by Scott Duff
Harris’ head showed over the top of the hole. He was in obvious pain. Ferrin scurried quickly to the edge of the hole and fired another shot of magefire deep down into it, hitting Harris’ legs and throwing him into unconsciousness.
It took the crowd, and us, a moment to figure out how Ferrin had won. Kieran started laughing almost immediately, so I suppose he knew all along. The hole Harris was in was lined with metal rods and wooden staves shoved into the sandy ground to about waist level, then covered with plywood and sand. The mirror hid a melted mixture of sand and graphite that Ferrin had formed apparently with the first blast of magic earlier in the bout.
Everything else that Ferrin had done was all about herding Harris into the hole. The third bag of cement was a diversion to get Harris to turn toward the mirror so that Ferrin could break the plywood and cause the reflection. The reflection was to make Harris fire at the reflective surface behind the mirror to dull his senses enough that he would fall through his shield when the ground fell out from under him, so he’d wrack himself on the staves and rods in the hole.
“How did that work?” exclaimed Peter. “That was so convoluted. There are at least fifty things that could have gone wrong with that. How did that work?”
Kieran’s only response was to laugh louder.
“You know he’s going to say it’s your fault, don’t you?” I asked. He nodded, still laughing, and fell into Cahill’s shoulder, hitting him weakly. Cahill was smiling, enjoying the camaraderie. “I told him to be on his guard around Ferrin, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“So you attempted to help Señor Harris against our own fair Ferrin?” asked Florian, overdramatically.
“Well, we did leave him on better terms than we did with La Castrata Harris,” I responded, pretty sure I’d murdered whatever language I was trying to fake. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone, though. Even Ethan was laughing.
When I looked back toward the field, I saw the warden standing patiently at the gate for us. “When you are ready, gentlemen,” the warden said in a high, melodic voice.
We all stood reluctantly, not wanting to relinquish the fellowship. As I looked at Martin watching his father, I was pretty sure that he hadn’t seen this side of Cahill before, where he was “just a guy with his friends.” Kieran was good at that, putting people at ease. And Cahill needed it. Martin needed to see it happen. At least the day wasn’t a complete bust.
Chapter 28
“Do you wish to visit the armory?” the warden asked us at the door. When we declined again, he bade us good luck and closed the door.
“I wonder if we get to know anything about our opponents today,” muttered Ethan, sitting down on the nearest bench, instantly looking bored.
“Does it really matter at this point?” asked Kieran, sounding depressed. “Kill and win or lose and be killed.”
A knock at the door stopped any response. The warden opened the door and escorted MacNamara in, followed by his repeaters dressed in their traditional pale blue day suits piped in orange.
“So we come to the final battle of the competition!” MacNamara said cheerfully, leaving his repeaters out of the loop and being as flamboyant as ever. “Any last requests that I may behest? Knowing, of course, that they must fall within the rules of the contest. Mustn’t favor either side, now. Especially now.”
“Just to know the field and our opponents,” answered Kieran, sitting on the bench next to Ethan, looking up at the elf. Technically, I supposed it was disrespectful. I think MacNamara chose to disregard it.
The elf made a show of thinking about the question, one fragile-looking arm wrapping around his chest and the other cradling his chin. And it took a few seconds. You’d have thought Kieran asked for an explanation of quantum physics in fifty words or less.
“You will be outnumbered three to one,” he said, stroking his chin and staring at the ceiling as if in great thought. “They will be less cohesive but just as single-minded in their goals as your first; they are a paramilitary group with a rabid dislike for anything non-human. They fought well in their first three bouts, losing only four men to disability in their original group, but this time they will field all of their team instead of limiting their numbers.
“The venue? I haven’t decided yet,” MacNamara continued, arching an eyebrow high on his nearly pearl-white face. “The forests of Afghanistan, the streets of Paris, perhaps the green hills of Summer’s domain, that might be fun, indeed.”
