Everyone’s eyes went wide at my words, but Uncle Bryden was the first to speak, “Kaelyn, you’re the swiftest of us, go and warn the others, and try to protect them until we return. We will catch up as quickly as we can.”

I took to the air, not even taking a moment to place the young Elven girl in one of the other’s arms. Time was of the essence, and she would probably be safer in one of the wagons and behind the Seeming that I could already sense from where the troupe would be setting up camp. Hoping that the Tainted would pass them by, but not willing to risk being wrong, I hurried through the pouring rain toward the camp.

The Tainted was getting uncomfortably close; I could see a pale figure shuffling along the road through the rain when I was nearing the camp. I caught sight of the camp and silently cursed. We were camped too close to the road, and I was worried that the Tainted would sense the magic of the Seeming as I arrived to see the other Voyagers setting up the wagons for the night and leading the kirgen away to graze. Wait, they were moving them into the trees, I could hear raised voices as well, and a couple of the adults seemed to be ushering the children into one of the wagons.

I quickly landed by my grandparents’ wagon where my grandfather was directing people. As soon as he spotted me touching down on the ground, my grandfather looked at me with a serious expression. “Thank Hespira that you’re back, Kaelyn. Vaela sensed a dark magical presence approaching. She and Shava went to head it off on the road and buy us some time, but they’re probably going to need your help. Shava is still a child, and your grandmother has very little experience using combat magi… who is that child?”

“I will go out to help them; can you take care of this little one for me? We will explain later,” I hurriedly replied as I attempted to hand the child cradled in my arms to him. She was dressed in rags and had some sort of collar around her neck that radiated magic.

“I’ll put her in Godan’s wagon with the other children, Zenna and Sivelle won’t object to watching one more,” he answered with a nod as he reached out to take the blue-haired Elven child from my arms.

The girl, who had almost fallen asleep in my arms when I was flying us here through the rain as swiftly as I dared, screamed in protest and clung desperately to me. “It will be okay, he is just going to take you to spend some time with other children,” I told her gently as I pried her off me and placed her in my grandfather’s arms.

She was struggling to get back to me, and I wished that I could have been gentler about it, but I needed to get out there and defend the camp from what was coming. I could not fight with a child in my arms, and I was not about to try doing so. I would only endanger both of us in the process.

Leaving my grandfather with the now screaming and crying girl held awkwardly in his arms, I ran off, following the pull of Fal’hevar toward my cousin and grandmother. Halfway there, I lost my sense of the Tainted’s presence once again. When I arrived, I found Shava vainly stabbing and slashing at a person-shaped mass of water and my grandmother drawing sigils in the air and chanting under her breath. The mass of water was reaching for Shava, so I quickly summoned a faerie fire between it and my cousin, consuming its outstretched arm and causing it to shriek in rage and agony.

It was as the water was recoiling from the pink flames that I realized that the Tainted hadn’t vanished, it was just merging with the rain and spreading out its presence, which was making it hard to sense what was the creature and what was not in this deluge. I quickly placed myself between the tainted mass of water and my cousin as it backed away from my flames. It was difficult to tell since the water only had a basic humanoid form and no features to speak of, but I got the distinct sense that it was watching me warily.

“I will handle this, Shava,” I told my cousin.

“If it was still flesh and blood, I could have taken it,” she grouched, but she did back off. “It looked almost like a Tainted Fae until I injured it and it turned into that.”

The water creature reformed its arm and tried to go around my faerie fire, but I moved the flames to keep them between us while I got my opponent’s measure. I bathed Neva’kul’s blade in faerie fire as I allowed the creature an opening, and slashed at it, causing it to once more shriek and back away. The wound filled in quickly with more water from the rain though, and I thought that I could sense the dark mana spreading to the new water. Its newly formed arm felt as tainted as the rest of it too, so it would seem that purifying it one piece at a time was not going to work.

-It was likely an Undine, one of the water elementals,- Sharai advised. -If you wish to attempt to purify it, you will need to make sure that your flames consume all of its core water. If even a drop remains fouled by dark mana, the infection will just spread again.-

My grandmother finished whatever spell she had been preparing, blowing most of its torso apart, but the Shadow Elemental seemed unbothered and quickly reformed. How could I keep it from re-tainting other parts of its core as I purified others? Sharai was right, we needed to get it all at once, but how was I going to get it to hold still for my flames to get its entire core now that it was wary of them?

“Grandma, can you freeze it?” I asked in a hushed tone while keeping an eye on the Shadow Elemental, and my flaming sword between us.

“Aye, give me a few minutes, Kaelyn,” she replied just as quietly before beginning to once again chant and draw sigils in the air.

My opponent was ignoring both my grandmother and Shava, so clearly, it saw the rose-hued flames I was wielding as the only real threat to it. Good, I needed to keep its attention off them and on me. I did not want my cousin to get hurt, and my grandmother needed time to weave her spell.

