No one slept that night. Or at least, no one besides Li Na, who had been looking exhausted after telling everyone her story. Lauren stayed in Li Na’s room, watching over her, while Yaric and Sven tried to sleep downstairs. There was a lot of planning to do, but no one said a word until the curtains began to glow faintly in the darkness.
It didn’t take long before they heard footsteps coming down the stairs, followed by Lauren dragging a bleary-eyed Li Na into the room. Li Na had either gone to bed in her robes and cloak or had already got dressed, but either way, she was just as ready as the other three, who had no other clothes with them.
“What’s so important?” Li Na asked with a yawn.
“We’re making our move, as soon as possible,” Sven replied. “I want to hit them as close to sunrise as we can.”
“Our move?”
“We’re going for the warehouse,” Yaric explained.
“What? We can’t! You know what happens if we get stopped before we get in! Didn’t we talk about this already?” Li Na asked, now sounding wide awake and looking to Sven for support. She was a lot more conscious of consequences lately.
It was still dark, but Yaric could see the look of concern on Li Na’s face in the faint light of the false dawn.
“Plans change,” Sven shrugged. “Yaric was right. The only way to catch these guys is to go straight for the heart; they can’t hide their warehouse.”
“And it’s the only place that can be tied to the whole gang,” Lauren added.
Yaric leaned forward to get everyone’s attention. “Actually, it’s more than that. Well, maybe.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise.
“We know more now than we did when we spoke about this last time. Lina, when you said they were behind robberies in other areas, did you mean that they did it often? Or just occasionally as an initiation or something?”
“Don’t know, not really. I know some people were in charge of different types of businesses, so I guess it was often?”
“What do you mean?” Lauren asked.
“Mal… I was told that some of the more important collectors were the ones who could tell how valuable things were. Some knew how valuable jewelry was, others knew how valuable tools were, things like that. They weren’t even called collectors, they were praisers.”
“Appraisers?” Sven asked gently.
“Oh… yeah… I didn’t know then, and I didn’t think…”
Lauren put her arm over Li Na’s shoulders. “It’s okay, I used to think ‘thieves’ was the proper name for the people who came to collect money. I didn’t know they were tax collectors until I talked about the thieves who took our money in school. My teacher was very confused… and concerned.”
Li Na snorted without saying anything.
“Well then…” Yaric said, pausing until he had everyone’s attention again. “That’s what we should really be focusing on. Proving that they get paid protection money was always going to be hard. It would take a very long time, and we’d need to prove an overwhelming amount of items were taken off the books if their victims don’t cooperate.
“But finding stolen goods changes everything. There will be proper records of stolen items if they were taken from other areas, and their victims will want to help. That’s the easy win. We’d still have to prove that the arson attack was them, but the original story will hold far more weight, and we can also try and use the same tactic we did against the Iwamoto and his nephew – get some members reduced sentences if they turn on the others. They’d already be caught with more serious crimes, so I’m sure at least one or two would confirm the arson. Not that it’s even the main issue anymore. This gang needs to be stopped.”
“We have to capture the evidence first,” Sven pointed out. “And make sure no guards take over before we can. Do you still want to go in by river?” Sven asked Yaric.
“No. It would let us come from an unexpected direction, but I thought about it, and the approach would be far too slow. We’d be sitting ducks all the way in, and they could easily keep us from getting out of a boat.”
“Speaking of, what weapons do they usually carry?” Lauren asked.
“I know they sometimes have knives,” Li Na replied. “Most of the time they beat someone up, they don’t cut or stab them. Usually with clubs or sticks. But they don’t normally have weapons on them,” Li Na quickly added, her eyes growing wide. “They always leave and come back with weapons if something happens, everyone knows to keep clear if they’re carrying clubs, it means something is about to go bad.”
“There’s a good chance the collectors at the warehouse will be carrying weapons,” Sven said, but he didn’t look too concerned.
Lauren looked more worried than Sven. “It’s probably where they go to get them from, we need to assume everyone will be armed. And we don’t have our armor.”
“Shouldn’t we go back and get changed first?” Li Na asked.
Sven considered her idea carefully before answering. “They would know something was up if we came back in armor, so no. I think we are safer striking hard and fast, where they aren’t ready and waiting for us, rather than wearing armor and walking into the headquarters of a gang that is ready and waiting for us.”
“We still have our spells,” Lauren added helpfully.
“But no fire,” Yaric said. “We can’t risk burning things down.”
