by Des Pensable
It was like having an enormous source second to his own, and when he mentally merged the two he had more power at his disposal than ever before. It was easy to see how people could become drunk with power. He carefully created a power line to Rori as they had done a dozen times the previous day, and Rori created a silver reflective dome-shaped airshield to cover the team and stepped one foot into the temple grounds.
There was a thunderous explosion as a lightning bolt hit the shield and everyone held their breath with their hearts racing. No one would have wanted to exchange places with these poor unfortunates; then suddenly the shield cleared and the team ran quickly to the fountain surrounding it, and a new translucent airshield formed, completely enclosing both the team and the fountain. The grounds again filled with the roar of crashing chunks of ice, which brutally smashed onto the shield but, deflected off it, rocked the ground and shattered into smaller chunks.
The air shield changed back to its mirror-like appearance just in time as a firestorm erupted around the palace grounds and this was followed by the acid storm. This was the part that Aquitain was really worried about. Would the stone elemental smash through the airshield? Surprisingly the stone elemental didn’t even appear, but after the acid cloud had disappeared and the lightning had struck again, the team quickly moved out of the grounds back to Aquitain, with the fountain still working.
Aquitain was suddenly worried that he had got the keys wrong or that they didn’t work, but it wasn’t that at all. It was too dark inside the airshield to see what they were doing. They needed light inside the dome. Aquitain could have kicked himself. He had thought of all the major problems, but ignored the simplest. Unless they could see they couldn’t place the keys. Placing light on Rori quickly solved the problem and the team went into action again but this time achieved the desired results, and the fountain was switched off.
Everyone gave a tremendous cheer when the team returned. This time they strutted like the true heroes they were, with Rori glowing with light like a miniature champion of the gods. All the Jeti people singers were overcome with joy. They had succeeded in what all had thought impossible.
They had done something the big people couldn’t do with all their magic. They gained a new respect in the eyes of the big people and the Crin. The little people had shown that they too had great courage. It was a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget, and they were all aware that it was all due to the spirit bear. He had shown them what they could do when they worked together. He was their hero.
The three wizards were also impressed. While they had heard vague stories of mind wizard mind concerts they had dismissed them as unlikely. The concept had just seemed too improbable. They had now not only witnessed a mind concert, but a really impressive display of team magic from a source they’d thought had no magic, and their own Wizard Captain had orchestrated it all.
He’d suddenly gained their professional respect alongside the fear he had instilled in them earlier. He had proved his competence and they looked forward with interest to seeing how he planned to deal with the hostiles in the temple. For the first time they were keen to be a part of this operation.
Switching off the remaining three fountains became almost routine. It was still dangerous, but Rori and his teams now had perfect confidence in their abilities and their singers, and so did Aquitain. It was only when they had shut off the final fountain and the golden sphere at the apex of the temple pyramid had retracted into the pyramid that he realised he had made a mistake. He wasn’t mindlinked to all his group leaders. The four watching gargoyles took to the air and began circling over his small army who were blocking the exits from the temple, and three things happened almost simultaneously.
Behind the Crin a Thunder Lizard appeared and with a terrifying roar charged into the ranks of the fighters, stomping and biting as it went. The Crin fighters scattered, then recovered quickly as Xentos regrouped and directed them to attack the huge lizard.
A large Yith appeared beside Zephira, and with a toothy grin touched her shoulder. Seconds later both the Yith and Zephira were gone. A Yith wizard joined the gargoyles flying above, shooting a wand down at the people below. Each time he fired the wand people below him screamed in terror and began running, randomly trying to escape from some unseen horror.
To add to the pandemonium a group of six Yith appeared behind Aquitain’s position. Five were armed with bows and began firing arrows at both the guards and the Jeti that were nearby.
As Aquitain spun round to see what was happening behind him, he saw that one Yith had a wand that was directed toward him, and he had no doubt about what was to come out of it. Immediately he reacted by singing a dome shaped shield around himself, Miranda and the sub-Lieutenant who was standing nearby.
