‘I’m notleaving him behind.’ said Garret huffily. ‘I won’t go unless heaccompanies me.’
One of theagents who had teleported Aquitain and Garret to their currentlocation spoke to the officer in Elendari and they walked a fewpaces aside to discuss the situation.
‘By thepowers,’ muttered Garret. ‘They’re bloody well arguing over whoshould pay your toll through the gateway.’
Aquitainchuckled then suddenly lost his smile as two druids and a wizardappeared about fifty paces away between them and the gateway. Thenmoments later another group of four druids appeared, all weredressed in battle armour. They immediately spread out in a V shapedformation, three druids on either side of the wizard and facedtowards Garret and Aquitain.
All the Crinand Elendari stopped what they were doing and faced the threateningformation. The wizard levitated ten paces off the ground andhovering in mid-air spoke with a commanding voice.
‘All Elendariwill move to the gate and depart immediately. If you do not moveyou will be considered enemy combatants and dealt withaccordingly.’
Anger surged inAquitain as he recognized the wizard who had killed him twicerecently. It was Curbut.
The ElendariOfficer immediately gave orders to his troops to form a column thenturned to the wizard and said.
‘We are apeaceful escort group. This is neutral territory. My mission is toescort this Newman and this gnome assistant through the gate.’
‘I have nointerest in you or them so take them.’ shouted Curbut. ‘Get moving.I’m only interested in these Crin rebels.’
The Elendariofficer motioned to Aquitain and Garret to come with them andstarted marching his troops in a column down the centre of theroad. Garret and Aquitain joined the rear of the column. They wouldpass right underneath Curbut. It was quite obvious that he had notrecognized Aquitain.
Behind thecolumn of Elendari troops the Crin spread out into a loosestaggered formation to minimize damage from magical area effectsand faced Curbut. Enforcer Sanson moved into the centre of theformation but Jobmaster Xentos vanished. It was obvious to all thatthere would shortly be a battle.
Aquitain’sanger rose to a fury. He wasn’t going to let Curbut slaughter theCrin but he had to be cautious. Only seven had teleported in. Whynot eight. Were they using the same tactic as they had when theyattacked him and Miranda at Quab’s sanctuary? Was there aninvisible priest amongst them as well? He would soon find out.
As the columnof Elendari rapidly marched under the floating Curbut towards thesafety of the keep Aquitain sent a mindspeak message to Garret.
‘Keep going anddon’t look back until you reach safety.’
Aquitainstopped about five paces in front of Curbut and stood looking up athim. As the column of Elendari rapidly retreated to the keep, thetension mounted and all eyes turned to the solitary gnome.
Curbut lookeddown and was about to speak when Aquitain hit him with the mostpowerful domination attack that he could deliver. It swept throughall the mental defences of Curbut and rendered him helpless,totally under Aquitain’s control.
‘Hello Curbutit’s me Aquitain.’ he whispered menacingly into Curbut’s mind.
‘I’m not happywith you but rather than just killing you I think you should helpme a little first.’
He then built adome shaped air shield over himself and asked where the priest was.Curbut turned and pointed at a spot twenty paces to the right andrear.
The druids wereunsure what to do. They were presumably waiting on Curbut’s commandbut none came.
‘Dispel thepriest’s invisibility Curbut,’ commanded Aquitain just before hewas struck with a powerful domination attack from the priest. Heblocked it successfully as the priest became visible.
‘Attack youidiots! yelled the priest.
‘Stop! Hold theattack!’ yelled Curbut at Aquitain’s command.
The druids wereconfused. A column of blue fire landed in top of Aquitain but wascompletely blocked by the dome of the air shield. Aquitain rebuiltthe air shield dome. Two of the druids began chanting prayers tothe Lady and pointed at the Crin. The heavens opened up as largechunks of ice as big as melons fell from the sky amongst the Crin.The Crin caught in the ice storm rolled themselves into balls withtheir metal armour facing upwards, attempting to minimize anydamage.
The Crinclosest to the druids charged at them. Some of the druids conjuredjungle cats and bears that appeared out of nowhere and attacked thenearest Crin. Four of the seven druids changed shape to become hugebears that then charged into the fray.
Aquitaincommanded Curbut to cast a lightning bolt at the priest. Thunderechoed across the gully as a blinding flash of blue lightaccompanying a bolt of electrical energy crackled from Curbut tothe priest causing a cascade of sparks all around him but did nodamage at all. The priest was wearing some type of magic protectionagainst electrical damage.
The priestretaliated by pointing at Aquitain and shouting a holy word ofsmiting asking his god to punish Aquitain.
A blindingflash of golden light tore through the air shield as if it wasn’tpresent and Aquitain felt his body go rigid and his eyes becameblinded to the world around him.
Immediately hefelt somebody or something take over control of his body and hecould see again.
‘You idiot! Areyou trying to get us killed again?’ It said into his mind.
There was ahuge crack against the air shield as if something had hit it. Hisbody spun around his vision changed to see creatures cloaked ininvisibility and he saw a hovering Newman-like winged creaturewearing golden chain armour with a huge great sword swing down onhis airshield again. Crash!
The air shieldcollapsed and whoever was controlling him used the power in hissource to immediately rebuild it. The winged assailant pointed atthe air shield, it glowed golden and vanished as the creatureraised the enormous sword over its head once more to smite him.
He felt himselfuse an incredibly powerful mental blast and the creature wasstunned and fell rigid to the ground. He saw a long arcanesword-like blade extend from his right hand as he dashed over toit. The blade swept down decapitating the winged assailant. Thecreature’s head rolled on the ground and he could see theincredulous look on its face. It couldn’t understand
