Aloha! Thanka-you to all my reviewers! Sorry this chapter took so long, I had exams and writer's block at the same time.

Dormouse: Thankyou! You are my favourite reviewer! I hope you like this chapter; I think the action scenes are a little better…

Samurai Light: Woo-hoo! A new reviewer! And an Aussie, at that! Whereabouts in Aussie are you from? And thankyou for the Bodyline suggestion…it definitely will find its way into the story. I'll make sure the Sons fight England last, but soon, hopefully, so that their victory over England coincides with our winning the Ashes! Also, sorry about the "o" thing. i was reading Lord of the Rings at the time. lol. And Justin didn't use his little knives because they don't want to hurt their foes.

Because I only got 1 vote, and because the Ashes series (Australia vs England) has started, England will be the last and most powerful enemy.

Also, in the chapter The Pakistani Five, I made a slight error. When Adam is lying on the ground and Pup is running through his options, he thinks about grabbing his captain and fleeing. This is an error because, as you will have picked up through the story, Adam is not the captain, Ricky Ponting is (though for how much longer remains to be seen ;) ).

Chapter Six: The Indian Five

The team had been in India a week and a few of them had got the stomach bug. Damien was kept very busy – a message had come from Lirael, anxiously ordering them to not get sick. Easy for her to say!

they would laugh. They were sure that Lirael had never been this sick in her life.

India was proving difficult. Being nearer the Old Kingdom, there were many Charter Mages and they couldn't test all of them. Lirael sent another message, this one subtler: Chlorr has no subtlety. She will have picked the high ones. This clearly meant, to them, that they needed to be wary of Sachin Tendulkar.

The First Test began. Halfway through India's first innings, Damien, fielding at second slip, thought he saw Charter Marks running along Tendulkar's blade. Yes, there they were; Marks of destruction, Marks of death. Damien swallowed. Justin was in danger, fielding at short-leg; of that he was certain. During a break between overs he spoke quickly to Adam; Ricky might be captain, but Adam was the Sons' leader. Adam and Ricky had a swift mental conversation; eventually they agreed that if Tendulkar was, indeed, under Chlorr's sway, then Justin was in danger. Adam argued that someone had to field there; but Ricky quietly pointed out that if the Dead were so evil, then Simon would be in just as much danger at short-leg as Justin. So they removed Justin from short-leg, brought all their boundary-fielders in, just in case, and warned everyone to be on their toes.

Tendulkar watched all this coolly. From the authoritative expression on Adam's face, he guessed that Adam was the leader. The fact that they were so quick to remove Justin from short-leg, where Sachin had been about to swipe his head off, suggested that Justin was a Clayr; that would mean that Matthew was too, as those two did everything together. Warney, too; he thought, possibly; why would they not have their strike bowler as a Clayr? It was here, though, that Sachin made his dreadful mistake.

Having decided that the five Clayr (he wasn't aware of the fact that they had a healer) were Adam, Justin, Matt, Warney and Glenn, he decided that young Watto was no threat. So, having neatly swatted away Watto's last delivery, Sachin raced down the pitch, drew his sword and took a swing at him. But they had anticipated this move, and all Sachin struck was a shield. Adam's shield, to be precise, because he was the only one wearing his pads, but the force of the blow striking the shield made both Watto and Tendulkar recoil. While he was off-guard, Justin struck, throwing his knives. His aim, aided by a spot of Charter Magic, pinned Tendulkar to the ground without hurting him. Watto began to sketch Master Marks in the air, Marks of forgetting as the others closed in to deal with him, swords drawn, just in case someone else tried to stop them. But no-one did. They banished the spirit with a growing sense of unease, wary of the fact that the other Dead spirits had not shown themselves.