The four of them worked out the more technical details, deciding that Sven and Lauren would take the center, while Yaric and Li Na would take the flanks and hang slightly back, to ensure they didn’t get surrounded by greater numbers. Everyone would stick to air spells and shields.
“Where is the warehouse anyway?” Lauren asked. “I thought this area was The Lower Docks, I don’t actually know where The Wake starts and ends.”
“It’s both,” Li Na admitted. “The Wake is the whole area, including The Lower Docks. It goes across into the Smoke Stacks, and up to…” Li Na trailed off as things she’d taken for granted as a child suddenly became clear to her. “It’s everywhere the collectors claim as their territory. The exact boundaries.”
“For now,” Sven declared.
Li Na left a note for her parents so they wouldn’t worry about where they had gone. Yaric felt it would likely have the opposite effect, but it was Li Na’s decision, so he didn’t say anything. The other three put on their cloaks, and Lauren tied up her hair and tucked it into her cloak as well. Then they left, running down the quiet streets under the brightening sky of true dawn, armed with nothing but their staffs.
The road pounded beneath their feet as they flew through the residential neighborhood, following Li Na through the twists and turns of the streets she grew up on. A few people were already up and about, including one man who immediately tore after them when he realized where they were headed. Their augmented running left him far behind them.
Yaric thought they were running into a wide square when Li Na turned the final corner, with the road they turned on to being at least ten times as wide as the one they were on, and while it did form a large square, the far end opened directly onto the river, with large multistory buildings on either side, each of which extended out into the water.
“It’s the building on the right,” Li Na panted.
The weather was overcast and slightly foggy, but the diffuse morning light clearly illuminated the group of men handing around the entrance to the warehouse Li Na had indicated. Unfortunately the door was at the far end, right near the water’s edge.
Yaric took the left flank, to the side of and slightly behind Lauren, where he would face the majority of the waiting collectors when they moved to enter on the right.
At first it seemed like there wouldn’t be much of a fight, with most of the men in front of them running inside. Frantic shouting echoed within.
Then they came running back out, followed by a slow but steady stream of additional members. Lauren’s words proved prophetic, as they all came back out bearing weapons.
Several men were wielding the expected clubs, but most carried pike poles. Each was made of a solid wooden rod, capped with a round iron spike that turned the rod into a makeshift spear. The base of the spike featured a wicked-looking hook that turned back toward the wielder. Luckily most were no more than a meter long, with some only half that.
Not only that, but the gang seemed intent on defending the doorway. Things would have been much more difficult if they’d pressed forward and created more space.
Each of the men seemed taken by surprise when Lauren and Sven made contact, immediately landing strikes to the head and shoulders. They were all standing menacingly, apparently expecting to intimidate the students. As members of a gang that controlled the area, they weren’t used to fights with people who fought back.
Yaric and Li Na joined in a moment later, wielding their staffs like spears, just as Sven and Lauren did, and using their greater length to land lightning-fast thrusts from outside the reach of the pike poles.
All four of them advanced as quickly as they could, trusting in Sven’s assessment of the gang’s most likely reactions. He was right. The gang was focused on keeping them out, so as they drove forward the gang members kept falling back, trying to keep between them and the doorway. They could have surrounded them if some had been willing to let them go past the attackers, but the unorganized defense and chaos of the fight had them all reacting on instinct.
Block the doorway.
Still, Yaric found himself hard-pressed. Several people attacked him at once, and no matter how much stronger and faster he was, it was still impossible to defend against so many strikes at once. He only succeeded because he didn’t attempt to block or deflect, and instead used his longer reach to rapidly strike at the gang members’ faces. None of them were willing to take the hit to the head, so they kept pulling back instead of committing to their attacks.
Yaric whipped the tip of his staff down onto one member’s collarbone, breaking it, then pivoted his hips to swing the tip into his neighbor’s jaw. The collectors constantly backed away and kept out of reach until they were forced to stop and fight, at which point Yaric and his friends would each drop one or two, only for the collectors to begin backing up again.
More and more collectors kept coming from the warehouse until over three dozen stood between them and the door. Two had also come running from behind, but without proper weapons they were barely a distraction for Li Na, yet still wound up on the ground with concussions.
The rest started trying to run around the fight, hoping to get weapons from inside, but that just took them past Yaric and his greater reach. The first took a blow to the mouth and quickly found himself on the ground, choking on his own teeth.
