by Des Pensable
‘Wow that blade is awesome!’ whispered Darkmantle.
‘It is unfair to wield the Sword of Astaria against these honest soldiers.’ said Aquitain in the Warden’s voice. ‘Only a very few of them are possessed by evil Mentarin.’
‘Then let them hand over the possessed ones and I will spare the rest.’ said Aquitain in a booming voice.
‘But they do not know which are possessed.’ said the little Warden.
‘I do.’ said Aquitain and as she pointed at each of them a ghostly illusion appeared around them.
‘So it’s true you can see us.’ said a Mentarin to Aquitain using mindspeak. ‘but you can’t harm us.’ said another with a snigger.
‘You can kill our host but we will just move on to another body.’ said the third.
‘Come and find out.’ said Aquitain waving the three possessed soldiers forward with a smile.
One suddenly charged at her and feinted to dodge her defence and trust his sword at her stomach. She deftly sidestepped and swept the golden spirit sword through the soldiers steel armour as if it wasn’t there cleaving the spirit possessing him in two.
The soldier gave a sound like he’d been gutted, dropped to his knees, released his weapon and screamed.
‘I’m free! It’s gone. The thing possessing me is gone.’ He looked up to Aquitain and shouted.
‘Thank you my Lady! Thank you!’
The rest of the soldiers were shocked. Was the Mistress of Astaria and the Lord Warden correct? Were some of them possessed with strange spirits?
The other two possessed soldiers attacked, charging forward with their shields trying to overbear Aquitain. She made a single horizontal stroke at waist level. The blade extended out two paces and passed through swords shields, armour and chests as if they weren’t there. Both warriors grunted as if in pain and fell forward onto the ground at her feet, then as if awakened from the dead, climbed to their knees, threw their weapons to the ground and thanked the Princess for freeing them.
That was enough for the rest of them. Weapons dropped to the ground everywhere. Some dropped to their knees. Soon all the rest dropped to their knees with their heads bowed.
Darkmantle’s knees began to shake as he felt the overpowering feeling that he should also kneel before this golden heroine then he heard Aquitain say into his mind.
‘Quickly Darkmantle get your wyverns to drop the two Lords down in front of them so that I can clear them of possession and we might yet win the day.’
Darkmantle called the wyverns holding the Lords and directed them to drop their prey at his feet. Aquitain stepped forward and sliced through them with the sword fashioned from her spirit, killing the Mentarin spirit creatures possessing them. Both Lords knelt before Aquitain and thanked her profusely for freeing them and swore allegiance and everlasting loyalty to her.
Aquitain bid them stand.
‘There are warriors from three houses here. Where is the third Lord?’ asked Darkmantle.
As if on cue a giant brutish Lord wearing full black armour with a helmet shaped like a grinning skull strode forward out of the darkness followed by at least thirty armed men.
‘Are you looking for another Lord to kowtow before you tonight? You are nothing but a fake and impostor. We all know that Astaria has been captured and sacked. You are Lord and Princess of nothing; at the best a meagre illusionist.’
‘Careful, Lady Warden.’ whispered Darkmantle. ‘This one is a beast and will not be convinced as easily as the others.’
A hidden small female mage wearing a long dark scarlet robe faintly rippling with power stepped out from behind the brash Lord and triggered a Rod of Greater Dispel at Aquitain.
‘Let’s see who you really are.’ she cackled but nothing happened.
Aquitain obliged by changing her shape to that of a black divine avenger wearing black armour, her two blades equalized in size and became black and formed a skull shaped hood over her head.
‘Well you have unmasked me. You can see me in all my glory. I am Death. I have tried to restrain myself from killing you all. If you have a wish to die tell me now and I will oblige you.’
‘You are nothing but a minor witch and I will eat your liver tonight. Roast them!’ said the huge Lord to his wizard.
The female wizard obliged by casting a fireball at Aquitain. People everywhere dived for cover.
