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Cloud Lands Saga Box Set Books 1-3

Page 31

by Katie Pottle


  “Wow, they look serious,” Sun said.

  Cadin nodded. Each warrior had their wings folded perfectly behind them, and each was clad in a different type of armor. Twelve warriors stood tall, and each of the five Auras was represented, though not evenly. There were four red warriors, most of whom carried a sword or a spear as a weapon. These warriors had heavy metal armor, though it was not nearly as heavy and layered as the three green warriors. Cadin could not understand how they could move in all that armor, but knew too that he would have a very difficult time stopping one of them once they finally got to him.

  A white Aura angel stood next to the green angels sporting similar weapons and armor. There were three yellow warriors, all of whom were dressed in the lightest leather armor and carrying bows and quivers filled with arrows. Cadin flinched at a flash of light that reflected off a yellow warrior’s short bow. She also had a boomerang strapped to her side, and a small crossbow attached to her right arm-guard. Interesting, Cadin thought as he looked her over. He turned to get Sun’s opinion and was shocked to see Sun staring at the girl with her brows furrowed and shoulders shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” Cadin asked, concerned.

  “Nothing!”

  “Doesn’t seem like nothing,” Cadin said, but did not pursue it any further. Instead he turned to the last warrior in the line—a boy with a blue Aura, wearing very light metal armor on top of some leather. The boy carried several daggers of varying size attached all over. Two large hilts stuck up from his back, one medium dagger hung at his waist, and a small knife was attached to his leg.

  “Each team will be protecting your statues against one team of six warriors. The three teams with the least amount of damage against their statues place in this event. Do not forget that the proper placement of your statues takes good defensive strategy and is part of this test. There are bright green bases located throughout the battle zone. You must place each statue on one of the bases. When ‘time’ is called to begin—the statues will be locked in place and you will be protecting stationary targets.” Instructor Kade paused and checked a list in his hand.

  “The first team up with the dragon statue has no team name yet. Please step forward Cadin of Glade, Sun of Lance, Leptan of Glade and Bartholomew of Galen.”

  Cadin’s group scrambled to their feet, as six of the warriors disappeared behind the stage. Cadin was slightly disheartened that both the yellow female warrior and the blue warrior were a part of the group attacking their statues.

  “Do you all feel suitably equipped?” Instructor Kade asked as they approached him at the stage.

  “Yes, sir, though this light armor chafes quite a bit,” Sun answered as she tugged at the neck of the old leather armor she had picked out. They all had had time to rummage through the school’s collection of armor and weapons after signing in. Cadin had chosen a sword and shield since they had been working with them in the Challenge Club, and some traditional heavy armor. Bart had pulled out a spear, while Lep had taken a long sword with no shield because he needed two hands to weld his weapon.

  Sun stuck with her bow, but also chose to carry a short knife. She found the only piece of light leather armor under the pile of heavy metal chest guards. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, but at least it was still in good condition aside from not fitting quite right.

  “Oh, yes. Sorry about that, Sun—we do not keep much light armor around here. Now place all your weapons in the Light Bay. This will add a protective coat over all sharp edges and identify the weapons as yours for the match.”

  Cadin approached the long box with curved edges that came up to his waist. Instructor Nightan sat beside the Light Bay and grunted as he nodded towards the interior of the bay which gave off a faint glow. Cadin set his clunky sword next to Lep’s. Blue light wrapped around his blade, glowing brightly for a moment before waning. Cadin picked up his sword and examined it. It still looked sharp, but when he ran his finger over the blade, he felt the clear coat that effectively blunted the edge. Instructor Nightan examined each weapon before nodding to Instructor Kade.

  Instructor Kade led them to the starting line. “Good luck. You have five minutes for setup—starting, now!”

  They ran around the corner and Cadin quickly took in the altered cloud landscape. The field had extra natural clouds, so the battle zone was no longer a flat field, but instead a shifting cloudscape with many highs and lows. Cadin noted that there were little green circles all around; most were at least a few yards apart, and all were the same size as the base of their statues.