Then Yaric glanced back and saw what he’d been waiting for. Half a dozen guards were running toward them, no doubt intending to stop the fight and ‘take over’ the investigation. Yaric couldn’t afford to let that happen, but they did need the help.
“Cover!” Yaric yelled, moving behind Lauren and Sven. Lauren swung her staff in a wide arc, pulling the attention of everyone on the left while Yaric reached inside his robes and pulled out the beacon. Yaric flicked his wrist and caught it by the opposite end, then raised it high above his head and channeled arcana through the grip.
Five silver-white orbs shot rapid fire into the air. The last one stopped ten meters off the ground, and each subsequent orb added another ten. They all hovered in place, their searingly bright light illuminating everything in a wide area. A loud, high-frequency flapping sound began to echo all around them, not coming from the orbs but from everywhere at once. The sound reminded Yaric of the lightning spells he’d seen, or at least the ones where arcs of lightning had flickered around the caster.
Yaric saw the guards arguing furiously with each other in the silver-white light. Each of them wore leather armor and carried large, leather-wrapped clubs. They would be a big help when they joined the fight.
Lauren was being pressed hard, so Yaric rejoined the fight himself, immediately catching one collector in the throat and following it up with a strike to the forearm. Fewer and fewer gang members were able to fight at once as the students pushed them back into the entranceway, narrowing the space and reducing the numbers advantage.
Unfortunately, those still inside hadn’t been idle. Large crates and lumber of all kinds were placed across the entrance, forming a barricade. Yaric glanced back again, intending to have the guards take over and order the gang to stand down, but all six of them had disappeared. It didn’t make any sense. Lloyd had been very clear that the signal acted as a consular decree, summoning all guards and any military in the area and placing them under his command. Responding to the beacon was an absolute requirement. Ignoring one was considered tantamount to treason.
“Move to the wall!” Li Na called loudly.
Everyone drifted toward Li Na, until the wall itself guarded Sven’s flank and Li Na was forced to pull back behind her friends. She quickly leaned her staff against the wall and reached under her oversized cloak.
‘Of course she brought it,’ Yaric sighed.
The crack of splintering wood echoed off the walls of the warehouse opposite them, loud even underneath the signal beacon, as Li Na used her mace to smash through the thick wooden walls of the warehouse.
Yaric could hear panicked shouts from inside, and all the gang members facing them turned to scramble up the crates that made the makeshift barrier. Gaps between the crates and planks of wood allowed the collectors inside to stab their pike poles from behind cover, making it almost impossible to assault. More pike poles were thrusting through the hole Li Na had made so far, but she was standing to the side for a better swing and was completely unaffected. A few broken pieces on the ground were the only evidence that Li Na had attacked the actual pikes at least once.
“Pull back!” Yaric shouted, casting a spell and raising his hand. Lauren and Sven got clear just before a blast of wind struck the barricade, knocking a few crates down and causing several more to slide back. Lauren and Sven joined him, directing the powerful blast of air at any part of the barricade that looked loose.
Pieces soon stopped falling, however, as the remaining pieces were either better secured or better braced by the gang members behind them.
Constant practice had made all of their newer spells more powerful and more effective, giving Yaric faith in their ability to withstand a few small shocks.
“Duck!”
Yaric ran forward with his forearm braced ahead of him, his shield spell manifested as wide as possible and anchored to his arm. Four pike poles were knocked back when they struck the shield, but the rest pierced through, knocking out small pieces of the segmented shield.
That in turn limited their mobility, and their ability to twist to point toward Yaric, who crashed unharmed into the barricade with a massive thump, knocking yet more crates over.
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“Duck!” Lauren yelled over the frantic shouts from inside, running toward the barricade as well. Yaric sat down quickly and kicked off the crate in front of him, sliding backward as Lauren’s shield passed overhead. He watched as Lauren crashed into the barricade and sent even more crates tumbling, followed soon after by Sven. Everything fell onto the defenders at once, leaving nothing above waist height.
Li Na jumped shield first through the hole she’d made, at exactly the same time as Yaric and the others jumped up onto the crates blocking the entrance, giving them a slight height advantage.
Rows of goods were packed to the left of the entrance, running perpendicular to the wall and forming a barrier between them and the river. Even more crates and barrels were visible over the top, packed parallel to the first row and just before where Yaric judged the water’s edge to be.
