While Ellis and Sophia are riding one way. Basil and Sonia, with only one horse which was given to their children to ride, set off in the opposite direction. By taking the field route, they were hoping to lead the sorceress woman away from the children. It is extremely tiring to leave a noticeable trail for someone to follow, and when you yourself have no mount to use, it is slow going. "How long do you think it will take for our footprints to be noticed?" Sonia asks her husband. "I do not know, an hour or two? that's if that sorceress mage sees our tracks so that the children can get away, " Basil answers. They continue walking, leaving very obvious tracks for the enemy to follow. Two hours later, Basil and Sonia see the dusk approaching, exhausted and hoping that they have given Mckenna the slip, but also hoping she has followed them. When they hear hoofbeats coming up behind them. When, all of a sudden, a horse with two riders stops in front of them and one of them is Mckenna the Sorceress Mage and a small child.
***
In a couple of minutes, Mckenna finds two sets of footprints leading away from the wreckage that was the farmhouse. She grabs the boy and places him in the saddle of her horse before mounting herself. They set off following the footprints. Just approach evening, she sees two small figures on foot; weary and covered in dust from the road. She pushes the horse on to and rides around them, and to stop in front of them. It becomes apparent pretty soon that she was tricked. If she had looked closer at the footprints, she would have noticed that the prints were too big to be the children's feet.
"Where are the children?" She yells, feeling fed up with this family, they are a bunch of nobodies who have found a remarkable stone. Forgetting the power, she felt coming from the boy. "I will give you one chance, and one chance only, tell me where the children and where is the stone?" She asks clenching her teeth and trying not to lose her temper. The mage's new apprentice is trembling on the back of the horse in fear of his new mistress.
"No!" They both shout. "You will never get your hands of the stone; I have faith in my children." Basil proclaims.
Mckenna conjures rope and ties the couple together. She really does not like doing this next spell because it always tires her out afterward but holding onto the end of the rope with one hand and the other laying atop the horse with the boy. She then teleports deep beneath the castle, in a secret cavern only she knows. If one were to look for the entrance, they would never find it.
Taking her hand off the horse, she drags the couple to one side of the chamber and using manacles that are connected to the wall, chains the couple to the wall. They are frightened for what this sorceress has in store for them.
***
Mckenna's secret cavern/laboratory is filled with beakers and vials, forbidden, darker books than she has in her tower, the type of books that would get her imprisoned, or worse, killed. She looks over at the boy, Trent and orders, "boy, get to cleaning, these benches are absolutely filthy!" she screamed. Trent flinches and starts wiping down the tabletops. In a softer tone, she says "if you a good job, we may start on your lesson of reading and writing.
In the center of the laboratory sits a scrying basin. She has it set up to where it will alert her it anyone enters her tower's sitting room.
She goes over to the cabinets with all her potions, searching through until she finds the perfect solution to extract the information that she requires from her two captives. She takes the potion vial and conveniently picks up a cloth that is laying on the benchtop near her and walks over to a rack of assorted weapons and torture devices and grabs a dagger. She heads back to the benchtop that she uses for experiments. She carefully takes the potion vial and pours a few drops on the dagger, setting the vial down, then picks up the cloth and rubs the dagger, coating the potion until it is completely coated. "Now then, who shall we start with in this interrogation, and yes, it will be extremely painful." She shows her two captives the poisoned dagger. "This poison is called Wyvern poison, and it is very acidic to the touch and will burn your skin, but it will not kill you, well not right away at least, so if you do not want burn marks or any scarring all, you better tell me what I want to know," Mckenna threatens.
"Do your worst, besides you have us locked up so how would we know where they are and even if we did, we still wouldn't say a word." Basil boldly stated and his wife vigorously bobs her head once, glaring at McKenna. "Oh really, we'll see about." She leans down to their level and makes it seem like she is thinking on who to choose, when she speaks and says…
"How about…we start… with...you..." and she moves over to Sonia. Thinking that if she doesn't talk, her husband may. By not wanting to see his wife in pain, it may motivate him to spill everything he knows about the stone, where the children are headed, and how a family got ahold of the stone.
***
Ellis and his sister, along with the wolf pup, continue on their journey to destroy the stones. By midday, the siblings can see that they are coming up on a three-way intersection and notice that there are people coming from the right, they really don't want to have to meet anyone on the road but not having a choice they continue on. When they a little closer, they can see that they are about to have a run-in with about a half dozen men on horse, who are pulling caged carts filled with ragged looking people, some who are children. Ellis looks back at his sister and the look that they share with each other and the one word that silently passes between them is: "slavers".
No where to hide and no way to go around the slavers, the siblings casually guide the horse pass without drawing too much attention to themselves. They almost make it past, when a shout reaches their ears.
"Halt!"
Ellis, who is sitting in front of his sister, guiding the horse; ignores this and continues on.
"Stop right there!" The same voice that called out to stop the wagons. "Boys surround them, don't let them get any further."
"My, my, why would a couple of kids be travelling by themselves, I wonder?" says the man who shouted for the wagons to stop moving. "Sir, could you and your men move out of our way, please. We are kind of in a hurry." Ellis replies to the man.
"Not so fast, by the way you both had your heads down, you know what type of business I run, am I right?"
