Proven

by H. M. Clarke

  A loud whinny came from within the barn that made both Ashe and Donal start in fright and then came the sounds of hooves on wood right on the other side of the barn wall from them along with the voices of two men cursing.

  “Perfect.” Ryn heard Dagan whisper. “Everyone, get ready to move.”

  A loud crash came from the other side of the wall and both Dagan and Bron backed off towards the fence and quickly gestured for the others to do the same.

  Another crash, some shouting, a loud deep throated neigh, followed by more shouting and then another crash.

  The wall of the barn shook, releasing a shower of dirt and hay dust.

  More shouting, the sounds of heavy hooves, and then came the sound of steel being drawn.

  There was a moment of silence and then, CRASH.

  The wall of the barn shuddered and then one more shout and then another CRASH.

  Then the wall of the barn shattered, and a man came flying out over their heads and destroyed what was left of the fence behind them and landed in a crumpled heap in the field.

  Ryn was up sword out, ready to rush into the barn to help Vannik when the horse popped his head out of the hole in the barn wall and snorted. Then before she could blink, the horse dissolved into the form of a man. A very naked Vannik.

  “Bron you daft bugger, throw me that bag.”

  Ryn looked back at the man lying in the field but a large piece of shattered fence post had speared him in the side and from the odd angle had gone up under his ribs. He will not be getting up again.

  Bron rose to his feet and untied the bag from his back and threw it to the waiting Vannik, who deftly snatched it from the air. To Ryn the actions looked much practiced like they had done this many a time before, which considering their circumstances, they probably had. From the bag came a set of breeches, some boots, a shirt, and Vannik’s metal rod. He dropped the bag and disappeared behind the still standing section of broken wall.

  “Vannik?” Dagan called as he rose and walked over to the hole in the barn wall.

  “These two are the only ones in here. There are a set of large cellar doors in the floor near the front.”

  “What about the house?” Banar asked coming to stand next to Dagan. “Wouldn’t they be in there?”

  “The house is deserted,” Vannik replied. “I could not smell or hear of any life coming from it. That house is dead.”

  Vannik’s choice of words was odd and Ryn looked at Dagan as she felt a small shudder come across their Link. But he gave her a slight shake of the head. “What about below? Did you sense anything below?”

  “Yes, there is life below us, but that is all I can tell you. I was a little busy being manhandled at the time.”

  A whicker came from further in the barn and Vannik, now dressed, came into view. He whirled on his heel and pointed back into the barn. “You, my friend can keep your opinions to yourself. As if I would take kicking advice from a nag like you.” He turned back to the others. “The greedy bastards thought they could catch me and sell me in Brookhaven Town. They thought wrong.”

  “Okay people, let’s go. Remember this place is supposed to be booby trapped. We’ll take a quick look around for this switch Janin mentioned, but if we can’t find it quickly, we’ll just have to be extra careful when we go in.”

  Ryn followed Dagan into the barn, carefully stepping over the broken pieces of wood still stuck to the frame. Inside was dark and Ryn stopped to let her eyes adjust to the light levels in the barn. The smell of horse manure mixed with hay was thick in the air and once her eyes had fully adjusted, she could see six horses stabled in the surrounding stalls. Off to the other side were a large flatbed wagon and a small two seat carriage.

  “Bron, Vannik, you are both experts in traps. See if you can find that disarm switch.” Dagan was standing in the center of the barn, the leather strap on his staff looped about his arm. Ryn came and stood next to him, her eyes carefully scanning the barn.

  “The switch will take care of the physical traps… what about the magical ones?” Bron asked as he stood next to Dagan, opposite Ryn.

  “There are three mages here. We should be able to deal with them.”

  Bron grunted and moved to the front of the barn. Vannik was not far behind him. “The switch should be close to the front, to be within easy reach of anyone heading down below. For all their sophisticated aims, this operation seems pretty amateur.”

  “What makes you say that?” Donal asked as he began poking around some hay piles with his staff.

