From the corner of his eye, Grimm saw Dalquist give the slightest of nods. 'Very well, Starmor,' he sighed, 'you leave us little choice. Dalquist?'
Dalquist muttered and the gem appeared in his hand, and the young mage saw the demon Baron lean forward, his eyes narrowed in an expression of the purest avarice.
'Leave the gem on the floor,' Starmor growled in a hoarse voice. 'My slaves will escort you back to the inn until I am ready for you. You must-'
A blue flash filled the chamber. In the blink of an eye, Shakkar disappeared from his cage and reappeared next to the Baron's throne. Without a moment's hesitation, the scaly behemoth launched a savage, ferocious assault upon Starmor. The Baron screamed and flung a vicious spell at Shakkar as eager talons reached for him. The magic threw the titan back, but Shakkar just snarled and surged forward again.
Grimm tensed himself, waiting for the ward to fail, his mind patterned for his spell of Translocation.
Starmor held off the huge demon with a succession of spells, but Grimm guessed that Shakkar's hatred was offset by the very violence of the attack. At any moment, the shield must fail!
At last, Shakkar landed a solid blow, laying the Baron's cheek open. As he fell to the floor, Starmor's voice boomed, seeming to reverberate from the very walls of the tower. 'Kill the intruders! Kill them all!'
At that moment, the ward failed, and Grimm shrieked out the syllables of the short-range Translocation spell, with the full power of a Mage Questor behind it. Starmor disappeared, and Shakkar was left flailing savagely at thin air.
'He is gone!' Dalquist crowed. 'The people of Crar are free! We have succeeded, and we still have the Eye!'
Harvel shivered. 'I don't want to spend a moment further in this awful monstrosity of a palace, Questor Dalquist. May we leave now?'
Dalquist smiled. 'I think we will all welcome that, swordsman.' He led the party back down the staircase, into the street. Shakkar was the last to emerge.
Townspeople were converging on the party from all directions, although they walked in complete silence.
'This must be a welcoming committee,' Crest observed. 'It's no more than we deserve.'
'No welcoming committee, this,' Dalquist growled. 'Look at them! Do they look like happy revellers? No: Starmor's last spell persists. He has sent the people of Crar to destroy us!'
The impassive features of the approaching throng unnerved even the drug-ridden Grimm. Some carried scythes, swords, mattocks or pitchforks, while others bore simple planks of wood or kitchen knives. The greater part of the growing horde bore no weapons, but they held their hands before them, clawing at the air. Men, women and children-the whole of the populace seemed bent on the party's destruction.
Shakkar growled and bared his fangs, roaring at the crowd, but his fearsome presence seemed to leave the assailants unaffected.
As the first assailant approached, bearing a grass-hook, Crest's whip lashed out, flinging the Crarian to one side, unconscious.
Harvel's rapier hissed free of its waxed scabbard and neatly skewered a muscular, hammer-wielding man clad in a blacksmith's leather apron and dungarees. For a brief moment, Grimm saw in the dead man the image of his own grandfather, Loras, but he shook his head to free himself of the vision.
'There are too many of them!' he cried. 'Dalquist, we need a ward, and I have no idea how to raise one!'
The senior mage nodded and began to chant, his face a mask of concentration. The ward materialised just as the main group of ensorcelled Crarians reached them. The avid bite of the magical shield made them yelp in pain as they touched it, yet they came at it again and again, crowding around the adventurers, pressing and clawing against the invisible wall.
'I can-ah!-I can maintain this-ugh!-spell for no more than ten minutes, maybe less,' Dalquist said, gasping every time one of the assailants impacted the ward. 'I am open to suggestions, gentlemen!'
'I can supply you with further energy for the spell, Dalquist,' Grimm suggested, feeling cold fear flooding through his nerves as the effect of his drugs began to wear off. 'They must become exhausted, eventually, even with Starmor's hex on them.'
