‘Where do we make for now, then?’ Horatio asked once they had killed the monsters. ‘If we stand around here we’ll just be endlessly attacked by monsters.’

‘We’re going there, of course,’ said Olivia, and pointed.

The tower they had sighted before they entered the tunnel loomed large in the distance, even bigger now. Horatio wasn’t sure how he had missed it before. Now that they were closer to it he could see even more how massive it truly was–taller even than the mountains and volcanoes around it. But it was still some ways off. The secret tunnel had closed a great deal of the distance to it in the last two days, but they were not yet in its shadow.

They struck out towards it, moving as fast as they dared and could manage, which in this case meant a slow jog. More monsters lay between them and the tower, and attacked them on the way.

Battle 2

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When they were a lot closer to the tower, and could see its base clearly, along with the the humongous gaping black rectange in the centre of it, presumably its open entrance doors, Horatio spotted a figure running towards the tower

A figure that was entirely white, except for a thin red band at its waist, with a mess of white hair, visible even at this distance.

‘Hey!’ he yelled to get everyone’s attention. ‘I think that’s Alex over there!’

‘It is,’ confirmed Helen with her huntress’s eagle-eyes. ‘He’s making straight for the tower.’

Alex had got a head start on them, but their use of the tunnel had almost allowed the party to negate it.

‘As fast as you can!’ cried Olivia. ‘We must get to him and aid him in retrieving the Clarent Sword!’

The party picked up to a sprint, just as they had done when they had been pursuing Olivia herself over the [Fardan] plains, knowing that Primus would have to propel himself along with magic again if he fell too far behind.

The only problem was that many monsters still milled around between them and Alex, and their running, and Primus’s use of a [wind] spell to catch up to the pelting party, attracted their attention.

Battle 3