by Guy Antibes
“Maybe the king is kept in the dark,” Whit said. “No one seems to respect him.”
“I wish Pin were here,” Gambol said. “He could give us some insight, but,” the gnome shrugged his shoulders, “that will have to wait until we return from Willet’s Bay.”
Whit nodded. “Nothing we can do about it, other than try to avoid more problems.” Whit’s stomach gurgled, so he rubbed his abdomen. “Ogre magic demands more than magical power. I know it’s early, but for me it’s time to poke around the food baskets we brought along from the inn.”
~
The town of Hammer sat in a shallow valley surrounded by misty farmland. As they approached, the colors of the buildings began to get brighter. They rode to the city center and were directed to the finest inn in town. Unfortunately, it was also an old inn, and all the doorways were barely high enough for pixies.
Zarl had to almost crawl as they made their way to the rooms. Luckily the ceilings were high compared to the doorways. The wildly colored furnishings looked new, supporting the innkeeper’s claim that the inn had been recently renovated.
They sat in the dining room. There wasn’t a common room at the inn, but if they wanted a more raucous atmosphere, there was a pub across the street.
“I understand scout is played in Hammer,” Whit said after the server had taken their orders.
“We have the only permanent field in the district,” the serving girl said. “It is one of the places to go when visiting Hammer. Scout contests are held every night too.”
“What is a scout contest?” Razz asked.
“Spectators can compete on their own, using their scout skills. It’s fun. They spend half an hour between the battles. You don’t play scout, do you?” She asked Razz.
“I have been known to slam a message home more than a few times in a battle,” Razz said in a flirting mood. “Whit is better than I.”
“Whit?” She looked at the members of the team.
“Me,” Whit said. “Can anyone join in?”
The server nodded and then giggled. “It would throw the wagering off for foreigners to play.”
“Where is the field?” Gambol asked
“On the south edge of town. The games will start in about an hour.”
“Then let’s eat!” Zarl said. “I’m famished.”
“He needs two helpings,” Gambol said, apologetically.
The girl grinned. “That isn’t a problem. I’ll put in the order,” she said disappearing though a door in the back of the dining room.
“It sounds like fun,” Razz said. “Watching scout and perhaps showing the locals what we can do.”
“I’ll keep my excitement down until I see what the scout contest rules are. They will be made for pixies and the competition will be all pixie.”
“Is there a problem with that?” Yetti said.
“Maybe,” Whit said. “Neither Razz nor I fly like pixies. If the rules are slanted to give pixies an advantage, we won’t stand a chance.”
Yetti smirked and folded her arms. “The mighty Whit will have found his match?”
Whit sighed. Perhaps Yetti needed another retreat. “Whit has found his match plenty of times before,” he said.
Yetti clapped. “Good for you admitting that. I’m in!”
They hired two local carriages and rode out to the scout pitch. It was more of a stadium with bleachers set up on both sides of the field. The home tubes and the surrounding platform for the soldiers looked solid and permanent.
They joined hundreds of spectators paying for entrance into the field. As soon as they stepped through the gates, male and female pixies began shouting odds and reasons why bets placed with them were better than wagering with others. Whit hadn’t expected such a festive atmosphere.
They stopped at a placard announcing the teams for the night’s scout match. Beneath the scout game announcement was a list of scout contests. It was too late to get in the match, but he would try a few of the contests. One of them was a three-lap race and another was a timed message delivery with a single soldier that defended the tube. Whit would try for those.
“I’m not faster than pixies,” Razz said. “I’m better at real play than skill demonstrations.”
That left Whit to compete with the pixies.
“You really think you are faster than pixies?” Yetti asked.
“Remember the game in Festor? I think I have a chance.”
Yetti shrugged. “I’ll be rooting for you, win or lose.”
They asked where to sign up for the interim events, and Whit entered the three-lap race, and the timed encounter of a scout (Whit) and a soldier, presumably a pixie. The race was between the first and second battle, and the timed scoring encounter was at the next break.
The person at the sign-up table asked for Whit’s papers. “We get foreigners from time to time, but many are in Perisia illegally.”
“Not me,” Whit said smiling.
He produced the documents from the prime minister and the interior minister. The pixie examined them and looked disappointed when she handed them back.
“You can’t fly like a pixie,” she said, doubting Whit’s ability by his appearance.
“I fly like me,” Whit said as she gave him a ticket for each event.
They found a spot on the railing surrounding the field and watched the match. Zarl and Fistian bet on the first match when they didn’t know anything about the opponents, just the odds. They bet on players and even on the time that the battle took.
Whit found the play interesting, as he always did, but the pixies played at the same level as the ones in Festor. The strategies were much the same, but the pixies were better scouts than soldiers on both teams, so the battles didn’t last as long. The first battle was over. Zarl had done better than Fistian, but that was due to Zarl’s more extensive side bets. Argien had bet, but his wagering was done in secret. The angel didn’t look disappointed, so Whit guessed he had done all right too.
