by Andy Adams
Four men and two women from suites near midfield hovered from their seats.
“Roan Bondor of Montadaux, Calimus Palento of Safronius, Amal Jadula of Arenaterro, Kayla Vangetti of Aquaperni, Sari Sanati of Gelemensus, and Eckel Rancor of Vispaludem.”
Some sovereigns raised their arm in a wave amidst the applause, while others merely tilted their head before flying down to their seats. Drusus pointed his mircon across the field, and a shimmering, rainbow flock of birds-of-paradise shot from the base of the arena up into the sky, whistling to each other as their plumage turned each of the seven Ganthrean colors.
“Today’s first round of Agilis will showcase the academy spellcasters. As is custom for this sport, mircons may not be used, only amulets. Of the one hundred and forty players today, the top forty will advance to the second stage, with its four top finishers competing in the third and final stage, and earning their choice of golders, position, or elixir.”
He raised his mircon and gave what sounded like a well-rehearsed benediction: “May the swiftest, bravest, and most cunning players win.”
As the crowd began a thundering applause, Brenner brought a hand to his head. The nervousness and the noise combined to give him a sharp pain in his forehead. Using his mircon, Brenner cast a Psyche Aura spell, and found that the noise was reduced, and with it, the pain.
Drusus gave a signal to the side, and four white robed officials flew around the arena, scattering landform seeds.
This was the part that Brenner was most anxious to see: what would the Agilis terrain and obstacles look like?
Drusus took a gleaming seed from his own pocket, dropped it a couple hundred feet, and upon impact, a great oakbrawn tree started growing in the middle of the arena: its trunk bulged upward with huge limbs unfurling; its roots cut through the ground like gigantic ploughs; and within a few short moments, a five hundred foot oakbrawn stood like a skyscraper in the middle of the field. Drusus directed spells in a circle around the oakbrawn, and an enormous fissure ripped the ground, creating a canyon ring around the tree. In other parts of the field, officials were raising hills up from the ground. Drusus fired more spells—like fireworks from his wand—and all across the arena sprouted gnarled, tall willow trees, and large rock formations.
One of the officials opened a chest, and a swarm of bright glowbes rose together like bees and flew to the top of the center oakbrawn, hovering just above it.
“Spellcasters, you may enter the field and take your posts.”
Brenner looked at his team of twenty. He stood and followed them down the rows of the stadium to the edge of the arena, and then down a carved stone staircase. One by one, they entered the field, and deposited their mircons in a black strongbox that, upon accepting his mircon, snapped shut.
His Psyche Aura spell gone, the noises and pain hit his head again. He had to do something…if his amulet could amplify his physical strength, and take away his asthma, it must do something for his mind…he focused on the red elixir in his amulet, and his leg and arm muscles rippled with a shot of adrenaline…
Brenner walked past some short poles, wondering if their whole team would be stacked together at the start, competing directly for the Agilis glowbes, when a girl in an orange uniform plummeted down from the sky and bumped against his shoulder. She gave him a look and said, “Watch where you’re going, rookie,” before turning and marching off to a glowing patch of grass.
He looked up, and saw athletes catapulting across the massive field, then landing deftly between poles. The launch pad again…
He joined the queue of Valoria teammates behind their pad. This must be like the launch before Zabrani…only this pad shot spellcasters in multiple directions.
Soon it was his turn; he walked into the center of the pad, and was hurled skyward. Without his mircon in flight, he felt naked, and wind-milled his arms as he crisscrossed air paths of other Agilis spellcasters, flinching as he flew within inches of them. He hit the apex of his flight, and for a moment admired all the rainbow capes and uniforms of players shooting up and falling down at the edges of the field, looking like a seven-jet fountain.
As he plummeted down to another launching pad, he noticed the solid ring of brambles around the entire arena that formed the outer barrier. The magic of the poles slowed his descent. He landed. Then Brenner jogged off the pad before another red Montaudax student touched down. The game would be starting soon, and his head still pounded.
Brenner and a mix of Agilis players gathered in a large section of glowing grass marking their starting zone; some jumped in place or swung their arms for last minute stretches. Focusing on the red elixir hadn’t changed his headache, so Brenner focused on the green…thinking of the calming forest…and a feeling of tranquility rippled through his mind, easing the aches.
“Agilis players,” the loud voice of Sovereign Drusus rang out, “the live creature obstacles have been released upon the course. Do your best to surpass them, but know that they will not hold back their aggression.”
Brenner looked around at the twenty or so spellcasters around him, and was a little unsettled by how this remark caused little to no reaction from them. The crowd was still cheering, but strangely, with the green energy soothing his mind, their noise had dimmed. He smiled in relief: the elixir was working.
He could focus again.
Looking in the distance to the middle of the arena, he saw the flock of hovering glowbes above the humungous crown of the center oakbrawn tree. That was his goal.
“Finally, spellcasters,” Drusus said, “race valiantly. Good luck.”
