Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
In a clearing in Ghenesh, Etienne continues her ritual to activate the obelisks to destroy the shadow, guarded by Godofos, Caitlin and Jihx. The glow of the forest fire they set earlier is visible on the horizon.
Arun is heading for Forest Arden to assist Gerard in repelling the invading army of Moonriders.
In Ghenesh, Caitlin feels that the forest is unnaturally quiet.
Suddenly, the light of the forest fire they set goes out. A cold wind blows over the forest. Etienne can feel a build-up of magic here, and Caitlin senses several things approaching from all directions.
As the magic builds up, Etienne can sense that it is some kind of 'anti-life' spell. That doesn't sound good. She starts tying up the loose ends of her ritual so she can leave it for a little while to do other, more urgent, things. Caitlin, Jihx and Godofos concentrate upon a Trump of the Amber courtyard. Etienne saves their having to do so by casting a 'Dispel Magic' spell, which produces a fiery red glow all around the clearing as the magic dissolves away.
Caitlin hears where a couple of the approaching things are, and directs Jihx where to fire. He does. There are sounds of movement from the forest. Then the sound of some of Caitlin's traps going off. Then a glow of moonlight from a couple of places in the woods.
Suddenly and without warning, arrows fly from the woods towards the group.. Both Godofos and Etienne are hit; Godofos armour is slightly penetrated, scratching him, while Etienne is just knocked back a little by the blow as the arrow bounces off her armour.
Etienne prays rapidly and summons a cherub, Eros, whom she sends out above the trees to identify where the attackers are, and let the group fire at them. He flits off.
In Forest Arden, Arun searches for the Moonrider army in his dragon form. After a while, he sees a pillar of smoke off in the distance, and flies towards it, as Gerard thinks the Moonrider will try and burn Arden to cover the sun for their attack. As he approaches he can feel the level of magic dropping, as it does when one goes towards Amber.
As he comes closer, he changes colour to camouflage himself, blending in with the forest. As he closes further, he sees more pillars of smoke rising up from elsewhere close by in the forest.
As Arun goes, he shifts shadow so that a large rain and thunderstorm approaches, and builds, over the area the smoke is coming from. The smoke vanishes in the heavy rain. He also attempts to have the lightning in the storm strike Moonriders, but can't really tell whether this is having any effect or not.
Back in Ghenesh, Caitlin, Jihx and Godofos attempt to kill off the attacking Moonriders.
Caitlin pulls more petrol bombs out of her capacious bags, lights them, and throws them into the forest to keep back the Moonriders who are over there. She also uses the Pattern to create a light breeze to fan the flames.
Etienne prays and summons three more angels of the avenging kind - seraphs (that's as many as she can currently do). They appear one by one, with flaming eyes, flaming swords and an imposing, angry mien.
Eros the Cherub points down into the forest. Jihx fires at that spot. There is a hiss of pain from over there. Eros moves on and points out some more targets, which also get blasted.
Etienne orders the seraphs to engage the Moonriders, and they fly into the woods. She goes back to her ritual to set the obelisks up properly.
An arrow flies out of the woods and pierces Eros, who tumbles from the air into the trees.
There is a flash of orange fire from in the woods - one of the seraphs being destroyed. The other two seraphs are called back.
Caitlin and Godofos and the two remaining seraphs enter the forest to hunt down Moonriders. Jihx remains behind to guard Etienne. Over the river the fire rages, aided by the fanning breeze.
In Arden, Arun continues to search for the Moonrider army. After a while, he hasn't found them, but he does run across a patrol of Arden Rangers, riding down a small trail winding through the trees. In dragon form, he lands before them. They immediately look suspicious, and put hands to weapons. Arun turns back to human form, to reassure them that he is not an enemy, and when he's done so the Rangers look considerably happier now that they recognise him as a member of the Royal family. They take their hands from their weapons.
Arun asks them if they know where the Moonriders are. The Rangers nod and give him directions to their last known position.
Arun thanks them, then transforms back into dragon form and flies off in the indicated direction.
In the woods in Ghenesh, Caitlin quickly detects where their attackers are, and leads Godofos and the two seraphs that way. They quickly step out into a tiny clearing where a pair of Moonriders spin to face them. Godofos and Caitlin engage them while the seraphs look for an opening from behind. The two Moonriders are both very tough and very fast - it's a pretty even match. Caitlin recognises her opponent as one from Lillian's Trumps by the name of Telemachus.
