Mudge reached deep into his spirit senses. It was an odd feeling, exploring the strange, otherworldly space inside himself. He realised he hadn't shown much interest in his abilities before now because it might mean he was moved up the queue for the throne. Fourth in line had been a safe place, and much less threatening.
He saw that he had more talent than he admitted. Shifting an object from here to there across the face of the world was well within his grasp. He hoped shifting eight of them into the centre of the palace would be just as easy.
Mudge traced a spirit path for each of the golden sparks in his mind. Then he reached inside himself to change the order of things in the world. With a chaotic whump of displaced air, his travelling companions appeared in the room beside him.
“Devil work!” shouted Ochren, dropping instinctively into a crouch. He drew his sword from inside his cloak. Then he recognised Mudge.
“Ah, all clear,” he amended sheepishly, returning his sword to its sheath. The others followed his example.
“Thought you were that irritating damn sorceress,” he said. Mudge knew it was an apology for waving his sword at the son of the Legatus. The Rangers understood what spirit walkers could do, but they hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of spirit energy like this. Not in a normal lifetime anyway, but these weren’t normal lifetimes.
“I hadn’t thought of calling the Empress ‘irritating’,” said Mudge with a laugh, “but you’re right. I’ll have to think of her like that from now on.”
The prince went on to explain his change of heart. How they would only succeed against the Empress if they confronted her as a group. It was an admission gruffly received by Ochren, and then the others. At least they managed to stop themselves saying ‘I told you so’.
They also shared one other intention. They were determined to take the fight to the Empress. Every one of them felt they had been hiding in the shadows for too long.
“We’re going back into the main hall using spirit energies, the same way you arrived here,” said Mudge, as he explained his plan. “I want the hall cleared of everyone but the Empress, and I need to find a way to secure the doors against intruders.
“When it comes to the final attack on that ‘irritating damn sorceress’,” he said, with a smile, “I don’t want any distractions.”
The travellers nodded. Butha and Andrian looked the most worried. The thought of being hurled through space to the main hall was completely new to them, though it didn’t seem to have killed the recent arrivals. Ochren gave the householders a knife each when they said they wanted to help. They had no previous experience with swords.
The Keeper Stone made busy circuits about Mudge’s consciousness, like a hound dog brushing against his legs. It was telling him it wanted to be of use too. He made it ‘sit’, if that was the right word. There were some things he wanted to do for himself, just to prove he could do them.
Then he sighed. He was doing it again, thinking about what he wanted and ignoring others. Now he was ignoring their shared goal again, an end to the intrusion of this evil into their lives. He called the Keeper Stone to him. It merged with him, and then it become him, an effortless extension of his own will.
Then they were ready.
The first contingent, those who were not Rangers, appeared in the middle of the main hall with a thunderous roar. Mudge had orchestrated the noise to buy himself time. The Rangers were to be sent next, and he needed to prepare their arrival well.
The company of council bodyguards was still present, under its commander Uttan. The Empress was at the long table, looking at the battle plan for Rotor Valley Pass. She looked up, startled by the noise. Ottar Bey was standing beside her, with his guard of honour at attention behind them.
At least the Empress hadn’t ordered more Gorlen to the main hall, thought Mudge. Perhaps they were with the rest of the bodyguard, tearing the palace apart in their search for the intruders. Well, he and his companions were back, and she hadn’t expected that.
“Kill them,” hissed the Empress fiercely, “and this time don’t make a mess of it!”
Uttan hurried to obey, hoping to redeem his previous failure. His company of bodyguards spread out in a line. It shepherded their quarry into one corner of the huge room. Senovila, Colma, Butha and Andrian formed a defensive wall, with Mudge, the two younger people, and Onjed behind it.
They backed slowly away from the bodyguards. Then a number of the hindmost attackers jerked backward. They scrabbled at their necks as they tried to cry a warning, but their bodies stiffened, and they slid gracefully to the floor. A dozen were taken this way before the others noticed what was happening.
“Demons! Invisible demons!” shouted the captain of Ottar Bey’s bodyguards. He was the first to understand what was going on. Uttan’s men whirled around and backed away from the invisible assailants.
The Empress made a swirling motion with her hand. The ghostly outlines of the five Rangers could be seen inside a crimson cloud of sparkling dust motes. As the remaining attackers turned, and rushed to engage them, Senovila and Colma led a charge against the bodyguard from behind.
Mudge conjured phantom shapes among the Rangers, to more than double their number and make their true location uncertain. The bodyguard couldn’t determine what was a real attacker and what was not. Their nerve broke, and they fled to join Ottar Bey’s honour guard.
The Empress was furious.
Mudge heard the strange, distorted spirit call she sent out across the Royal Palace. Next the double doors at one end of the hall burst open. Then the side doors shattered their wooden locks. The Empress had opened the doorways for her forces, preparing for their arrival.
That was interesting, noted Mudge. The Empress doubted. She wasn’t sure she could defeat this strange gathering of worldly and spirit abilities on her own. Mudge smiled. Perhaps they had a chance after all.