Like antsy runners in a marathon corral, the group jostled forward in the holding pad. There must have been a barrier spell over the front of it, as none could put a toe past the glowing line—and then a clash of iron bells sounded; there was a soft hiss, and the magic barrier at the front of their pad dissolved.
“Begin!” shouted Drusus.
Brenner’s amulet pulsed. His instincts kicked in.
Game on.
The wave of athletes in front of him surged forward, jabbing each other with elbows as they sprinted toward the tall brambles on the outer perimeter. Brenner joined the fray.
One of the players tried diving through a hole in the wall of brambles, but the thick, thorny vines closed shut on their own, denying him entrance. Another player found a gap, wedged herself into the wall—and without warning the brambles closed, swallowing her. Muffled cries came from within as she struggled to escape. Beyond the brambles, huge flying birds circled overhead.
Brenner slowed his speed and surveyed the bramble wall: it rose up a good twenty feet in front of him. Since he couldn’t go through…could he go under? Or over?
Tentatively, he raised a hand to a branch as thick as a boa constrictor—and recoiled as it jerked against him, a sharp thorn cutting his skin. Ouch! There must be another option.
He backed away and jogged along the edge, seeing what looked like a willow tree, rising tall in the wall above the brambles, like a turret. He wasn’t the only player to approach it. Two other spellcasters—of Aquaperni and Vispaludem from the looks of their blue and violet uniforms—leapt onto the trunk of the tree, nimbly ascending the willow.
Brenner approached the trunk too, when a shrill cry above made him freeze.
Looking up, he saw the bramble wall wasn’t the only living obstacle: long sinewy vines flailed and whipped from the trunk of the willow tree, and one had lassoed the ankle of the violet Vispaludem boy, who covered his face as the vine slammed him against the other spellcaster. Both students tumbled from the upper branches, hitting the ground with sickening thuds. The fans behind him gave a collective groan.
He was about to back away when another tendril snapped onto his wrist like a whip.
He yanked hard against it, but it tugged back harder, looping another coil around his forearm.
The tendril started pulling him toward the willow trunk, where more sinewy vines snaked around in anticipation. Brenner’s heart
thumped rapidly. This would not end well. His eyes scrambled for anything—a rock, a root—something to stop the forward pull.
Spotting a large tree branch jutting out from the bramble wall to his left, he tugged the vine toward it as the tendril reeled him in. It was now or never.
He dug in his heels, and in one quick motion he circled his wrist—and the vine—around the thick bramble. He now had leverage against the willow, which kept tugging fiercely, its vine pulled taught against the bough. The pressure on his wrist intensified. He grimaced and kept fighting, but then the bramble branch pulled back too—trying to draw him into the wall like a Venus flytrap. The pressure mounted, and then—
SNAP!
He fell backward; the cut vine falling in a heap around him. The brambles tried to scoop him into the wall, but they weren’t as fast as the willow tree tendrils, so he scooted away, uncoiling the vine from his red wrist. It felt smooth and firm, like rubber rope, and a four-foot section of it now lay at his feet, lifeless.
Other students were now trying their luck at climbing the willow tree, and a few had made it to the top while it had been distracted with Brenner.
He looked at his options: do I want to try scaling the slower bramble wall, or dodging the fast willow? Considering their speed, I’d prefer the slower moving brambles…but how to climb them without piercing my hands on the thorns?
Then he sparked an idea.
Grabbing the sinewy vine, he darted along the wall…searching… searching…aha! That will work. He found a long thorn, sticking up like a nail, and quickly used it to snap through the vine’s midpoint. Stepping back from the moving brambles, he wrapped the two sections of vine around his palms.
With the improvised gloves, Brenner leapt onto the wall, and began climbing, now safely in his element. While the brambles still creaked and groaned around him, trying to dislodge him, his padded hands nimbly found hold after hold and, in a moment, he was at the top of the wall. He hopped across the large, crisscrossing branches—careful to avoid stepping on some of the larger thorns—came to the edge of the wall, turned, climbed halfway down, and then dropped to his feet, landing in a crouch.
Looking forward, he was met by a melee.
A thunder of hooves echoed around the hills, and bird screeches rang out from the sky. Other players had also trickled over the perimeter wall, and broke forward over the rocky crags, intent on summiting the oakbrawn past the chasms, in the middle of the arena. Brenner clambered over a rock pile, and shuddered when in the distance, a gray centaur galloped up to a yellow-uniformed Safronius girl, grabbed her hands, and then spun hard in a circle and flung her—shrieking—into the tangled thorns of the bramble wall.
Brenner’s green cape billowed behind him as he jumped across a fissure, then, hearing heavy hooves pounding the ground towards him, he climbed to a rock ledge with a thin trail.
“Make one slip, and you’re mine!” a centaur jeered from below, its brown hide emitting a sour smell of foamy sweat and mud.
Brenner edged forward, while the centaur kept pace below; twice his foot loosened a boulder from the path, nearly causing him to fall. He kept one eye looking forward, the other tracking the centaur, who stalked below him—and a good thing too, as the beast hurled a rock at his head—Brenner ducked and a cloud of dust rained onto him.