“I’m sure you’ll choose a venue perfectly suited to disruption on both sides,” Kieran said diplomatically. At least the tone was diplomatic. The elf chuckled at it, regardless.
“Your opponents are far more spirited than you, at the moment, more eager, Ehran McClure,” MacNamara said, his voice dropping in pitch and tapping his bottom lip with his index finger. His eyes were aglow with a fiery iridescence. “You would do better to face the challenge than sulk in a back room.”
“You are right, Lord,” Kieran acceded, honestly. “I know that we were extremely fortunate about the uproar everyone made when Seth tossed the Faery Princesses out of the Arena. It saved us from at least two different sets of combat and killings. I am happy that our path of destruction has been limited, but I still regret that it continues. Still, I agree with you, I need to change my attitude now.”
MacNamara smiled hugely then, terribly pleased with himself that he chastised and got such contrition from the man who’d nearly tossed the Queens out on their ears.
“Well, then. Good luck to you. The warden will come in ten minutes,” MacNamara said cheerfully. Bowing slightly, he swept out of the room in a flurry of colorful silk and evening suits, leaving us with the sullen Kieran.
“Can I ask a question?” I asked. I’ve always thought that redundant. “Isn’t all we have to do is incapacitate the other team?”
“Yes,” answered Kieran monotone, still depressed.
“So if we knew exactly where they were at the very beginning, how long would it take to incapacitate them somehow?” I asked, trying to drag some ideas out of this situation.
“That would depend on their defenses,” Kieran said simply. “Initially, they will probably be camouflaged or hidden in some way or at least shielded. Some may be hidden behind charmed veils. They assume we are, which is good because they think we are expending energy and concentration on that, too.”
“I was just thinking that if we could knock out as many at the beginning as possible without killing them… Sorta like I did with the first battle but without the death,” I let the thought drop.
“We won’t know where they are at the beginning any better than in the middle,” Ethan said, lying back on the bench.
“Oh,” I said. “When does it shut down? Because I can still see the Arena just fine.”
Ethan shot up off the bench. “What?” he asked eagerly. “How are you still in? That should have dropped away when you left the coliseum!”
Kieran perked up considerably. “If we know their initial positions…”
“All right, give!” Ethan ordered. “How are you doing it! Show me your spell, energy matrix, whatever you’re using.”
“You’re gonna have to show me how,” I said, grinning evilly at him. “But I’m not sure we have the time right now to teach, do we?”
Ethan pushed into my cavern through the anchor and presented an astral duplicate of himself. After showing him the hook in the ward I held, he replicated the hook three times and wrapped each in a small bundle of energy, shipping it out through the astral to Kieran, Peter, and himself. Each of the bundles held the trace of its recipient, which I didn’t quite get immediately, but once Ethan receded through the anchor again, it made sense: he’d Named them, that was the “sense” they held, the Name.
It made me wonder what Peter’s Name was now. Mine, too, for that matter. How did we change them? How did I not know my own name? Did I actually need to know the words to use them? Too many questions and too little time. I kept the memory of the sensations,
just in case.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to see this now,” said Kieran, his voice full of amusement as he moved the perspective of his hook around the Arena. “Why did you connect in this manner in the first place, Seth?”
“Curiosity, mainly,” I said. “I wanted to see what we looked like to others in the Arena, see if our auras where visible or not. I thought that maybe MacNamara wasn’t telling us the whole truth. The only way I could see to do it was to hook into the ward the way the wardens do.”
Ethan laughed and shook his head. “Don’t tell him anything is impossible. He’ll prove you wrong.”
“What?” I asked confused. “It wasn’t hard. The whole image-perspective spell is mostly one big public ward. Everybody in the Arena is plugged into it automatically.”
“You skipped right past the locks, though,” Kieran responded. “Did you even see them?”
“What locks?” I asked, obviously answering the question but I didn’t recall anything blocking the connections. Kieran laughed some more and we were running short on time. “Can we use this? Especially at the beginning?”