Stairs on the opposite side led up to a platform overlooking the whole building, where another set of stairs led even further up to a gangway that ran all around the entire warehouse, just below the trusses that supported the roof. It even extended across the massive opening into the river, which ran almost the full width of the warehouse.
The initial confusion allowed the students to land crippling blows to the knee or head as the defenders got out from under the fallen crates, but the further in they pushed the worse things got. More space meant the gang could more effectively use their greater numbers, and their instinctive desire to get between the four of them and the entrance did nothing when they were already inside.
“They’ve seen what we have! Surround them, don’t let them leave!” someone shouted from further inside. Yaric caught a glimpse of a man in his fifties, with steel grey hair and a well-trimmed beard. He stood ramrod straight in the gap leading to the water.
‘At least we don’t have to worry about them destroying evidence.’
Loud shouting and the trampling of dozens of feet from behind them sealed their fate. Reinforcements were about to arrive, and they were going to be surrounded.
“LI NA?! Where are you, princess?!”
Bruce rounded the corner at the head of a small army, all carrying some form of makeshift weapon. They surged around Bruce while he squinted in the dark warehouse, searching through the chaos for his daughter.
Li Na was still covering Sven’s flank, though they were currently turning to form a makeshift circle so they could defend themselves against the envelopment. Loud cracks signaled the destruction of another pike pole as Li Na’s mace spun in a constant whirlwind of destruction, desperately fending off multiple attackers. She could easily defeat any of them one-on-one, or even four-on-one, but sheer numbers meant she was constantly on the verge of being overwhelmed. Her staff would have been better, but she hadn’t been able to comfortably jump through her hole with it in hand, so it was still outside, leaning against the wall.
Yaric had never heard a human roar before, but Bruce did so anyway as he charged the gang members pressing in on his daughter.
Fifty men crashed into the gang, with even more still clambering over the destroyed barricade at the entrance. They were poorly armed and immediately started taking casualties, but their sheer mass drove the remaining gang members back.
Li Na chased the retreating collectors up the stairs while Yaric pushed toward the pier beside Lauren. Sven continued to deal with the collectors who had found themselves cut off and surrounded, intent on limiting the casualties amongst the civilians as much as he could.
The walls of the warehouse extended out into the river, with solid stone foundations that created a calm and still docking area, almost like a breakwater. Still water met the flowing river at the exit, creating whirlpools and choppy waves. Piles of merchandise surrounded the small dock, where a large rowing boat was tied off. No other vessel was inside the warehouse at the moment.
Gang members were retreating along both sides of the docks, while the grey-haired man from before was ignoring the ongoing fight and lowering small chests into the rowing boat. He untied the boat and climbed in even as Yaric watched.
Li Na, meanwhile, had fought her way up the stairs and onto the platform, pushing the collectors back with every step. The narrow staircase ensured she only ever faced them one at a time, and the rising steps ensured they were always close enough for her mace to break bone. Not even the platform could slow her down, since the gang members were afraid of being cut off from their line of retreat, and they all ran for the second flight of stairs as soon as they got to the open area.
Once at the top, Li Na found that they had all turned right, heading toward the back of the warehouse and taking the shortest path to the ladder near the entrance. She didn’t miss the rowboat heading away from the dock, however, with Mark, the leader of the gang, escaping toward the river by himself.
Li Na turned left, hoping to cut him off. She was halfway to the far end when running footsteps pounded along the walkway behind her, and Li Na whirled around, her mace raised and ready.
It was Rupert.
“Lina, I somehow knew it would be you.”
“Yeah, it’s me,” Li Na said with a frown, drawing her mace back slightly.
“Whoa! I thought you got my message?” Rupert held his pike pole casually in one hand, with the spike at the end lowered to point in front of Li Na’s feet.
“What message?”
“Yesterday, outside that store. I knew you’d end up comin’ back and bein’ the one to save us.”
“Save you?”
“From Mark? Didn’t you understand the warning yesterday? I was trying to help you,” Rupert added, looking slightly hurt.
Li Na lowered her mace toward the floor, looking at Rupert quizzically. “What warning? Help me how?” she asked hopefully.
Rupert smiled widely. “When we were talkin’ about school,” he said, walking closer. “And I reminded you about how things used to be.”
“What about the Academy?”
“Not your new school, your old school, with us.” Rupert stopped a meter away from Li Na, grinning.
“Yeah?”
“Well, like I told you yesterday… you’re useless and stupid!”
