A/N:

I am still here! Been a little distracted with my original writing so haven't done as much on this, désole. Thank you to reviewers and new followers/favouriters as always (Thank The Otter Reader for reminding me that people still read this and I should update). But now I present to you… another chapter!

Enjoy!

Ilandrae

Disclaimer: It may have been two months since the last update but I still don't own Merlin :)

CHAPTER 26 – THE HUNT BEGINS

Darkling Woods

Mel eyed Lancelot's moves with an eagle eye. Taking in every movement he made in an attempt to mimic the sequence later. When Lancelot finished, he called out the sequence and Mel and Art followed. His calls came faster and faster and by the end of it her muscles ached not quite used to the weight of her new practise sword. A gift as it happened to be, for her birthday that day.

"That's enough for this morning you two, pack it up" Lancelot finally called and she gratefully let her stance relax.

Mel dawdled as they began to gather their things, admiring her new dulled practise sword before she sheathed it. She'd been astounded when Lancelot had presented it to her that morning. He said Emrys had given it to him for safe keeping when he'd gone on his mission.

She hadn't told anyone about the importance of today. Even Lancelot and Art didn't know why she'd been given the gift. And she was happy for the gift to be the only celebration. Any thought of her birthday just brought up memories of her father that she wasn't quite ready to face yet.

Art and Lancelot looked at her in question as she dawdled but she waved them ahead. She wasn't done out in the forest today. She had another opportune distraction from her thoughts.

She recalled the meeting that she'd had with Lady Isolde and Princess Mithian the night before. After the Council meeting, the hastily formed band of cast aside female investigators (or Team Mitholdrae as the girl called them in her head) had spent the next day gathering all the intelligence they could before reconvening that night.

"Tristan said a mage boy named Marcus helped them find the body of the sorcerer" Isolde had told them, "Tristan won't tell me much more but, Little Griff? Do you think you could find the mage and see what information they have?"

Mel had eagerly agreed, "What will you two do?"

"Obviously the person who had hired the sorcerer has money and power and are desperately afraid of losing that power" Princess Mithian said, "Not to mention have a severe grudge against magic and they somehow knew that Tristan and Leon were heading into the Darkling Woods. Add all that together and the council men are looking like our prime suspects."

Lady Isolde agreed, "We'll tail them. See what they do. No one will take much notice of us anyway. When you're finished with Marcus, Mel, come and help us."

Mel didn't hide her presence as she made her way through the woods to where she knew the druid encampment was. Emrys had showed her several days before when he had business with Iseldir.

It just so happened that while Emrys had been doing said business, Mel had been left to entertain herself and, as always, found herself with the horses. It was there she'd stumbled across a certain druid apprentice who happened to share her love for horses, though admittedly to a somewhat less obsessive extent.

Mel waved at the sentries as she passed them and asked where she would likely find Marcus. She smiled at their answer and headed towards the horse yard.

She found the boy nursing a russet foal. His lanky frame folded over as he knelt down with his back towards her. Mel couldn't help her squeal when she saw the baby animal.

Marcus' head whipped around so quick that his arms and legs got tangled and he fell backwards into the dust with a yelp.

Mel leapt the rope fence and dashed over to the surprised teenager. Somehow, despite the commotion, the foal remained where it was, and she stroked the horse.

"Village girl" Marcus growled as he hauled himself to his feet, "back to bother me again, are you? But was that necessary?" he dusted himself off.

"But it's so cute! Did Christa give birth?"

"Yeah" Marcus ran a hand through his already untidy hair, "But there were some complications and Christa's still recovering. So, I get to look after little Rian here for the time being."

"He's a beautiful boy" Mel stroked the foal's side.

Marcus watched her go goo goo eyed over the foal for a few more seconds before bringing her back on track.

"Seeing as you didn't know about Rian, I'm assuming you were here for some other reason?"

Mel paused and backed up from Rian remembering why she was here, "Yeah I was druid boy."

They perched side by side on a rock and Marcus pulled out some bread which he broke in two to offer her a piece. She decided not to push hi off the rock and instead began to munch on the snack.

"I heard Tristan and Leon paid you guys a visit?"

Marcus nodded his confirmation and she continued, "Camelot's being Camelot and not letting me and some… friends, help in looking for the assassin."

Marcus scoffed, "Of course."

"So, we started our own investigation, we're hoping you'll tell us what you found out when you and the knights found that dead mage."

"Fair enough" Marcus shrugged and went through what they found that day.

"How was he killed? Was there anything at the scene that you wouldn't expect to be there?"

Marcus eyed her critically, "Well aren't you just a little investigator now village girl. Emrys rubbing of on you?"

Mel couldn't help her blush at the praise, "Shut up druid boy and answer the questions."

Marcus laughed then grew serious once more, "Master Iseldir just finished looking at the body today actually. The knights don't even know this yet. Master Iseldir actually recognised the sorcerer. His name was Borandir. He was exiled from a nearby camp for dabbling in dark magic and unethical provision of services to anyone who'd pay him. He was essentially a magical mercenary for anyone who'd pay him."

