"What are we gonna do about it then!?" Ellian asked in a panic, "How can we be sure that whoever it is, isn't just hiding in some tree waiting to stick our heads with an arrow?"

"Listen, if they wanted to kill us, they would have," Efa reassured the boy, "it leaves us with two possibilities; either they need to bring us in alive... or what I believe, that they didn't want to kill us."

Ellian calmed down a little, then flared up again, asking, "Then who is it that's hunting us?" His expression turned fearful as he said, "what if its the authorities from Mynwent... coming to capture me, because it's my mother who..."

"It's not," said Efa, "I've seen this amulet on another person. The same group that burned my town. Followers of fire I call them. They are almost certainly here to kill us, possibly as revenge or to get us out of the way." She clenched her fists but relaxed them again when she saw how distraught Ellian was becoming. She gave him a pat on the back and said, "Let's get going. I want to try and track this person who's hunting us." "You can stay back," she said after a pause, noticing the boy's hesitation.  

Efa bent down and picked up the amulet, shoving it in her satchel and said, "lets go."

They mounted Raven, Ellian sitting in front of Efa, and set off through the forest back to the road. There was no sign of the sun today as well, rain clouds gathered to the South sky this time. Efa had tried her best to track the footprints but to no avail, they had become too hard to make out the further out of the forest they got. They had just broken through the treeline and onto the road, when Ellian shouted out and pointed to a spot on the ground in front of them. Very clearly visible was a small pile of horse feces.

"It's horseshit!" he exclaimed. 

Efa nodded in affirmation. "Quite surprised you caught that," she said, "Well, this proves he came on horse, got off and came to stare at us."

"Kind of creepy when you think about it," Ellian said with a laugh.

"Better than having out heads cut or something," Efa countered.

They noticed hoofprints some ways away and continued in that direction; which was coincidentally the direction they were supposed to go in. The two of them carried on in silence. They were well rested; albeit a little hungry. Having gone on for a while, the hoofprints faded out behind them, leaving them to push on based on speculation. They were nearing a flatter part of the terrain.

The scenery hadn't changed much for the duration of their travel. Roving fields and occasional woodland, intermixed with shrubs and small creeks or ponds made up much of the countryside. Efa had a general idea of where Targarth was, not including what she had extracted from the maps. The maps she had were only of the area near to Cayrnr and slightly beyond. On the maps the lush prairie they were in was called 'The Grieving Basin'. She had evidently left the Dyffryn o aur according to the map. All the locations and landmarks were giving her a headache, the names were beginning to change as well, less olde tongue the further North we go Efa reasoned.

She was snapped out of her aside when Ellian suddenly jerked up. The road they were taking went down a sudden bend and down into a meadow. 

"Efa... something's up ahead."

"Wha...? I cant see anything."

"Its not visible... I think. Its just I can feel that something is hidden somewhere close."

"Magic?" 

Ellian nodded. 

If something is hidden... wait which Rhaniad do cloaking incantations come under Efa wondered for a second. "You're sure you sense something hidden?"

"Yes." 

Ellian seemed confident. Efa decided to trust her partner. They raced down the road, Raven going at a gallop down into the meadow, trampling flowers and kicking up grass. It was a wide meadow. A treeline was barely visible to the far back of it, little trickles of water from diverging creeks flowed into small ponds that were surrounded by a small cluster of shrubs. Almost directly in front of them was a large tree. It was to this tree that they went.

Ellian's face was scrunched up in concentration. Without opening his eyes he pointed at the base of the tree. Efa removed her cloak which she had on and they both dismounted silently and walked over to the tree.

"You sure?" she confirmed again, Ellian nodded in response.

She pointed her index finger at the place Ellian had indicated and muttered the incantation: Amlygu, which was the counter to the concealment spell. Pagnodd had taught her the incantation a long time back when they had been discussing secret addresses or messages on packages and envelopes. She hoped that it would work now.

Nothing happened at first, but after a few seconds, Efa felt the rebound of her incantation, indicating that it had worked. And sure enough, the air at the base of the tree shifted like the surface of a bubble and then dissipated, revealing a sudden surprising sight. 

