The Abduction: Part II

His head hurt.  There was a dull, throbbing pain as he opened his eyes and squinted at the light that came from the window.  As his vision cleared, he saw the familiar carvings of clouds and stars of the wooden canopy of his bed.

Sebastian could feel something cool resting over his chest and he lifted his blanket to see four flat air crystals, two over each side of his bare chest.  He squinted, wondering why he’d need air crystals.  He’d only need them if he was having trouble breathing....

The confusion left his face as his eyes widened.  “Victoria....”  He sat up straight and began screaming.  “Victoria!”

“My lord!”  The door flew open and a maid rushed into the room.  She looked panicked as she saw Sebastian trying to scoot to the edge of the bed.

“Where are my parents?” he shouted, noticing for the first time how heavy his body felt.  His head spun; what did he inhale?  He grit his teeth and clawed his fingers into the bedsheets, cursing himself for feeling so weak at such a time.  “Where are my parents!  Victoria is missing!”

“Sebastian, we know!” A voice sounded behind him, towards the door and he looked over his shoulder.  Uncle Lorenzo was still in what he was wearing at his father’s succession ceremony, only his crisp, pressed uniform jacket was missing and his clothes seemed somewhat wrinkled.  He rounded the bed to rush to his side.  “Calm down, you just woke up-”

“Uncle, where is she?” Sebastian looked up at his uncle’s exhausted face.  “She wasn’t in her cradle.  Her nanny...the maids....”  He choked on his own breath as he struggled to speak.

“Take a deep breath and concentrate, Sebastian,” Uncle Lorenzo said as he knelt in front of him and gripped his arms.  “Don’t force yourself.  Your lungs still aren’t clear.”

Sebastian shook his head.  He wheezed as he trembled, vaguely remembering dropping his handkerchief when he stepped into his sister’s nursery and found the nanny on the ground.  “What’s going on?  Where is Victoria?”

A pained look filled his uncle’s face.

“Victoria’s missing.  We’re trying to find out who took her and where they took her to.”  He shook his head and opened his mouth, but wasn’t sure what else to say.  Lorenzo swallowed hard.  “We found you unconscious in Victoria’s room after inhaling noxious gas.  Several of the knights, Nanny Rey, and the maids still haven’t woken up.”

Sebastian swallowed hard as his vision began to blur with tears burning at his eyes.  “My...my parents....”

Lorenzo took a deep breath and seemed to try to meet his nephew’s eyes with as much confidence as possible.  “Your father is in the study with the Major General and Siobhan organizing a search.  Lucia, Rom, and I are collecting what information we can from the fortress servants and knights.”

“And Mama?”

Lorenzo seemed to bite his lower lip.  He looked down and took a deep breath.  “Antonia fainted when she found out.  When you didn’t come back, she went up with one of the maids to check on you.  She saw the knights and found you laying there with Victoria gone.  She collapsed, but luckily the maid didn’t take her handkerchief off her face.  She ran to get help.  We brought Antonia to their old room in the west wing, but had to...sedate her.”

Sebastian closed his eyes tightly as the memory of walking into his sister’s room and finding Victoria missing replayed over and over in his mind.

“What was that smell?”  His heart twisted.  Would it affect Victoria if she breathed it in?  His uncle just said that the knights and maids weren’t awake yet.

“We’re not sure,” his uncle told him, truthfully.  “We’re still investigating.”

Sebastian curled his lips inward as he tried not to cry.  “I should’ve gone to check up on her sooner.  I shouldn’t have delayed.”

“Sebastian-”

“I’m her older brother,” he choked as his face reddened.  “I should’ve protected her.  It’s my job-”

“Sebastian!”  His uncle drew him forward and held him tight against his shoulder.  “It’s not your fault!  This isn’t your fault!  No one knew this was going to happen.  We had knights everywhere, the city was covered with soldiers.  All our inner servants have martial arts training and Nanny Rey is one of the best dagger fighters in the empire.  Whoever wanted Victoria knew that they couldn’t fight everyone, so they used underhanded methods to drug them.”  Sebastian choked back his tears as his uncle desperately tried to calm him.  “This isn’t your fault.”

