He felt himselfswing around to face Curbut and create another air shield dome overhis body. It then commanded the wizard to cast a fireball at thepriest.
Curbutcomplied. A small sphere of fire left his right hand bound for thepriest. It hit the ground near him and exploded into a huge ball offlame twenty paces across. The edge of the fireball burnt the hairon some of the fighting animals and Crin but when it cleared thepriest stood his ground unaffected.
This time thepriest cast magic at Curbut and all sound of the battle disappearedfrom Aquitain’s hearing. One of the druids who had transformed intoa giant bear charged over to him and began silently smashing atAquitain’s air shield.
‘Oh this isbad!’ he thought.
Moments laterhe got a mindspeak message from the Crin Enforcer Sanson.
‘Gnome, are youin trouble?’
A voice frominside him answered using mindspeak that he knew the Crin wouldhear.
‘I am Aquitain.I have control of the wizard but you must help control the priestor we are lost.’
There was anoticeable increase in activity amongst the Crin as if their moralehad increased markedly just hearing his name.
His controllerreplenished the air shield and commanded Curbut using mindspeak touse an acid attack on the priest but then realized that Curbutcouldn’t comply as the priest had created a zone of silence thatcovered both him and Curbut. The wizard’s magic was now useless asCurbut needed to talk to invoke his magic.
He saw himselfpoint at Curbut with the arcane blade and a power he didn’t knowwas released. He saw Curbut’s eyes roll back in his head and hisfacial expression changed as if he was as if he was in great pain.Then Curbut slumped as if he was unconscious.
Two Crinwarriors broke off their fights and leapt through the air landingon the giant bear attacking Aquitain’s air shield. They bit deeplyinto its flesh with great sickle-like mandibles and rammed theirpoisonous stingers through the bear’s thick hide into its backmuscles. It screamed in pain, bucked and spun in circles trying todislodge its attackers.
Another bearattacked his air shield. He felt himself use the power to dominateit. It spun around and charged at the priest. The priest quicklyused a word of stunning and it froze in its tracks before itreached him.
On seeing thisSanson realized that he would have to take out the priest asAquitain had said or they might perish. He leapt ten paces throughthe air and on landing, charged at the priest. On seeing himcoming, the priest simply teleported to the other side of thebattleground some 150 paces away and began using more magic.
‘Dam thatpriest!’ said the voice in his head to Aquitain as his body swungaround to see where the priest had gone. There were Crin and bearsand jungle cats all locked in physical combat spread all over anarea 100 paces wide. Aquitain could see that the numbers of Crinwere thinning. They were losing the fight.
‘Who are you?’asked Aquitain.
‘Shut up!’ saidthe voice.
His controllerused the power to control light and a circular area for twentypaces radius around the centre of the battle went dark like amoonless night. Most of the animals had perfect day vision butrelied on other senses at night while the Crin had perfect visionnight or day. The fighting continued but the darkness now favouredthe Crin who were at home in dark unlit tunnels.
The Newmanpriest was also unable to determine how the fight was going so hetried to create light to overcome Aquitain’s darkness. It workedfor a few seconds until Aquitain’s controller quenched it and itwent dark again.
In the brieffew seconds of light Sanson got his bearings on the location of thepriest and leapt and bounded across the field of fighting to get athim. Unfortunately, the priest spotted Sanson coming and teleportedback to where he had been at the start. Aquitain’s controller triedthe mental attack that it had used on Curbut but the priest blockedit.
‘That priest isdam sharp.’ said the voice in his head. ‘You keep our shield upwhile I try something different.’
Aquitainsuddenly felt as though he had some control over his body but hedid as directed. He kept the air shield up. His controller triedother mental attacks but the priest seemed warded somehow againstthem. He had obviously done his homework and was aware of what mindwizards could do. The priest for his part tried several magicalattacks on Aquitain and seemed just as frustrated as Aquitain’scontroller as none could get through the air shield.
No one seemedto be able to get the advantage in the fight. It raged all around,Crin fighting animals. The superior armour, both natural and metalof the Crin was offset by the slight excess in number of conjuredanimals and sheer brutal strength of the druid bears. Magic tooksecond place to strength, courage and stamina.
Suddenly, ahuge red dragon appeared midway between the battleground and thekeep.
‘CEASEFIGHTING!’ it commanded in a voice that held terrible power.
A word of powerwas directed at the priest who froze instantly and a sleek beam ofgreen light targeted Curbut. There was a puff of dust and Curbutceased to exist. Total control of his body returned to Aquitain ashe watched the small cloud of white dust that used to be Curbutfloat to the ground.
The huge dragontook several steps towards the melee, each jarring the ground andmaking a sound like distant thunder. It let out a deep viciousterrifying throaty roar. The conjured animals all fled in fear. Thefighting stopped immediately. Aquitain was not sure what washappening but it seemed to be on their side.
The dragonchanged shape to the body of the current High Druid.
‘Cease ALLFighting NOW!’ he commanded again.
‘Druids returnto your base NOW! I will attend to this situation.’
The zone ofdarkness dissipated. The Crin regrouped and the druids carefullyretreated, changed shape to their Newman forms and teleported away.Some looked disappointed as they probably considered they wouldhave won the day but they were not about to argue with the new HighDruid. He was very demanding and very temperamental.
Aquitain lookedacross the field. At least half the Crin were dead and most of therest were injured. Some were still paralysed. Quab appeared and ranto the nearest wounded Crin and