  “Quickly, everyone grab a statue and put it in a circle where you feel you can protect it the best,” Sun said as she ran to the statues.

  Cadin wasn’t sure that this was the best strategy now that he took in the battlefield.

  Unfortunately, all three of his teammates were off, and Cadin heard Instructor Kade yell “four minutes left!” He would have to hurry if he was going to build a cloud-wall. Cadin grabbed the last two statues and hurried to catch up. Sun chose a high spot where there was still some cloud-land behind her. Cadin liked her choice the best so far, but was not too thrilled with Lep or Bart’s decisions.

  Lep’s spot was not too bad for individual protection, but was way too far away from Sun or Bart for them to offer much help if he needed it. Bart was in a wide-open area which was good for his long spear, but too open for overall defense.

  “Bart, that is too open!” Cadin yelled as he searched for his own spot. Now he had to think of not only where he could best protect his own statue plus the fifth one, but also how he could provide support to Lep and Bart.

  “I got this, buddy,” Bart said. “I just need a small wall or two.”

  “Just back up onto a big cloud-wall,” Cadin suggested.

  “No good. I won’t be able to swing my spear. You just worry about yourself and let me concentrate on my walls.”

  Cadin found two possibilities at the base of the cloud-mountain that Sun was perched on top of. One offered a better tactical advantage to help Lep, who had just pulled up a cloud-ball and was trying to re-seal the cloud. The other would allow Cadin to aid Bart a bit and it had a good second position to place the fifth and final statue. He didn’t want to leave Lep on his own, but he could see no other good option. He placed his statue at the very base of the cloud-mountain, and then ran a few paces and placed the last statue in a small concave part of the valley in-between his statue and Bart’s.

  “Fifth statue!” Cadin yelled.

  “Nice,” Bart said.

  Sun gave him a thumbs up, and Lep said, “Can’t see you!”

  “That’s cause you are too far away,” Cadin called back.

  “One minute left!” Instructor Kade called.

  “Too late now,” Lep called. Cadin heard another cloud-ball being ripped away.

  Cadin reached into the cloud and pulled up a curved wall that broadly covered one side of the statue, and arched completely over, narrowly touching the opposite side. It will have to do, Cadin thought as he ran back over to his statue. He pulled up a flat, hard cloud-wall in front of it, just as Instructor Kade called, “time!” The green circle over the base of his statue rose and solidified. The targets were locked into place. Cadin took his ready stance.

  Cadin braced himself as three red Aura warriors marched toward them in a triangle formation. They spotted Bart and headed straight for him. Cadin noticed that Bart had successfully pulled up four small walls, surrounding the statue. Out of his periphery, Cadin caught flashes of green, yellow and blue Auras as the angels flew above—picking out their prey. Sun was firing arrows at them and keeping them at a good distance. The green and blue angels landed out of Cadin’s sight in Lep’s direction, whereas the yellow girl set up on a floating cloud and appeared to target Sun. Cadin felt confident that he would be able to see any of the angels before they could attack his or the fifth statue if he went to help Bart.

  The red angels were up to Bart, and so far, he kept them at spears
length by swinging the spear, but he was tiring of defending against all of them at once. They took turns hacking at his walls when he was focused on the others and the statue sat exposed at his feet. Just as Cadin got there, one of the angels took flight, and Bart lifted his spear to defend. The other two took advantage, one jumped and tackled Bart, while the other swiped at the statue with his sword.

  Cadin pulled the angel off Bart, who jumped up and grabbed his spear, hitting the angel attacking the statue hard in the shoulder and making him retreat.

  “Hold them off,” Cadin yelled to Bart as the three warriors regrouped and began advancing again. Cadin reached into the cloud and felt the vibration of their rhythmic steps advancing forward. Cadin willed the cloud to lift around their ankles. One took to the air before Cadin could harden his trap, but the other two got stuck. The cloud-traps were only ankle high, but Cadin figured they were good enough for now. A blue blur flew around the corner of the cloud mountain, and dove for Cadin’s statue.