Sebastian was slowly released, still pale and shaking.  Logically, he knew that.  He didn’t know how exactly all of this happened; how the gas was brought up and spread, and he knew that even if he was with Victoria the entire time, he may not have been able to stop the abduction.

But that didn’t lessen his fear and guilt.

“You need to rest more,” Uncle Lorenzo said as he reached over and collected the air crystals that had fallen off of Sebastian’s chest.  “Your lungs aren’t cleared yet.  Master Ramos says you’ll need another day or two with the air crystals.”

Sebastian didn’t lay back down.  He crinkled his eyes and looked at his uncle.  “What happened at the reception?”

Lorenzo lifted his chin.  “It ended as normal,” he said.  “Your father was alerted as soon as the discovery was made and we acted quickly to begin to end the party.  Papa and Lucia helped see off all the guests and we managed to make sure all their carriages were inspected before they left under the guise of a safety precaution.  Aside from the family and the Major General, no one else knows what happened.  The entire fortress is under a gag order.”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes.  “A gag order?  Shouldn’t we let everyone know?  The more people who know, the more people there are to help look for my sister!”

Lorenzo shook his head.  “It’s not that simple.  Of course, we want as many people to help us as possible, but we can’t let this matter be known or it will cause panic and show that the march is unstable, especially right now, when your father just became the marquis.”  His uncle seemed to try to find the words to explain it better.  “How would it look to the region, to the empire, if the new Marquis Guevera’s only daughter was kidnapped from under his very nose?”

Sebastian knew what that meant.  He also knew that his uncle was right and they were going about this the only way they could, without alarming the entire empire.

“What clues do we have?” he asked in a scratchy voice.

“The gas that spread in the east wing is a result of the mixture of a specific crushed stone and plant extracts,” a voice said from the doorway.  Lorenzo stood up as Sebastian looked over at the door.  His Uncle Rom walked in with dark circles under his brown eyes.  He looked tired and likely hadn’t slept all night.  Sebastian knew how special his sister was to Uncle Rom; Victoria was his goddaughter and he bestowed Belcoy’s trifecta blessing on her name day, just before they left to hunt down the raiders.  “The crushed stone powder and plants are not easy to get.  Whoever collected them and brought them here would need to have many connections in order to acquire the ingredients.  If not mercantile connections then....”

He trailed off and Lorenzo’s face darkened.  “Illegal trade connections.”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes.  “Illegal?”

“The raiders,” Lorenzo said in a low voice.  “We captured the head’s three sons and himself, but there was one more person who could pose a threat.”

“Trecia Hogan was once known as the ‘pirate queen’ of the gulf.  She is credited with setting up the inland connections, as well as building a fleet of ships that could at one time rival our southern navies,” Uncle Rom said in a cold voice.  “No one has seen her for years and it was believed that she retired or even died, but for her to be able to make such an intricate network in our lands, as well as collect that many ships under her flag, we shouldn’t have underestimated her.  If there is going to be a ransom, it will be from her.”

Ransom?  Sebastian’s hand clawed at his thighs as he sat on the edge of the bed.  “What do they want in return?”

“Her son and grandsons.” Uncle Lorenzo’s hands turned into fists at his sides.  “We have her only child and her three grandsons.”

Sebastian’s heart was heavy.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  “Then, are we going to give them up?  Isn’t Victoria worth it?”

“Of course, she is,” Uncle Rom said, but a bitter look was on his face.  “To us.”

“We have to think about this carefully, Sebastian.  Victoria is more important to us than those four bastards rotting in underground cells, but if we negotiated and gave up essentially the safety of the southern coast for one child-”

“She’s not just one child!  She’s my baby sister!” Sebastian cried out.  His uncles tried to calm him at once.  “She didn’t do anything to deserve this!  Who knows what they could be doing to her!”