“Well, generally in competitions of this type, the strategy would be to go in loaded and shield minimally until the first strike so as to hide your position for that very reason,” answered Peter. “Both shields and draws could possibly be detected if the opposition has a sensitive enough mage on their side. That’s pretty much what we saw with Harris and Ferrin.” That made sense. “Kieran’s right, though. That doesn’t preclude the use of charms or fetishes or what not.”
“Oh,” I said, dejected. “I was hoping maybe we could blast them unconscious somehow if we knew where they were.”
Kieran and Ethan looked at each other, holding the stare for a moment. “That’s… promising,” Kieran said.
“At the very least, we could eliminate some of them,” Ethan said. “And we wouldn’t have to kill them that way.”
A knock on the door preceded the warden by seconds. “Gentlemen, it is time,” he said, stepping into the room a few feet. We stood and followed the elf out of the room.
In the hall, Kieran and Ethan murmured back and forth in broken sentences, thoughts on how to proceed with my idea. By the time we entered the field, I think they had a solid idea of what they wanted to do.
The roar of the crowd tripled when we entered the field with shouts, applause, and stamping feet. It was both thrilling and horrifying at the same time, so many people watching us and both hating and loving us. The dichotomy of that was strange, too. Twice, the warden attempted to move us into a jog, but Kieran refused to take the hint, smiling and waving at the audience the entire trip out.
I studied the field of combat while we went out. It appeared to be a simple city park, complete with children’s playground. A small stream ran down the middle with several footpaths running aimlessly throughout. The only buildings were a small ten-by-ten tool shed and a set of restrooms near the center on the north side. Numerous trees and shrubs for coverage, though and several rises and dips in the terrain, but nothing looked terribly difficult or insurmountable.
We entered on the playground end. Ethan charged forward with the energy of a seven year-old, heading for the swing set and immediately started swinging, dragging his feet in the sandy bottom and kicking off hard to gain height. Kieran sat in the grass and watched, stretching out in the sun, smiling. I was torn between joining Ethan on the swings or sitting with Kieran. We didn’t visit many playgrounds like this when I was a kid, and playing on swings alone really isn’t much fun.
“Go on. Ya know you want to,” Peter cajoled.
Grinning, I took off running at Ethan. Timing it so that I hit him just as he swung back down forward, I hit his back and pushed, nearly tripling his forward speed. The groaning chains took his weight nearly even with the top of the swing set, high enough for me to run under him. I whirled around on one foot, hopping to gain balance, in time to see Ethan sail back on his return, smiling hugely with his big blue eyes glistening in the sun.
A thick blue wall of force bisecting the field rose fairly quickly as Ethan swung back toward me, still grinning. He let go of the chains of the swing and at the top of the upward path, let inertia have its way, and came free of the hard rubber seat and into the air with a whoop of joy.
The second team entered the field as Ethan landed and the crowd once again roared to life. I ran for the merry-go-round, ignoring them completely, sort of. I watched through the ward, like everyone else in the Arena, but I wanted to play on this thing while I had the chance. I’d only done it once before.
By far, this was the stupidest thing ever placed on a child’s playground. Simple idea, a circular plane on a spindle, spinning lazily around for a simple pleasure. Put a little boy beside it and he’ll want it to go faster. And faster. And faster. Until you go crashing into whatever or whomever is around to give them a laugh. Bloody lip as a result? Broken arm? Badges of Honor. Great fun and horribly stupid. I ran for a full revolution then jumped on it as Ethan met me and he started pushing.
The other team watched as they jogged by, dispassionate, no doubt thinking we were acting for their benefit. MacNamara’s description, as simple as it was, was apt: eager and paramilitary. Nine men and three women dressed in military paraphernalia, either green or tan camo, boots, utility belts, pockets crammed with various gear relating to their particular magic. All had two to three knives, but only three carried blades longer than a foot and one woman carried a small compound bow of some kind strapped to her back. They weren’t intending this to be about weapons, not that we expected that anyway.
