Elliott dropped through the thick canopy and into the woods, boots landing in silence on the soft forest floor. He set Lyla down beside him and the two of them peered through the darkness between the trees. The flicker of light ahead bobbed gently in the hands of a small figure leading two others who were equally small. The small flame in the oil lantern created a halo of light ahead of them as they walked, Elliott and Lyla following at a close distance, still [Concealed].

  “We shouldn’t be out here,” one of the children said. A female. It was hard to tell which of the three she was – they were nothing more than silhouettes even in the slight glow of the oil lantern though she didn’t seem to be the one holding it. What Elliott could see was that they weren’t dressed in tattered rags like the kids in the market – these three were in clean shirts and linen trousers.

  “It’s fine, Alys,” another female said.

  “It’s not like the grown-ups really care where we go anyway,” the last one said. A boy - the one holding the lantern.

  “That’s not true,” Alys replied. “If it weren’t for them, we’d be…”

  She let the thought trail-off.

  “We’re not going far anyway,” the boy said. “I just wanted to show you guys something. We’ll be back before they know it.”

  “The dog you found yesterday?” the second girl asked.

  “Uh-huh,” the boy replied, lifting his lantern up to peer through the shadows between the trees. “Just over there.” He walked between two thick trunks and into a clearing, the two girls behind him.

  Elliott and Lyla followed as the group of kids walked towards the other side of the clearing, the boy putting the lantern down at the clearing’s edge and making soft clicking sounds. There was a silence before a rustle came from the undergrowth beyond the tree-line. Twigs snapped as the rustle became louder and a moment later, a brown mutt shoved its head into the clearing, its tongue hanging out as it sauntered over to the kids, its tail wagging. It looked well fed. Healthy. Odd for a friendly stray in the woods.

  The kids squealed with delight, the boy dropping to his knees as the mutt butted its head against his chest. He put his hands to either side of the dog’s face, ruffling its fur as it peered up and licked his chin. The two girls dropped beside him, gently stroking the mutt’s back. Its tail wagged faster and faster as it began hopping on the spot before it rolled over, feet curled in the air, showing its belly to them, a smile on its face with its tongue hanging to the side.

  With delightful laughter, all three gave it belly rubs.

  “Where did you find him?” Alys said. Elliott could see the three of them better. Alys was a slim girl, no older than ten, with curly brown-blonde hair to her shoulders. The other girl looked a little older as did the boy – both around eleven, though at that age, it was hard to tell. The girl had black hair cut into a short bob and the boy was broad-shouldered with black hair trimmed close to the scalp.

  “Just here a couple of days ago,” the boy replied. “I came out to practice and it just showed up.”

  “You’ve been practicing? Out here?” the black-haired girl asked. “You know the rules, Jake!”

  Jake sprang up. “Watch!”

  Elliott felt the mana tingle in the air, pool around the boy as he started to draw it in. Not a huge amount by Elliott’s standards but the boy would give Rose a run for her money. In fact, he would be stronger – given he could manipulate mana without a focus. The boy held his hands out to the air, as the girls’ hands stilled on the dog’s belly. They narrowed their eyes at Jake.

  Elliott could feel the mana leave the boy, rising into the night air as he drew sigils. Elliott could have used [Detect Magic] – it allowed mana users to see the sigils being drawn or for stronger mana users to see mana that had already been moulded and cast by lesser ones. There wasn’t any need though. It was a second or two before a firework popped in the air above the girls’ heads, sparks of green and yellow and red flaring out in several directions, creating a colourful latticed globe.

  Both girls had wide eyes, though the black-haired girl was doing her best not to smile.

  “That’s amazing,” Alys said, her lips curved into a smile before she seemed to realise it was wrong. “Liandra’s right, though. You know the rules.”

  “I know,” Jake replied, then after a pause, “but I enjoy it. Touching mana. Feeling it.”

  “We’re not supposed to,” Liandra said with a heavy exhale of air.

  The dog rolled over to the side, flipping its tail from time-to-time, drawing their attention back to it. The girls patted its fur as Jake squatted down.

  “We need to tell the adults,” Alys said. “The rule was no magic outside of their presence.”

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Sheesh, Alys. You were like this back in the school too. Always following the rules,” Jake said, a grin on his face. He was trying to play it off but Elliott could tell he didn’t want to be told on. Elliott smiled to himself. He knew the feeling.

  “The rules are there to protect us.”

  “Were they?”

  “I’m not talking about the school. I’m talking about here.”

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Jake said. “I doubt anyone is going to find us.”

  “You know what they do to kids who have escaped. How could you do something so stupid? What were you thinking?” Liandra said. “And you know mana is dangerous. Even in the school, we’re not meant to use it without supervision. You could have died.”

  Before Jake could reply, the dog jumped up, startling the three kids. It fixed its eyes on the other side of the clearing, baring its teeth with a soft growl, its tail stiff. Elliott and Lyla turned to see what it had seen, when they heard a shout from the direction they’d come. He gestured to Lyla to walk into the woods and followed her, both of them crouching between a pair of trees as they kept an eye on the kids and the other side of the clearing.