As the seraphs move to attack, the two Moonriders keep a defensive posture towards Caitlin and Godofos but hack the seraphs from the air with a single blow each. The seraphs dissolve into orange fire and are gone. But this has left the Moonriders a little bit open, and both Godofos and Caitlin take advantage of this to inflict wounds upon their opponents, slowing them both a little.
Caitlin attacks, herding 'her' Moonrider towards some of the traps she set earlier. He matches her speed, to her glee. She grins maniacally. Some minor wounds are exchanged between the two of them.
Godofos also tries to herd his opponent towards the traps, though he isn't as sure as Caitlin of where they actually are.
Caitlin's opponent triggers one of Caitlin's traps. Bent back branches tipped with spikes spring out and entrap the Moonrider, hindering him badly. "Amber scum," he hisses in Thari. Caitlin moves in and, despite Telemachus' best attempts, she has the advantage now, and starts hurting him badly.
Godofos realises that he's actually herded his foe into one of the gaps between Caitlin's traps and almost to the clearing. Damn! Both Godofos and the Moonrider notice Jihx coming up behind the Moonrider, and as the Moonrider moves to account for both foes, Godofos takes the advantage and forces the Moonrider back as they continue to fight.
As Godofos' opponent realises he is slowing, and therefore losing, he throws himself at Godofos, taking a nasty cut in the process, but grabbing Godofos and throwing them both to the ground. The Moonrider squeezes him, breaking at least one rib as they roll about on the ground. Godofos uses the Pattern and finds a dagger that he applies to the Moonriders neck as he attempts to lever his head off. Moonlight trickles from the wound.
The Moonrider struggles, but again realises things are going badly. He gives up trying to stop the knife (for now) and uses bath hand to grab Godofos' right arm. He takes it above and below the elbow, and bends the elbow in a direction it was not made to band, to the accompaniment of hideous cracking and tearing sounds, and pain. Godofos ignores the pain as much as he can, and continues sawing away at the Moonrider's neck. He tries to persuade Godofos to stop this by wrenching his broken elbow back and forth to waves of terrible pain. Godofos takes it and carries on.
At this point, Jihx arrives to assist. Between him and Godofos, the Moonrider does not last long and before long is still on the ground, pouring moonlight, dead.
Telemachus is badly hurt by now, and it doesn't take too long for Caitlin to finish him off. He too lies still, bleeding moonlight.
Everything goes quiet. The three return to the clearing where Etienne continues her work.
When she sees the state Godofos and to a lesser extent Caitlin are in, Etienne temporarily ties up the loose ends of her ritual again, and goes over to them. She casts a healing spell on Godofos, and his arm (by now bruising, swelling and stiffening) is healed back to normal while Jihx guards the area. Once Godofos is back together, Etienne then heals Caitlin's far less serious wounds.
Once this is done, Etienne pulls out her Trump of Arun, and concentrates upon it to see how things are going with him.
Back in forest Arden, Arun, following the directions of the Ranger patrol, comes upon a scene of battle. The hacked up bodies of Rangers lie scattered about a clearing, where it looks like a defensive line was ploughed through like tissue paper. There are signs of a large force moving in the direction of Amber - the Moonriders, at a guess.
He follows the trail left by the several hundred riders, which is not hard to track.
After a while he comes upon a force of Moonriders moving towards Amber. He casts his Invisibility spell (which he has been saving to avoid it being destroyed by shifting through shadow) and observes them. He sees that there are 384 of them, and that their number does not seem to include either Gorgon or Erebus.
Being an invisible dragon, Arun takes some time to line up his best line of fire. Unfortunately even that is not too good - the Moonriders are in a formation that seems to make getting a line on very many of them at once really quite hard. But Arun does his best. Then he casts his Ray of Sun spell. Incandescent plasma bursts from him and hits a number of Moonriders, including three who are taken right through the chest. They, and a few others fall to the ground.
Arun flees once the spell is cast. Sensible!
He observes the Moonriders from a distance and sees that the ones who are only injured are helped back onto their horses and healed with magic. The three dead simply dissolve away as they have done before.