The three-lap race participants assembled at one end of the table and would be the last of the three intermission events. Whit lined up with fifteen pixies of all sizes, shapes, and sexes to listen to the rules of the event. The flyers were to stay outside the boundaries of the field, and they were told the referees would disqualify anyone who tried to cut too many corners. The other rule was no magic could be used other than flying. The rules couldn’t be simpler.
Everyone eyed the foreigner who stood more than a head above the next tallest contestant. They seemed more curious than cautious. The participants were given a red strip of cloth to tie on them. Whit examined his and found his number written on one side. The pixies attached the identifiers in all kinds of places: around heads, ankles, biceps, necks. One slim pixie tied the strip around her waist. Whit threaded the cloth through his belt and trousers.
There was a soldier event and a message tossing contest before the race. Whit wished that Argien or Razz would have joined him, or even Yetti, but they declined, and he felt both conspicuous and anxious about joining the contest. They lined up in a group at the one end of the scout field.
“On the third bleat of my horn,” an event official said.
Whit stood waiting. One bleat sounded long, and the crowd responded with cheering. The second blast raised the sound level, and before the third bleat sounded everyone but Whit was in the air, flying outside the scout field and leaving him standing by himself. The third bleat followed shortly. Evidently anticipating the final call was allowed. Whit jumped into the air and flew to catch up.
Ahead of him the pixies began battling each other. Some were pushed toward the field, and one of the contestants was ejected for flying inside the pitch boundary. Whit was a stronger flyer, but now he was prepared for a little mayhem during the race. He caught up to the field before the first circuit was finished just as another pixie fell from the race after being punched in the head.
Now he knew why there were so few rules. The crowd went crazy with all the jostling. Whit c
ouldn’t use all his abilities in the flying scrum since he was so much bigger and heavier than the pixies, but he knew he’d have to mix it up a little to survive.
The route became an obstacle course. Pixies flew at him. One grabbed onto his legs and was dragged along until she let go, falling behind. Another pixie landed on Whit from above and had expected to knock Whit from the sky. He immediately flew higher so that wouldn’t happen again. Despite the pixie’s small size, he would have bruises on his back in the morning.
On the final lap, four pixies remained flying ahead of Whit, and a few were far behind, having lost precious time to being victims of each other. The pixies converged on each other, with two of them looking back at Whit. It didn’t take any imagination to think that the pixies discussed how to throw Whit out of the race. What the pixies didn’t know was that Whit had discovered that he could fly much faster than any in the race. His current strategy was to sneak in a win at the end.
It looked like Whit had the race well in hand until close to the finish line, all four of the pixies let Whit catch up. Whit was headed up out of danger until all four attacked him, grabbing onto his limbs. Weighted down with four pixies was too much for Whit at the end of the race when his reserves were fading. He thought they would let him go, but as he struggled to stay in the air, the five flyers continued their descent. Whit could see they were slowing up, and two of the pixies behind him shot ahead to finish one-two in the competition.
The sacrificial flyers broke off, and Whit flew over the field to his friends.
“Sorry about that,” a winded Whit said to his friends.
“Anything goes,” Argien said. “I would have shot them with lightning.”
“No magic,” Whit said. “Three rules: three laps around the outside of the field, no going above the field, and no magic other than flying.”
“That’s not fair,” Argien said.
Razz laughed. “Fair enough. To win, you’d have to fight them all off, Whit.”
“I didn’t think all four of them would gang up on me. There weren’t more than two attacking other pixies,” Whit said.
“No rules,” Gambol smiled and looked at the two scout teams warming up for the second match. “You could have flown faster, couldn’t you?”
“I could, but with all the fighting during the race, I was worn pretty thin at the end,” Whit said with a smile. “I won’t expect a fair fight in the next event. I don’t know how delivering messages can be made any worse that what I’ve encountered in real games.”
“They will find a way,” Yetti said. “The Perisian pixies are more creative than they are at home.”
The second battle was more frenetic than the first. Whit spent most of the battle observing how the pixie soldiers fought off the scouts. It wasn’t that much different from a tough match in Herringbone or at one of the Turpentine Terrapin matches other than the tendency of pixies to sacrifice more. That made sense since four of them had dragged Whit down to defeat during the race.
The scout-soldier event was the last of the events before the third battle. Whit stood with the scouts. Another group of pixies gathered to play soldier. He recognized a few of his competitors in the flying event standing with the scouts, but Whit had to admit their confident looks bothered him. He pulled a number from a little bucket, drawing eight. At least he would see what he faced before he had his little battle with one of the soldiers.
“So I go in eighth place?” Whit asked one of the officials, showing the wooden tag.
“No, you are matched with soldier number eight. You’ll be going first, big boy.” The official grinned maliciously.
Whit’s heart sank, and he realized he could only do his best. Every message delivery was different, and it would be a mistake to hold back his efforts this time. When the tags were drawn, the officials dragged the participants together.
“We don’t have as much time to get our event done. We will cut down the message deliveries from three to two and pick the best time out of the two rather than the best two out of three. As always, anything goes, including magic.” The official turned to Whit. “You do know a little magic, don’t you?” The man’s gaze went from participant to participant. “Killing your opponent will get you disqualified.”
