They heard a mightywhack, the Yith wizard cried out in pain, and the wand dropped downfrom the sky. Gaston appeared hovering in front of the wizard withhis 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 beingused.
The Yith wizardretaliated by directing a stream of magic missiles at Gaston butthey were absorbed in Gaston’s magical protection, so he tookanother swipe at the Yith wizard, this time overbalancing andending upside down. It wasn’t easy fighting with a staff in mid-airwhen he had nowhere to plant his feet.
Aquitain kneeled downto have a closer look at Kami just as Goth became active. It lookedaround the field and set off towards Aquitain, arming itself withits great sword. No one paid any attention. Miranda sent him amessage saying that she couldn’t get to the flying Yith wizard asshe was still trying to shake off the two gargoyles that were afterher.
Rori sent a signalsaying that Zephira seemed to be fighting against the Crin and hadalready killed two of them. He also said that he couldn’t block theThunder Lizard with an air shield, as it was too strong, soAquitain asked him to trap Zephira if he could, to stop her doingany more damage.
Suddenly Kami pointedbehind Aquitain and yelled for Aquitain to move sideways. Aquitainducked and rolled to the right just as a mighty blow from Goth’ssword swept down. It missed Aquitain’s head but caught him on theupper arm, chopping his left arm off and continued its sweepdownwards cutting off Kami’s left leg. Aquitain didn’t even realizehis arm had been severed. He was on his back looking up as Gothstepped forward, sword raised over its head to strike at himagain.
The one situation thatall magic item makers dreaded more than any other, was that oftheir own creation being used against them. Granddad had made Gothmany years ago, and had incorporated a magical word that shut downGoth immediately as a defence against this very problem. Aquitainmentally screamed the word and Goth froze in mid blow. He went toscramble to his feet and fell on his face, as his arm wasn’t thereto prop him up.
He looked where his armshould have been and saw blood spurting out.
‘Damn!’ he boomed, thencut off the blood flow by squeezing the stump with his right hand.Miranda chose that moment to fly past and nearly crashed when shesaw him standing without one arm.
‘Tain! What happened?’she screamed through their mindlink. ‘I’m coming my love, I’ll healyou.’
‘It was Goth and I’vedeactivated it. Someone’s dominated Zephira. Rori said she’sfighting against our Crin. Fly up there and check, will you? I’mall right at the moment.’
He kneeled down to Kamiwho was holding the stump of his own leg.
‘Thank you for warningme Kami, I’m sorry about your leg. I can try to fix it but I don’tknow how successful I will be, as I’ve never done it before.’
‘Don’t waste your magicon me, Spirit Lord. I can regrow my leg in a few weeks. You shouldheal your own arm - it is more important to all of us that you arewhole and can fight,’ Kami replied.
He looked around andsaw that everyone was staring at him with worried looks on theirfaces. The Orc came running over and picked up his arm and offeredit to him. ‘Your arm, Lord T’Kwala.’
They expected him tojust put it back on again. Then he thought for a moment; perhaps hecould.
‘Thank you Orc,’ hereplied as he took the arm and shape changed to his Logicon form.The severed arm changed form as well, dissolving in the pool ofgoo. He waited a few seconds then reformed as his giant newmanform, and his arm was intact and felt perfectly normal. The guardsand the Jeti people watching were awed. They had never seen ahealing miracle like this before. Even Aquitain was a little awed.He wouldn’t have thought of doing it normally, but his troopsneeded to believe he was fighting fit, and now he was.
Miranda reported thatZephira was fighting against the Crin and that they were startingto gang up on her. She was worried about his arm. Why wasn’t heworried, 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 finallyconcluded that the gargoyles were his most important problem. Thefight was being orchestrated through them. He had to get Miranda todraw them into a trap, and he had just the idea. He asked the Orcto get Goth’s sword, as it was probably the only one present thatwas magically enhanced to destroy other constructs and creatures ofstone like the gargoyles. He sent another command word to Goth, andit released its grip on the weapon as the Orc reached for it, thenasked the Orc to stand behind him and watch to the right.
‘Mandy, fly low alongthe ground to my right side as I’m facing you, and bring thegargoyles with you. I’m going to place an invisible air shield wallrising about half my height from the ground. I’ll raise it higherimmediately you pass.’ he then asked the Orc to be ready to killtwo gargoyles on the ground. The Orc wasn’t quite sure why twogargoyles should appear on the ground, but if they did he wouldmake sure they didn’t leave the ground again.
Miranda came in atincredible speed and Aquitain raised the air wall immediately shewas level with him allowing a slight time lag for the wall toextend. Wamp, wamp the two chasing gargoyles hit the air barrier asif it was a brick wall. Both smashed through it but were stunnedmomentarily, crash-landing several paces behind Aquitain. The Orcwas after them in a flash, cleaving both in half quicker than ablink.
‘This good metal,Lord,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘Me never seen sword cut stonebefore.’
Miranda circled aroundand noticed that his arm seemed to be okay and was really pleasedto see