Rupert punctuated the last two words by stabbing his pike right at Li Na’s heart. Li Na’s expression broke at the combination of his words and his snarling face as he thrust the spike forward to end her life. It would have been impossible anyway, but she didn’t even try to dodge or bring her mace up in time to deflect, nor did she look away from Rupert’s face, not even with the brutal point lunging toward her heart.
Li Na was caught flat-footed and completely open.
The pike pole drove hard into her chest, backed by all the strength Rupert could muster and with his full body weight behind the thrust. Sharp metal stabbed into Li Na with such force that she was knocked back two full steps, the air driven from her lungs, while the vicious spike… skittered off the golden mage shield that shimmered over Li Na.
Both Li Na and Rupert stared down at the glimmering shield in shock.
Then Rupert rose into the air, tipping backward to reveal Sven standing with his side to Li Na. He was looking over his shoulder, staring at her, his face white as snow as he held a struggling Rupert over his head. His staff rolled back and forth at his feet.
“You’re okay? That shield…”
The shield flickered and disappeared even as he spoke.
Rupert’s twisting and struggling brought Sven’s attention back to him before Li Na could answer. Li Na was still catching her breath when Rupert screamed at the top of his lungs, his flailing arms and legs disappearing out of sight after Sven tossed him over the side.
“What happened?” Sven asked, his arms still trembling after seeing Li Na get stabbed in the heart.
Li Na just shook her head and pointed to the boat that was drawing close to the exit, then over the edge where Rupert had disappeared. She coughed loudly to stop the muscle spasm and breathe more easily.
The walkway shaking to the sound of running footsteps interrupted them before they could go any further, however, and Li Na stepped forward with her mace while Sven picked his staff up.
“No,” he said, turning around and raising his staff. “You go after that guy.”
Sven was already facing away from her, giving Li Na no chance to object. She only hesitated for a second before turning to run the other way, racing to cut Mark off before he escaped into open water.
The walkway was even more unstable where it extended across the wide-open exit, forcing Li Na to stow her mace and slow down, but she still made it over Mark’s intended exit point. Climbing up onto the rail, Li Na paused, climbed back down, then moved two meters further down the walkway. This time she climbed all the way over, holding the railing behind her back and watching as the rowboat glided below her.
Yaric thrust his staff forward while whipping it to the right, pushing it through the gap between his two opponents and striking the one on the right in the side of the head. He immediately swung the other way, hitting the second collector before the first had even started to drop.
There was no one else still fighting, at least not around the dock. Yaric looked up just in time to see Li Na drop off the walkway over the exit. She plummeted like a rock, her knees pulled up to her chest. Li Na twisted around on the way down, turning to face outside.
The rowboat was already part way out, with Mark rowing backward from the prow. Li Na dropped into the other end, facing Mark, and straightened her legs just before impact, intending to launch Mark into the air like a catapult.
CRACK!
Wood splintered and Li Na disappeared, replaced near instantly by a four-meter-high waterspout. The water rained back down immediately, but Mark was visibly panicking. He leaned forward in his little boat, scooping handfuls of water out of the rowboat as quickly as he could. His oars slid out into the river, abandoned and forgotten. The boat was already sitting noticeably lower in the water.
A whirlpool twisted the boat slightly, pushing the bow downstream just as the boat began to enter the current. The flow of water struck the angled side and pushed the small boat back into the warehouse, seconds before the sides disappeared beneath the choppy water.
Mark splashed and floundered like a fish on the end of a hook. Li Na popped back up just three meters away, where she trod water for a moment and pulled her hair out of her eyes. It didn’t take her long to assess the situation and start swimming toward Mark.
The gang leader might have been drowning, but he still pulled out a small knife when Li Na started swimming toward him. He was already fighting a losing battle as it was, and now he sank below the water for even longer periods, just from having one hand closed around the knife. Mark raised his arm above his head, and the moment Li Na drew close enough he struck down like a scorpion.
Li Na caught his wrist firmly and trod water, holding Mark’s hand high. Mark immediately sank, utterly unable to keep himself above water with only one arm. His head was underwater, so Li Na was forced to punch downward. Big splashes shot out each time she struck, until Mark’s free arm grabbed her collar and started trying to climb up her front. The gang leader pulled himself up by Li Na’s shirt, but Li Na switched to using her elbow. Li Na had never fought in the water before, so her first strike was very weak. Without her feet firmly grounded and providing stability, Li Na just twisted uselessly in place. Her next two strikes had all her strength behind them though, finally forcing Mark to drop the knife. It sank straight to the bottom.
