by Bob Dattolo
“I don’t trust them! All of the rumors I heard had them being some of the ones to kill me!”
Fucking hell.
Kynal kept trying to work his magic, sparing glances over his shoulder at me.
“God dammit, Kynal, stop worrying about us and cast that spell!”
“I don’t want you to attack me!”
“Oh my fucking Lord, this is insanity!”
The dragons behind us managed to hit the huge bars so hard that the walls, floor, and ceiling cracked, sending chunks of cement and the huge gate to the floor. They both realized they were out of the hallway and scrambled up, batting eat each other as they tried to orient themselves on us.
The three flimsy humans.
“Kaylee! Through the fucking challenge!” I pushed her at the challenge, and I was happy to see her power go out. Kynal kept working his like his life depended on it, so I left them behind. I’m trusting him with her. Them with her if she gets through. Now I have to distract or stop two dragons and hope like hell he can get through. Otherwise, he can’t get through this fucking trial and he loses his power when the timer goes off.
Assuming he lives that long.
The fire dragon was closest to me, sending a superheated jet of fire at me that hit at the same time the earth dragon lanced into his side with his own breath. Earth dragons have what would seem like sand-blasting breath. It can literally wear away anything with enough time.
And the fire dragon wasn’t ready for it.
The fire washed over me, not hurting me, then the dragon hauled himself to a stop and sent a tighter line of fire at the earth dragon.
Blood is pouring onto the ground from the shot from the breath, which is pretty lucky. Dragons can withstand breath far better than a human can, but I’d normally expect one of us to handle the breath a little better than that.
The earth dragon continued spraying his breath, eyes closed, and missed that the fire dragon pulled back and ducked, coming up to the side of the flow and hitting him with a lance of fire that ate into the armored head of the shocked dragon. More blood began spraying everywhere.
That started them moving in on each other again, and my magic poured out. Blinding light. Balls of fire in their mouths. Spikes from the floor. Air being sucked from their lungs. Crushing pressure. Metal balls forming and ramming into them at ridiculous speeds. I hit them with all of that as my magic pulsed and strained. The light shocked them and blinded them, meaning they hit each other without seeing it coming, which turned into blind clawing and biting. At least once the burned tongues let them bite. The spikes hit them, tearing into them, and causing them more pain, which they couldn’t roar about because they lost their breaths at the same time. Then the balls began pummeling them.
Behind me, I heard a yell, and I saw Kaylee pass through, leaving Kynal behind. Angelica and Gage were on the other side, and I tried to watch them closely to make sure they didn’t attack her.
A flailing tail came out of nowhere and took me down, sending me into the wall in an explosion of blood and crushed bones. My brain hurt when I managed to see clearly again, only to catch another flailing limb, this time a wing. More bones broke.
Angelica’s scream of, “We have to go!” was followed by Kynal’s, “No, don’t leave me!”
Oh fuck.
Angelica and Gage ran through the far door, with Kaylee behind them. Except now I see why they did. Another door had opened, and two mages were coming through.
Kynal saw them and froze for a moment.
The two dragons, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care. They were hitting each other with spell after spell and trying to get their claws and teeth into each other. The spikes from the ground had been torn away already, and neither of them caught that I was against the wall, bleeding from the mouth and ass.
My magic took a bit to heal me, far longer than before, and I lucked into being missed by two other wing swings. They didn’t see me push myself up and head back towards the challenge. I reached him just as the two mages headed through the door, laughing about possibly finding the others.
“C’mon, Kynal! Now, do it now!”
He jerked around and backed away from me, “Leave me alone, Maddie!”
I stopped, putting my hands up, “Kynal? Cast. The. Spell. Get through the barrier. We have to get the fuck out of here. We have to stop those two assholes from catching up to them! They saw them come through, but I doubt they’ll be ready for them!”
His mouth worked, but I missed what he said in the cacophony of the attacking dragons. Finally, I used magic to stifle their sound, engulfing us in near silence. Just not quite. “Kynal? Lights. Now. Three of them. Large enough to work. Get ‘em in the holes!”
More mouth working, making me realize I wasn’t missing something. Finally, he said, “You’re not going to kill me?”
“Fucking hell. I told you. I told her. I had no plans of that. Now please, I’m begging you, get through the challenge. We have to keep going. If we don’t make it through, we fail and lose our magic. Except, if we don’t make it through, someone will probably kill us. I don’t know about you, but I want to live. Rather desperately. I can get through this; I’m waiting on you. Now do it!”
He so didn’t want to turn his back on me yet wasn’t ready for me to grab his shoulders and spin him so that we were facing the challenge. “Do what I do!”
He tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let him. “Don’t fuck with me, Kynal! God damn, you’re gorgeous as fuck, but I will bend you over my knee and spank you. And not in a kinky way! Magic out, now!”
His hair lit up after the third command. “Now focus! You want light. You want three balls of light. Focus on that. What you want. Focus like your life fucking depends on it!” I kept track of the two dragons still battling it out not all that far away. “Light. You want light. Now, build it! Intention. Focus on that. Limitation. Focus on that. Then power. Focus on that. Now cast the fucking spell!”