‘I’ve got it,’ yelled Aquitain and they stood their ground as Aquitain using telekinesis redirected the fireball upwards where it burst forming giant orange balloon lighting up the ground with an eerie yellowish glow. The wizard sent two more fireballs in rapid succession and the same happened.
‘I am a minor Illusionist am I?’ shouted Aquitain pointing her arm towards the female. She used telekinesis to grab the legs of the wizard and flip her upside down. The wizard’s gown fell downwards covering her head and blocking her vision. Aquitain spun her like a top to disorient her then quickly dragged her upside down to a position two paces from her feet and let her fall in a heap onto the ground.
Darkmantle moved a few paces to Aquitain’s left expecting more magic.
‘You were warned!’ shouted Aquitain and as the wizard woman rolled to the kneeling position in front of her chanting. A black blade blurred and the wizard woman’s head fell to the ground. The wizard’s chanting was cut off in mid-sentence as blood spurted all over both Aquitain and Darkmantle. The wizard’s head seemed to raise itself off the ground and flew to Aquitain’s left hand and she held it high in the air.
‘Come and get my liver if you want to eat it!’ she taunted the giant Lord.
The other two Lords froze in anticipation and their men watched breathlessly.
‘That was the Lord’s wife.’ said Darkmantle. ‘He’ll fight to the death now.’
‘KILL THE BITCH.’ screamed the Lord to his warriors as he charged forward. Aquitain created a wall of hardened air in front of them just in time to block a barrage of several crossbow bolts.
She then created a zone of darkness but could see the warriors bodies with her aura sight while they were blinded and slowed to a walk pleading with their Lord for light.
She let out a psychic scream so horrible that stopped the hearts of all within 20 paces momentarily and froze them with fear. Then in a blur, she went from warrior to warrior stabbing their hearts or slashing their throats. In the absolute darkness the warriors were in disarray and absolute terror.
The Lord tried to abolish the darkness but each time Aquitain replaced it targeting those ahead of her with a mental blast which stunned them. Those not stunned slashed wildly in the darkness with their weapons, some tried to run colliding with their comrades or tripping and falling to ground. One by one they fell silent until no sounds came from the zone of darkness. A minute or two later Aquitain returned to near Darkmantle and removed the zone of darkness.
In the eerie half-light the Lord was the only one standing amongst a score or more of dead warriors.
‘By the Powers, you’ve killed them all!’ said Lord Darkmantle as he gazed at the field of dead.
‘I am Death.’ said Aquitain to the Lord. ‘Do you yield?’
‘No! Never!’ he shouted and sent a stream of wizard fire at her.
‘I’ve got it!’ yelled Aquitain as he was covered in yellow flames.
The wizard fire enveloping her had no effect.
‘What did you do?’ asked Darkmantle amazed.
‘It’s a fire shield.’ replied Aquitain then shape shifted to a fiery bear shape.
‘This should impress them.’ she whispered as she changed the armour to golden and grew her body size to twice normal. But as she stood up on her hind legs, a blood rage flooded her mind and swept away all control with bestial fury.
She let out a K’wala GROWL that caused massive panic all around her. Experienced warriors fell to the ground frozen with fear, others simply ran off into the night screaming and the two watching Lords’ hair stood on end, a freezing cold sweat broke out over their bodie
s, they wet their pants and they thanked their ancestors over and over again for giving them the sense to make peace with this woman.
The Lord hesitated for the first time in his life. Ten paces away he beheld a terrifying sight. The bear stood nearly twice his height with huge teeth, flaming red eyes and it looked VERY angry.
Aquitain charged. The Lord levitated upwards into the air trying to evade her but it was too late he didn’t know how fast bears could move. She leapt upright and clamped her jaws around the Lord’s armoured leg and as she dropped to the ground the Lord came down with her. With one swipe of her mighty arm the Lord was flat on his back. She drove her claws down onto the Lord’s throat and ripped his head off.
The blood lust was unstoppable as she looked around for more victims. Many of Darkmantle’s troops were suddenly very nervous and began backing into their barracks, and the remaining warriors with the two Lords that had surrendered carefully backed away. Several remaining warriors of the dead Lord equipped with crossbows were silly enough to shoot bolts at her.