She then twisted him around and hooked her arm around his neck, grabbing him in a chokehold and swimming back to the dock while Mark’s face went through various shades of red and purple.
Yaric was waiting at the edge.
Mark couldn’t swim, so Yaric augmented himself and leaned down, took hold of Mark’s shirt, and yanked him out of the water with one hand. Mark was tossed to the ground behind him.
He held out his hand for Li Na, which she gratefully accepted. Once she was back on dry land, Li Na immediately made for the opening in the wall of merchandise, punching Mark in the jaw as she walked past. Mark was out laid out cold.
The fights on the warehouse floor were still ongoing. At least a quarter of the civilians were wounded, many of whom had fallen back to the doorway. The rest fought on, including Li Na’s father Bruce, although he was also wounded. One of the pike poles had created a vicious cut down his forearm with its curved hook.
Casualties would have been far worse, but neither side had experienced fighters. By now they were all so tired that they were no longer fighting with anything near the ferocity they had displayed at the beginning.
“ENOUGH!” Li Na bellowed, following her shout up with a burst of wind across the remaining ranks of gang members that caused many to stumble. More than one civilian took the opportunity to land a big hit of their own.
Li Na sent a wind blade into the far wall, where it crunched into the wood.
“Mark has been caught! You’re the only group still fighting! Put down your weapons now, or from now on we’re fighting with magic!”
No one did anything for several seconds, but once the first pike pole dropped, the rest soon followed.
Bruce looked up at his daughter, standing over them on her crate and soaking wet, her hand still raised after casting her last spell. His grin seemed bigger than the gash on his arm.
“Everyone out! Collector assholes by the river, so you can collect what you’re owed! Wounded outside and against the wall! Everyone else, block the way to the road!”
No one argued with Li Na, though the gang members were far slower to move outside than the others. Li Na helped them along by pointedly dragging Mark past them all. He was already awake, but his pitiful figure could only flail weakly at Li Na’s arm.
Quite a few gang members were too injured to walk out on their own, including Rupert, whom Sven had to drag out much as Li Na had done with Mark. Rupert had a far worse time, however, as his broken arm and leg made the experience just a little more painful. Being dragged by the ankle didn't help.
Lauren organized the wounded outside, including the gang members. She mostly ignored broken bones, but anyone with an open wound was checked immediately. Most were not too bad, though a few required someone to apply constant pressure to slow the bleeding. Some of the gang members were wounded just as badly, as they had found more and more pike poles being turned against them as the fight went on.
It took Lauren twenty minutes to get through the first half, but she was interrupted by a High Wizard running around the corner.
“I saw the signal beacon, what happened?” Lloyd asked, looking at the scene around him.
“This is the gang that’s been extorting the locals and robbing people in other parts of the city, we raided their warehouse and rounded them up,” Yaric explained. “The stolen goods are inside.”
“But why are all these people here? And Lina’s father?”
“They made their own choice to come and help. We had no idea they were going to do that,” Yaric hurriedly added, feeling guilty.
“And the guards?” Lloyd asked, looking around. “Surely some of them should be watching over your prisoners, they can’t all be inside.”
“They never came,” Sven growled.
“They did,” Yaric asserted. “Six of them were behind us when I used the beacon, but I don’t know where they went after that.”
Lloyd looked genuinely furious. Yaric had seen him annoyed before, but only that one council member had ever made him truly angry before. Lloyd took two steps back and closed his eyes.
“People of the lower docks,” Lloyd broadcast, his voice projecting down from the overcast sky. It had a source, unlike the noise from the beacon, but it somehow seemed even more impressive when that source was the sky. “This is High Wizard Lloyd Chen, of Lekton Academy. An emergency beacon was activated over half an hour ago, yet no one has responded. As a reminder to you all, any guards who do not immediately respond to such an emergency are considered to have committed treason. I am sure I don’t need to remind you of the consequences of treason.
“You have ten minutes to arrive and fulfill your duties. Names will be taken, and those who fail to arrive will be judged. Those who do respond now will also be judged, but I leave it up to you to decide which group you would prefer to be a part of. Your ten minutes start now.”
Yaric opened his mouth to ask Lloyd if the guards would really be executed over the gang, and if he knew that they might have been threatened, or had their families threatened, but he never got the chance.