The fireball flew through the air like a malevolent flaming meteor, hit his shield and exploded in a bright ball of orange flame, setting the grass on fire around the dome and severely burning two of the Barra people too slow to run or dive out of the way. The wand was then turned toward the Jeti, who were still closely clumped together in their singing formation.
Kami to his credit sang a cylindrical airshield around his people in an effort to block the arrows and any fireballs directed his way. Unfortunately, as the fireball hit his airshield the fire rolled over the top of it, enveloping both Kami and several of his Jeti people. The singing stopped and frightened Jeti people scattered in all directions, but all appeared unharmed. Aquitain knew what this meant. The Jeti people were immune to fire but the Barra people weren’t. That answered many questions that had been forming in the back of his mind.
Rori, who was nearby, quickly mobilised his remaining fifteen fountain team members into singing and sang an air shield around them then changed his mind and reformed an invisible air shield around the Yith with the wand. The Yith, enjoying the mayhem he was causing, trained the wand at Rori’s group of singers and fired, only to be incinerated as the fireball exploded inside the shield around him. Rori had come of age. He had realised an air shield could be used for both defence and offence. He had killed his first wizard in magical battle. He would be forever changed.
Aquitain in giant form dropped his shield, and focused on restoring order. He boomed a command to both the Jeti and the guards in the Alloe file to bring the Yith under fire, just as Rori decided to create an air shield around the Yith archers to stop them from shooting and also to capture them. This time it didn’t quite work out as well as he expected. The shield went up and as the Yith quickly realised they were inside a shield, they taunted the guards with rude hand signs as arrows hit and deflected off the shield, then held hands and teleported away.
Miranda rushed over to the burned Barra people to see what she could do to help, just as the flying Yith wizard came overhead and blasted the newman guards with the fear wand. It was terrible to see grown men throw down their weapons and running, screaming their lungs out or lying on their backs shaking all over and crying for their mothers.
‘Mandy, turn to an eagle and take out that bloody flying wizard will you, but watch out for the gargoyles, they’re made of stone and are bloody vicious,’ Aquitain shouted through their mind link, before turning his attention to Rori.
‘Rori, take your fighters to Loma and join with him and sing an air shield to block that Thunder lizard; and when you get there, send red wizard here to dispel the fear effects on the guards.’
‘Yes, Spirit Lord,’ replied Rori, and off he went.
Aquitain charged across to Kami to see if his suspicion was correct. Kami was lying on the charred ground, black all over with soot but relatively unharmed. He grinned at Aquitain. ‘I am thinking that you are seeing some surprises, spirit bear,’ said Kami.
‘Yes Kami. I have been puzzling over why the little people have different coloured scales. I now know why, and a few things are clearer. We will talk later.’
Red wizard arrived and used three charges of dispel magic to reverse the fear effect on the Guards, nodded to Aquitain and t
hen dashed off back to his station with Loma’s group. Blue wizard had his hands full dispelling fear from the Belling file, and Gaston decided that it was time to join the fight. He had finished casting protections on himself and became invisible. What none saw was that he flew up to join Miranda in taking out the flying Yith wizard.
Miranda flew up to the canopy level and landed on a branch, watching and waiting for a suitable moment to attack the wizard, only to discover that the gargoyles had seen her and two of them had broken off from their observation mission to attack her. They came in from two sides and she only just avoided them by dropping off the branch and only starting flying when she was almost on the ground.
The Yith wizard kept circling around casting terror everywhere, and the group of five Yith archers returned, shooting a barrage of arrows off at the now reformed Alloe file of guards. The guards were now fighting mad. They threw down their crossbows, drew their short swords and charged at the Yith, who teleported away as a group just as they were about to clash. The sergeant let out a great string of expletives just as the flying wizard returned and trained the fear wand on them again.