A large sleeping horse appeared and next to the horse with his back against the tree, sleeping away, was a boy who looked to be about seventeen winters past, a shock of light brown hair covered his head, sticking up at the back. A small scar ran down right cheek. What caught Efa's eye was his garb; dressed in a black shirt and black trousers, laced riding boots on his feet, with his night black cloak wrapped around him like a blanket. His neck was bare, there was no amulet.

She turned to face Ellian. He seemed determined. Smirking, Efa glanced at the laces on his boots, a plan forming in her head. The boy didn't seem to be waking anytime soon. Efa bent down slightly and explained the plan to Ellian, who giggled once hearing it. 

They got to work setting it in motion. Once ready Efa put a hand on the sleeping boy's shoulder and shoved him into a puddle of water they had conjured. Within a second of hitting the water, his head jerked up and his eyes shot open as he spluttered and gagged. 

"What the -" was all he had time to say before Ellian blew a raspberry at the disorientated boy. He shot to his feet, instinctively raising a hand to cast a spell and took a step forward. Ellian took a step back giggling as the boy tripped up on his own shoe laces which had been tied together, and fell forward again, this time slamming face first into the cold hard ground. 

Ellian walked away slowly, still laughing at how well the plan worked, as Efa took over. She walked over to the boy, sat on his back and held her dagger to the side of his throat, he immediately fell silent. 

"This dagger was coated with poison, If you want to live I suggest you don't move too much," Efa said gently, trying to muster the venom in her words. Threatening people was something she never did before. She was concerned by the boy's lack of fight.

The boy made an attempt to speak but was quickly silenced by Efa who said, "shush! I'll be asking the questions." After ascertaining that he wasn't planning anything Efa set her expression to seem determined and questioned him. "Name?" 

"Clytyn."

"Are you the one who was sent to kill us?"

"Yes."

"Okay then Clytyn, why are we not dead then?"

Clytyn visibly hesitated. He seemed unsure of whether to answer or not. Eventually he sighed and said, "killing people isn't as easy as you think, little girl. I don't want to kill... but seeking out the person who was sent to kill you, after he spared your life, is not a good move. In fact it makes him more inclined to kill you now."

His delivery of those words sent a chill down Efa's spine. But before she could respond, she noticed that his hands were positioned under his prone body. Too late was her realization that they hadn't stopped his magic usage. "Chwyth i ffwrdd," he roared. 

It's that blasting away spell... but the starting point of that spell is the hands so -but Efa's thoughts were thrown out the window as the boy, and Efa who was on top him, were rocketed up to the sky. 

While airborne, Efa's thoughts became fuzzy, she felt like a flying duck for a second before brutal reality returned and gravity pulled her and the Clytyn boy down to earth. She heard Ellian's scream echo in the sky. As her usual safety measure, she whispered cadw'n ddiogel in her mind and spotted the ground coming ever closer. Flipping around in mid-air, she aimed her legs like she was doing a simple drop from a building, calming her nerves and breathing like she had done many multitudes of times prior. She crashed into the grassy plain, rolling instinctively. Even though she had braced herself, the landing had knocked most of the air out of her lungs. She sat up and started gasping for air.

"It appears to me that you aren't really good at interrogating people," Clytyn said, his hands on his hips. He had recovered much faster than Efa, which made her think that this wasn't the first time he had done that. "It also appears to me that you aren't a little girl," he stated in a dry voice, eyeing the gasping Efa with concern.

Ellian ran up to the two of them and stood between Efa and Clytyn. "Don't," he said, his voice trembling, "don't hurt her."

"You lack conviction young man... ah but at least you're actually a young man," Clytyn said with a dry laugh. "Relax. I don't want to kill you, I just want to leave those sonsofbitches aside. Hell I never even wanted to join them, was my fucking mother that forced me to... Ugh, but no more, I'll botch this mission of killing you two and disappear forever." He finished with a sly smile which slowly morphed into one of concern as he finally registered that the two of them were here, in front of him...

Efa noticed his sudden change in expression. "Uh -"

"Did you take the amulet!?" he yelled, "did you fucks take the amulet I dropped!?"

Efa replied in a small voice, "yeah. Why does it matter? also stop shouting."

"No I will not stop shouting!" He paced around in a panic, fidgeting with his hands. "For fucks sake, that amulet is a magical beacon, they use it to track the member's location. I dropped it there so that they would track it and find you," he admitted.