  “What decent gang puts two people in a barn and think that’s a good enough guard? There should have been watchmen roving about outside in the fields and some on the hill tops around us. Have enough eyes out to give warning that something was coming. Bron, how many did you have watching your place in Kaldor?”

  “Twenty in the surrounding streets, half that many on the rooftops. Used a whistle or mirror flash to signal trouble coming.”

  “And he kept a lot of armed men at all of his places of business.”

  “Still didn’t help me when the Tribunal came for me,” Bron muttered as he moved some crates.

  “That was my fault brother, they were coming for me. You just got in their way.”

  Bron grunted again and continued his search.

  “Janin said that they thought the Tribunal was after them, didn’t he?” Ryn said as she turned her grey eyes on Dagan. His eyes widened, and he looked sharply at her.

  “They’ve pulled their guards in. They are cleaning house.”

  Urgency flooded through her Link and Ryn took off running to the cellar doors.

  “Everyone, forget the switch. We have to get to those girls before it’s too late.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Don’t go too far ahead.”

  Ryn slowed down and let the light from the activated runes on the mages’ staff catch up to her. Banar was right beside her, Ryn could see the outline of his face in the mage light. It was a face that Ryn had never seen before. It was hard and angry and it scared Ryn more than she would care to admit.

  Not taking any heed of Dagan, Banar continued on a few more steps and as he placed his foot down on the third step, both he and Ryn heard a soft click!

  Ryn darted forward, grabbed Banar by the back of his scale mail and yanked him backward with all her strength. And in less than the blink of an eye, two metal javelins shot out from the left wall across the corridor missing Banar’s chest by a fingers width before retracting back.

  “By Bellus! Are you okay Banar?”

  Banar nodded and shook himself once Ryn released him. “Thanks, Ryn, I need to be more careful.”

  “Everyone will need to be careful. Remember the booby traps.” Dagan’s voice slipped out of the darkness, followed by a soft blue light as the runes of his staff lit up and pushed it back.

  He looked back over his shoulder. “Bron, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  The big man nodded from the back of the company and pushed passed them all to kneel next to Banar. Dagan came to stand behind him, letting the light from his staff illuminate the path ahead. Bron leaned forward and put his cheek to the ground and studied the stone in front of them. After a moment, he sat back up on his haunches and looked cockeyed at Banar.

  “You stepped here?” Bron asked while pointing to a section of stone in front of him.

  “Maybe, I wasn’t paying much attention to where my feet went.”

  “Lesson number one. Always pay attention to your surroundings,” Vannik’s voice murmured from behind.

  Bron pulled out a piece of chalk and drew a large, white rectangle around that section of floor. “That’s a pressure switch; as long as we don’t step on it we should be fine. Let me go ahead, I’m better at finding these little surprises than the rest of you.”

  Banar looked about to object so Ryn elbowed him in the side and gave Bron a strained smile. “Of course, be our guest.”

  The group made their way down the corridor, carefully avoid
ing the area that Bron had chalked out. Dagan held his staff up high, letting the blue light bathe the corridor ahead of them as Bron searched the path before them.

  “What about magical traps? Can you detect those Bron?” Ryn asked sharing an anxious look with Banar. His face was still pale from his close brush with the spear trap.

  “I’m his backup,” Dagan said from behind them.

  “I don’t need a backup,” Bron scoffed. “I’ve gotten through more types of traps than you’ve had cooked breakfasts.”

  “And I’ve released you from more types of traps than you can mark off with your fingers and toes,” Vannik rumbled from the back of the group causing a snigger to come from Donal.

  “Phfaaah.”

  The corridor they were in looked to have been hewn straight through the granite bedrock below the farm. It was dry but cold, and even though they were not that far below the surface, Ryn imagined she could feel the pressure of the stone above pressing down on her. Looking over her shoulder showed Dagan coming up behind her holding up his lit staff with Donal and Ashe sandwiched between him and Vannik. Looking forward again showed only darkness. But then ahead of them came the faint, orange glimmer of light.

