‘Tell all you meet of this night. I WILL be your Queen andtogether WE WILL defeat these spirit creatures and free ourselvesfrom their tyranny.’
The two Lordsbowed graciously and quickly took their leave.
‘I am totally astounded.’ said Darkmantle.
‘I took you for a smart manipulator with an aversion tobloodshed.’
‘Then you would normally be correct.’ saidAquitain.
‘But where I come from there is a saying that sometimesactions speak louder than words. I think that our enemies will nowrealize that there is bite behind our growl.’
‘We seem to be working well together.’ continued Aquitain. ‘Iguess you were right about not killing the Lords. They will beuseful allies.’
‘I honestly never realized how dangerous you are.’ saidDarkmantle.
‘You killed twenty warriors in seconds. They didn’t have achance. It was just total slaughter. They probably had wives andchildren. Haven’t you got any feelings?’ he asked.
‘It’s a tough world Darkmantle. Every one of those warriorsand their Lords would have killed us without hesitation. Hopefullywe earned enough fear and respect tonight so that we won’t have tokill as many next time.’ replied Aquitain.
‘I have no disagreement on that issue.’ said Darkmantle with agrin as he removed his cloak and passed it to her.
‘Cover yourself Lady Warden, my men have seen enough of mydaughter’s virtues to give them erotic dreams forweeks.’
He then set hisCaptain to tally the casualties and damage while the Lordsretreated. His men straggled out of the barracks and other placeswith little doubt about how they had miraculously won over suchodds. There were whispers everywhere. Their Lord had found hisdaughter and she was going to be their next Queen and what a Queenshe would be!
Ten minuteslater Darkmantle’s Captain reported that they had lost twelve menand had another nineteen wounded. Fortunately, seven of the Newmanwarriors previously with the dead Lord took up an offer to joinDarkmantle’s troop.
Twenty minuteslater most of the attackers and their dead were gone.
In between,Darkmantle couldn’t restrain his curiosity about Aquitain’s unusualsword and armour. Aquitain reformed the ball of mind clay in hishand.
‘This ball of clay can be moulded into anything that I canimagine but will only hold its shape for a short time away fromme.’
Aquitain thenreformed the mind clay into a sword and passed it to Darkmantle whoexamined it carefully, tapped it against his armour and swung itaround then it suddenly returned to its ball shape.
‘Amazing.’ said Darkmantle. ‘What is this stuff?’
‘This is the clay that the creator used to make all the worldsand us!’
Darkmantle waslost for words.
‘Look.’ said Aquitain as he turned the clay into anothersword. ‘This sword is not separate from me but is a part of me. Itis different from any other sword in that it contains my spirit. IfI use the blade as a mould and harden my spirit within with magicthen remove the chaos matter I have a blade made of spirit. It willpass through armour and slice through an enemy’s spirit. It isprobably the only weapon that will damage and kill a Mentarinspirit possessing another person.’
‘The armour is a little different. I use the mind clay to formanother layer of skin over my body flexible like snake skin but thescales are made of metal and the gold colour was simply forshow.’
‘You continue to amaze me,’ said Darkmantle just asPrendergrass finally showed up.
‘What happened my Lord?’ I was defending the rear of themansion as ordered then suddenly the attackers all vanished. Iwaited several minutes thinking that it must be a trick but thenone of the guards came by and said we’d won. How could we possiblywin? They were everywhere.’
‘Thank our Lady Warden, Prendergrass. She put on a brilliantdisplay of martial prowess. I am personally in awe and swear fromthis day forward she will have all of our support to make her ournew Queen.’
‘Prendergrass, numerous things went wrong with our defences.How could a group of enemy teleport into the mansion when the wardswere up? How did the tunnel between the guards’ barracks and themansion suddenly become flooded? Why didn’t some of the proximityalarms sound? There are other problems as well. I want a fullreport by morning. I have asked the Captain of the Guard for areport as well. We’ll meet for a council of war afterbreakfast.’
The relativequite was suddenly pierced by a shout from the Captain of the Guardas he ran towards Darkmantle with an Elendari in tow.
‘My Lord, my Lord, a messenger has just arrived from LordThindrel, they are under attack by Lord Pondglow and are requestingour immediate help.
The Rat Catchersuddenly appeared near Aquitain and using mindspeak said.
‘My Lord, the Trixies at the Palace are under attack by aswarm of large rats. What do you wish to do?’
‘By the Powers, has the world gone mad?’ shoutedDarkmantle.
‘No.‘ replied Aquitain.
‘The Mentarin have decided to teach us all a lesson and Isuspect everyone had better learn fast or they’ll bedead.’
Chapter 10 The Dogs ofWar
Aquitain’s emotionswere still flaring and only just under control. She thought abouthow much her view of Darkmantle had changed over the last fewhours. She had formed a negative opinion of the man from storiesthat she had heard. Now she had to admit the man was tough,courageous, decisive and possibly even likable. He may have a fewnegative aspects but at a time of war he was just the type of allythat you needed on your side.
Darkmantle hadjust been mauled badly in the attack by the combined force of threeof the Lords. He had a problem, if he led an attacking force tohelp his friend there would not be enough guards left to defend hisestate. If this were a false alarm to get him to split his forcesthen another attack here would be disastrous for those left behind.On the other hand, if he didn’t respond to the request for helpfrom one of his friends, the others would be considerably lesslikely to help him in the future.
He had decidedto immediately evacuate all the non-combatant women, the elderly,the support staff and badly wounded