The bolts deflected off the golden armour as she went on the rampage chasing each one down and ripping them apart. Every few seconds Darkmantle and his men heard another growl or scream as the big bear relentlessly hunted and killed the men. When it could find no more it headed back towards Darkmantle and his men.
Aquitain the bear returned with her head, jaws and forearms dripping blood and stopped and looked around for any more resistance. Darkmantle apprehensively moved from the shadows into the light to greet her and accidentally kicked a metal shield that lay on the ground with his steel clad boots. The sound pierced the quiet like an explosion. Aquitain let out a ferocious growl. Darkmantle instantly froze and his heart almost stopped at the sight of the bloody face of the huge bear with great red eyes burning with malevolence.
‘It’s me, Darkmantle.’ he rasped through a thoroughly dry mouth.
Aquitain stood there fighting for control, muscles bursting for more action. She let out a terrible growl but Darkmantle stood there defiantly slowly raising his hands up high.
He wriggled his fingers and whispered a spell and created an illusion of Miranda standing beside him.
Aquitain stopped confused. She looked at the illusion of Miranda and slowly the thought came into his mind that something was wrong.
Darkmantle spoke. ‘Lady Warden we are your friends.’
Aquitain struggled to say the word ‘forbearance’ and the rage faded.
She changed back to her naked golden body covered with blood mentally chanting the mantra of calming.
‘I’m sorry!’ cried Aquitain. ‘I’m sorry!’
‘Are you okay now!’ asked Darkmantle carefully.
‘By the Powers Darkmantle, you’ve got no idea how close you were to death!’ yelled Aquitain.
‘I’m sorry I should have realized you were berserk and waited for you to calm down.’ He said suddenly as the two lords and a dozen guards appeared out of the darkness.
He could see the men’s eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and admiration. Aquitain had just killed one of the most feared Lords in the land. The two Lords and their men gazed in awe at this remarkably beautiful but lethally deadly golden woman covered in blood. She was definitely real and what she had done was no illusion. No one would ever doubt that.
Her terrifying display of brute power would only get greater with each new telling. For many warriors this night, Miranda became their new Queen, one that would haunt their dreams and fire their courage for the rest of their lives. The Elendari loved and respected power and they would adore her.
Aquitain’s eyes glowed with a golden aura as he re-established his ability to see the Mentarin spirit creatures but fortunately for them, there were none around.
‘What of us, Your Highness?’ asked one of the Lords nervously.
‘You were forced here under the brutal submission of the Mentarin spirits. I can’t blame you for that. Go home to your families. Take your weapons with you and keep them sharp and ready for when I call upon you to join with us to defeat these insidious spirit creatures once and for all. Leave one man here from each group and Lord Darkmantle will supply you with some bracelets, which will ward the spirit creatures from possessing you.’
‘Tell all you meet of this night. I WILL be your Queen and together WE WILL defeat these spirit creatures and free ourselves from their tyranny.’
The two Lords bowed graciously and quickly took their leave.
‘I am totally astounded.’ said Darkmantle.
‘I took you for a smart manipulator with an aversion to bloodshed.’
‘Then you would normally be correct.’ said Aquitain.
‘But where I come from there is a saying that sometimes actions speak louder than words. I think that our enemies will now realize that there is bite behind our growl.’
‘We seem to be working well together.’ continued Aquitain. ‘I guess you were right about not killing the Lords. They will be useful allies.’
‘I honestly never realized how dangerous you are.’ said Darkmantle.
‘You killed twenty warriors in seconds. They didn’t have a chance. It was just total slaughter. They probably had wives and children. Haven’t you got any feelings?’ he asked.
‘It’s a tough world Darkmantle. Every one of those warriors and their Lords would have killed us without hesitation. Hopefully we earned enough fear and respect tonight so that we won’t have to kill as many next time.’ replied Aquitain.
‘I have no disagreement on that issue.’ said Darkmantle with a grin as he removed his cloak and passed it to her.