Virender Sehwag decided that his leader Sachin had not done a good enough job. They knew who four were now; the Fifth remained a mystery to them. Still, now that his captain, Sourav Ganguly, was with him, he was confident that they could take them down. Glenn was pinning him back in the crease with good short-length bowling, and Adam was standing up to the stumps in his helmet, laughing and merrily geeing the bowlers up. Sehwag smiled wickedly. The wicketkeeper was just where he wanted him. Sehwag had been careful to cover his Charter Mark with a sweatband before coming out to bat. Carefully, he waited until all were distracted by a boundary, then swiftly drew a knife from his thigh pad, and stabbed backwards. Unfortunately for him, Adam wasn't there; the nimble wicketkeeper had twisted quickly out of harm's way. Rick had been the only Aussie watching Sehwag, and had sent a brief mental message. With Sehwag off-guard, Adam deftly threw out his hands. The orange-and-silver gloves flew off, turning into discs with a wire stretched between them. They flew several times around Sehwag, wrapping him up and causing him to fall over. Suddenly there was a burst of flame and Ganguly was blown off his feet; Watto had spotted the Mark that Ganguly was about to cast and guessed his intentions. Brad swooped out suddenly on his flying board, and delivered the bats. Matt drew his grimly as Ganguly got to his feet; there was a sudden crack! and Sourav stumbled backwards again as Matt brandished his whip menacingly.

Sehwag was putting up one hell of a fight; he kept managing to kick Adam or Shane as they attempted to bind him with Saraneth, wriggling around on the deck. Shane finally lost his temper and drew his sword, placing the tip at Sehwag's neck. This kept him still enough for Adam to blow upon Saraneth, and Shane to then pipe Kibeth. Now that Sehwag was gone, they turned their attentions to Ganguly, who was blasting Matt and Brad and Justin with Charter Marks while they used their weapons as best as possible against him, without hurting him. But it was proving difficult. Finally Matt whipped Ganguly hard enough to let him know that they meant business. But still, no blood was drawn. The only blood drawn was coming from the Sons, and they were having difficulty checking their blows. But eventually Brad got on top with a merry tune piped from Saraneth, and Justin joined in with Kibeth. So two more were gone.

But again, there were still two more to find. And this would be harder. For now all of the Sons were revealed, all except Damien. Damien had had to work very hard on keeping his spellwork subtle because they knew that someone would attack him. What they weren't expecting was for Rahul Dravid to find out that Damien was a Clayr.

They were fielding still, and uneasy, because to have two enemies unknown to you while the same enemies know all of you is not a good situation. Also, they had forgotten the golden rule with the Indian players – expect the unexpected.

Dravid came to the crease. He had been keeping a very close eye on Damien because he was sure that with Damien's light footwork he would be a handy warrior. He spotted, between overs, Damien tending to the other Sons and guessed that he had some healing powers. Perfect. So as Jason bowled the ball, he cast a spell on it and cut it viciously to second slip where Damien was lurking. Damien caught it deftly, but noticed the Charter Marks and threw it high in the air. The ball exploded and Damien knew he had been very lucky. But then Zaheer Khan came running out of the rooms, hurling exploding balls at them, and they were in trouble. Brad came zooming out of the rooms and they discovered that he had not been idle. He managed to organise some sort of balloon-like device to blow into Kibeth at the same time as Saraneth and consequently could, although not quite single-handedly banish them, at least distract them long enough for others to weave the tune. So Dravid and Khan were out of the way, the series in India was clean-swept for the first time in history, and the Sons' skills were becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Yeah, I know, the ending was a bit lame. But hey…

Next Chapter: The home summer starts once more! And Sri Lanka are to pay us a little visit…

Okay. Question for reviewers:

Why do you think Justin is so interested in "Bonded Clayr"? Is it:

a-Because he just likes History?

b-Because he thinks he and some of the others might be Bonded Clayr?

c- He's in love with a Bonded Clayr?

d- He's not interested!

Review your answer. Virtual cookie for the one that gets it right!

XXX Lady Siruae

PS Tragedy might occur soon. and watch out for a sequel!