“We know, Sebastian, we know!” Lorenzo said, appearing as if he was ready to pull his own hair out in frustration.  “And if they are indeed behind her abduction, then we’ll meet with them and trade those bastards for Victoria.”

Sebastian covered his face with a hand.  “I should’ve done a better job at protecting her....”

“Sebastian....” His Uncle Rom looked at him, with both pity and sadness.

“Sebastian, you are the heir to this march,” Uncle Lorenzo said in as steady a voice as he could muster.  “You must understand and never forget that we will always have enemies.  There will always be someone out there threatening us.  That is an unfortunate byproduct of our noble positions. Gueveras have enemies and we must be sure to show as little vulnerability as possible.”  His blue eyes narrowed.  “That was likely why they targeted Victoria.”

A knock came from the door and the trio inside looked towards it.  A butler, who also had signs of weariness on his aged face, gave them a bow of his head.  “Lord Lorenzo, Lord Romulo, Marquis Guevera calls for you.”

“We’ll be there in a moment,” Uncle Rom said.  He looked back at Sebastian and put his hand on his shoulder.  “You must rest, my nephew.  Your lungs are still not clear of that filth they poisoned us with.”

“When we have more information, we will tell you.”  Uncle Lorenzo took Sebastian’s hands and placed the air crystals on them before turning and heading to the door.

“Sebastian,” Uncle Rom told him seriously.  His eyes were red.  “We will find Victoria and get her back.  I swear this as her godfather if I have to sink their entire fleet myself.”

Sebastian heard the door close behind him as he looked down at his hands and the crystals in them.  These fingers and palms were calloused from years of using a sword.  He crinkled his eyes as a wave of bitterness and frustration swept over him.

The most promising young swordsmen of their generation...and he couldn’t even protect his own sister.

They were certain that it was raiders who managed to sneak in and abduct Victoria, but alarmingly, no ransom had been sent.  It unnerved everyone in the fortress.  Outside, the sweep through southern towns and cities searching for illegal trade networks and hotbeds that were associated with the raiders ceased.

It was a sign that they were waiting for the demands, but the family was growing impatient.

Uncle Rom managed to trace the ingredients used for the gas to a specific place and his contacts had noted that those items were purchased recently.  Because it was dangerous to have all three parts together and, individually, two of them could cause long term harm to a person’s health with prolonged use, it had to be done quickly.  Someone must’ve really wanted to hurt them if they were willing to risk their own health.

“Sebastian,” the firm voice of Major General Schwert cut through his thoughts and Sebastian finished his cut before stopping.  “That’s enough.  You’ve been out here for hours.  Even with gloves, you can develop blisters with how sweaty your hand gets.”  Sebastian didn’t say a word.  Sweat trailed down his temples as he held the training sword at his side.  Behind him, the future Marquis Schwert had a look of concern on his face.  “You can’t destroy your body like this.  Victoria will not want to touch you if your hands are rough irritate her soft, baby skin.”

At this, Sebastian dropped his sword.  He lowered his head and turned around, walking past the lauded swordsman to return to the fortress.  His face was ashen and there were dark circles under his eyes.  He hadn’t been eating well and sleep eluded him.  He kept having nightmares of Victoria being stolen from right in front of him, with him sitting there, being unable to stop it.

Rather than going to rest after spending all day slashing at wooden dummies and taking his anger out on the Major General, who remained in Presidio to aid the family, Sebastian sneaked through the servant stairs to get to the east wing.

Since the abduction, the east wing had been closed off, but all the windows were open to try to air out the smell.  There were various crystals everywhere to try to purify the spaces, but since it was an old fortress, it had very few windows and those windows were small and narrow.  There had to be some breeze to move around the air to the crystals.  While it was happening, it was a slow process.

Even now, there was a hint of sweetness in the air that made him sick.

Still, that didn’t stop him.  He walked to the nursery and stopped at the doorway.

Kasen was sitting on the floor, right beside their sister’s abandoned cradle.  Pieces of papers were on the ground around him, filled with scribbles in Old Sulfae that Sebastian didn’t know how to read.  Kasen was hunched over another sheet, a look of concentration on his face as he painstakingly drew characters onto the paper.