At about this point, Arun feels a Trump call coming on. He accepts, and as the link opens he can see that it is Etienne.
Through the Trump link, they discuss what has happened, and what is going on. Caitlin voices her suspicions that the Moonrider invasion is actually a distraction for something else, but there is no evidence one way or the other for this.
They decide to carry on doing what they are already doing, and close the Trump link.
Etienne returns to her ritual.
In Arden, Arun starts to use the Pattern to shift things in front of the Moonriders - a large field of quicksand that looks like a normal expanse of grass. As the leading Moonriders start to get bogged down, he casts a huge Daylight Flare spell. As the area starts to become bathed in bright sunlight, Arun feels one of the Moonriders dispel his spell with his magic. The spell is dispersed, but he can tell who that Moonrider was.
Then he feels magic wash over him, and becomes visible. Whoops! There is a glittering, hypnotic flash of moonlight in his eyes, and everything goes away...
In Ghenesh, a tempest starts to form over the area where that part of the group is. Etienne ties up the loose ends of her ritual again, then uses her magic to disperse the tempest, which is clearly of magic origin.
Then she goes back to her ritual again.
After another while, Etienne starts to feel magic flowing over the area around them. She warns the others. Caitlin and Godofos begin to make torches using fallen branches. As they do this, the many shadows that there are in this place move, shift, tear themselves away from the objects casting them, move out into the clearing and attack! Unfortunately they are quite slow, and between them Caitlin, Jihx and Godofos soon destroy them. Their flaming torches seem especially effective. When each animated shadow is destroyed, all the pieces flow back to their original location and become the original, normal shadow again. Etienne starts removing herself from the ritual again.
Before too long, all the animated shadows are destroyed. As the last is done in, the eyes of animals are seen glittering in the torchlight, all around the forested edge of the clearing. They are unnaturally quiet, and creatures not normally seen together so peacefully stand side by side - bears, wolves, foxes, rats, weasels, stoats, ferrets, mink, wild cats, rabbits, wild boar, deer.
They launch themselves into the clearing. Thrown torches set some of the bigger creatures on fire, but they are just not reacting to fire as normal animals should. They pile in. Caitlin just avoids them all. Jihx and Godofos fight them off, and Etienne is borne to the ground. The slaughter begins. All of the animals are killed, but a few do injury to Etienne and Godofos. Nothing serious though. No animals run away and by then end the clearing is piled with dead animals, and full of the smell of spilt blood. Everyone apart from Caitlin is covered in blood too.
Jihx begins using his sword to blast down the trees all around the clearing to make it more difficult to approach - deforestation begins. Caitlin throws more petrol bombs into the fallen trees, which start to burn. She uses the Pattern again to have the wind shift from fanning the flames in the forest (blowing from the clearing over the river) to fanning both lots of flames (blowing pretty much along the river to avoid their being affected by the smoke).
Once again, Etienne returns to her ritual.
Arun comes back to himself as sudden intense pain shoots through one wing and one leg. He finds that he is falling through trees. His right wing seems to be broken, and his leg is impaled on a tree branch, while the rest of him is just badly battered. He can just hear riders approaching. He quickly speaks the linchpins and casts his Teleportation spell, going three miles straight up. As he falls, he concentrates on fixing his wing, so he can fly. Once that is done, he hovers high up, and fixes the rest of himself. He's starting to feel tired now from all this exertion.
Nonetheless, he flies back down, stealthily, then magically summons himself a "large magic-resistant Moonrider-hating demon" right behind the Moonrider army (which seems to have got past the quicksand Arun found in some way). It appears, about twenty feet tall, red, with horns, bat wings and cloven hooves. Plus a huge flaming sword and shield. It roars and piles into the back of Moonrider army.
While the Moonriders are distracted, Arun flies down into the trees and uses the Pattern to find himself a mortar and ammunition. It is in a crate on the back of a rusty W.W.II-vintage-looking tracked vehicle. He quickly sets it up (having learnt such things during his years wandering shadow) and begins to shell the Moonriders, adding more confusion to their ranks.
The demon is coming under a great deal of fire as the Moonriders turn to engage it. The Moonriders seem much faster than it is.