  “There are lanterns set ahead.” Ryn peered harder into the darkness. “It looks like this corridor opens up to a big room.” As soon as those whispered words left her mouth, the sounds of voices came floating down the corridor.

  Ryn signaled to Dagan who immediately stopped the rest of the group. They all then stood still and listened.

  There were several different voices, both male and female and though their words were not clearly heard, they sounded as if they were arguing.

  Dagan let the light of his runes die away and he signaled Donal to do the same. Just as Donal’s light died down, Ryn saw a ripple of reflection cross the corridor space in front of them. The spike of clarity that came across the Link told Ryn that Dagan saw it too.

  “Bron, stay still,” Dagan whispered.

  The big man froze and Dagan pushed past Banar and Ryn to kneel beside Bron. “There is a magical barrier a foot away from you,” he whispered.

  Bron nodded and backed away to give Dagan some room. He pushed his large frame in between Ryn and Banar.

  Dagan placed his right hand flat on the smooth stone floor and began to murmur softly. Ryn watched as an arc of liquid blue light flooded out in waves from Dagan’s hand and flowed along the contours of the floor. It then started to pool as it hit the magical barrier that covered the way before them and as Ryn watched, it quickly seeped up the barrier until it covered it entirely. Only then did Dagan pull his hand from the ground. The light from Dagan’s magic now reflected eerily against the magical trap, a blue barrier laid against the invisible one.

  Dagan looked over his shoulder and signed them back with a wave of a hand back lit by blue light. Ryn was thankful that the room ahead was well lit otherwise Dagan’s blue light might be seen by those inside. She heard those behind shuffle carefully back and she did the same, keeping level with Bron and Banar as she did. When they were back far enough Dagan, then covered his eyes with his hand and Ryn immediately turned her head and closed her eyes tightly shut. She hoped everyone else was doing the same. Reassurance came down the Link and Ryn relaxed a little. Dagan’s got this.

  She heard Dagan stand and then felt a concussion of force wash over her body and pass on to her friends behind. There was no sound but Ryn felt an annoying feeling of something just out of earshot as the waved passed over her. Taking a risk, she opened her eyes and looked back down the hallway and found Dagan standing still, murmuring. He then dropped his hand to his side and sighed.

  “It’s gone. And it was an incredibly nasty little trap,” he murmured.

  “It should not have detonated like that, not with the spell you were casting,” Donal muttered as he rose to his feet.

  “Unstable magic will react in unpredictable ways,” Dagan softly replied. “Which is why I raised that shield to protect us from the worst of it. We should be thankful that whoever created it was not adequately trained. That barrier should have killed us if we were not carrying the right token key.”

  “Should have?” Ryn asked curiously.

  “It was not formed correctly. This type of barrier is meant to kill, but this instead would have fried our minds and left us as jabbering idiots.”

  “Maybe it was meant to do that…” Ryn could clearly hear the uncertainty in her voice.

  “I said earlier that this lot were amateur, this just proves it,” Vannik’s husky whisper cut in from behind the pack. “Let’s just go and crash their party while they’re still arguing.”

  “Why didn’t Janin tell us about the token? The switch he was talking about wouldn’t have shut this trap off,” Donal asked. Ryn turned and gave him a searching look and was rewarded when Donal’s face suddenly screwed up in consternation as he finally realized what had happened. “…. Oh…. that bastard!”

  “You’ve got to give it to him, as scared as the little weasel was, he still tried to get one over on you.” Bron cocked his head as he looked to Dagan. “What should we do about that lot down there?” he said nodding his head in the direction of the light.

  Dagan looked back along the corridor to the bright orange light ahead of them. Slowly, the runes on his staff began to flare up. “I say we blunder into them, take them unprepared and hopefully be able to release the Blackwatch prisoners. I just hope we’re not too late already.”

  Ryn drew her sword, and she saw Banar and Ashe do the same. Next to her, Bron drew his long, steel dagger and behind them came a flare up of light as Donal and Vannik activated the runes on their weapons.