  Cadin’s stomach clinched as the blue warrior crash into his dragon figurine. He got three fast strikes on it with his daggers before Cadin arrived and swung his sword. The blue angel dodged easily and made for the fifth statue. Cadin gave chase on foot, but knew that he would not make it in time to save it from being hit. As the blue angel broke apart the wall, two arrows hit his shoulder armor and knocked him several feet away from the fifth statue. Cadin looked up and saw Sun reloading her bow, but before she could get another shot in, the yellow warrior knocked her on her back and struck her statue.

  Cadin didn’t have time to worry about Sun, and caught up to the blue warrior before he hit the fifth statue. They locked sword to daggers, and Cadin was using all of his concentration to keep up with this warrior. His blue Aura flared as he flapped his wings to gain extra force to push Cadin back. When Cadin dug his heals in and hardened the cloud around them, the blue angel flew up, flipped over, and hit Cadin in the back, knocking him to the ground.

  “Thirty seconds left!” Instructor Kade called.

  The blue warrior smiled at Cadin, pulled out several throwing knives, flew up from the ground and took aim not at the fifth statue at Cadin’s feet, but at his original statue left unprotected. Cadin knew that he could not run to reach his statue in time, and even if he could, it would still leave the fifth statue unprotected against this blue menace. Cadin threw his sword at the angel. He dodged, but it at least delayed his throw. Cadin took advantage and quickly reached into the cloud just as the blue angel threw the daggers in quick succession. Cadin felt the vibrations from his statue and opened a hole in the cloud right in front of it, releasing the wind directly under it. The wind blew the daggers off course, keeping the statue safe.

  “Time!”

  The blue angel’s eyes were wide as if he had never missed a shot before and couldn’t understand how it had happened. Cadin just smiled until he looked around at his fellow teammates. Bart was lying on the ground from exhaustion, his spear at his side. Lep rounded the corner and looked as if he had been thrown into a pit of cloud-worms and ravenous rock dragons—his hair was sticking up at weird angles and his armor was beat up and hanging off him. Sun looked okay as she climbed down the mountain, but she wore a sour look.

  “Alright, pick up your statues,” Instructor Kade said as he rounded the stage. “Bring them over here and we will check your score.”

  The cloud-trap at the base of the statues had been released so he grabbed the fifth statue and then retrieved his own—closing the cloud that he had opened to release the wind on the way. The blue warrior smiled to himself and then went to relax with his team. Cadin followed Instructor Kade behind Lep to the stage. There was a device on stage with holes.

  “Place your statues in the Base Reader and the UOD absorbed by each statue will appear at the base and be recorded here,” Instructor Kade said, indicating the stage backing that had been turned into a cloud-board similar to the classroom walls but much bigger.

  The other teams had gathered around the stage, except for Gregor’s group who were now entering the battle zone. Cadin’s hands were shaking as he set his statue in place next to Lep’s and placed the fifth statue in the next place. Sun set her statue next, and Bart was last. Cadin was staring at the metal board, expecting something to happen right away, but nothing changed.

  “Look!” Lep said, pointing at the metal base in front of his statue. A green number slowly started to surface and Cadin’s hope sank as a now bright ‘45’ blinked in front of Lep’s statue. Cadin glanced up at the reference board to make sure of what he already knew and confirmed that score of forty-five was in the ‘decent protection’ category, and at the back end of it at that. Cadin knew that it would take a lot more than ‘decent’ to get anywhere in the competition.

  “Stupid blue warrior,” Lep said.

  “It’s alright,” Cadin said to Lep, “I had a hard time with him too; and you had to deal with two warriors at once. Oh, look,” Cadin said as both his score and the score for the fifth statue showed up. Cadin his score was blue, and the score for the fifth statue was bright purple. He breathed a sigh of relief. A bright blue ‘21’ faced his statue, and the fifth statue had a purple ‘7’ in front of it.