Arun uses the Pattern again, and more mortar shells start to land about the Moonriders as a couple of groups of Rangers open up too.
The Moonriders change formation to cope with all this, and, in general do, though they can't help taking some level of casualties. After a while, the huge demon can take no more, and falls. Magic begins to be used against the mortar fire too. Arun moves through the trees a little way and, using the Pattern, finds a pallet of rusting drums of petrol. He casts his Telekinesis spell, and the pallet rises into the air and floats over the Moonriders, dripping petrol. The Moonriders mostly get out of the way, but the mortar shells that are still falling begin to set off the petrol. The Moonriders scatter out of the way.
In Ghenesh, Jihx moves among the trees he has blasted down, looking for food. He finds nuts and acorns, and eats them. Caitlin and Godofos take some of the dead animals that are now roasting nicely in the fires and eat them. Etienne keeps working.
After an hour or so, Etienne feels some magical effect building again off in the distance. But the ritual is almost finished, so she keeps going, and before too long, she feels the obelisks click onto the aspect of the Pattern in the Heart of Winter. It gets noticeably colder. Etienne stands up, feeling quite tired, and tells the others that she is done.
Then she steps back as Jihx raises his sword and fires at one of the obelisks, blasting it into fragments. Immediately everyone apart from Godofos begins to feel the imbalance of power beginning to occur.
Once that is settled, Etienne concentrates on the Eye of St Claire and sends her point of view (and magical sense) off into the distance, seeking the source of the magic. At the site of the temple they destroyed earlier she sees a group of robed Moonriders in a circle. A large faintly glowing silver ball floats in the air between and above them. As she watches, it rises up into the sky, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
Etienne passes this on to the others. Caitlin and Godofos pull out the Trump of the Amber castle courtyard, and start concentrating upon it. Etienne uses the Eye of St Claire to channel her prayer and call down a pillar of fire on the Moonriders at the wrecked temple. One of them is burned to a crisp. The silver ball appears in the sky, high up, but clearing falling towards the group, or the clearing. Jihx fires at it. It has no effect apart from the ball becoming slightly purple in hue. The ball falls closer and closer.
Caitlin, Godofos and Etienne decide now is the time to leave. They shout to Jihx that they are going now. Jihx ignores them and fires again. The other three pile through the Trump link to Amber.
In Ghenesh, Jihx sees the silver ball drop lower and lower. It touches down. There is a flash of silver light and agonising pain. Jihx falls unconscious.
In Amber, the other three wait until they're pretty sure the silver ball must have done whatever it was going to, then concentrate on Godofos' Trump sketch of the clearing. After a little while, the image clears and the link opens. They step through. The clearing and everything for about a hundred metres in all directions seems to be covered in ash, as if every organic thing there was turned to ash.
Jihx is lying in the ash to one side, in his armour, unconscious. They check how he is. Inside his armour, he seems to breathing, and covered in a layer of ash. Oh. No, that ash was his skin. There is red raw flesh under it. It's probably a good thing he's unconscious, then. Etienne immediately prays to God and casts a healing spell on Jihx. Golden light surrounds him, but when it goes away, he hasn't been fully healed but his skin is now a single huge scab. And he's still unconscious.
Caitlin concentrates on the Trump to Amber and they carefully pass him through the link to Amber for treatment, though the three of them stay behind.
Etienne uses the Eye of St Claire to bring down another column of fire on a Moonrider at the wrecked temple, toasting him. They seem to be in the process of trying to create another one of these balls of silvery light. Etienne mentions this to the other and starts casting her Dispel Magic spell to get rid of it.
Caitlin and Godofos dive into the river for protection, ready to dive and hold their breaths if another silver sphere appears. Brrr! Cold!
Back in Forest Arden, Arun sneaks about attacking groups of Moonriders from cover, to some minor effect. After a short while of this, he finds a moonsteed on its own. It goes for him, but he subdues it, then attempts to absorb its mass into himself. He finds that he can't - the horse seems to be made out of something other than matter. So he breaks its neck and kills it instead.
He continues following the Moonrider army.
He uses the Pattern to 'find' a laser rifle. Unfortunately when he tries it, it doesn't work. Neither does its under-slung grenade launcher. Damn. Arun drops the rifle and 'finds' a crossbow instead. That seems to work with no problems at all, so he starts using it on Moonriders.