"And by the looks of you, I could make a pretty big amount of coin you, the girl, and even that their wolf pup. Boys, grab 'em!" He orders pointing to all three of them as he says this. As the rest of the slavers rush towards the kids, one slaver grabs for the horse so it doesn't bolt, two of the slavers grab for the each of the kids, and the rest of the slavers surround them as back-up. Just as it looks like the twins will be grabbed; in the seconds before the slavers can get close enough, the earth erupts and earthen cages spring forth from the ground surrounding each of the slavers individually.
"Ha, I constructed four cages and a second faster than you. Now, how many did you created?" Sophia bragged.
"Two." Ellis sighs wearily and hauled himself off the horse. He walks over to the leader of the slavers and says, "hand over the keys to the cages."
"Hahaha, that's hilarious, kid. Its more than life to hand over these keys to you, so you can turn around and free all those slaves I've collected. They are going to a good cause, and I will be paid very well for them. So, if that is all, let me and my boys go, and we won't take you and the girl with us."
Sophia walks the horse over to her brother, but she is glaring at the leader of the slavers. She jumps down from the horse and strides over to the cage. Suddenly she reaches into the earthen cage and there is a dagger in her hands, with its point up against the leader's throat.
Ellis, with a look of confusion, looks over at his sister and asks, "where did you get a dagger?"
She blushes and shyly replies, "the last time we camped, I created it out of the ground. I wanted to see how long it would last and also practice my abilities, while you actually slept. Looks like you should have done the same." Giggling at the end of her statement. Ellis rolls his eyes.
While brother and sister were talking, the leader was confused and wondering just who these two brats were to be able to beat half dozen adult men in a matter of minutes. With what looks like the earth underneath their feet. Then he sees the girl laugh and the boys' eyes roll at her, he takes his chance and grabs the dagger out of her hands. Seeing how it was the girl that threatened him with the dagger, he throws it straight at her. But that blasted boy pushes her, just as the dagger misses and flies through the air, where it embeds itself in one of his own men by chance.
"Wow, impressive." Ellis replies sarcastically. "Now, give us the keys!" he demands.
The leader of the slavers sighs and reaches for his tunic and pulls out a throng with a key tied to it. Exasperated and humiliated that he was bested by a couple of kids, he hands Ellis the key.
Ellis takes the key and opens up each of the caged wagons starting with the one closest to him, freeing the prisoners. As the first-person steps down from the wagon, a thin balding man but still strong. He turns and helps each woman, child, and ill person down.
As soon as the last wagons are opened, Ellis notices something that he hadn't spotted before, the people are chained together with thick manacles. He heads over to a woman who is trying to soothe a young, crying child. He bends down and tries the key in the lock. Shockingly, the manacles come apart.
"Can I trust you to help get the chains off all these people." Ellis asks the woman. She nods her head and replies with one word, "yes". Ellis watches as the woman takes the child in one hand and unlocks the first person's chains and so on.
Ellis turns and heads over to his sister and her little wolf, and the horse. "Not bad for our first time in taking down the bad guys, El. Right?" Sophia asks proudly. Seeing the worried look on her brother's face, she asks, "What's wrong?"
Throughout the walk back to her, he has had a nagging thought that is starting to bother him. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts and begins to speak aloud these intrusive thoughts. "Soph, you remember dad telling us whenever we are practicing our magic, to put up a barrier beforehand so that no one can sense us using magic?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, we never put one up when we went after those slavers, not only that but several of those people that were locked saw everything. All I'm trying to say is, you don't think anyone know what we did here, do you?"
His sister doesn't say anything, but he can tell that she is worried now.
"Maybe we should go now, just to be safe?" Is the only reply he gets before she picks up her little wolf and mounts the horse. He follows suit and mounts also. Since the slavers are at the crossroads, before heading south they stop to speak with some of the freed prisoners.
Sophia asks, "so are you all heading back to your homes now?"
A big, burly man walks up to the twins with dower expression on his face with his petite wife by his side, and he thrusts out his hand to shake the twins' hands looking to first Sophia then to Ellis to give his thanks. Then looks at Sophia again to answer her question she put to the group.
"We are not quite sure. Some of our homes were destroyed and the ones in that situation, will have a hard time rebuilding if at all. My wife and I have family that live in Alcone. The others might have families there or elsewhere, but I digress you probably want to get going yourselves, and don't worry your secret is safe with us. Good luck."
The twins are about to ride off, when the man speaks up again. "Just out of curiosity, whereabouts are you headed."
"Alcone." Ellis replies after silently debating on whether or not to say or not.
"If perchance you are trying to hide on your travels, then I suggest not using the roads."
"Thank you."
They turn off from the road heading into grassy fields for miles, hopefully it will be only for a short stint of the journey.
***
Back in Mckenna's laboratory, several days passed, and many threats and knicks of the poisoned dagger has been made to twins' mother. She is about to make another mark on the stubborn woman, when she looks up to the ceiling like something was up there that had distracted her. Slowly, a broad smile creeps up at the edges of her mouth. She feels powerful magic from two sources, she immediately recognizes. She looks back at the Dankworth couple, still with the dagger pressed up against the woman's skin and says with the smile still plastered to her face says, "Looks like this is going to be easier than anticipated."
She now has a heading in finding those insufferable brats and the stone. That magic surge was close and headed her way. All she has to do is head almost due North.