The Empress ordered the honour guard forward, and indicated imperiously that Ottar Bey should lead them. Mudge almost felt sorry for the man. He was more terrified of the Empress than the intruders, despite the fact it was a strange group of crimson wraiths, phantom shapes and peasantry that advanced across the hall. The honour guard moved nervously to intercept them.
As the fighters clashed, the Empress finally broke through Mudge’s spirit veils. The Rangers appeared in their true form, and the phantom shapes fighting among them vanished. Mudge cursed under his breath. Nothing he conjured against the Empress lasted for long.
The fighting proved more difficult this time round. The Rangers were outnumbered, and they had some non-participants to protect. Mudge had been given a dagger by Senovila ‘in case of emergencies’, but he knew his greatest contribution would come from keeping his wits about him, and his spirit senses at the ready.
By sheer force of numbers the honour guard drove the League defenders back to one side of the main hall. Mudge knew he and his companions couldn’t allow themselves to be trapped there. More of the black clad council bodyguard, and some of the animated Gorlen, must be on their way by now.
The Empress seemed content to let the two sides fight on, and watched from her position by the table. Mudge knew he had to end the skirmish quickly, and then he needed to seal the hall off.
What could he do to take the fight out of Ottar Bey’s honour guard? The Keeper Stone nudged him, placing an idea in his mind. He almost laughed at the outrageousness of it. Was it even possible? Then he decided to try it out.
Reaching inside himself he changed the nature of light in the room. He bent it round himself and his companions. The honour guard stopped, uncertain. It was as if the defenders had ceased to exist.
Bear and Shyleen leaped forward, dropping two of the attackers. To the honour guard the blades came and went from nowhere. The guard scattered, tripping over themselves in their haste to get away.
Mudge felt a tug at his side as Onjed leaped past him. He looked down to see that the dagger at his belt was gone. As he looked up the boy was alrea
dy in front of Ottar Bey. The First Elect had been left behind as his honour guard had deserted him. Onjed swung wildly at Ottar Bey’s throat. This was the man who had killed his father.
The First Elect brought up his sword, mostly by reflex, and managed to parry the blow. He sliced through Onjed’s sleeve, and cut his forearm.
The boy went deathly pale, a combination of determination and shock. He stepped back. Ottar Bey grinned. He was just realising his attacker was only twelve summers old. He flicked his sword round in a two-handed sweep at Onjed’s neck.
It never landed. The boy had seen the First Elect start his swing, and just as quickly he stepped inside it. Then he drove the knife under his enemy’s ribs and up into his heart.
“You killed my father, and now I will kill you,” he shouted into the face of the startled king. They were the last words Ottar Bey ever heard. Onjed used both hands to pull the knife down and out of the man’s chest. The First Elect slumped forward, dead before he hit the floor.
Mudge was surprised. The boy was fast, much faster than he had thought possible. He noticed the Keeper Stone at the edge of his consciousness, and wondered if it had given the boy an edge.
The honour guard turned, and in a sudden burst of loyalty scrambled back toward the Rangers to avenge their king. Unfortunately, Onjed and Mudge were right in their way.
Mudge reached deep inside himself, and made changes. He needed to be immune to things like swords, and that's what his body became. He lurched upward, and changed shape. Then his eyes adjusted to his new perspective.
He was towering over the guards now. He swatted one flat with a giant paw, and cowed the others with a snarling roar. He had taken on the shape of a giant snow cat, the emblem of the Karnatic league. How fitting, he thought, as he launched himself forward.
The Empress answered the challenge with an inhuman shriek. She changed from the dark, smoky shape of her true nature to the reptilian predator he had seen before. In two quick bounds they closed the space between them, and slammed into one another with an impact that shook the floor throughout the hall.
Powerful fangs ripped into a red and black shoulder, while rows of jagged teeth scraped across the side of the great mountain cat’s head.
The honour guard scattered, retreating to the doors at the end of the hall. They hesitated in the doorway, then realised the battle here was lost. The guard fled into the long corridors of the palace.
The Rangers moved away from the two giant creatures, joining Senovila and the others in one corner of the hall. It was the safest place as the giants rampaged back and forth across the floor.
Pushing down the pain of the Empress’ claws and jagged teeth, Mudge glanced sideways. He saw that the bodyguard were gone, and his friends were safe, but he knew that wasn't enough. The doors weren't closed yet, keeping the Empress’ reinforcements out of the hall. As if in response to his thought, more black-clad bodyguards poured into the hall. A moment later the sound of heavy footfalls told him a company of Gorlen were on their way.
Opening his spirit senses, Mudge called on the spirit world to help him. What had his father said? That there was one underlying and fundamental cause, something that “might possibly be our ally in the terrible times to come”?
The Empress squalled another inhuman shriek, and broke off the struggle. Mudge realised the powerful sorceress was afraid, and he hadn’t expected that.
She understood what he had done, and she remembered. Something had imprisoned her, and all who rebelled at the beginning of time, in the netherworld. She feared it might happen again.