In Ghenesh, Etienne unmakes the new silver sphere with her Dispel Magic spell; it fades away. Godofos dives beneath the water, just in case. When it becomes clear that Etienne has succeeded, Caitlin boots him in the ribs a couple of times to signal him to stand up. He does.
Etienne uses the Eye of St Claire to cast a Tempest upon the unfortunate Moonriders at the wrecked temple. The tempest builds. The Moonriders move away from the temple, looking for somewhere more favourable, but Etienne has the tempest follow them, and they have no hiding place.
In Amber, Jihx has been carried to the castle infirmary, and his skin (scab) has been cleaned, covered with some nice-smelling salve, and bandaged. Jihx is conscious for the last part of this, which hurts.
After a while, Jihx receives a visit from Gerard, who is quite sympathetic. He has the nurses in the infirmary put Jihx on a gurney (loud cracking noises from Jihx's scabs, and some more pain as this is done), then pulls out a Trump and concentrates upon it. When the link opens Gerard goes through, taking the gurney, and Jihx, with him.
They appear in what looks like a very high-tech hospital emergency room; no-one seems fazed at their appearing out of thin air. "They'll look after you properly here," says Gerard to Jihx. "It's fast too, so you should be back in time for some fighting."
Doctors and nurses rush up, and Jihx is wheeled off. Jihx just sees Gerard Trump out.
Jihx is anaesthetised and everything fades away in a haze of drugs...
In Arden, Arun fires crossbow bolts at the Moonriders and shifts shadow as much as he can given his proximity to Amber. Still, he gets what he wants - a fairly large crevasse extending off in both directions, right in the path of the Moonriders, in a non-magical area of the forest. Swarms of mosquitoes fly up from the crevasses and swarm around the Moonriders. The Moonriders seem unaffected. Perhaps because they have no blood.
Suddenly, there is a blare of horns, and thousands of (human) soldiers in the livery of Amber step out of the trees, surrounding the Moonriders. They start to fire arrows into the gathered Moonriders. Gerard rides out of the trees too, wearing a huge suit of plate armour and mounted on a huge war-horse, and comes over towards Arun.
He greets Arun as he rides up.
In Ghenesh the ground rumbles, and crevasses start to open up as the imbalance of power increases and increases. Etienne concentrates upon the Trump of the Amber courtyard. Lava starts to rise up the crevasses, then spray out from them. The Trump link opens up, and the three of them make a hasty exit to Amber. Once they arrive, Etienne pulls out the Trump of Vitesse and concentrates upon it. Once the link is open, they step through to the auberge courtyard.
Etienne wants to go back to Ghenesh to observe. Godofos pulls out his Trump sketch of the other clearing in Ghenesh (where the luckless Moonrider Cadmus met his end), and they concentrate on it. The Trump contact is harder to open than other contacts they've made with Ghenesh, and takes longer, but it does open up eventually.
Through the Trump link it can be seen that the place is shaking, and pillars of fire and lava are visible rising into the sky far off in the distance. Fire and destruction reign. Etienne steps through the Trump link, and appears in Ghenesh. As soon as she arrives she can feel that the shadow is tearing itself apart, from the direction of the other clearing; it feels bad, and wrong, as if a crime against the multiverse itself.
She watches a storm build off in the distance, where the fire and destruction is, then begin to spread out, consuming all in its path. She pulls out her Trump of Godofos and concentrates on it until he takes the call, then keeps the link open while she observes as the storm nears. When the storm gets too close, she goes through to Godofos in Vitesse, and leaves Ghenesh to its fate.
Off in shadow, Jihx spends a couple of days being treated by technological and magical means, and healing of himself. By the end he has skin again, although it is pink and tender, and feels ready to act. He discharges himself, puts on his armour (which has been cleaned inside and out) and Trumps Gerard.
Before long the link opens up. Gerard is pleased to see him, and invites Jihx to join him for the defeat of the Moonriders. Jihx comes through, and greets Arun, who is also there.
At that moment there is a collective keening sigh from all the of Moonriders gathered on the edge of the crevasse. They remain where they were, but now they look both sad, and angry...