Mel wondered why'd he was telling her so much about the sorcerer. He was dead already and of little consequence in the grand scheme of things.

"The weird thing is. Borandir was one of the most powerful sorcerers of the past decade, and like Merlin, learnt how to fight with non-magical weapons as well. Add to that he was suspicious and mistrustful to boot. He shouldn't have been as easy to kill as it appeared he was."

Mel was intrigued now, "What do you mean?"

"According to Master Iseldir, despite all the blood and death and general gore, he didn't have a single defensive would on him. There was no sign he'd cast any magic to defend himself at the cottage and his swords and knives were untouched on his kitchen table. It was if he just lay there and let himself be cut open."

"Surely it would take a powerful sorcerer to do that to him then?" Mel asked confused. She thought she was after some magic hating moron who wouldn't dare.

Marcus shook his head, "Ordinarily yes. But Master Iseldir found a drug in his blood. Causes instant paralysis. He was awake but couldn't move a muscle as he was killed."

Mel winced. From Marcus' earlier description, it wouldn't have been a pleasant way to die.

"What's this drug called?"

He wrote it down and gave it to her, "Think of this as your birthday present."

She glared at him. How had he known?

"What?" he smiled, "It's not every day you turn eleven village girl."

Camelot Town

Mithian ambled along the street slowly, stopping to idle at a shopfront as her quarry paused and glanced around himself before ducking into a side street. Trying on a scarf she glanced at the reflection in the murky mirror.

Councilman Willis cast a furtive glance behind his shoulder before leaning forward to whisper with the person he'd met in the shadowy alcove.

She saw the glint as coins changed hands and frowned, what on earth was Willis doing? This was the third man he'd met and received money from. Willis was in charge of the city guards and if the money was bribes as she suspected, she feared what the payments were for.

After his companion had left Willis re-entered and continued down the street Mithian smiled at the storekeeper as she replaced the scarf and continued her tail.

Willis continued to roam the town going further and further from the castle to the more questionable parts of Camelot taking money from three more people. It became harder for her to conceal her presence and she took an opportunity to duck into a side alley and make herself a little less lady like with the assistance of a few liberal smears of dirt and an old headscarf she paid a street woman for.

Late in the afternoon, as the skies began to darken, the councilman ended up at a rundown building in the Camelot slums. Mithian slipped next to a homeless man napping against a wall straight across from the door. In the dim light she made out a shape that looked vaguely like a knife scorched into the door and dark drapes covered all the windows.

Willis executed an intricate series of knocks on the door. A face appeared in the window as the drapes were drawn back a sliver and in the next moment the door was opened by a figure in a crimson robe. The figure bowed to Willis, shuffling back as he did so Willis could enter.

Mithian stayed watching the house until after dinner time, until she had to leave to make the pre-arranged meeting with others. Willis didn't leave but several more people in crimson robes entered, after performing the same knocks on the door that Willis had. Enough people that she managed to memorise the pattern.

"Your day was more eventful than mine then" Isolde complained at their meeting that night, "Councilmen Archibald, Sloan and Nelson just spent the whole day looking through plans of the city to prepare defences for the next apparently inevitable invasion."

"Well, did you know" Mel crunched on an apple, "That Councilman Samuel is writing a book about the benefits of a non-magical lifestyle."

Mithian raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Mel shrugged, "I never said it was a good book. Or a grammatically correct one for that matter. Hells, I'm eleven and was raised in a rural village but at least I know how to spell 'benefit' and that life is not spelt with a Y. I'd be very surprised if it makes it to publication."

Mithian's eyebrow didn't budge.

Mel sighed, "He's a magic hating douche yes. But he's a spineless, idiotic, magic hating douche. He's physically and mentally incapable of everything that's been done."

"Lead with that next time Little Griff" Isolde said.

"So, I shouldn't tell him you want to pre order a copy?"

"So, it appears that Willis is who we should be looking at" Isolde ignored the girl, "But we're going to need proof. What was that drug Marcus told you about? Is it common?"

"I've already asked Renshaw about it" Mel polished off her apple tossing the core in a waste bin, "He doesn't stock it. No one with good intent would because its sole purpose is conscious paralysis."

"So, we have three main targets tomorrow. Willis, the drug and whatever that building was that he went to, right?" Mithian said

The others agreed and they continued their plans.

The Tivr Temple Rhuddlan, Gwynedd

Underneath a nondescript house in the city of Gwynedd, in the torch lit tunnels that had been hollowed out beneath it, the Tivr priestesses paused in their battles of worship and greeted their elder as she entered the Holy Cavern with their honorary fist to forehead salute.

They completely ignored the dumbstruck knight and smirking warlock beside her.

Merlin shook his head and, after a confirmatory nod from Myara, the warlock dragged his open-mouthed bodyguard towards where he knew the Blood Rose used to be kept.

He didn't hesitate as they moved through the numerous twists and turns. He'd lived in these tunnels when studying under Myara so knew them well. Enough so, that looking at the hard packed earthen walls he felt a sense of familiar comfort as they walked.

Within minutes they entered the Cavern of the Rose. Or what was left of it.