Sebastian drew his lips inward.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” he said.  “The smell has faded some, but too much exposure can still make you sick.”

“Go away,” Kasen said, his voice hoarse.  He didn’t even look up to see his brother.  “I’m busy.”

Sebastian walked in and stood behind him.  “What are you doing?”

“Whoever brought the ingredients that made the gas into the fortress couldn’t have done it without help from someone already inside, especially if they were able to get it in here,” Kasen said, obsessively writing away.  He narrowed his eyes hatefully.  “I’m going to find out who helped those monsters take Victoria.”

Sebastian could now see how his pale hands were stained with black and gray streaks of carbon ink.  He looked at the paper and watched as the letters began to glow, but quickly faded.  Kasen scowled and tossed the sheet aside before grabbing a blank one from a large pile he’d brought.

“When did you start to make charms?” Sebastian asked.

“Two days ago.  I read that charms can be used to track people or find things.  If I can use a charm to react against the ingredients that still linger on someone’s body, I can find the traitor.”  His little brother’s voice was cold and Sebastian felt his heart ache.

Was this how his family had been looking at him?  Kasen was handling his anger and frustration in an obsessive manner similar to how he’d been hacking away in the training yard, without any regard to his health.

Knowing that Kasen wasn’t going to leave, Sebastian stepped back and left the room.  He returned a few moments later with a few white stones.  He knelt down beside his brother and stuffed them in Kasen’s shirt.

Kasen snapped up and looked at him.  “What are you doing?”

“Prolonged exposure to the gas, even the leftover fumes, can cause permanent harm to your lungs and nervous system,” Sebastian said in a dull voice.  “The air crystals are charged.  They’ll help regulate your breathing and purify your lungs to protect you.”

Kasen looked down at his clothes for a moment before bowing his head.  His voice was almost unheard as he bent down to continue to write.  “Thank you.”

Sebastian held one of the larger air crystals against his chest.

He watched as Kasen’s charms continued to glow just a bit, but quickly dimmed and lost power.  “How do you know if it’s working?”

“It’ll glow when I activate it.  I’m still learning, so I have to figure out the right spell or character combination in order to make it work the way I want it.”  He tapped a book an arm’s length from him.  Sebastian squinted.  It seemed to be a translation guide for Old Sulfae, likely from their grandmother.

Sebastian nodded.  “Three ingredients together might be too much for you.  Think about separating the charms to be used together.  I’ll be back later.”

He turned around and went downstairs to check on the other members of their family.  His mother continued to remain bedridden.  Grandma Sophos was always by her side, trying to coax her to eat and reassuring her that they would find Victoria soon.  His uncles were scouring the entire south, sending soldiers sweeping across in a mad search for his sister.

His father and grandfather were trying to trace any raider networks that may have penetrated Presidio.

As for Grammie, the former marchioness, she hardly left the altar room, where she was desperately praying for Victoria’s safety.  This was a woman who loved to be outdoors and could spend weeks outside, at a dig site, but she’d hardly set foot outside the fortress since her granddaughter was stolen.

Sebastian gently pushed open the door to the narrow altar room.  Thin beams of light came down from the narrow windows to one side and shined on to the old woman kneeling on a low cushioned platform in front of an elaborate altar filled with thick, lit beeswax candles and dried flowers.

The Gueveras prayed to three particular Belcoy deities: Jungar, the god of war strategy, Suralle, the god of wisdom, and Saphira, the household goddess who protected the home, family, and children.

Sebastian knelt down beside his grandmother and brought his hands together.  He closed his eyes and lowered his head.  He began his prayer directed to Saphira, to ask her to keep his sister safe and to bring her back.  As he thought this, he looked up and saw the flat selenite tablet the altar was made of and narrowed his eyes.

Crystals only gave energy when they had energy.  Why was he asking if he was not willing to do anything in return for the gods’ favor?