"Hold on! so you were planning to get us killed!" said Efa, flaring up. 

"It was my job alright! I wasn't just gonna up and disappear! I had to make them think otherwise." He fumed and started pacing again. "Hold on, give it here, the amulet." 

Efa plucked it out of her satchel and threw it at the boy. "Keep it and let us be. If they come for you then let them, we're just gonna -"

"Oh shut up, if they come, I'll make damn sure you get killed along with me!"

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCKING HELL UP!" bellowed Ellian, who had been watching the shouting match with increasing tension. "If we don't do something soon they're going to find us. Can't we just throw it away?" he said, indicating the amulet. 

It definitely shut the two of them up. Clytyn meekly responded, "We could try but I doubt w -"

Just then the sounds of whooshing air was heard. 

"They're here..." Clytyn said in a hollow voice, his eyes widening. 

Within the blink of an eye the sounds were attributed to; at estimate, thirty or so magi flying through the sky on broomsticks and catalyst staffs. They circled the perimeter of where the trio were standing and came to float above their heads, menacingly, threateningly. 

"So. That's where you were, golden boy!" one of the flyers said in a drawling voice, "Oh! and what's this... you've found the targets too... My my you really are the golden boy. You had us worried when your amulet was off your person."

Clytyn hung his head and began muttering. Taking the hint Efa signaled to Ellian and pointed at Clytyn. He nodded and backed up a little, edging close to the dagger they had dropped. 

Efa shouted back up at the attackers. "SCUM OF THE EARTH! LISTEN WELL! WE DO NOT FEAR YOU, WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU, YOU THINK YOU CAN CONQUER US? WELL YOU THOUGHT WRONG. WE AREN'T GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT! BUT WHATEVER HAPPENS DON'T BRING CLYTYN INTO THIS! YOU ONLY NEED US DEAD, LEAVE HIM!"

"Oh ye poor lil gurl, yer mistaken, this includes all of yeh, the shit-boy included." another attacker fired back. They started circling the three of them like vultures. "Now this is just gonna hurt a wee bit Al'righ?" he said, raising his hands as if ready to cast a spell. "And if ye behave well and proper 'n all, we'll treat ye to somethin real good la'er." He grinned at his peers and they all grinned back.

Efa put her hand behind her back and stopped talking, causing the attackers to shout back down, "Oh ho, what's this," a third sneered, "run out of insults? well that's expected, now just sit back and enjoy the ride." He grinned and a faint glow began to form in the palm of all of their hands.

Thrusting her hands forwards and upwards, Efa unleashed a slightly modified llosgi, It was now a wide semicircular dome of fire, instead of the usual full circle. She had divided the starting point between both hands and had used a rotating motion to give a slight spin to her dome of fire. And it was massive, tongues of fire arched outward as the entire thing was shot sky-high, enveloping the gathered attackers. 

Some managed to create shields or block the flame, others managed to dissipate a small portion of it, but most of them screamed. Screams of agony as their skin was melted off and their bones charred. Pieces of blackened wood fell to the ground from most of their destroyed broomsticks. As Efa watched, one of the attackers was missing half his body as the other half was blacked and hung off his still floating broomstick. It was a devastating sight. Then Clytyn attacked.

He replicated the rotating motion that Efa had done but shot out a translucent circle of intricate patterns and designs, this one was wider than Efa's spell, hitting the remaining Magi who were very much disorientated, causing them to cover their ears. 

"It removes the enchantments on their brooms and dazes them," Clytyn said in a hurry, flicking his head up to see how much damage they had done. Even with the two huge spells, about eleven people had managed to not die. They were trying to rein in their nonfunctioning broomsticks. He picked up the dagger and chucked it to Ellian. "Be prepared, most will drop to the ground, dazed, angry and ready to fight. Keep calm and pick them off one by one," he advised. 

The three of them stood back to back, Ellian ready with the dagger, Efa thinking about strategy and Clytyn running through his spell list.

"I guess your hiding didn't go very well huh," Efa said in retrospect, tightening the strap on her bracer.

Clytyn sighed as the remaining assailants landed on the grassy plain. 

"No it did not."