Three spheres the right size appeared from my spell.
His spell sputtered, no light coming out.
His pants were soaked with piss when I spun him towards me and grabbed his shoulders. His axe is nearly forgotten in his hand. “I’m getting desperate here, Kynal. I really am. Kaylee’s gone. She’s too weak to make it through this, and I promised her I’d protect her. Please, for the love of all that is holy, focus. I’d offer you a blowjob, but that’s off the table. I’d offer to let you fuck me, but that’s off the table. I’d threaten to flick your balls, but I’m thinking that’ll hurt like a bitch. Instead, I’ll say this. If you don’t do this, you’re gonna die. One of those dragons will get up from that fight and come over here and kill you. If you can’t get through this, then you can’t fight a dragon. Trust me on that. It ain’t gonna happen. Now get the fuck moving and concentrate!”
This time I had him breathe with me, making him copy everything I did. We worked through it entirely.
He failed.
Then again.
He failed.
Then the earth dragon batted the fire dragon against the wall and stunned it. Instead of moving on him, he shoved himself away and turned towards us.
“Concentrate! Step by step! Do it!”
Balls appeared from both of us, and I shoved him through just as the huge dragon rammed his head into the barrier on the other side. Not that I waited, I shoved myself up and grabbed his hand, literally picking him up and running as power built behind us. “Gotta run, he’s working on his light spell!”
The fire dragon’s roar came just as I reached the door out, and I had to hope that he got back to the earth dragon in time to stop him from getting through.
I didn’t put Kynal down until we made it around four corners, letting him run next to me.
“What the fuck? Why did you save me?”
“You guys may hate me for something I didn’t do, but I still consider you guys my allies.”
“But you could have left me behind a long time ago!”
“That’s what they do in this school!”
“And I’ve been saying since I got here that it’s bullshit! If we watched out for each other, then we could all get through this shit! I meant what I said before. If every weak person joined up with me, we would have had an army to make it. Everyone guards. Everyone protects. Everyone helps figure out the challenges. The fact that we don’t is a God damned travesty.”
He didn’t respond as we hit the next corner, only to find one of the mages dead. It looks like someone rammed a knife into the side of their skull.
“What the fuck?” Kynal paused.
“No clue. They turned on each other?” I kept moving, finding a T intersection that I paused at before taking the one to the right.
“Why this direction?”
“This is the direction they went.”
“You sure?”
“I’m positive.” As we ran along, we reached a long hallway, only to have another opening appear just behind us. Another hallway just opened to this one. And I hear voices. “Move, fucking move!” I kept my voice low and ran faster, yanking him along with me. We reached the next corner before anyone appeared.
God damn, this is messed up. Please God, please help us through this!
We hit another challenge without seeing anyone, although I know they’re in front of us. We slowed at seeing the barrier and the line in the cement.
“What the fuck is this one?”
He stopped next to me and looked around, “I don’t know. I don’t see any instructions?”
“Dammit. So maybe a riddle one? We have to figure out how to solve it?”
“Maybe?”
In front of us, floating in midair, is a huge egg. No signs of what needs to happen.
“I got nothing. You?”
He shrugged, “Not really? It’s an egg, right? You’re seeing the same thing?”
“I am. What do you do with an egg? Try to crack it?”
“We can do that? You want to hit it with something?”
“Maybe? Let me, umm, I pulled bit of cement up with my earth powers and held it. Then I threw it, aiming at the egg. It’s about three feet high, so not a small target.
Thank fucking God we weren’t within the line in the cement, because as soon as the cement hit the egg, massive blades rammed up out of the cement. We would have been cut into ribbons. Literally.
“Oh fucking hell. That was…how the fuck do we get through this?”
“I don’t know!” I rubbed my head and began pacing, eyeing the hallway behind us. There are voices far enough away that I can’t make out what they’re saying. Yet. “I don’t get this. Kaylee got through this. That means that someone figured it out and that it’s something that everyone can do. So…force isn’t it. That fucking cement just showed us that. What else could the three of them do? An air mage, a bronze dragon, and an ice mage?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know? I’m barely holding on right now. I can’t believe we made it through that. I can’t believe you’re not trying to kill me right now.”
I looked down at his axe, “You’re not trying to kill me?”
He frowned, “I wouldn’t have made it through that without you. Neither would the other two. They left, but…the others came through. I just want to graduate and get the fuck out of this year.”
Seriously, that should be our only concern. “Same. Now, how the fuck do you get rid of an egg?”
He whipped back around and stared at the egg, “Umm, in the wild? You sit on it. Pressure?”
My mouth ran dry, “Pressure? No. That’s not why they’re sitting on it. They’re sitting on it to make it warm.”
He frowned, “Huh? How could those three have made it warm?”
“It’s easy! Every affinity has something that can help them make something warm. Maybe not light a fire, but warm? An air mage can create pockets of air around it. Then send the inner one spinning around. Friction. A bronze mage? Maybe the same thing? Ice? Move ice fast enough? Same deal. Or, I don’t know, there are probably a dozen ways to make something at least warm.”