Fortunately, I was not facing an experienced combatant and my meager skills with the sword and my faerie fire were enough to keep it mostly at a safe distance from the others and me. It did attempt to reach around my guard with tendrils of its tainted water though, and I was not sure if these were attempts to infect me with its dark mana or to suffocate me since the latter of these attacks had been directed at my face. Quickly summoned shields of faerie fire put a halt to these attacks though.

I was keeping a cautious eye on the movement of the water when I felt a surge of magic from my grandmother as she released her spell. The air in front of me became noticeably colder as the elemental, the ground around it, and even the raindrops in the air froze solid in an instant. I wasted no time in summoning all of the faerie fire that I could manage at once, focusing on its purification aspect, and engulfing the ice sculpture and the ground around it for good measure.

An otherworldly scream came from within the flames and for several minutes, we watched as the ice melted from the heat. I could feel the darkness within fading as the rose-hued flames burned. Did I purge all of it? If not, I had no idea how I was going to kill an elemental that was not in a physical form. I gathered more mana, to be ready in case I needed to try something else.

After what seemed to be an eternity, a steaming mass of water emerged from the flames. I did not sense any tainted mana, but I did not drop my guard and kept my flames at the ready. For a moment, the mass of steaming water held its form but did not approach any closer, but then the water seemed to ripple and flow back into the humanoid shape it wore while we fought.

My breath caught in my throat until water turned to flesh and a naked young woman collapsed to the ground. She looked vaguely like an Elf at first glance, maybe younger than I was, though from the waist down she was covered in silver scales that matched the color of her long hair. She was pale, her skin creamy white, and her ice-blue eyes gazed up at me wearily.

“That’s different,” Shava commented from behind me. “Her skin was gray and her scales and hair almost black before she turned into a blob of water.”

-I believe that you have successfully purified her, Kaelyn,- Sharai added. I could not sense any tainted mana within her, so I felt optimistic as well. The Undine spoke, her voice as weary as her expression. I did not understand what she was saying though and looked to my grandmother, who did not seem to understand either. Sharai offered, -She is speaking Nymrian, I believe, Tamisun told me once that the Undines live near the Nymren Islands and do a lot of trading there. I was not as well-traveled as she was though, so I am afraid that I cannot speak the language.-

“Sharai thinks that she is speaking Nymrian,” I passed on to the others before turning back to the Undine. “I cannot understand you. Do you speak Common?” My Fae language skills were limited, but improving among the Voyagers, so I was able to get the same idea across in halting and somewhat broken Fae. Neither received a response other than a sad and confused expression.

My grandmother sighed tiredly but considered the problem for a moment. “Perhaps we can find someone fluent in the language in Hindra, it is a large port city, and ships from all over Esmere trade goods there. It looks like we will have a guest with us for a few days.”

“Two, at the least,” I clarified. “The wagons ahead were from a traveling menagerie. We found an Elven child in a cage, Grandma, she is mana-touched and seems frightened of others or at least those that resemble humans too closely. She seemed fine with me though.”

Both my cousin and grandmother grimaced at that piece of news. “You just found the girl?”

I shook my head as I responded, “Thus far, yes. I asked Grandpa to place her with the other children, but she did not go without a fight. We did not get to check all of the wagons, but I sensed other magical presences and there was another Tainted there. I came back right after we found her because I sensed that one got behind us and was heading here. I should return to check on the others.”

“Aye, go. However, I would think that Vesha has the matter well in hand,” she said with a look toward a black plume of smoke in the distance that was visible even through the dark clouds and heavy rain. Once again, I took to the sky, leaving my grandmother to figure out what to do with the seemingly confused and exhausted Undine.

On my way toward the pillar of black smoke, I saw my uncle, Mara, and Hagen hurrying back toward the camp along the road. I quickly landed to let them know what had occurred with the Shadow Elemental and in turn, they apprised me of what had happened since I left. Vesha had sent them all back to help protect the troupe while she dealt with the large Tainted that was destroying the caravan. The Salamander worried about harming one of them if she had to go all out with her fire and wanted them at a safe distance before she attacked. Master Niryln had stayed to support her adopted daughter with magic from a safe distance while the others tried to catch up with me.

They had made good time since I had noticed them not long after leaving our camp. Since they were already so close, I suggested that they help the others finish setting up camp while I checked on my fellow apprentice and Master Nirlyn. I promised to scout the area from the air to ensure that there were no other Tainted around and then I would help Vesha and Master Nirlyn to look through the other wagons of the menagerie and search for survivors.

I did not sense any Tainted as I flew over the area scouting, which meant that Vesha had most likely killed the one that she planned to fight. The large charred and smoking corpse beside one of the ruined wagons, which was equally charred and smoking, confirmed this. Vesha and our Master were sifting through the debris of wagons when I landed.