Sebastian closed his eyes once more.  Jungar, Suralle, Saphira, hear my prayer.  Give me back my sister alive and I will become the best swordsman in Soleil. Just give me one more chance to protect her. She will not leave this world before me and if I fail, let the Guevera March crumble.

He bargained, but despite such a concession, he didn’t think much would come out of it.

Then, the next day, Kasen’s charms worked.  He created three paper charms that each reacted to one of the three ingredients that caused the gas.  When the charms were brought against someone who still had lingering traces of that ingredient on them, the characters on the charm began to glow.  It was the result of his little brother’s obsessive determination to find out who took their sister from them.

One of the outer yard servants triggered all three charms and when questioned, he insisted that he had nothing to do with it.  That there was a mistake.  The family didn’t believe him, despite their initial hesitation with Kasen’s charms.

“Put him in the blue cell,” Marquis Guevera said.  The fortress was old and it was built during a period of time that was more arcane than present.  There were more uses for crystals in the past and the blue cell was one such room.

The small cell looked like any other with one small door and air vents, except that there was a thin layer of a blue stone, that was now very rare, hidden behind the walls, floor, and ceiling.  The blue stone had been charged centuries earlier and supposedly had Old Sulfae carved into it.  It released a calming energy and, with enough time, loosened tongues, but only if the prisoner spoke.

Above the cell, where the air vents opened up, several adults and Sebastian listened until the servant broke down with some coaxing and began to ramble on about how his brother sent gifts to the baby Victoria.  It was common for citizens in the region to celebrate noble births and send flowers or some sort of tribute, and Victoria’s birth was important as the first granddaughter.  He had no idea that gifts would contain the ingredients to the gas; they were harmless children’s toys.

The gifts in question were a small stuffed bear that was filled with dried ‘peas’, a wooden doll, and a small model of a throne that the bear and doll could sit on.  The doll and throne had been coated with two of the ingredients.  As soon as they made contact with the bear, which carried pea-sized balls of a mineral, the room began to fill with a pleasant, sweet scent.

It didn’t take long for the family to track down the servant’s brother in a coastal town.  A gambler who needed money, he accepted the errand to send three toys to Presidio for his brother to give to the little lady.  He claimed he didn’t know who he was taking the money from or that they would cause a problem.

Sebastian didn’t care about what he had to say.  They’d already found out that he’d borrowed money from the raiders in the past to pay his debts and supplement his gambling.

“Behead him,” Uncle Rom said in an emotionless voice as he turned around.  The man screamed and fell to his knees, pleading as two soldiers grabbed one shoulder each and pushed his head down.

“I didn’t know!  I just needed the money!” the man screamed.  Sebastian looked at him with disgust.  A small, wet pool appeared between the man’s legs as he cried.  “I’m innocent!  Innocent!  You can’t do this to me!”

Rom turned around.  He narrowed his eyes and glared at the man on his knees.  “Do you know who is innocent?  My infant goddaughter.”

A moment later, there was a dull thud and the man’s head, with his mouth still open in mid-cry, hit the wooden floor of the dilapidated shack they found him in.  His body slumped and fell over, and Sebastian watched with cold eyes as his severed neck continued to squirt blood all over the dirty floor.

Uncle Lorenzo stood by the door.  He looked at Sebastian as the young swordsman turned around to leave.  “Are you all right?”

“A quick death is too merciful for him.”

“He’s been noted to work closely as an errand man for the raiders.  He should have people watching him closely,” his uncle said.  He looked at his husband and gave him a small nod.  “Put his head on a pike and let the message be known.”

The man’s decapitated head faced the sea as a large banner was unfurled below it.  It was a simple sentence: four lives for one.

It didn’t take long after to finally get the ransom letter.

The location of the handover was in the Gavilan Desert, four days outside of Presidio. The ransom stated they were only to bring a small escort, which was suspicious in itself, but Sebastian had to trust his father.  They left the fortress at night and began the trek into the desert.

