Chapter Nine

The Refuge, as Kayon called it, proved to be a network of underground tunnels and caves, the entrance hidden so carefully that the chances of finding it by accident were . . . Well, let's just say there was more chance of me voluntarily joining the Cult of Mumm-Ra. Anyway, when Kayon told us to stop on what seemed to be a perfectly normal patch of ground, with no sign of anything resembling a Refuge, I wondered what he was up to. Was his rescue of myself and my fellow Thundercats just a ruse to gain our trust.

I was about to demand answers, but, before I could do so, Kayon whistled several times. First, he whistled once, paused, then whistled twice, paused again and whistled three times, then another pause, followed by four whistles. After that, he paused again and I expected him to whistle five times. But he didn't. Instead, he motioned us to stand back as a seemingly ordinary boulder began to split in two.

"Come!" Kayon called, once the "boulder" had opened wide enough to allow an adult male Thunderian to walk through it. "The entrance cannot remain open longer than two minutes."

We hurried through the secret entrance, emerging in a vast underground chamber, lit by glowing orbs. As the "boulder" closed up again, making a sound not unlike that of an automatic door sliding shut, I gazed round at my surroundings. I had not known what to expect from this Refuge, but I had to admit that it was pretty impressive. The chamber we were in was vast, large enough for around two hundred beings the same size as a Thunderian adult to assemble, more if you included smaller races like the Wollos and Bolkins. A raised area served as a stage, on which stood a plain metal table, and corridors branched off in all directions.

I looked at the others who had taken shelter here. Three humans, two men and a woman, stood at the far end of the room; like Kayon, they were all wearing the uniform of the Galactic Police. Queen Tia and her Warrior Maidens were here too, as was the young Wollo called Koris, easily recognisable because he was about half as tall as most of the others here. A dozen or so Brutemen, primitive and bestial, were talking to each other in their crude grunting "language"; seeing them reminded me of a story Wilykit had once told me about how the Mutants had once enslaved a group of these creatures and forced them to build Castle Plundarr. I saw Ro-bear Bill and his Berbils and was relieved to see that these gentle robotic bears had managed to escape when the Cult of Mumm-Ra launched their raid.

But the ones I was most interested in were standing side-by-side near the Warrior Maidens. These were Fangelo and Ocelotra, the two Thundercats who had been manning the Tower of Omens. My fellow Thundercats and I went to join them, as Kayon turned to address the assembled crowd.

"Well, now that we're all present and correct, let us begin," he said, gazing round at the assembled beings. "I'm sure you all know about the threat from the Cult of Mumm-Ra, so I won't repeat any explanations from earlier. But I will say that we have been joined by the people who defeated Mumm-Ra eighty years ago - the Thundercats! And, among their number are the grandson and great-grandson of the mighty Lord Lion-O!"

A cheer echoed through the underground chamber. Clearly, pretty near everyone here knew about my great-grandfather's reputation, even though none of them, with the exception of the Berbils, had any personal memories of him. For everyone else, he was beyond living memory, a part of history, someone who had lived several decades ago.

Anyway, the news that the current team of Thundercats was on Third Earth - well, some of them anyway - seemed to give the Third Earthlings hope. The cheering continued for several minutes, until Kayon had to call for silence before he could address the assembled crowd. "The Thundercats," he said, "have sworn to join with us and fight the threat the Cult of Mumm-Ra poses to the peace that has been built up over the past eighty years. We . . ."

But, at this point, one of the Warrior Maidens interupted him. "But there are many in the Cult and only a few of us! How can we defeat them?" She was young, not much older than me, and seemed to be the youngest of the few Warrior Maidens who had escaped the raid on the Treetop Kingdom.

"By working together, Jaya," Kayon replied. "By formulating a plan and striking back when the time is right."

"And by remembering the Code of Thundera!" I cut in. "Justice, Truth, Honour and Loyalty!" I punched the air as I spoke the words I had been taught as a young child, but had never before uttered with such conviction.

If I told you everything that was discussed at that meeting, we'd still be here next week. So I'll just say that we agreed to do whatever it took to rid Third Earth of the Cult of Mumm-Ra, preferably before they achieved their aims of setting Mumm-Ra free. And we would also strive to find a way to free the prisoners held at Castle Plundarr.

"What about the Statue of Omens?" I asked at length. "Could that help us?"