They heard a mighty whack, the Yith wizard cried out in pain, and the wand dropped down from the sky. Gaston appeared hovering in front of the wizard with his staff in hand. He had tried to hit the Yith wizard on the head, but had missed and connected with the Yith’s arm instead, succeeding in at least eliminating the fear wand from being used.
The Yith wizard retaliated by directing a stream of magic missiles at Gaston but they were absorbed in Gaston’s magical protection, so he took another swipe at the Yith wizard, this time overbalancing and ending upside down. It wasn’t easy fighting with a staff in mid-air when he had nowhere to plant his feet.
Aquitain kneeled down to have a closer look at Kami just as Goth became active. It looked around the field and set off towards Aquitain, arming itself with its great sword. No one paid any attention. Miranda sent him a message saying that she couldn’t get to the flying Yith wizard as she was still trying to shake off the two gargoyles that were after her.
Rori sent a signal saying that Zephira seemed to be fighting against the Crin and had already killed two of them. He also said that he couldn’t block the Thunder Lizard with an air shield, as it was too strong, so Aquitain asked him to trap Zephira if he could, to stop her doing any more damage.
Suddenly Kami pointed behind Aquitain and yelled for Aquitain to move sideways. Aquitain ducked and rolled to the right just as a mighty blow from Goth’s sword swept down. It missed Aquitain’s head but caught him on the upper arm, chopping his left arm off and continued its sweep downwards cutting off Kami’s left leg. Aquitain didn’t even realize his arm had been severed. He was on his back looking up as Goth stepped forward, sword raised over its head to strike at him again.
The one situation that all magic item makers dreaded more than any other, was that of their own creation being used against them. Granddad had made Goth many years ago, and had incorporated a magical word that shut down Goth immediately as a defence against this very problem. Aquitain mentally screamed the word and Goth froze in mid blow. He went to scramble to his feet and fell on his face, as his arm wasn’t there to prop him up.
He looked where his arm should have been and saw blood spurting out.
‘Damn!’ he boomed, then cut off the blood flow by squeezing the stump with his right hand. Miranda chose that moment to fly past and nearly crashed when she saw him standing without one arm.
‘Tain! What happened?’ she screamed through their mindlink. ‘I’m coming my love, I’ll heal you.’
‘It was Goth and I’ve deactivated it. Someone’s dominated Zephira. Rori said she’s fighting against our Crin. Fly up there and check, will you? I’m all right at the moment.’
He kneeled down to Kami who was holding the stump of his own leg.
‘Thank you for warning me Kami, I’m sorry about your leg. I can try to fix it but I don’t know how successful I will be, as I’ve never done it before.’
‘Don’t waste your magic on me, Spirit Lord. I can regrow my leg in a few weeks. You should heal your own arm - it is more important to all of us that you are whole and can fight,’ Kami replied.
He looked around and saw that everyone was staring at him with worried looks on their faces. The Orc came running over and picked up his arm and offered it to him. ‘Your arm, Lord T’Kwala.’
They expected him to just put it back on again. Then he thought for a moment; perhaps he could.
‘Thank you Orc,’ he replied as he took the arm and shape changed to his Logicon form. The severed arm changed form as well, dissolving in the pool of goo. He waited a few seconds then reformed as his giant newman form, and his arm was intact and felt perfectly normal. The guards and the Jeti people watching were awed. They had never seen a healing miracle like this before. Even Aquitain was a little awed. He wouldn’t have thought of doing it normally, but his troops needed to believe he was fighting fit, and now he was.
Miranda reported that Zephira was fighting against the Crin and that they were starting to gang up on her. She was worried about his arm. Why wasn’t he worried, she wondered. Was he in pain? Why didn’t he want her help? Was he just being stubborn, or trying to be a hero again?
Aquitain finally concluded that the gargoyles were his most important problem. The fight was being orchestrated through them. He had to get Miranda to draw them into a trap, and he had just the idea. He asked the Orc to get Goth’s sword, as it was probably the only one present that was magically enhanced to destroy other constructs and creatures of stone like the gargoyles. He sent another command word to Goth, and it released its grip on the weapon as the Orc reached for it, then asked the Orc to stand behind him and watch to the right.
