‘By the Powers,’ hethought. ‘If it is a fireball wand it could kill everyone, friendand foe alike.’ So he charged at the young wizard, leaping to knockthe man over. He succeeded, but the wand went off all the same. Itwas a wand of light. As Aquitain tore into the wizard’s throat andtasted and smelt the warm blood spurting all over his face, thebestial anger tried to take over. He fought, but it was a titanicstruggle of will. He had to do something but he couldn’t quiteremember what!
Suddenly there wasbright light and all, newman and cat alike, were momentarilyblinded. There were three dead men on the ground and two morestruggling with cats on top of them, but three remained standingwith swords in hand. The priest was on his knees twenty paces fromthe skirmish, praying. There was a surge of magic and the newmans’morale rocketed. They seemed to find new courage, while the catsbecame hesitant and fearful.
Miranda was on top ofone of the newmans. He had his chain mail covered arm jammed in hermouth and was holding her off from his throat. She quickly lookedaround, expecting Aquitain to make it dark again, but it wasn’thappening. When she had talked to the cats they were reluctant toattack newman, as they were afraid of them and generally left themalone. She had convinced them that they had the advantage in thedark and they had agreed. They would fight in the dark, but werereluctant to do so in the light. If the light stayed on they couldall break and run.
‘Wizard, we needdarkness!’ she shouted through their mindlink. Slowly it registeredthat was what he had to do. Make darkness.
‘Tell me again,’ heshouted back.
‘He’s dazed orsomething,’ she thought. Then it occurred to her he might befighting the anger that came to him. He might be battlinghimself.
‘Wizard, the darkness,please use it now. Make it dark!’
‘Yes, we needdarkness,’ he thought, and he made it dark again. He pushed backthe anger that blocked the thoughts and took control again.
He saw the cats takeheart. Growls and howls filled the darkness. He joined them, butthis time when he growled he boosted it with his power to controlsound. The sound was utterly terrible and caused instant panicamongst the soldiers. They dropped their weapons and ran. Even thesergeant ran and the cats chased them, leaping on their backs,bringing them down and biting through the back of their necks withtheir flashing fangs.
Miranda leapt off hervictim, digging her claws into his stomach and ripping it open asshe sprang off him. She headed for the place she had last seen thepriest. Why was there a priest here? The Druid’s Council had bannedthem from Mudrun. If she could catch him then they might find outwhat was happening. She shot out of the zone of darkness like anarrow, but was momentarily blinded by the bright light. She musthave been a little disoriented in the darkness. She came out to theleft of him, about twenty-five paces away.
He saw her lookingaround and fixing her gaze on him. His heart froze. He knew she wasafter him. She sprinted at him intending to knock him over, but heactivated his teleport ring and vanished moments before she reachedhim. ‘Damn!’ she thought, ‘the bastard will bring more, but it willtake a couple of minutes. We must finish the fight and run.’
A minute later thefight was over. Aquitain eliminated the zone of darkness and theextent of the fight was visible, with seven dead Newmans coveredwith blood. They had put up a good struggle because they had allbeen wearing military issue chain mail, but without any markings toknow for whom they fought. Two of the cats were badly cut, soMiranda changed to her newman form and healed them. The others allhad minor cuts and scrapes but were otherwise relatively unharmed.She bid them farewell and they all disappeared into the surroundingjungle.
Aquitain changed backto his newman form just as Miranda asked him what had happened.
‘I’m sorry Miranda.I’ve never killed a newman before. I lost control. The beast urgecame over me and if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have been able toremember what to do. Thank you. You saved us all.’
‘Let’s not talk now,wizard. Quickly, search the bodies for any identification and let’sgo. These are military people that shouldn’t be here. A priest gotaway. He’ll probably be back any moment with more troops.’
They searched thesoldier’s bodies but found nothing of interest. The sergeant wore amilitary issue cloak of camouflage, which Miranda took. On theyoung wizard Aquitain found a teleport ring, a wand of light and awizard magic formula book. They quickly raced up the track toAquitain’s body shell, he shape changed to his Logicon form andslithered in, and Miranda used their teleport ring to transportthem to the hideout. They quickly entered and at last breathed asigh of relief.
Aquitain went into theliving room, shed his body shell and changed to his newman form.Miranda came racing over to him and grabbed his arm and begandancing around.
‘We did it, wizard! Wedid it! We did stuff of legends that only heroes do. My heart’s onfire, my minds amazed! I feel so wonderful!’ she shouted, and beganwhirling around the room.
‘Thank you for savingmy life Miranda,’ said Aquitain. ‘You did it twice. Once when youcourageously begged for my life from your knees with Jacintra. Iwill never forget that, and when your wisdom helped me overcome themental confusion during the fight with the cats. I could have gotus killed.’
‘Then we are even,wizard, for you saved my life twice as well. Once when I foolishlyturned my back on that bitch cat and you courageously took thebrunt of the attack, and secondly when I faltered with the ritualof the urn. You used your brilliant mind and knowledge tomiraculously work it out.