Without responding, he sent out a blanket of fire that wrapped around the egg. It coated it like liquid fire. As soon as it touched, the egg changed colors, turning a light red. The longer it stayed in place, the brighter it got. Until it turned white hot, and cracks appeared.
Once that happened, the barrier opened, letting him pass through.
Fine.
I wrapped the thing in invisible air instead of fire, and I rotated that fucking inner layer as fast as I could. It went from light pink to white hot in less than two seconds, and I joined him.
We made it around the next corner just as the voices behind me tell me that they reached the challenge.
“Can you figure out who they are?” We’d been talking lower than normal, which is probably good.
“No. Too any echoes. You?”
“Not a clue. Can you tell how many there are?”
“No. At least two. Maybe more.”
“Not good. C’mon, let’s start running again. Go wide around each corner. I’m hoping we don’t run into anyone.”
Loud voices up ahead let us know we had reached another big space. We cleared the doorway to find Angelica, Gage, and Kaylee against the side wall. Samantha, Parece, Paige, and Riley were near the opening to another hallway on the right.
The other single mage was standing just in front of us with his back to us. He didn’t seem to catch us appearing.
“No!” He was yelling, “This is bullshit! I don’t trust any of you bitches!”
Samantha raised her hands, “Just shut the fuck up! Get through the challenge and keep going, then!”
“Then you’ll be behind me, I don’t trust you!”
“Are you fucking mental? You’re the one that chased us down!” Gage pointed at him.
“You’re damned right! Survival of the fittest!”
Kaylee screamed my name, making the guy whirl to find himself between three groups. His face fills with rage at realizing we’re behind him, “You! You did this! I don’t know how, but you killed Chuck!”
What? “I don’t know who Chuck was!”
“He was my ally!”
“That doesn’t tell me shit!”
He didn’t respond before coming at me, swinging his machete like a crazed asshole. Kynal got shoved to the side as I dodged back. He didn’t stop, coming in faster and faster, making me realize he was using his air magic to push himself faster than is humanly possible.
He hit me with two swings, sending my blood to the ground, then the next swing rammed into my shoulder scales as I growled in his face. He managed a long scream as I tore into him, then caught the others standing near the barrier.
Something Angelica said popped out, and I shifted him to one hand as the guy bled and moaned in my hands. Instead of killing him myself, I dragged him to her and dropped him, “You said your parents will kill you if you don’t test well? Drain him so we can get the fuck out of here.”
She didn’t know what to do. Next to her, Kaylee licked her lips, looking like she wants to throw up.
Instead of responding, I healed the damage that remained, and pointed back behind me, “There are others back there. I don’t know who they are. Plus those two fucking dragons that were still alive when we left them. Get draining. Let’s go!”
She crouched and killed him, draining his power, and I left her behind as I moved to the challenge. This challenge has a huge set of scales. On one side is what looks like a dead dragon. Not real. That side is weighed down all the way, as you’d expect. There’s a line that looks like it notes level. Written on the wall is a huge 1 FOR 1.
Dammit. “Umm, okay, this one looks like we have to balance the scales?”
Parece asked, “What does that mean?”
“There’s a scale. We have to put something on the other side to make it equal. Then we pass through.”
“How do you kno
w?”
“For fuck’s sake!” My magic went into motion, and I tried to figure out what I can use. Instead of hiding my magic, I let more of it show and created sand that trickled onto the scale. When it didn’t move, I put more and more on, until the huge plate began going down. When it balanced, I cut the flow of power.
Too late.
A massive wave of pressure rammed me into the cement, getting a scream from me. And the others.
Thank fucking God I never shifted back, because most of that was lost on my scales.
Just not all of it.
Everything hurt as I pushed more magic, healing. Then I pulled a tiny bit of sand from the scale.
And the barrier opened.
“It’s gotta balance. Don’t fucking go over. That…that would have killed any of us in human form. I don’t recommend trying it.”
Kaylee moved back to my side, holding herself close, as the other two groups looked at each other, then at us. No one wanted to move first.
“You gotta be kidding me. What is this, that bullshit about the rowboat and getting things across? You can’t have too many of one on one side, or someone dies?”
Samantha spread her hands, “You’ve seen what this is like for us. What do you expect?”
“I expect people to not be psycho assholes!”
“Welcome to Sorrowfeld Academy.”
Her honest response floored me. It shouldn’t be like this. It just shouldn’t.
Chapter 40
No one moved. “This is like a nightmare!”
Parece spoke for the first time, “What do you expect us to do?”
“How about focus on getting out of this alive?!?”
“That’s just it, there are two parts to that. The trial. Like you just saw? That’ll fucking kill you as well. Then the rest of it?” She indicated everyone here, then the body on the floor. “We’re all freaked. My parents told me how quickly people went down when the doors closed, but I…I seriously wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t believe that people would turn on their allies that quickly. I really didn’t.”
Angelica nodded, “I heard the same thing. I…I kept thinking nah, that won’t be us. We’re a better group than that, right? I expected people to at least hold off until they were at challenges. Or when they’d get desperate. Things like that. That was…”