Lloyd still had his eyes closed, and a ball of light shot out from Lloyd before Yaric could make a sound. A second soon followed, then a third, and finally a fourth. All four balls of light flew straight toward the Academy.
“I’ve called for healers, among other things,” Lloyd explained, “now tell me exactly what happened.”
Yaric was pulled over to an empty area, where he started from the beginning and went over everything that had happened. Guards trickled in behind them, looking extremely apprehensive, but Lloyd completely ignored them. Sven took over, directing the guards to watch over the gang members and control the entrance to the warehouse. Someone was even posted to watch for boats entering from the river.
“Did she ever tell you this before?” Lloyd asked, after Yaric explained what had happened to Li Na’s friend Malcolm. Li Na was currently sitting against the wall, hugging her knees and staring into space while her clothes dripped dry in the cold winter air.
“Never.”
“I’m sure Sandy has no idea either. There’s probably going…” Lloyd’s head snapped up and he trailed off while he cocked his head as if listening intently to something only he could hear.
“Huh, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Come over here.”
Lloyd walked over to Li Na and gestured for Lauren and Sven to join them as well.
“Stand up,” he said. Once Li Na was up Lloyd started moving his hand around her, literally pulling the water from her clothes. It took a few minutes, and Li Na had to remove her cloak and shoes, but her clothes were only slightly damp when Lloyd finished.
“Where did you get that?” Lloyd asked quietly, pointing at Li Na’s necklace. It has slipped out of her top when she bent over to untie her shoelaces.
“Council Head Ivers gave it to me,” she mumbled in reply.
“She just gave it to you?”
“After we finished an appeal. Said it was a gift.”
“This appeal wouldn’t happen to have been the one where you four cleared out a nest of skathári, would it?”
Li Na just nodded numbly in reply.
“Could I see it?”
Emotion played across Li Na’s face for the first time as she reluctantly took off her necklace and handed it over.
“Hmmm… you should keep this hidden at all times. It’s more valuable than everything you four own – combined! And make sure you keep the pendant charged.”
“Charged?” Li Na asked, taking the necklace back with a confused look on her face. “This is magic?”
“Of course, look at the flat piece on the back.”
Li Na turned it over and stared. Right in the center of the reverse side was a small indentation, exactly like their trophy replicas of the flag stand, and the flag stand itself. The same indentations where they were recharged when their arcana ran low.
“But what does it do?” she asked quietly.
“Sandy didn’t tell you?”
“No…” Li Na mumbled, still staring at the pendant and turning it over in her fingers.
“I’m not a professional on the subject, but I’m fairly confident that this is a protective enchantment. I recognize some of the shield runes. Your necklace most likely functions very similarly to the medallions you used in your competitions.”
Sven and Li Na shared a shocked glance, which didn’t go unnoticed.
Yaric didn’t get a chance to ask, however, as Lloyd once again started speaking before he could.
“Lina, your dad is going to get treatment from an Academy healer, so he’s going to stay here. Don’t worry about going home anytime soon.
“Now I need you four to listen, and listen carefully. There is going to be a hearing later today, and you four will need to answer some questions. It’s nothing bad, not for you anyway. All you have to do is just answer as best you can. But you’re going to do two things before you report to the Council.
“First, you’re going to stop for food on the way back. Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious. You can eat while you walk, but you will eat. Preferably something with sugar. It will help with the adrenaline, and the shock that comes after.
“Second, you’re going to go straight to your rooms. Do not stop to make a report, do not go straight to the Council Chambers. You go to your rooms first, you get yourselves cleaned up, and you change into fresh clothes. You better not be wearing these clothes when I see you there.
“I need to wrap up a few things here, but I’ll see you at the hearing. Don’t panic, don’t run, just don’t waste time. Eat, clean up, and change your clothes. Off you go.”
Yaric glanced at his friends, and together they started walking back. Sven stopped suddenly and ran back, but he soon joined them again, this time with the staff Li Na had left propped up against the warehouse. Behind them they could hear Lloyd addressing the prisoners.
“Right, we have you all red-handed, with an entire warehouse of evidence. What you may not have realized yet is that those things are far from your biggest problem. You’ve corrupted these guards, and all the others assigned to this area, and likely every other official as well. Now that is something that Lekton takes very seriously. You’re each looking at decades in prison.
“Except for those that give meaningful assistance to our investigation… So, who wants to tell me about a recent arson attack? Or old ones?”
Yaric and the others shared a look.
“He stole our plan!”