Brenner jogged along the trail, hoping to escape the beast, but soon was stopped short: his path dead-ended into a canyon. He was scanning both sides of the rock walls for the next best route, when something strong grabbed his ankle, yanking him off his feet.
“Now I’ve got you!” the centaur bellowed, hand clasped firmly around Brenner’s ankle.
The weight of the beast scraped him toward the ledge—his hands desperately searched for a hold, while rocks grated against his skin. His hips slipped off the ledge—the centaur was laughing wickedly as he continued to pry Brenner from the cliff. Oh, no…
Brenner’s fingers were slipping on the last stone of the ledge…he couldn’t hold on any longer. He looked back at the centaur…and let go.
Falling, he kicked his free leg as hard as he could toward the beast—he connected with a crunch, causing the centaur to release his ankle—then wind-milled his arms toward the wall, trying to find a hold that would stop his fall into the canyon. His feet scraped against a crag, giving him a split-second to claw onto a rock, grab it with both hands, and hold on. That was way too close!
Panting hard, he looked behind him, and saw the dark centaur thudding down the sides of the canyon. Okay…almost there. Keep going.
Hand over foot, Brenner climbed to the top of the ridge, his legs bleeding from where the centaur had dragged him against the rocks. Reaching the top, he pulled himself up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. With a sigh, he realized the deep canyon ringed the entire oakbrawn.
He would have to leap across the fissure.
But his side of the canyon was far too wide for a jump. He would, at best, hit the other wall maybe halfway down. There must be a smaller gap on the other side of the tree…scanning both sides, he saw other spellcasters running toward the far side of the oakbrawn. Yep, there it is. A couple players had even made it to the tree and were climbing. He was behind.
Brenner started rock-hopping around the canyon, and was making good progress, when screeches from the sky caught his attention. He blanched, switching into defensive mode because these weren’t just birds: they were aviamirs.
And one had spotted him.
Frantically, he looked for a stone to defend himself. Come on, come on… but the rocks were all fused together. Panic started to take hold of him. The aviamir, a giant, white eagle as large as a lion, screeched angrily at him as it dove down from the sky.
Brenner looked once more, but there were no rocks, and no cover.
He heard the wind whistling past the aviamir’s feathers. Thinking fast, Brenner tore off his green cape. Then two things happened simultaneously: down from the sky the predator bird lunged at him with its front claws, and Brenner threw his cape into its face, blinding it. The beast jerked its head and tried ripping off the cloak, while Brenner quickly ducked around it and made a split-second, foolish decision: he jumped onto its back and latched on.
From the aviamir’s earsplitting screeches and spinning bucks, Brenner could tell it wasn’t used to this sort of human behavior, nor did it like it.
That makes two of us! He clenched the feathers along its neck harder, and didn’t notice the loud applause and cheers from the crowd, who, like the aviamir, had least expected this turn of events.
Finally, when the aviamir decided that bucking and spinning wouldn’t work, it flapped its huge wings and took to the sky. Brenner’s heart thumped wildly: this was the part he hadn’t planned.
The aviamir flew up, high over the canyon, and then up and up past the oakbrawn. Then it peaked, paused—and divebombed at the tree.
“Woah now! Woah!” Brenner shouted, as if that would help. “You’re gonna kill us both!”
It was quickly looking that way. Wind whistled through his hair as the beast rotated its body to the right, and then Brenner understood the aviamir’s plan: clothesline him against the huge tree trunk.
Thousands of fans shouted. The green canopy rushed closer. Leaves smacked his face. Seconds before he would smash against the trunk, Brenner leaned in, then used his hands and feet to push hard off the aviamir, leaping up toward the branches—and yes! His hand slapped and caught a bough. Hundreds of feet in the air, he dangled from it—the crowd hollered—then he grabbed on with his other hand. Adrenaline surged through him; he pulled up and into the safety of the bigger branches.
Shouts of “SIL-va-LO! SIL-va-LO!” rang around the stadium.
Well, he thought, catching his breath, that’s one way to get onto a tree.
Brenner flexed his hands, and then climbed up through the dense canopy, jumping from branch to branch with renewed energy. Finally, the branches cleared away: he’d reached the top of the canopy. The flock of
glimmering glowbes hovered almost expectantly above him, and he jumped up, grabbing one.
“We have our first Agilis advancement!” said the loud voice of Sovereign Drusus, “From Silvalo!”
The crowd erupted like a wave, crashing over Brenner.
Wow…he thought, smiling. That feels pretty good.
As the next spellcaster, an orange-cloaked girl from Arenaterro, grabbed a glowbe, a large, silver platform floated from the sidelines to Brenner. Thinking that this would be easier than descending the five-hundred-foot tree, he hopped onto it, and it gracefully flew him away from the tree and the flapping, screeching aviamirs, back down to the green banners of the Silvalo section.
So many spectators were clapping and whistling at him as he stepped down by the Silvalo dugout, how his friends and relatives met with him was a feat in itself.
Through the din, an amplified voice shouted, “Brenner! Up here!”
