Champions Battle for the Fate of the Future!: The Wild Finale of (Swords Versus Tanks Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

pendant.
    “Those very priests would have executed me,” said Maud. “If I do not have my revenge, you will find that I am your enemy.”
    “Rather you than my lord,” said Thorolf.
    “I have two wishes left with which to protect myself,” said Maud. “I shall act as bait. Do not spring the trap until we have all of them or I shall think of other uses for my wishes.”
    Thorolf shrugged then nodded. “You would make good Northwoman.”
    He loped off back down the sands and vanished into the fog.
    Maud stood alone on the beach. The singing grew louder, the pressure of the holiness more chilling.
    The fog parted to reveal the ridge top. Shadowy figures appeared on its edge — dozens of chanting priests with incense swingers and gridiron symbols, plus an escort of soldiers with guns.
    Maud’s fingers clenched on the spear. If they started shooting, then she would have to rely on the captive air elemental for protection.
    As the figures began negotiating the descent to the beach, a rider burst through the throng. The horse half-slid, half-bounded down the slope on an avalanche of sand and pebbles.
    “Run,” hissed Thorolf from behind the wall of fog that still cloaked off the sea.
    Maud shook her head. The rider did not look like a priest and she could always use a wish in order to defend herself.
    Where the slope met the sand, the horse tripped, rolled and lay there flailing. The rider — an fat old woman in the grey livery of the Invaders — pulled herself clear and, without a backward glance at her crippled mount, bounded toward Maud, beads and amulets forming a halo as they bounced against her great bosoms. She wore a pistol like Tom of Fenland’s in her belt but showed no sign of drawing it.
    The old woman slowed down and began an odd chant. It sounded like a spell, though Maud did not feel the accustomed tingle in her spine. The old woman smiled crazily. Her gaze pierced Maud and she declaimed, " Mhrosh Ren Delibishion Nhag R'Shanmash !"
    Thorolf’s voice came to her, “Counterspell?”
    The old woman repeated, " Mhrosh Ren Delibishion Nhag R'Shanmash !" This time she accompanied the words with an odd hand gesture, twirling a string of beads. Was this a sorcery so powerful that Maud could not feel it? Had the Invaders' magicians chosen this moment to reveal themselves?
    Maud reached for her sylph. DEFEND ME.
    But the bound air spirit was too diffuse, too spread out through the fog to help right away. Were the woman to draw her gun, it would be an end.
    Maud scrabbled for another magical response, and realised, with a lurch, that she had none. What was left of the Book of Elements was safely back in Middleburgh. Even if she had had her grimoire with her, there would have been no time to read out a spell. A proper sorceress would have swatted the old woman using some well-learned cantrip, or an assistant daemon kept around for just such a purpose. But Maud could only use magic the way she had once used Parvian spices to liven up the convent's cuisine. Ranulph was right. She simply wasn’t trained.
    "Hurry up," shouted Thorolf. "Kill the old witch!"
    Maud nodded. She pulled the spear out of the sand and, screaming, charged her enemy.
    The old woman's eyes blazed, filling Maud’s world. The sounds of the battle died away. There was nothing now except for the spear and the enemy sorceress. The Invader opened her arms, as if to cast some appalling spell.
    Maud’s weapon took the old woman in the guts. The head squelched in as far as the wings and stuck so that the momentum of the attack pushed her over.
    The sudden resistance overbalanced Maud. Her feet skidded. Her left ankle twisted. The ground slammed into her back. Not a trained warrior either.
    The woman whimpered and blubbered, clutched her stomach.
    And feet thudded on the sand.
    A score of grey-liveried soldiers rushed toward Maud. Behind them, the priests negotiated the slope.
    Maud struggled to her feet. Her left ankle gave, treating her to a spike