Whit wasn’t pleased to hear grumbles from the others. They weren’t happy about the restriction. Before he had passed the borders of Perisia, he had never thought pixies could be so bloodthirsty.
The other two events flew by until someone pushed him out into the field, but three pixies joined him.
“Another time crunch,” the official said. “We will use both homes today. Good luck to you all.”
Whit and his soldier-opponent walked toward the home tube at one end of the field. The event would start when the whistle blew. Not wanting the soldier to attack him at the start, he retreated to midfield where soldiers couldn’t go. His opponent shot a bolt at him, but he was too far away from Whit for accuracy. Whit noted the distance and flew straight up. The soldier flew to his limit, but Whit was far above him before Whit unloaded with a water spell, drenching his opponent with so much water, he hit the ground. Whit quickly dropped the message down the tube.
The official brought the message to Whit, but he could tell there was something in it. He noticed a plug and took it out. Metallic granules fell to the ground and clumped up. Magnetic gravel, he thought. Whit stared at the pile and wondered if the magnets attracted the lightning the pixies generated with their magic.
The whistle blew and a bolt came from the soldier, but it bent down and struck the little pile of granules. The soldier’s eyes grew as Whit tossed flame in his direction, making the pixie retreat. Once in the air, Whit kept sending pulses of flame toward his opponent until he was over home and dropped the message down the tube.
The event was over, but Whit was struck in the back and slammed into the field. A pixie tossed water over his head and brought Whit back to consciousness. With a searing pain in his back, he trudged off the field while the players were warming up for the third battle. His friends were waiting for him on the other side of the fence.
“That wasn’t fair!” Fistian said.
“It is for pixies,” Yetti said. “I know who struck you, if you want to get even. The bolt could have been worse.”
“It is bad enough,” Whit managed to say through the pain.
“Let me make it better,” Yetti said. “We learn at an early age how to heal electric bolts.” She giggled. “I watched you dump the loaded message. I’m sure that was why you were attacked.”
“But it wasn’t the soldier I played against,” Whit said.
“Pixies have friends. It was one of the scouts,” Yetti said.
Whit wasn’t interested in retribution, but perhaps he wasn’t supposed to let things go.
“I’m expected to fight back?” Whit asked Yetti.
“You are where I’m from.” She looked across the field and pointed. “The one in the green vest and orange pants.”
Whit shook his head with a little smile. “The one with the blue-green hair?”
“Right!” Yetti said.
“Heal me first,” Whit said.
Yetti took him away from the crowds and had Whit take off the clothes covering his back. She hummed a little tune. Whit didn’t know what else she was doing behind him, but he suddenly felt a searing heat, just like the healing that Fanni had done. He almost bit his tongue to keep from crying out, but the pain didn’t last long, and his grimace turned into a sigh. His back didn’t hurt anymore.
“The healing is as bad as the bolt,” Whit said.
“For a moment, and then you are good to go,” Yetti said.
“Show me how to throw a bolt,” Whit said. “One good strike deserves another.”
“You think you can do it? You were pretty nifty with those flames.”
Whit grimaced. “Wood elf stuff.”
Yetti spent a few minutes until Whit was able to throw a bolt. He didn’t have any kind of co
ntrol, but he would be aiming for the pixie’s legs. Argien, Yetti, and Fistian accompanied him across the field.
Whit stood behind his attacker. He was tempted to strike him from the back, but that disturbed his Herringbone sensibilities.
“Defend yourself,” Whit said.
The pixie turned around, but before the little man could get a spell off, Whit sent a bolt into his thigh. “Don’t mess with me again,” Whit said.
Yetti gasped. “Wrong thing to say.”
The pixie’s two friends threw bolts, but everything happened so quickly that Fistian was clipped in the arm. Argien had some kind of shield around him that sparkled for a moment. The pair missed Whit entirely, and Yetti had a defense ready like Argien. Whit quickly disabled the other two.
He leaned down and sketched a whitening ward in the air and turned the hair of all three pixies bright white. The onlookers gasped. He hadn’t tried that before and it worked too well to be of any use to him. Youger sky elves didn’t have bright white hair.
“How could you do such a thing?” a female bystander asked.
“How could he not?” Yetti said, sniffing. “Let’s go.”
They walked around the field, and by the time they joined up with their friends, the battle had started, and all eyes were on what was happening on the field, forgetting what happened off it. Whit looked across the field to see the three pixies, with their eyes on the game. Their white hair shone gold in the setting sun. One of them shook a fist at Whit, but the other two urged the angry pixie to pay attention to the game.
“I’ve seen enough,” Whit said. “Should we go?”
“I’m ready,” Fistian said. “The second battle,” he shook his head, “wiped me out.”
“Uh, not yet,” Gambol said.
“You have bets going?” Razz and Gambol, nodded. “We can stay,” Zarl said. “I can take care of those who do.”
“I can help too,” Argien said. “I have an interest in the third battle.”
Whit nodded. He never doubted the ogre. Yetti, Fistian, and Whit found a hired carriage in a line that had a driver available. Many of the drivers had left the carriage rank to watch the game. The ride back was less painful than Whit had envisioned when he first hobbled off the field with his wound.