The fortified carriage carried him and his mother, along with Nanny Rey, who seemed bursting with bloodlust the entire time they were traveling.  Still, she dutifully took care of Marquess Guevera.

Outside, with rows of the best knights the family had, his father rode with Uncle Lorenzo and Uncle Rom in full armor.  Kasen was forced to stay at home, kept back by Auntie Lucia.

Along with them were four massive prison wagons, each holding one of the men that the so-called pirate queen wanted in return for his sister.  Every time Sebastian looked at them, he had the sudden urge to set it on fire.  He was anxious the entire way and could only focus his energy on reassuring his mother, who continuously cried out for Victoria.

It was nearing a month since his sister was taken from their home.  He didn’t know what to expect.  In his pocket, he played with a palm sized, smooth piece of aurora stone.  He’d brought it in case his sister needed it, though he prayed that she wouldn’t.

At dawn on the fourth day, they reached the designated spot.  A canvas tent had been set up in a barren, flat area.  Across from them was the raiders’ camp.  They definitely outnumbered his family’s men.

Sebastian got out of the carriage as his father dismounted from his horse.  He looked to his left and gave the knights a small nod.  Sebastian watched as the multiple locks of the prison wagons were opened.

Thick chains were pulled and out tumbled the four men.  Their eyes were covered with black strips of cloth and their mouths were gagged.  They were pulled to their feet, the cloth was removed, and buckets were placed on their heads.  Two knights were on either side of each prisoner.  They had been washed and were wearing clean clothes.  The clothes themselves were worn and their bodies had been bandaged up.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes.  He wondered why they were bandaged; they weren’t tortured.  Each prisoner had a thick metal ring around their necks and heavy metal cuffs connected to chains that kept their wrists together.

A shadow came beside Sebastian and he looked at his father.  “Are you really going to give those four bastards up alive?  What if they hurt Victoria?”

“Everything will be fine as soon as we get your sister back,” his father said in a low voice.  “What happens after that is what they deserve.”

The handover felt as if it took ages.  Sebastian was relegated to remain with the knights, under the close watch of one of his father’s trusted men to ensure that he wouldn’t rush out to try to take revenge.  Sebastian could only watch as his father walked ahead with his uncles on either side of him.

It was a slow deliberate march with four prisoners behind them, each flanked by two knights.  Waiting under the canvas canopy was a man, who likely represented the pirate queen.

The Marquis arrived and he lifted his hand. The knights removed the buckets from the prisoner’s heads and after verifying that they were indeed the four men, the raider called someone from the camp behind him.  A thin figure scrambled out, clutching a small bundle against her.

Sebastian couldn’t see what exactly was happening, but as soon as that raider laughed, his blood went cold.  He saw his father accept the bundle from the young woman who was holding her at the same time that the prisoners were shoved forward.  The young woman holding the bundle ran back as quickly as she could and the knights moved to form a wall in front of his father.

They held their spears out, pointing at the raiders from behind large shields as they carefully walked backwards in tandem.

Marquis Guevera walked back to their side quickly, with his brothers behind him.

“Victoria!”  Sebastian didn’t notice his mother coming out of the carriage or breaking free from Nanny Rey’s hold behind him.  His mother swept past him as his father reached them and Sebastian took off to follow.  He watched his mother reach for the small bundle of rags in his father’s arms and just before she could pick up the baby, a painful wail filled the barren landscape.

Sebastian’s eyes reddened as he rushed forward.  He reached them just as his mother’s shaking arms took the small bundle.  He looked down, into her arms, and felt all blood drain from his body.

He instinctively knew that the child in his mother’s arms was Victoria, but barely.  His lips began to tremble as he looked at his sister.  Her curly, black hair was matted, her blue eyes were dull, and most haunting of all, she was so thin.  The red cheeks were ashen and sunken in.  The chubby arms were loose skin and seemed to barely cling to her bones.  She wasn’t reaching up at all.  Her dry lips were moving, as if struggling to breathe.

She didn’t make any noise.

