‘It’s time I made my mark on this world. I remember all ofyour training. I remember us sneaking around Panmagica at night. Iremember how to fight and how to kill. You trained me to be likeyou, an assassin; quite appropriate for an Agent of Chaos. I willtry to control my dark side without you. Thank you foreverything.’
She could hearthe sounds of fighting, shouts, weapons clashing, magic dischargesand flashes of light.
Aquitain jumpedout of bed and had a look out the window. There were dozens ofsoldiers fighting everywhere. She could see the tabards of at leastthree different Lords were present and all were fightingDarkmantle’s troops, which were in the minority.
She quicklypulled a sheet off the bed and wrapped Miranda’s armour, the maskand other equipment in it.
‘Bellen, take this to your Room of Faces for safekeeping andplease stay away from the magic book. If it charms you again andfinds out that I know about it, it may harm you. I will meet you atthe castle and we will visit the book together.’
‘Yes, Lady Warden, but if I take your armour what will youwear? How will you fight?’
The Lady Wardengrinned. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be okay. Now go quickly!’ and Bellenvanished with the equipment.
There was aloud knocking on the door.
‘Lady Warden, Lady Warden we are under attack. Lord Darkmantlesent me to alert you and guide you to him. He is directing ourdefences.’
‘All right, just a moment and I’ll be with you.’ sheyelled.
‘Rat catcher thank you for coming to my aid in my dream, youmust hide now and keep safe. I’ll call you when this problem issorted out.’
‘As you wish my Lady. ’ said the cat and itvanished.
‘Damn useful stuff this mind clay.’ thought Aquitain, ‘andI’ve a good use for it.’ and she held it up in the air and itflowed like water down her arm covering her naked body like asecond skin and over her head forming a hood leaving only her eyesuncovered.
‘Now to make it flexible like snake skin but harden the scaleslike steel.’ She thought and mentally changed the structure of themind clay to mimic a dull black metallic snake skin.’
She scratchedher fingernail across her new body armour.
‘It feels really tough.’ then she cartwheeled across the room.‘and its really light and flexible as well. Excellent workAquitain.’ She said aloud and laughed at herself.
She retrievedCrys and tied some curtain cord around it and fixed it to her waistand said ‘Hang on tight Crys.’
She thenunlocked the door and walked out.
The guardwearing chain armour covered with a Darkmantle tabard steppedbackward holding his wavering sword in front of him.
‘I’m your Warden take me to Lord Darkmantle.’ shecommanded.
The guardnodded and ran off down the corridor with Aquitain two pacesbehind.
They reachedthe stairwell and began running down it when the guard ran head oninto a group of six enemy fighters who had just teleported in.
Aquitainstopped running and sent a mind blast at the group stunning themall including the Darkmantle’s guard. Black blades elongated out ofeach hand and in a blink she was amongst them. The blades whirledand struck like vipers at the chests and necks of the enemies. Intwo heartbeats they were all dead leaving Darkmantle’s guard stillfrozen in fear.
The dark swordsin Aquitain’s hands vanished as she reached over and touched theguard on the forehead with her index finger. He was no longerstunned. He stepped back a couple of paces with a terrified look onhis face examining the bodies at his feet and said.
‘Th …thank you, Lady Warden.’
‘Those black blades, how do you do that?’ asked theguard.
‘Nice aren’t they. They are modelled on the divine weaponsused by the holy avengers. They are mind blades made of my spirithardened with energy from my source. They will cut through anynormal armour but I suspect some magical armour might deflect them.They cut not only flesh but spirit as well.’ she replied as theguard ran off down the stairs with Aquitain following himclosely.
Darkmantle andseveral guards were hiding on either side of the door lookingoutwards. One of the soldiers holding a cross bow saw his friendrun down the stairs followed by Aquitain in her black outfit andthought she was chasing his friend. He yelled to warn Darkmantlethey were being attacked and shot a cross bow bolt at Aquitain.
She dodged andshouted ‘Careful, I’m the Warden. I’m on your side.’
‘We ran into a group of fighters on the stairwell above.Milord.’ yelled the guard that had been sent to get Miranda. ‘Shekilled them all!’
‘Impressive, not just a pretty face.’ said Darkmantle noddingto two soldiers who went racing up the stairs.
‘Perhaps you could remove that hood so my troops can see yourface otherwise everyone will be taking a shot at you.’
Aquitainadjusted the body armour so that it stopped at the top of her neckand gathered her flaming red hair into a pony tail.
‘We have been attacked by a large number of troops from threehouses who obviously want to remove me from contention for thecrown. Fortunately, I doubled the guard because you were heretonight and they were able to trigger the alarms and activate thewards on this building. Unfortunately, most of my guards wereresting in the barracks. I don’t know what’s happened to them. Someseem to be putting up a fight. There is a wall of force across thedoorway put there by the opposition to keep me in here until theycan deal with the troops in the barracks.’
‘Can’t you teleport to the barracks?’ askedAquitain.
‘The wards are supposed to stop any transport in or out.’replied Darkmantle.
‘Well the group above us just teleported in so there must besomething wrong with your wards up there.’ saidAquitain.
‘You’re right.’ said Darkmantle.
’If they can get in then we should be able to get out from thesame spot.’ and he started running up the stairs with Aquitainfollowing close behind.
When theyarrived at the spot where Aquitain had killed the enemy soldiers,Darkmantle’s two men were checking the dead men’s pockets and packsfor valuables.
‘Form for mass teleport with weapons at ready.’ orderedDarkmantle as he stuck his left arm out from his body parallel tothe ground. The men all formed around him holding their