  “Yeah!” said Lep.

  “Nice job,” Bart said.

  “Awesome. You got a ‘great protection’, and the fifth statue got an ‘excellent protection!” Sun said.

  “Look, you got a ‘great protection’ as well,” Cadin said looking at the blue ‘25’ on her statue.

  “Oh, no,” Bart said as his score came up as a green ‘30’. “Guess I should have listened to you,” he said to Cadin.

  “Okay, this puts your total score at one-twenty-eight,” Instructor Kade said as he wrote it up on the large cloud-board next to their names. “You have an average score of twenty-five and a half, which puts you in the great protection range. Well done. The award ceremony will be after all the teams have gone. Have a seat, and wait to see how your team finished.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Drained

  Cadin’s stomach twisted into a ball of ravenous pigeons fighting over the last cloud-worm as his team watched their score get bumped further and further down the leader board. Sun had been right; most of the fourth-year teams had great protection skills, and even though their team got in the great protection range, it was towards the back end. They ended up placing sixth.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” Lep said as the three teams that placed received their medals on stage. “I should have picked a better spot.”

  “It wasn’t only you; it was all of us,” Cadin said. “We need to work better as a team.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry. We still have four challenges left, and we only need to place in three. And we have the Challenge Club to work on everything,” Sun said as she clapped politely as the instructors placed the medals over the students’ heads.

  “Stinks that Gregor got first place,” Bart said, kicking the dirt.

  “Yeah, but only by a couple of points. That is all it takes in this game,” Cadin said. “Of course, that crazy Araina’s team got second, but at least the third-place team seems cool,” he said as a group of third years looked down at their medals with huge smiles.

  “Should we congratulate them?”

  “I guess so.”

  They made their way to the front of the crowd. Araina locked eyes with Cadin and rubbed her fingers together like she was expecting the money from their bet.

  “Come to resign?” Gregor asked.

  “Actually, we came to congratulate all of you.”

  Gregor was caught off guard and couldn’t seem to find anything to say before they walked by him to the third-place team. The group had two boys and two girls, all with green Auras and newer wings without a hint of veretal coating over their bright white feathers.

  “Hi,” Cadin said as they approached the new team. “We wanted to come over and say congrats on placing.”

  “Thanks, we appreciate it. I’m Freddy, a
nd this is Amy,” he said pointing to the tall girl to his left who waived at them, “and Ivan,” he said about the strong-looking boy. “And finally, this is Cora.” The last girl had light skin and beautiful auburn colored hair.

  “Thanks for the congratulations,” she said, and then gave a little wave. “Hi, Bartholomew.”

  “Hi, Cora. Great job,” Bart said, blushing deeply.

  “Thanks. You guys did well too, even against the first team of warriors. Most other groups did not do great if they went against that team. I was happy to have the second team.”

  “Yeah, the blue warrior was a pain.”

  “And I heard another team talk about the yellow archer on team one, saying that she was the best shot any of them had ever seen.”

  Sun didn’t say anything, but red tinted her light cheeks as she turned away from the group, coughing.

  “Nice to meet you all. I’m Cadin, and this is Lep and Sun. And I guess you all know Bart.”

  “Yeah, we were kinda bummed we already had a full team when Bart came to Glade. We would’ve been happy to have you,” Freddy said.

  “No worries, these guys have been great and the Challenge Club has been awesome,” Bart said. “You guys should stop by during free period if you’d like,” he said casually but glanced at Cora.

  “Yeah, maybe we will.”

  As they walked across Yi Field, Bart kept glancing over his shoulder.

  “So, about Cora?” Lep asked, nudging Bart in the side. Bart blushed but didn’t say anything. Lep kept pressing. “She is really pretty; don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Bart said with a shrug.

  “So, are you interested in her?” Lep asked with a playful smile.

  “Naw, I mean… well, no… I guess not.”

  “Oh, so then you wouldn’t mind if I asked her out.” Lep’s smile had turned into a taunting grin. Bart's face shone bright red.

 

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