He didn’t stop to think and shoved his hand into his pocket to retrieve the aurora stone.  With shaking hands, he slipped it between the folds of her ragged swaddling cloth and almost at once, she began to breathe more evenly.

“Rom, Lorenzo, take them back to the carriage.  Call for Doctor Valori, immediately,” the Marquis Guevera said with a shaking voice.

“Antonia, come.  Let’s take Victoria somewhere safe,” Uncle Rom said as he placed an arm around his sister-in-law’s trembling shoulder’s and tried to steer her back towards the carriage.

Nanny Rey rushed forward to help support Antonia, and Sebastian watched as his unsteady, crying mother carried his malnourished sister into the carriage.

He turned back to the raiders across the barren patch of dirt with a murderous look.  In contrast to his mother’s sobbing, they were cheering.  They were welcomed by a large group and there was a short, plump woman who had come out to see them.  Sebastian’s hand moved to the sword at his side.

How dare they celebrate when they nearly killed his sister!  He ground his teeth together, wishing for nothing more but to rush into the raiders camp and start slashing indiscriminately.

A heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder.  His father’s grip was strong.  A hardened look was on his face and Sebastian would never again see such barely contained rage from his father.

“Marquis Guevera,” a familiar voice said from his other side.  He turned his head and almost jerked it back when he saw Master Ramos standing beside him.  The man looked at his father with a solemn expression.  “Whenever you’re ready.”

His father swallowed.  “Do it.”

Sebastian watched Master Ramos kneel down on the ground.  He placed his hands on the dirt and closed his eyes.  At once, Sebastian could feel a familiar energy in the air.  No one else seemed to react to it, but he could feel it.  It was a steady wave of energy that was pushed forward.

There was a slight pause, and then he felt that energy coming back.  Coming back stronger.  He looked at Master Ramos, wondering what he was trying to do.

Then he heard the yelling.

Sebastian’s head snapped up and he looked across at the raiders’ camp.  Just a moment earlier, they were cheering, but now, there seemed to be some distress.

The four prisoners were twitching and reaching for their throats.  They began to claw at the rings around their necks and their clothes as they fell, one by one, onto their knees, struggling to breathe.  People surrounded them, trying to get the metal rings off and yelling for someone to cut the locks.

Sebastian couldn’t help but watch, wide-eyed with a distinct pleasure, as he watched their disgusting faces turn blue.

They were on the ground, their hands clawing into the air as they tried in vain to take a lifesaving breath.  It was as if their lives were sucked out of them.  Their struggle lasted for who knew how long, but before even one lock could be broken, all four men were on the ground, lifeless.

It was only then that Master Ramos opened his eyes and looked coldly ahead of them.  The old woman who had come to meet the prisoners fell to her knees and screamed, cradling one of the dead men.

“Archers, ready!” a voice shouted behind him.  Sebastian turned around and drew his head back.  There were at least four dozen archers lined up, bows up and arrows pointed.  The family’s captain of the knights held his arm up.  He narrowed his eyes and lowered his arm.  “Fire!”

Arrows arched into the sky and Sebastian could feel a faint, familiar energy coming from them.  He narrowed his eyes and squinted as he heard the archers rustling beside him to prepare another wave of arrows.  He heard the captain yell once more, and another volley rained on to the raiders in the distance.

Screaming was heard and Sebastian looked back across the field.  The arrows hit many men, but many more arrows hit the ground. It didn’t seem to matter.

He watched as the raiders began to tear at their clothes, yelling about fire and rolling on the ground.  There wasn’t a single flame that Sebastian could see.  He narrowed his eyes and knelt down.  He placed his hands on the dirt and concentrated.  He snapped his head up with disbelief as he felt the chaotic energy flow pulsing from the raider camp.  He withdrew his hands quickly, almost feeling burned.

Beside him, Master Ramos remained still.  “What crystal do you think we attached to those arrows to release fire energy?”

“Carnelian,” Sebastian said in a low voice as all around him, the knights rushed forward on horseback.

Master Ramos nodded.  “Do you still think crystals are useless in battle?”