Mudge struck the dark sorceress hard, and then again, using the mountain cat’s terrible strength. The Empress’ moment of indecision was an opportunity for him. Before she could recover, he bound the dark creature using the Keeper Stone. It took all he had to keep the bonds around her from loosening, but for now he held her motionless.
By taking the form of the giant reptile the Empress had vastly increased her strength in this world, but it had weakened her in the spirit world. As long as the Keeper Stone could contain the Empress in her creature form, drawing off her energy, Mudge had achieved a kind of stalemate.
Then the prince noticed the double doors at either end of the hall slam shut. The timbers of the doors lengthened, twining their way in and out of the walls around them.
The advancing Gorlen were shut out, though it was too late for one of them. Caught by the writhing timbers, it became part of the doors as they grew around it.
Mudge knew it was spirit work, but who had caused it? He noticed a smell of salt and earth, and searched his memories for when he had last experienced that. When the answer came to him he was astonished.
It was sprite work. He had not thought them capable of something like this. If they were the ones who had shut off the hall from the rest of the palace, then they wouldn’t be far from their handiwork. Where were the cagey little creatures?
He sensed their presence, and finally understood. The ground under the palace was honeycombed with cellars for storing food, and he noticed several escape tunnels. It was perfect sprite territory.
Tell-tale spirit signs swirled through the earth beneath Mudge’s feet. They were a different sort of sprite to the ones he had met in the mountains, but then the mountain sprites had been different to the ones at Shaker’s Hope.
The different tribes must be connected in the way all sprites were. These ones would know about the destruction of the Sarkosay at the gorge, and the imprisonment of their people. Their help couldn't have come at a better time.
The bodyguards that had just arrived were staring nervously at the giant figures in front of them, the Empress trapped inside a web of silver spirit ties. Then they looked behind them, and realised they were just as effectively trapped inside the hall. There was a moment's indecision, then they drew their weapons and advanced along the wall toward Ochren and the rest of the company.
Once they could see that they outnumbered the League defenders two to one, the bodyguards began to advance more confidently. Ochren motioned for his people to spread out, and that forced the attackers to widen their line. Then the harsh clash of metal reverberated through the hall.
The Rangers favoured one particular tactic against greater numbers. Bear managed to get a spare moment, and thrust sideways at the bodyguard on his right. The unexpected thrust sliced along the man’s ribs, and it was enough to distract him. Shyleen pushed through his weakened guard, and delivered a deadly wound. The guard fell. The other Rangers followed Bear’s lead, stabbing sideways when they could, and the bodyguard numbers were slowly reduced.
The attack faltered, and Mudge took his attention off the Empress long enough to close down the minds of the remaining bodyguards. They collapsed on the floor, a rag doll line in front of the defenders.
“You don’t see that every day,” said Shyleen, breathing hard. She prodded the nearest crumpled form to see if perhaps they were pretending.
“Pity, I was just getting the hang of this,” said Bear.
Ochren jerked his thumb in the direction of the giant figures in the middle of the room.
“That’ll be the prince helping us out,” he growled. He wondered if the Rangers could make any impression on the giant black and red reptile facing the equally huge snow cat. It didn't take him long to decide to stay out of that fight.
Not everything, however, was apparent to the League defenders in the hall. In the spirit realms the Empress shifted under the binding of the Keeper Stone, and began to work her way free. The prince added his power to that of the Keeper Stone, but still the sorceress grew in strength in the netherworld. Mudge knew that ultimately she would have to be defeated there, but that was where she was strongest, the powers of Mudge’s world the weakest.
Somehow that didn’t matter. Until she was completely destroyed, the Empress would return to enslave the Leaugue, and all the kingdoms of this world. She would inflict misery and death upon the human population time and time again.
/> Then the Empress worked her way free from the Keeper Stone, and vanished.
Mudge knew where she had gone. It only remained for him to decide whether he would follow her there or not. Stretching the big cat’s back for a moment and enjoying its suppleness, he reverted to his human form.
Then the shades of Jago and Luce appeared on either side of him. Other shapes solidified from the air. There were many of them, all across the hall. Some he recognised, but many were so insubstantial he couldn’t work out what they were.
There seemed to be sprites of different sorts, and other elemental creatures he didn't know. There were the shades of a number of Rangers, wearing camouflage green. One or two Mesoans stood out as wavering lights, but not in the numbers Mudge had encountered in their homeland.
Several figures looked like spirit walkers from olden times. Their heavy, homespun clothing dated them by centuries. He presumed they were the shades of departed walkers. Then he saw them clustering together, gathering power for a summoning.
There was a burst of light, and Ultrich appeared. He looked surprised at his sudden relocation. There were several spirit walkers of his own times that Mudge recognised, but they too were present in a strangely insubstantial form.
“I think it’s time, boy,” said a voice at his elbow. The prince turned to see Senovila beside him. The old smith waved offhandedly at the throng pressing around them.
“You can see them?” enquired Mudge, a little surprised.
Senovila nodded.
“Senovila’s right,” said Ultrich. The grey shade had come to stand by Mudge. “It’s time to finish this.”
The Unsound Prince Page 24