“I purified the one that was headed toward our camp, she is an Undine, and I think that the heavy rain was making it hard to sense her tainted water form. Everyone is safe, and I suggested that Uncle Bryden and the others return to camp while we sort this out,” I announced as I approached the pair.

“Well, tha’ does explain them bein’ so far from a dark zone,” our Master said.

Vesha smiled at me, “I knew you could handle it, Sweetheart. I’m not sure what that big one was before it became Tainted, but it was strong. I think it broke some ribs when it rammed me into the side of one of the wagons. I had to shed my physical body and go full inferno to take it down.”

“Are you alright?” I asked in concern. “Did it do anything that could have tainted you?” I did not sense anything that would suggest it, but I wanted to hear it from her too.

“I’m fine, Kaelyn,” she assured me. “I changed into my fire state before it could try biting or scratching or anything, and it was probably an herbivore, so it didn’t have any claws. It just had a really big set of horns and a lot of weight behind them. And the good thing about shedding my body is I can create a new one without the injuries. Is the little girl okay?”

A sigh of relief slipped from between my lips before I nodded at her query. “She was not happy about it, but I had Grandpa place her with the other kids. Maybe she will not find other children as frightening.”

“Aye, mebbe, though I think tha’ wee one has been through a lot,” she said with a glance toward the wagon that we had found the girl in. “We might need t’ watch over her ‘til she gets used t’ bein’ around Voyagers. Let’s see if we can find any survivors, Kaelyn. Vesha, we’ll need yer strength t’ move these wagons an’ clear the road.”

We worked at searching and clearing the debris until the sun set, but we did not find any Human survivors. There were a dozen bodies, or what was left of them after being trampled by something large and heavy, and the bodies of a few horses as well. They had not been in their harnesses though and there were tracks to indicate that many more horses had bolted into the forest or back toward the capital. The magic sources that I was sensing came from collars similar to those around the Elven girl’s neck, and the remains of a couple of cages, but most of those animals were killed in their cages when the wagons were being destroyed.

The only living beings that we found were animals that were either seriously injured and needed to be put out of their misery or were too savage to be released without risk to the local wildlife. We would try to use those to augment our food supplies so they would not go to waste. We also planned to salvage what we could of the menagerie’s supplies and money for the same reason.

We did find a logbook of their ‘attractions’ and several clues to how the disaster happened. It looked like one of the wagons had broken a wheel and they set the horses to graze and had a meal while a pair of men fixed it. The big Tainted was originally a titan ox, a rare breed found only in the jungles of Melorue on the western continent, and its cage had been in the same wagon as the Undine’s. The log said that they found the Undine injured on their way to the port of Hindra from the small island nation of Srach.

Master Nirlyn believed that the Undine had been injured by a Tainted and was turning when they captured her, and then she somehow passed that corruption on to the titan ox. It grew even larger and stronger from the influence and managed to break out of the wagon, and probably set the Shadow Elemental free in the process. The cage’s barrier enchantment had been designed to not be breached from the inside, but that did not account for something large smashing the cage itself from the outside.

Sharai recognized the runes etched into the bars of the damaged empty cage that we believed the Undine had been held in and those on the collars as well. They were the kind used by the Drel, who inhabited the island of Srach. Cages like that were enchanted with a barrier that would prevent the captive inside from escaping using magic, physical force, or any other means. The collars were enspelled to deliver a severe shock should the wearer attempt to remove it, when a certain word is spoken, or should they try to attack their ‘owner’.

According to Sharai, calling the people of Srach a nation was being overly generous. The Drel are pirates and slave traders and will target anyone, even each other, so it is more a collection of constantly warring coastal towns and villages than a nation. They are also a constant problem for other island nations and settlements along the west coast of Scorcia and Nightglade Forest.

According to Master Nirlyn, the log indicated that they had picked up the Elven girl in a Srach slave market a month ago, but there was no indication of a name, where she had come from before that, or whether she had family. As far as we knew, she could have been born in captivity and we would never be able to find her family. She looked only two years of age or so, so even if she could talk yet, would she be able to remember anything?

I tried to put it out of my mind as we got to work gathering anything useful. Vesha had been busy while we were investigating and searching the wreckage of the wagons. She had managed to clear the road of the larger debris well enough that traffic could pass through. Using what large scraps of cloth that we could find, we packed as much of our salvage as we could and returned to camp, anything remaining could be picked up when the troupe passed through the next day. As we made our way back though, I could not help but think of the little Elven girl.

It seemed that Vesha could see right through me. She leaned down to kiss my cheek as we walked and said, “She’ll be okay, Sweetie. She isn’t in that horrible cage anymore and she’s with our troupe now. She is hardly the first stray that we’ve picked up. Mama was a stray, so was I, and you are in a way too. We will take good care of her.”