  “Let’s go.”

  At Dagan’s command, they all moved quickly down the corridor, with Dagan taking point and Ryn at his shoulder.

  The orange glow from the room grew brighter as they approached and the sounds of arguing still seemed to come from further away. And then they were in the room.

  It was large, and even Ryn could tell that it had been made from a natural cavern. The floor and walls had been shaped, but the roof hadn’t. The size of the room made the benches and tables it contained look inadequate. On those tables were all sorts of equipment and magical paraphernalia that Ryn vaguely remembered seeing in Donal’s classrooms at Brookhaven Keep. There was also a weird, pearlescent shimmer walling off a corner of the room.

  “You see that?” Ryn asked Dagan, gesturing to the simmer with her sword.

  “Yes, I see it.”

  The arguing began to grow louder again and both Dagan and Ryn stopped in their tracks as they saw an opening at the far end of the chamber going to another room.

  A woman surrounded by several men walked into the room, their voices all rose in a heated argument. And then one of the men took notice of his surroundings and gave a startled squeak and tugged at the woman’s sleeve to get her attention. The woman, dressed in a white tunic and long skirts glared at the man for his impertinence. Then her eyes widened as she saw what was behind him.

  “Where’s Lily and the other Blackwatch cadets?” Ryn demanded before anyone else could say anything. She felt a flood of caution come over the Link and felt rather than saw Dagan increase the flow of power into the runes of his staff. The rest of the group moved to form a semi circle around them with Ryn and Dagan at its apex.

  The woman recovered quickly from her surprise and a haughty, disdainful look descended over her face. “Ah look, some more ‘volunteers’ for our cause. Let’s hope that some of these are found to be more suitable for our charm work than the others.”

  “What is it with illegal charms? One day I’ll run into something that will surprise me.” Dagan muttered more to himself than the room. Raising his voice, “I am Magister Drake, and you have made the great mistake of kidnapping a Constable and several cadets of the Blackwatch along with your use of unregistered magic and harboring unregistered magi.”

  While Dagan talked, Ryn took the opportunity
to run her eye over the opposition. There were only five of them, and they all looked to be mages. This might be easier than she initially thought.

  “You are now going to be placed under arrest and taken to Kaldor to await hearings before the Tribunal under the charges of being and harboring unregistered mages, performing restricted magic, and kidnapping and attempted murder for starters.”

  “You think that little speech scares me little man? Scares us? I am not some hapless child that can be made to come crying to the skirts of the Tribunal because you think I’ve done something wrong.”

  Dagan shrugged. “It’s a spiel I’m required to give to you. Usually, I give it after you are chained up ready for transport, but now seemed as good a time as you seem to want to be quite chatty.”

  “What have you done with the Cadets? With Lily?” Banar’s voice cut across Dagan’s.

  The woman turned her gaze on Banar and smiled at him. “Is one of them your girlfriend?” she then waved away her own question with a flick of her hand. “No matter… to answer your question, we have to test the mind charm, to see how much it will control the subject and how long it will last. So far, once successfully cast, the charm can enable me to control anyone I want. Any Blackwatch, any noble, any annoying Magister.”

  “Leeta!” one of the men hissed at her. In a swirl of blonde hair, the woman turned on him backhanding him hard across his cheek. “Insolence will not be tolerated,” Leeta said as the man staggered back, blood seeping from under the hand he held to his face. It was then that Ryn noted the large gold rings on her hand. Ouch!

  “Surrender peacefully and the Tribunal will not be as harsh with you.” Dagan planted the foot of his staff on the floor in front of him and held the top of it loosely in his hands. Ryn could feel the link between them tense and she renewed the grip on her sword hilt, ready.

  “Surrender?” Leeta turned quickly back to Dagan. The man she had hit scuttled quickly to the back of their group, glad of the reprieve.

  “You know we have you outnumbered three to one don’t you?” Leeta smoothly replied as more people came out of the room behind them, carrying various blades or staves in their hands.