  “What is it?” Jake whispered to the dog with an arm around its neck.

  Another shout came from the other side – a different voice to the first but clearer. “Alys. Jake. Liandra. Where are you?”

  “Not like they care where we go anyway, right?” Alys almost spat. Feisty for a ten-year old.

  “I’ve been out here five nights. And the one time you come with me, I get caught straightaway.” Jake sounded exasperated, like this wasn’t the first time he’d been caught with these two in tow.

  As the voices got nearer to the clearing, the dog turned and burst through the gaps in the trees, the rustle of the foliage growing ever fainter as it made its way deeper into the woods. On the other side of the clearing, several lights flickered through the gaps in the trees until four figures emerged, each carrying a torch, their flames casting shadows across the clearing as they came closer.

  At the front was an older woman, in her forties, her greying hair up in a bun. She was flanked by two more women, though both were elves, the light catching the tips of their ears. A larger, burly figure brought up the rear, towering over the rest. An orc, Elliott recognised, with brown and dark green leathery skin stretched over bulging muscles. It carried a large, gnarled tree trunk in one hand, a torch in the other, shadows dancing across the hand-sized canines of its lower jaw.

  “Jake has been doing magic out here for five days,” Alys shouted, springing to her feet and running across to the woman. Elliott allowed himself a small smile. The look on Jake’s face made it clear he wasn’t expecting Alys to snitch on him. She hadn’t even needed prodding.

  “She’d make a poor Shadow,” Lyla whispered, a touch of amusement in her voice.

  Grey-bun gave her torch to the elf on her right and held her arms out as Alys ran into them, sniffling. Liandra glanced at Jake. Then at the adults. Then back to Jake.

  “Well, they already know now,” Jake said. “Go. Don’t get into trouble for me.”

  Liandra didn’t go. “I don’t know what Alys is talking about. He hasn’t been doing magic. He just wanted to see the outside and he’s been helping a stray dog.”

  A concerned look passed between the adults.

  “A dog?” grey-bun asked.

  “Yeah,” Jake said.

  “Come here.” Grey-bun’s tone was brusque. Firm. Jake and Liandra hesitated a second. “Now,” the older woman almost shouted.

  The two kids joined them.

  Elliott tapped Lyla on the arm to follow him as he stepped closer to the group.

  “What dog?” grey-bun asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jake replied. Then he pointed into the woods where the dog had run. “It ran off over there.”

  The elf holding both torches gave grey-bun a silent look before snuffing out the torches and stealthing into the shadows, disappearing before their eyes. The other elf handed her torch to grey-bun, before sprinting back the way they had come.

  “How long ago did you find the dog?”

  “Like…” Jake tilted his head. “Two days ago?”

  “And you’ve been coming out here for five days? In a row?”

  Jake wavered.

  “Tell me.”

  “Yes. I just wanted to see the stars. It gets…crostraphobic inside.”

  Grey-bun was looking beyond Jake and Liandra, into the woods where the dog had gone. “It’s claustrophobic,” she said absent-mindedly, turning to the orc and nodding at him. The two of them ushered the kids ahead of them and walked back towards the other side of the clearing, grey-bun glancing back every so often. They kept a brisk pace.

  Elliott and Lyla followed.

  He knew the dog was a problem the moment he had seen it. Too domesticated to survive easily in the woods. It was too healthy to have been fighting for scraps of food and far too clean. It might have come from the villages or the city itself, but the forest was a good few miles from either. He had considered sending Lyla to check, but the elf had gone and it would be better to find out where the kids were being kept.

  And he was intrigued about what kind of operation they had going here. The kids didn’t seem in the slightest afraid, nor under any great duress. And from their snippets of conversation, he could guess they had been in one of the Bizayn programs. But it seemed not anymore.

  Grey-bun herded the children ahead as quickly as she could, without trying to cause a panic. The orc followed a pace behind her, its head swivelling from side to side. They didn’t care much about the noise they were making, rustling the thick foliage and snapping twigs underneath their boots.

  Elliott and Lyla followed behind for the best part of ten minutes before the group slowed. Grey-bun waited as the orc stepped ahead of her and the children, passing her the torch in its hand. The orc planted the thick, gnarled trunk on the undergrowth and knelt down, using its massive hand to rummage through the leaves and the grass between a pair of trees. It seemed to find something, wrapping its fingers through a hoop and pulling up, revealing an opening beneath a thick circular lid.

  Grey-bun ushered the children through first, before following. Finally, the orc clambered through the opening, before shutting the lid behind it.

  Both of them crouched down and waited, Elliott holding two fingers up. Lyla nodded in understanding. Somewhere ahead of them, to the right, Elliott could feel the [Traced] Coin getting closer, though it was still a mile or two away.

  After two minutes had passed, Elliott and Lyla crawled over the foliage to the pair of trees that the group had stopped at. Elliott reached into the bundle of leaves their, the grass caressing his palms as he felt around. His fingers brushed metal. A semi-circular handle, too big for human hands.

  He channelled a small amount of mana and opened the circular lid and peered down. There was a short ladder, leading several metres into the earth where he could see a faint light. He looked up at Lyla.

  “Ladies first.”