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Aaaah so. Cheers brendan.

For 22a, I took the first letters of three words surrounding the first three of another word, to give smething which could be a guard - but the Tolkien reference escapes me - though I don't see anything more plausible to fit.
By the way the preamble's mention 16 and magic enabled me to guess what the secret number was going to be.

phantom - for 22, you need the "leaders" of the six words before, "troubled"

What a nice crossword! I was already a fan but Qaos continues to rise in my estimation with this and the recent Prize. 20a and 27 particular favourites here.

Thanks for the hints above. Can someone help me with the parsing for 7? And aren't we a letter short in 13?

7d 1st 2 letters are the river, 5 letter synonym for fight reversed without the w (not With) +3 letter synonym for attention/ what you hear with

the letter i think you mean is "F" from "Following"

Blimey would never have got that in a month of Sundays!

And I had the F as part of the definition but that makes sense.

Thanks kirky!