‘Cover yourself Lady Warden, my men have seen enough of my daughter’s virtues to give them erotic dreams for weeks.’
He then set his Captain to tally the casualties and damage while the Lords retreated. His men straggled out of the barracks and other places with little doubt about how they had miraculously won over such odds. There were whispers everywhere. Their Lord had found his daughter and she was going to be their next Queen and what a Queen she would be!
Ten minutes later Darkmantle’s Captain reported that they had lost twelve men and had another nineteen wounded. Fortunately, seven of the Newman warriors previously with the dead Lord took up an offer to join Darkmantle’s troop.
Twenty minutes later most of the attackers and their dead were gone.
In between, Darkmantle couldn’t restrain his curiosity about Aquitain’s unusual sword and armour. Aquitain reformed the ball of mind clay in his hand.
‘This ball of clay can be moulded into anything that I can imagine but will only hold its shape for a short time away from me.’
Aquitain then reformed the mind clay into a sword and passed it to Darkmantle who examined it carefully, tapped it against his armour and swung it around then it suddenly returned to its ball shape.
‘Amazing.’ said Darkmantle. ‘What is this stuff?’
‘This is the clay that the creator used to make all the worlds and us!’
Darkmantle was lost for words.
‘Look.’ said Aquitain as he turned the clay into another sword. ‘This sword is not separate from me but is a part of me. It is different from any other sword in that it contains my spirit. If I use the blade as a mould and harden my spirit within with magic then remove the chaos matter I have a blade made of spirit. It will pass through armour and slice through an enemy’s spirit. It is probably the only weapon that will damage and kill a Mentarin spirit possessing another person.’
‘The armour is a little different. I use the mind clay to form another layer of skin over my body flexible like snake skin but the scales are made of metal and the gold colour was simply for show.’
‘You continue to amaze me,’ said Darkmantle just as Prendergrass finally showed up.
‘What happened my Lord?’ I was defending the rear of the mansion as ordered then suddenly the attackers all vanished. I waited several minutes thinking that it must be a trick but then one of the guards
came by and said we’d won. How could we possibly win? They were everywhere.’
‘Thank our Lady Warden, Prendergrass. She put on a brilliant display of martial prowess. I am personally in awe and swear from this day forward she will have all of our support to make her our new Queen.’
‘Prendergrass, numerous things went wrong with our defences. How could a group of enemy teleport into the mansion when the wards were up? How did the tunnel between the guards’ barracks and the mansion suddenly become flooded? Why didn’t some of the proximity alarms sound? There are other problems as well. I want a full report by morning. I have asked the Captain of the Guard for a report as well. We’ll meet for a council of war after breakfast.’
The relative quite was suddenly pierced by a shout from the Captain of the Guard as he ran towards Darkmantle with an Elendari in tow.
‘My Lord, my Lord, a messenger has just arrived from Lord Thindrel, they are under attack by Lord Pondglow and are requesting our immediate help.
The Rat Catcher suddenly appeared near Aquitain and using mindspeak said.
‘My Lord, the Trixies at the Palace are under attack by a swarm of large rats. What do you wish to do?’
‘By the Powers, has the world gone mad?’ shouted Darkmantle.
‘No.‘ replied Aquitain.
‘The Mentarin have decided to teach us all a lesson and I suspect everyone had better learn fast or they’ll be dead.’
Chapter 10 The Dogs of War
Aquitain’s emotions were still flaring and only just under control. She thought about how much her view of Darkmantle had changed over the last few hours. She had formed a negative opinion of the man from stories that she had heard. Now she had to admit the man was tough, courageous, decisive and possibly even likable. He may have a few negative aspects but at a time of war he was just the type of ally that you needed on your side.
Darkmantle had just been mauled badly in the attack by the combined force of three of the Lords. He had a problem, if he led an attacking force to help his friend there would not be enough guards left to defend his estate. If this were a false alarm to get him to split his forces then another attack here would be disastrous for those left behind. On the other hand, if he didn’t respond to the request for help from one of his friends, the others would be considerably less likely to help him in the future.