‘Mandy, fly low along the ground to my right side as I’m facing you, and bring the gargoyles with you. I’m going to place an invisible air shield wall rising about half my height from the ground. I’ll raise it higher immediately you pass.’ he then asked the Orc to be ready to kill two gargoyles on the ground. The Orc wasn’t quite sure why two gargoyles should appear on the ground, but if they did he would make sure they didn’t leave the ground again.
Miranda came in at incredible speed and Aquitain raised the air wall immediately she was level with him allowing a slight time lag for the wall to extend. Wamp, wamp the two chasing gargoyles hit the air barrier as if it was a brick wall. Both smashed through it but were stunned momentarily, crash-landing several paces behind Aquitain. The Orc was after them in a flash, cleaving both in half quicker than a blink.
‘This good metal, Lord,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘Me never seen sword cut stone before.’
Miranda circled around and noticed that his arm seemed to be okay and was really pleased to see the two gargoyles in pieces on the ground, and told him that she would find the other two. She wondered what had happened. She was sure she had seen him lose his arm. Maybe she hadn’t seen it properly. Half a minute later she was back with the other two chasing her, and they fell for the same trap. The Orc had an even bigger grin this time.
‘This too easy Lord. Is no challenge. We fight Thunder Lizard?’
‘Yes,’ said Aquitain. ‘It’s time, Orc, follow me. You’ve earned a crack at the lizard!’ and he changed shape to his bear form and sprinted off through the temple grounds toward the ruckus in the west, advising all the others to hold their positions.
Miranda flew off to get an aerial view and saw Gaston and the Yith wizard spinning in mid-air, hanging onto each other while trying to stab one another with daggers which didn’t seem to be able to penetrate their flesh. Each had enough magical protection on to neutralize the offence of the other, resulting in a stalemate; so the fight had virtually deteriorated to a mid-air wrestling match. Miranda was tempted to help Gaston but not quite sure what she could do, so continued on to check out the fight with the Thunder Lizard.
Aquitain raced quickly off in the direction of the fight against
the Thunder Lizard with the Orc trailing behind. He arrived to find the lizard surrounded and being harried by less than a dozen Crin fighters, the rest having been killed or injured. The olive green coloured monster stood as tall as three newmans on massive hind legs. It had two small arms, a huge head and a mouth filled with long dagger-like teeth. Despite its size it was surprisingly nimble, and its bite was lethal to anything it caught.
Zephira was dodging around protecting its back and flanks and attacking the Crin, and at least half the dead and injured bore sword marks from her weapon. Her arcane shields protected her from any missile attacks. Rori, Loma and the Barra people were all on one side, shooting the occasional arrow at the beast but unable to do any damage since its hide was too thick. The Crin had had no luck either, as it hardly seemed to have sustained a scratch.
‘Where is red wizard?’ yelled Aquitain through the mindlink to Rori.
‘I don’t know, Great Lord. He went to help you when you called and I haven’t seen him since,’ said Rori.
‘Mandy can you find a wizard! We need to dispel this one as soon as possible. It’s doing too much damage,’ he yelled through their mindlink.
Aquitain hardened his skin and tore straight into the fray toward the lizard but at the last moment changed his direction to hit Zephira. She leapt out of the way slicing at him with her sword but doing no damage owing to his hardened skin. He had managed to do what he had set out to, which was move her away from the lizard so that she didn’t get trampled by it.
He spun around, his back to the lizard facing her, and used his mental blast on her. She and two Crin in line with his blast froze stunned and fell over backwards. He shouted to Xentos to have his fighters remove them but not hurt her as she was dominated. Owing to his recent firsthand experience of domination, Xentos had no problem with that request from the bear. He directed some of his fighters away from the fight, and they dragged Zephira and the other stunned fighters away to safety.