Like Peter said, they were charged to their limits but none of them were currently shielded in any way, which was encouraging. Coupled with the thought that we were further distracted by hiding our auras, they must’ve thought we were into serious mind games and putting a lot of energy into them. If the first gambit didn’t work, well, they’d spend so much time watching for cracks in those shells that they’d miss other and more important occurrences. Worked for me.
I lost track of that thought as Ethan sped the merry-go-round up and the first gong sounded, sending the outer protective walls ascending. There’s a limit to how fast these things can turn and Ethan had it at that limit now. Holding on to the metal rail and laughing gleefully, I kept track of our twelve opponents through the Arena, watching them disperse into smaller groups and run through their side of the field into some sort of prearranged pattern. They weren’t pleased with MacNamara’s choice of venues.
The second gong sounded. Kieran and Peter stood, dusting imaged dirt and grass from their pants as I lost my grip on the metal and went sailing into the sand and grass, rolling and laughing like a seven-year-old. The three of them laughed with me as I got up and dusted actual dirt and grass off my silks. It was only five minutes but it was still a lot of fun.
The third gong sounded and the inner wall descended. Kieran looked toward the far side then, holding his right hand up dramatically, snapped his fingers. Eleven of the twelve men seized and spasmed as if electrocuted, then collapsed. Several of them had indeed been behind some sort of charmed shields, and two were using a weird looking turtle-like energy shell that I couldn’t quite figure out the purpose for. It probably just hadn’t finished forming before Kieran struck.
We only had one problem. The twelfth, the woman with the compound bow, was climbing a tree, unaware for the moment that her teammates were already incapacitated. The crowd hadn’t quite figured that out either.
I called for the Crossbow and waited, the four of us standing in a lazy line in the sun. The tree trunk was currently in the flight path of a bolt, blocking me. She’d need to cross over in a second or two. The crowd roared, finally catching the fact that eleven of twelve were out of the picture, just as she swung around the trunk to sit on a large branch. I fired three times, rapidly, then sent the Crossbow back. The Bolts hit true, directly where I aimed, pinning her to the tree snugly. Kieran snapped his fin
gers again and she seized and spasmed as her teammates had. Then collapsed, hanging limply in the tree and held in place by the Bolts. Unfortunately, with one of the three shots I had aimed poorly and hit her, nicking her just above her left hip but below her ribcage. The wound wasn’t that bad but it bled a lot.
The final bell announcing the end of the competition sounded and the crowd got to the loudest it had yet reached. The round lasted maybe twenty seconds, liberally. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad—Ferrin’s finished faster in the semi-finals. Thoughts of the World Cup riots of rabid soccer fans crossed my mind as I glanced over the audience, but I stayed happy that my idea worked out so well. Kieran was close to ecstatic and Peter and Ethan thought it was funny. There wasn’t even the slightest chance of asking over the noise though. It would be easier to talk in the middle of a tornado.
The four of us sauntered across the park to the tree where the woman hung, bleeding. She may have been an opponent, but she could have fallen and broken her neck when I called for the Bolts. Not very gentlemanly of me, or sporting either. When we got to the tree, the whole area was crawling with referees and wardens. They were desperately trying to figure out what we’d done—what Kieran had done—without actually asking us, but weren’t coming up with answers.
Peter started up the tree like he was born in them and Ethan was close behind him. When he reached the woman, he tried to pry loose the first Bolt with no luck. The Bolts were embedded in the tree three inches or more. The Crossbow does not play around. He yelled down to me but I couldn’t hear over the rambunctious onlookers. I took his meaning though. Watching Peter carefully, I called for the Bolts when it looked like he was positioned to hold her weight. Moving slowly, he handed her down to Ethan and between the two of them, they got her safely on the ground.