It had used to be a reasonably large room with a pedestal in the centre and protection runes and spells covering every available surface. On a given day or night four high ranking Tivr priestesses, all personally trained by Myara, would be guarding it.

But now half of the ceiling had been caved in crushing the spot where the pedestal had stood. Great chunks had been blasted from the walls, marring the intricate script that used to cover it and no doubt obliterating any protection they had afforded.

As for the guards, the blood still staining the floors and walls told of their fate, Merlin recalled Myara's words:

Four sisters were slain…

He murmured a quick Tivr prayer for them to find their peace.

"What could have caused this?" Bedivere murmured looking around at the destruction.

"It was magic for sure" Merlin replied.

He could feel it. Like a dark smog permeating the usually pure air of the caverns. He knelt down, palm on the earthen floor, and reached out with his magical mind, feeling for every trace of residual magic.

This was why Myara had wanted his help. This was distortion magic which edged on psychal, two of Myara's weaker disciplines. But it was a spell that Merlin excelled at, enough so that he could tell exactly what spell had been cast, in what order and by what spell caster. Given that he'd encountered the spellcasters magic before.

As always when feeling with his mind, he found it easier to think out loud, grounding himself in the physical world.

"The four sisters stood guard when they came. They cast a sound spell as a distraction, and some form of speed spell to reach the stone before they even had time to move. How did they get past the runes though they should of…?"

He examined the alter finding the magical trace after a closer examination.

"He had an amulet, cancelled the runes for a second. Just enough time for him to get the Rose. Once he had that, the battle was won."

"An amulet?" Bedivere said incredulously, "what amulet spell could cancel out so many runes?"

Merlin didn't question why the knight knew so much about magic, he was becoming less and less surprised with the knight's oddities. He opened his eyes and stood drawing his mind back into himself.

"You're right. I can't think of a sorcerer other than myself, or maybe Iseldir on a good day, who could have spelled one so powerful."

"I'm going to tell the druid you think you have better amulet magic than him."

Merlin hadn't even noticed Myara enter.

"Please don't, he'll be so disappointed."

Myara smiled, "Have you got a track on them?"

"Yeah. Haven't come across them before though. They used deception rather than strength to do this, but now that they have the Blood Rose…"

The sorceress sighed, "With the Crystal of War, they'll be a force to be reckoned with no matter how weak they might have been before." She ran a hand wearily through her hair and for the first time since Merlin had known her, if only for a split second, she looked all of her sixty-eight years.

"I have to help plan the farewell ceremonies for the sisters who fell. I won't be able to assist you."

"Don't worry about it Myara. I have my walking talking tin can remember. Bedivere can provide any support I need."

"It is why I'm here Myara. And after seeing this, I want to catch whoever did it as well."

"Then I thank you both. And wish you luck."

She didn't see them out.

"So, what is our plan?" Bedivere asked when they stepped out on the heat blasted street once more.

"I've got a track on their magic. And on the magic of the Blood Rose. If they cast a spell anywhere in or near the city, I should be able to find where it was." He turned to the knight, "This may take a few minutes and I'll be basically defenceless. Do me a favour and make sure no one stabs me in the back or something stupid."

Not waiting for an answer, he leant his combat stave against the wall, the red crystal instantly dimming the second he released it. He reached to his wrist where his distortion stave sat. After a murmured word and golden flash, he held the stave in its full form.

As tall as he was and carved from pure white ash. He'd carved the runes into the wood himself (under the instruction of Iseldir) and as he held it, the runes shifted and flowed over the woods, the sign that it was held by a distortion mage who could use its full potential.

Both hands on the stave he closed his eyes and spread his mind. Unlike in the cavern before, he wasn't simply searching a single room. He was searching the entire city, and then some. His awareness of his immediate surrounds grew to nothing as he spread his mind across kilometres.

It was only with the help of the stave that he could reach so far. Even with it, searching such a large area was disconcerting, as if his mind became paper thin.

With this awareness he sensed every spell that had been cast in the past day or so, and it was blinding. He ignored most of them, casting another overlay to his conscious and filtering out all except those bearing the trace he had locked onto, that of the thief.

Finding what he was looking for he withdrew his consciousness. It was just as unsettling shrinking his consciousness as it was expanding it. As if now his head was too small.

His stomach rolled and he was breathing heavily as he opened his eyes. He leant back against a nearby wall trying to settle back into his body and Bedivere looked at him oddly.

"That is not a comfortable magic to do on a large scale doesn't always work either" he explained forcing down bile, "but I got what we need."

"You know where they are?"

"I know where they were" he corrected. "They used magic several times and seemed to be heading out of town, towards the woods south of the city."

"What magic?"

Merlin shook his head, "I can't tell from this distance. And I don't think we have the time to track down the exact places to find out. My tracking magic doesn't work well in nature. Too much natural magic, it pretty much smothers everything else. If whoever has the Rose manages to lose us in those woods… we aren't likely to find them again quickly."

"So, to the woods?"

"To the woods."

A/N:

Hope you enjoyed and as always,

Stay strong.

Thanks,

I ;)