The Amber forces move forward and their line begins to engage that of the Moonriders.
In Vitesse, Etienne concentrates on Arun's Trump. Arun takes the call, and brings her, Caitlin and Godofos through. They greet Jihx, pleased at his speedy recovery.
They discuss the destruction of these last Moonriders. Caitlin suggests that they are not all destroyed - she wants to put the remaining specimens in a zoo (only so that she can torment them and poke them with sticks). No-one else is really keen on leaving any alive.
At the edge of the crevasse the Moonriders are fighting hard, at the rate of thirty or forty Amber troops cut down for every one Moonrider killed. At this rate they'll win simply by attrition of the Amber forces!
This is pointed out to Gerard, but he assures them that the forces he's got in reserve should make up for the losses. Caitlin pulls some more petrol bombs out of her bags. She hands some of them to Godofos and uses others herself. They throw them around the Moonriders (Caitlin to the front, Godofos to the rear), fires hemming them in to better be slaughtered. Gerard also joins in, throwing the petrol bombs further and more accurately than Godofos.
Then they all move in to engage the Moonriders hand to hand.
A few hours of hard hand-to-hand fighting ensues. Thousands of Amber troops die. Everyone apart from Caitlin and Gerard is injured (not too seriously). But the Moonrider's army is broken when the thousands of reserve troops who were still hiding in the trees join the battle.
When the few hours have passed only fifteen Moonriders are left, grouped in a defensive position on the edge of the crevasse.
Gerard steps forward and demands their surrender. "Never," whispers the leader of the Moonriders.
The Amber forces move forward in their last charge. As they near the Moonriders, the Moonriders step back over the edge of the crevasse, and fall to their deaths.
And that's it. The battle is over, Amber has won, and there is only mopping up left to do. The soldiers move to treating the wounded and carrying off the dead.
Caitlin can't be bothered with this. She concentrates on her Trump of the Amber courtyard, and leaves. When she arrives she can immediately tell that it is warmer. It feels like spring (although it is really summer). All the frost has certainly melted. She asks a servant about the lines of cold, and is told that they have all vanished.
The others, off in Arden, also decide to return to Amber. Gerard comes with them. They too feel the warming of the air, and hear the news. Gerard congratulates them all.
A meal is arranged for now, and a massive feast for later.
While eating, Gerard is told everything that happened (including any stuff that they may have left out earlier).
There is some concern about the whereabouts of Gorgon and Erebus. After lunch, everyone heads down to the courtyard, many guards are summoned, and, collectively, they Trump Erebus (whom they haven't tried to Trump before). Nothing happens. It feels similar to Trumping someone who is asleep, or unconscious, or out of range. Damn. They then try Gorgon, with the same results. Oh well...
The release of Lillian is discussed. The general opinion is that she should be let out of the cage. It comes down to keeping her under house arrest (which would be a problem is she is a Trump artist) or giving her freedom with an oath not to act against Amber again (and being imprisoned again if she does).
It is also decided that some of these problems have partly arisen from most of them being away from Amber for most of the last five years. So, everyone will return to Amber at least once a year for the Oberon's Birthday celebrations at the end of the year (including Lillian if she's released).
A delegation is sent down to the Pattern room to talk to Lillian. She is not in favour of house arrest, and gives the impression of agreeing with those who think she might use the Trumps to leave. She is much more in favour of the second option, and volunteers to be a roving ambassador, explorer and trouble-shooter for Amber. In this role she would remain out in shadow, mapping shadow paths, opening diplomatic relations, and dealing with problems, apart from coming back to Amber at least once a year. After some thought she agrees to swear an oath on her father's grave to abide by what she said, and not plot against Amber again.
Everyone, including Gerard, agrees to this. She swears the oath, and is released (and given back her Trumps and equipment) just in time to take part in the victory celebrations that occur that night and for the next couple of days. However, she still doesn't explain how she escaped from her first imprisonment.
All of the group are celebrated as the heroes (and heroines, of course) of the hour.
And that is pretty much that. Things quieten down, and Amber comes back to normal. The situation has been resolved...
And eventually Jihx returns to Rebma, and Queen Moire. She greets him enthusiastically. "Great news Jickth," she lisps, "I'm pwegnent - we're having a baby!"