"It could," my father replied, "if we had all the pieces."

"We do have some," Ocelotra reminded him from where she sat. "Storm, you managed to hide the piece Wilykit gave you, didn't you?"

I nodded, recalling the day Wilykit had given me that piece of statue, the day she had died. At that point, I had not known what it was and had thought it was just a piece of an old, broken statue. Now, however, I knew it was much more than that, that it could hold the key to stopping the Cult of Mumm-Ra. If only we had all the pieces . . .

"And Koris has the piece entrusted to the Wollos," Ocelotra went on, nodding in the Wollo boy's direction.

"We also managed to save ours," Ro-bear Bill said. He nodded in Tia's direction as he spoke and I guessed the Berbils had had some help from the Warrior Maidens when it came to protecting their fragment of Statue. After all, those robotic bears weren't exactly seasoned fighters . . .

Then, one of the Brutemen grunted and pointed to himself. He made a few gestures and took something out of the sack he carried over his shoulder, holding it up for us all to see. I craned my neck to look; it was definitely a piece of the Statue, the left hand by the look of it. The Bruteman pointed to it, then to himself. I guessed at once what he was trying to say, that he was the one who kept the fragment entrusted to his kind.

"All right, so we have three pieces in our possession," my father said at length. "And Storm hid a fourth back at Cats' Lair. A fifth piece is believed to be in the hands of the Ice Lunatacs, though how they got hold of it is anyone's guess. We already know the Warrior Maidens lost their piece, as, I suspect, did the Bolkins. And . . ."

"What about the other pieces?" the young Warrior Maiden called Jaya cut in. "How many of them are there?"

"I was just getting to that," my father told her. "One was entrusted to the Tuskas, another to the Snowmen of Hook Mountain and a third to the Unicorn Keepers." He turned to Kayon. "Have any of them been raided by the Cult of Mumm-Ra?"

"No," Kayon replied.

"Then we must get the Unicorn Keepers here. The Snowmen and the Tuskas are proud warriors; they should be able to handle most things. But we still need their pieces of the Statue."

The meeting broke up shortly after this and everyone was left to their own devices. I sat down and thought about everything that had happened lately, wondering just what it was that the Cult of Mumm-Ra had planned. Whatever it was, I could be sure it would be bad news for us, especially my father and me. After all, we were descended from the one who had imprisoned Mumm-Ra in the first place, so, if he ever got free . . . Well, if I was an evil demon (which I wasn't) and someone let me loose, the first thing I would do would be to seek revenge on anyone connected with whoever had imprisoned me.

I thought about the Statue of Omens, the Statue I had been told was virtually the last line of defence against the return of Mumm-Ra. I had never seen it whole, of course, so I had no idea what it was supposed to look like when it was fully assembled. But, from the fragments I'd already seen, I knew it depicted a humanoid being, possibly a Thunderian . . . I paused, thinking about those fragments. Three were here in the Refuge, one was hidden in Cats' Lair (at least I hoped it still was), three more were still in the hands of the races they had been entrusted to, two had already been lost and one had fallen into the hands of the Ice Lunatacs. I still did not know what Icelia's motives were or how she came to have a piece of the Statue, but, if we ever met again, I was going to be on my guard. For all I knew, that story she had told me about the Doomsday Missile and her people no longer being allied with the Mutants was some Lunatac trick.

Although, come to think of it, I hadn't seen any Ice Lunatacs among the Cult of Mumm-Ra. But that still didn't mean Icelia could be trusted; for all I knew, her people had their own agenda and she had fed me that story to get the Thundercats on their side. And then there was the question of the Statue fragment she had. How had it come into her possession? I knew the Thundercats would never have entrusted it to an enemy race. Had some Ice Lunatac stolen it from its rightful owner?

I did not know, but, if that was the case, it made three fragments which had fallen into enemy hands. Whatever the cost, we had to protect the remaining six, make sure the Cult of Mumm-Ra couldn't get their hands on them. Already, Lizarius and his minions must be planning to hunt us down and bring us back to Castle Plundarr. And, since I had refused to reveal the location of the fragment I had hidden, I knew they would use any means at their disposal to extract that information.

But I told myself that, no matter what they did, I would never reveal anything. I would never betray the trust Wilykit had passed on to me.

