least. The demons were incinerated immediately and the front gate to Lentekhi exploded.
Sarah looked around for more demons to fight. Seeing none and also seeing all the wounded, she went to sheathe her sword. The leather device had burned away, so she simply knelt and plunged the now red-hot blade into the ground. She knelt there for several moments until her body had cooled.
‘Attiros,’ she muttered at herself again and she was immediately dressed in new armour. She was still very angry, and stood and drew the sword out of the ground, glaring about.
‘Stand down, Lieutenant!’ The queen ordered as Sally followed behind her, pulling barbs out of her queen’s shoulders and arms and muttering healing spells to eliminate their venom.
It took a few moments, but eventually, Sarah calmed down enough to obey. She saluted the queen before standing easy. She looked around at the dead and wounded, and then back at Penethelia.
‘Let me help with the wounded, Your Majesty,’ she said and rushed to help the medics. Sally and dozens of other of healers had erected a triage unit nearby and were beginning to treat the wounded as best they could. Those simply poisoned by the barbs were left to one side, while the ones with lacerations that could be treated were being cauterised and patched up with tourniquets before further surgery. Unfortunately, these were only a small percentage of the wounded. Most were either dead from blood-loss or had died immediately from the terrible impact of the demons’ claws.
Sarah ran from soldier to soldier, drawing on her will and uttering the numbicularus spell over and over again. The battle had been short and terrible. The cleaning up afterwards and repairs seemed to take much, much longer. She didn’t bother to wonder why any of it had happened. She simply buckled down and healed soldier after soldier. Finally, as the sun was going down, she had grown the legs back onto one last warrior. The soldier sank into blissful unconsciousness, just as Sarah was very nearly doing from sheer exhaustion.
Sarah leaned on a stretcher to allow herself a moment to rest. She passed one weary, bloody hand over her face and looked up at Penethelia, Angelina and General Troy who were all standing around the containment orb trying to interrogate the captured demon. They didn’t appear to be getting anywhere. Sarah got up and went to them. When she came within earshot, she paused respectfully.
Angelina saw her and waved her to come closer. ‘We can’t get anything out of this thing, Lieutenant,’ Angelina told her. ‘We’ve been at it all day.’
Penethelia swore and turned to General Troy. ‘Casualties?’
Sally sighed. ‘Three-fifty dead in all, plus another one-fifty on cots. We lost Captain Jenny Ashe, and Lieutenants Monika Dawson and Maria Papadopoulous. Nine corporals, eighteen sergeants and three hundred and twenty two privates.’
Penethelia swore again. ‘That’s nearly a whole division!’
Sally nodded. ‘Nearly all of them were Anthropophagi too. They were first on the scene. Most of the ones that survived came along the same time as Kopernik there.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but we lost Donna Hicks, Stjarna Loukakis and Hannah Petrous as well.’ She waved at Sarah. ‘On the plus side, our resident super-healer here patched up several dozen we’d normally have lost, and she managed to fry fifteen or so felis demons. Could be more, but some aren’t much more than ash so there’s no way of knowing how many for sure.’ She shook her head. ‘Never seen even anything like it before. One felis demon’s hard enough to kill with whole platoons. Now here comes this kid and blows up more than a dozen in minutes.’
‘We’ll marvel at the wonders of the Golden Mane’s fighting skills another time, General,’ Queen Penethelia grated caustically. She wiped tears of grief and rage from her face. ‘What I want to know now is why I’ve got five hundred dead or wounded Amazons.’ She turned to Sarah. ‘Since you’re so good at killing these things, how about lending a hand interrogating one?’ It wasn’t a polite request. Queen Penethelia was very, very angry.
Sarah saluted her queen and nodded for permission to approach. ‘With your permission, Your Majesty,’ she said more out of form than anything else. She walked up to the containment orb. The few moments she had spent resting were enough for her to get her energy back and now that the terrible reality of what had happened sunk in, she felt a new surge of furious power welling within her. She changed form and stood before the demon as the Golden Mane, shimmering in her full power.
Captain Angelina and Queen Penethelia stepped back warily. They knew just how quickly Sarah could flare up, and how destructive she could be when she did so.
Without taking her burning eyes from the demon, she growled over her shoulder to Angelina, ‘You can let it go now, Captain. I’ll take it from here. This creature and I are going to have a little chat.’
Angelina let the containment orb dissipate. As soon as its paws touched the ground, the demon tried to forge its own portal but a bark ‘Nye!’ from Sarah was enough to stop it in its tracks. It shook several dozen poison spines at her but they burned to ashes the moment they touched her glowing coat.
‘Who sent you?’ Sarah asked quite calmly. The foul language of the demon came to her as easily as if she was speaking Troll. The demon snarled and tried to break free from her gaze. Sarah lunged forward and grabbed the demon by the scruff of the neck in her massive jaws. The poison barbs of its fur snapped off and burned away harmlessly. She then swung it around and smashed it onto the ground as if it were no more than a rabbit. The demon howled over the sound of its own bones breaking.
‘Who sent you?’ Sarah growled again.
‘Mautallius!’ the demon croaked, its lungs heaving painfully inside broken ribs.
‘Ahh, you’re hurt,’ S
arah observed. ‘That’s going to make talking quite difficult. Santicularus!’ she commanded, healing the demon. She hurled it to the ground again. Again, there were more howls and more snaps from broken bones.
‘Why did Mautallius send you?’
‘I don’t know!’ the demon wailed.
Sarah gave it a reproving look. ‘Now that’s a lie, demon. Naughty. Very naughty.’ She punctuated each word by smashing the demon to the ground. The demon lay on the ground, crumpled and broken. Its breath was coming in ragged bursts and there was an awful hissing sound from its ribcage where one of its broken ribs had punched through.
‘We can do this all night, you know,’ Sarah told it conversationally. ‘Santicularus!’ she commanded again. This time she grabbed the demon by one of its hind legs. Starting at the ankle above the paw, she jerked her head to one side, snapping the bone. The demon howled and writhed in agony. Sarah moved up several centimetres and did it again. Soon she was near the knee and the demon was beyond howling. It merely lay on the ground whimpering in agony and crying like a broken-hearted child.
‘Why did Mautallius send you?’ Sarah asked, snapping the bone again. The spectacle had drawn quite a crowd but this brutal display had brought many seasoned Amazons to the point where they lost the contents of their stomachs. Several more gasps and retching sounds came from behind her.
‘He just wanted us to kill you, The Golden Mane!’ the demon wept. ‘Please, kill me, just kill me!’
‘So Mautallius wanted me dead, eh?’ Sarah mused. She quickly healed the demon's shattered hind leg and hauled the creature around to stare directly into its eyes. As she’d done before, she bored straight into the evil mind. She was not quite prepared for what she saw. Before, she had seen into the minds of creatures that had not been so truly evil as this demon, nor as long-lived. This demon’s memory spanned back aeons through a life filled with wicked desires to kill and maim. It had tortured, killed and consumed the souls of countless thousands of individuals and Sarah saw each one of them in a flash. The horror within the demon’s mind only made her angrier, which fuelled her power.