'Most of the-oh!-Crarians are just milling around,' Dalquist replied, his face wreathed in perspiration, 'waiting for their chance to attack us. Twenty minutes more would just delay the inevitable. We couldn't hope to fight them all, especially in an enclosed space such as this.'
'Can't you just transport us out of here, mage?' Harvel suggested, twitching his rapier nervously as another assault on the ward caused Dalquist to squeeze his eyes tightly shut with effort.
'Not through the ward, blademaster. The moment I drop it, we will all be dead in a heartbeat, well before I could complete the spell. A spell of Mental Control might well reach outside this wall but I am no mighty Mentalist. I couldn't hope to contact so many minds at once. What of you, Grimm? Have you any ideas? This-aagh!-this is getting desperate, my friend!'
Grimm shivered as a thick stream of blood from an attacker's skin-shorn knuckles ran down the invisible partition between the comrades and the mindless automata that would destroy them.
'I'm trying to think my way around the problem, Dalquist,' he said, 'but I can't make the mental link between a Directed spell and an Area effect. If I used all my energy, I could perhaps coerce the nearest ten people to attack the others, but that wouldn't even dent the forces arrayed against us.'
'I would aid you, good mage,' Shakkar rumbled, 'but I have little power of my own since you cast your spell on Starmor's punishment pillar.'
Dalquist groaned as another assault hit home, and he staggered.
'Well, then,' Crest said, 'it looks like we've lost, friends. 'I didn't think it would end like this, but I'll fight with you to the last.' He lifted the handle of his whip. 'That's small comfort, I know, but I won't allow myself to be killed without showing this rag-tag assortment of hooligans what a true warrior can do.'
'Small comfort indeed, Crest,' Harvel replied. 'These wretches don't even know what they are doing, and I hate to fight against these poor puppets. Still, I don't think we have any choice; I won't die with my sword sheathed.'
Grimm considered the alternatives; there seemed to be none.
Dalquist fell to his knees. 'I can't hold the spell much longer,' he gasped, clutching his temples. 'This is it!'
'Hold firm for a moment, mage,' a familiar voice squeaked from Grimm's pocket. 'I have an idea.'
Dalquist gritted his teeth and nodded. 'I'll try, demon.'
'Can you pass your power to me, Questor Grimm?' Thribble demanded. 'I believe that Starrmor's spell is no more than the force of his voice, combined with earlier spells of obedience. Having heard his voice once, I feel sure I can mimic it perfectly; that is one of my best talents.
'It is only a theory of mine; I am a poor spell-caster, and I have only a lay-demon's knowledge of magic, but it seems to me that you have little choice; your friend Dalquist can surely withstand this battering for a few minutes more at most. Have you, Questor Grimm, the ability to use your magic to amplify my voice so that all may hear? I will tell them to ignore you and attack each other. From the clamour outside, it seems Questor Dalquist's ward does not impede sound.'
Grimm gulped, burgeoning emotions beginning to crowd in on his psyche as the mindless Crarians battered and crushed themselves against Dalquist's spell-wall.
I'll need a huge amount of power, he thought, licking dry lips. Sound intensity and magical force decrease as the square of distance. If I'm to make Thribble's order loud and clear to throughout the town, I dare not hold back on the spell, but the principle seems… sound.
Grimm smiled at the unintentional pun.
He knew that, if Thribble's theory was incorrect, he would be in no position to pose any kind of threat to the ravening horde of Crarians after he had unleashed his power; and yet, as the demon had said, he had little choice. On the other hand, he could not bear to see these blameless automata butcher each other. Dalquist raised his grey, sweaty, drawn face towards his friend; his eyes wide and imploring.
'Your idea seems to be our only hope of salvation, Thribble,' Grimm said, 'but may I suggest an alteration? Tell the Crarians that they are all released from Starmor's spells and that they're free men and women.'
Thribble looked a little dubious. 'I think my way is better,' he said with a touch of sullenness.
'Perhaps you have a little less regard for human life than I do, Thribble, being not of our kind. I have no desire to pit these witless puppets against each other. I don't demand this of you; I only request it. Please do as I ask.