I was woken the next morning by my mother entering the room I had been given in this underground complex, a lamp in her hand. The Refuge was lit round the clock, as there was no such thing as daylight down here, but that was the price we had to pay for our safety. No-one was allowed to leave the Refuge alone; you always had to be with at least one other person . . . Well, I say "person", but, since our conglomerate of fugitives consisted of humans, Thundercats, a Wollo, Berbils and Brutemen, "being" might be a better word.

Anyway, my mother came in and walked over to me. "Morning, Storm," she said. Not that concepts like "morning", "noon" and "night" meant anything down here. "Breakfast is almost ready." It was so like most other mornings of my life that, for a moment, I was able to forget all about the Cult of Mumm-Ra and the Statue of Omens and remember when I was just a regular Thunderian boy, albeit one who was destined to lead our people one day. "So you'd better come on," my mother added, snapping me out of my daydream.

I followed her into a room lined with long tables, at which most of those who had taken shelter here sat, eating. The Berbils, who, I had learned, did not eat in the conventional sense (although they did extract some form of energy from their Berbil fruit) were bustling around, serving everyone else. My mother and I sat down at the table furthest from the door, where our fellow Thundercats and Koris were already seated. I found myself sitting between Lynxari and Fangelo, as a Berbil approached with a laden tray.

"Help yourselves," the Berbil said. Its robotic voice seemed higher than that of the other Berbils I'd met and this, along with the bows tied round its ears, made me suspect that this Berbil was female. I helped myself from the tray which she held before me - some of those strange bread-like fruits I had seen growing in the Berbil village - and sat back as she moved on to serve someone else.

Breakfast passed without incident. The Breadfruit, as I learned the strange fruit was called, was delicious, kind of like regular bread, but sweeter and with a large stone at the centre. I supposed this must be the seed.

"What's the agenda for today?" Ocelotra asked at length.

My father paused. "Well, we'll be sending someone out to look for the Unicorn Keepers," he said at length. "We can't leave such gentle beings out there with the Cult of Mumm-Ra around. Queen Tia's already volunteered her services - the Warrior Maidens know the forests of this planet better than any of us. And I'll be patrolling with Kayon and Pumar," he added, glancing down at the Sword of Omens by his side.

"I'd like to come with you," I cut in, determined not to spend any more time in this Refuge than I had to. Had I been back on New Thundera, I would have been getting ready to go to school right now, either that or planning to go off somewhere with Hunter. I had never before spent any length of time confined to one place.

But my father shook his head. "It's out of the question, Storm. You are my heir, destined to be the next Lord of the Thundercats. I can't risk the Cult of Mumm-Ra capturing you - or worse."

"But . . ." I started to object. But my father cut me off before I could say another word.

"No, Storm, and that's my final word. You will stay here where it's safe."

"Safe is boring!" I muttered under my breath. I was at an age where I was getting sick of being treated like a child. Though I was growing up, people still seemed to want to treat me as though I was still the little boy I had been a few years earlier. Snarf Emala had been a particular thorn in my side, constantly butting into my affairs; her meddling and lecturing was worse than ever and I was glad to have left her behind on New Thundera. But, maybe if I did something to prove I could handle things on my own, people would start treating me with a bit of respect. After all, I was going to be Lord of the Thundercats one day . . .

Once my father, Pumar and Kayon had left to go on their patrol and Queen Tia, accompanied by two of her Warrior Maidens had gone to look for the Unicorn Keepers, I sought out Koris and the young Warrior Maiden, Jaya. Like me, Jaya had been deemed "too young" to accompany her leader on her mission. And, like me, she did not want to spend all her time cooped up here. She was used to roaming the forests, as were all the Warrior Maidens.

"So, what are we going to do?" she asked, as the three of us huddled together in a corner.

I winked at her. "Between us, we're going to free all the Cult's prisoners. Then, we're going to bring them back here." I could imagine the praise we would receive when we showed up with a throng of freed prisoners and told the others how we, the three youngest beings in the Refuge, had been the ones who set them free. No-one would dare treat us like kids after this. No-one would leave us out of "dangerous missions" once we had proved we could handle ourselves. True, Koris was a Wollo, a race not accustomed to fighting, but I was a Thundercat and Jaya was a Warrior Maiden; warrior blood flowed in our veins and, teenagers as we were, we were sure we could handle whatever we came up against.

But, as we would soon discover, taking on an enemy the size of the Cult of Mumm-Ra is not something to be done lightly.