by C J Timms
A whirlwind of fists, elbows, thongs and flannelette barrelled through the ghouls. Two heads cracked together as Titus Mangrove tore into the ghouls, his Canuteian tattoos glowing with white light. Swan’s concentration broke, and the rising heat inside her fell away.
Titus kicked a ghoul backwards into the crowd giving them some space. He put his back to Swan’s.
‘A man defends a lady’s honour, rule seventeen,’ said Titus.
Titus Mangrove was built like a brick shithouse. Heavily tattooed, he had a full mullet and sported a beard only in the region around his throat (a ‘throatie’ she’d heard it called). Armoured in only a flannelette shirt and singlet, track pants and thongs. His body glowed as the Canuteian marks lit up white and he punched another ghoul into oblivion.
‘A punch to the chest is worth two to the nads, rule thirty-seven,’ Titus said. The ghouls were thrown into chaos giving Swan room to breathe. She lashed out, clipboards clattered, and pens plummeted.
Beneath an onslaught of activewear and flannelette, the ghouls scattered. Titus took a knee and swept his flannie jacket behind him like a knights cloak. He heaved great breaths, the white light on his Canuteian tattoos fading.
‘I hope you were not overly bothered me lady,’ Titus said, in a bogan approximation of a medieval knight. There was a tinnie of beer in one of the pockets of his flannie. Food stains down the front of his singlet told a rich story of its past. A small gut bulged his singlet outwards, but his arms were thick with slabs of muscle.
He was built like a brick shithouse, smelled like one too.
Swan brought her blade up to him. She leaned close to Titus, pressing her sword against his chest. ‘I am no damsel in distress, but I guess a thank you is deserved.’ She said and took her sword away.
Titus stood, cracked his knuckles and with an ocker twang, he said. ‘A true man seeks no gain for an act of virtue…though I wouldn’t say no to a beer.’
‘A knight huh,’ Swan said and cocked an eyebrow. ‘Don’t suppose you’d give me your word of honour.’
‘Rule number seven, a man’s honour must be upheld.’ Titus said solemnly. A wet stain appeared soaking through his singlet.
‘Titus’s you’re bleeding.’ Swan put a hand to the spreading damp on his chest.
‘Ah this is bad,’ Titus said. He reached into his flannie to produce a leaking, punctured tinnie of beer. Titus held the tinnie in his hand and then sighed. He threw the emptying tinnie away, then reached into the other pocket and pulled out a meat pie, the flakey pastry crumbling onto his flannie. He took a big bite and chewed.
‘Post battle pie,’ he said between bites.
Still chewing, Titus looked down at his feet and pulled off one of his shredded thongs, his foot had a slow bleeding cut. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got some gaffer tape. These are performance pluggers.’
Swan sighed and used shreds of the Lorna Jane top to tie off Titus’s foot laceration, to staunch the bleeding with bright fluro green fabric. Titus gave his toes an experimental wiggle. Then he smiled.
‘Wanna take this bitch of an exam down together?’ Swan asked.
‘Stay with me.’ Titus reached out a hand. ‘Titus Mangrove, I propose an alliance on my word as a man.’
Swan clasped his forearm ‘Jane Swan, I accept. A Swan’s word is good as gold.’
Gale lay flat on his belly, down in the muck, a swarm of pirates ahead of him. Their path had lead to this circular football field with ghostly looking students all dressed in bad pirate costumes. The sort of outfit you got from the Reject Shop for a twenty and didn’t last a full party. The spectral students battered at one another with balloon swords. Nearby a sign proclaimed that this was a world record attempt for the worlds largest balloon sword fight.
‘This is dumb.’ Gale said. The combatants battered away at each other with balloons, to cries of ‘Arrrrr,’ and ‘Shiver me timbers.'
‘Mmmmm, just like that BBQ challenge level you nearly flunked.’ Yip said with a slight grin.
Gale kept a straight face, ‘I know how to cook a steak, its turn once and cross sear,’
‘But you didn’t let it rest for precisely five minutes’, Yip said. ‘That's practically blasphemy.’
‘Why the frak would they have a bbq cook-off on a university entrance exam, this place makes no frakking sense.’ Gale said. The maze had a bewildering array of challenges from straight out fights to maddeningly stupid things. They’d faced a room where he’d had to cook against another candidate. Gale wondered if that was laziness on the examiners part or something designed to throw candidates off balance. The university did say they were to be made into well rounded human beings, he supposed. Currently, he was feeling lukewarm about his chances, no that was not the way to think, more like medium-rare.
Gale relaxed his focus and sensed the Vibe of the field. The Script rolling off it was subtle but gave him a sense of…warmth? Yip’s notepads and ledgers swooped around the field.
Yip scratched his chin and frowned. ‘I don’t have any record of something like this in fifty years of exam records. I can see there's a trigger built into the boundary of the field, can’t tell what it is though. I’m getting a reading of Celesta Firma Script mixed with something else. Maybe Locomotyr? You got any stealth abilities?’
‘No,’ Gale said. He scanned the crowd and then glanced down at his counter, which still read 200. No-one had crossed the finish line yet. Something bothered him about the movement of pirates on the field, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Well, something besides the badly accented pirate calls of ‘I’ll make you walk the plank.’
Yip clicked his fingers. ‘It’s choreographed. The large group size distracts you from it, but each group of about 10 has a set routine they run through. Provided you anticipate it, you should be able to walk through without interrupting them.’
Get us practised at dancing through the correct motions, Gale thought.
‘It's all one big show. What do you think happens if you hit one?’ Gale said.
‘Better not to find out’. Yip said.
Gale focused on mapping the movements of the group. When he was ready, he nodded to Yip. They slunk down to the field. They jumped the hip-high white picket fence and began the dance. Yip seemed to have a perfect memory, fearlessly turning his back on the pirates to dodge their movements. The pirates completely ignored them. Gale ducked and weaved, lacking Yip’s precision, he relied on his reflexes. They passed the halfway mark and Gale allowed himself a small sigh of relief.
From the other side, a voice screamed ‘For honour!’
Something exploded.
Swan dived to the ground as an explosion ripped past her.
‘For honour!’ Titus said and smashed a balloon wielding pirate away. The pirate flew backward into three others, their balloons popped. The pirates exploded in a storm of fire and plastic.
Swan popped up from the ground and ducked in behind Titus as he marched onwards. Titus’s eyes smouldered but his flannie somehow not alight. The tattoos around him glowed brightly once more. Perhaps she had been better off with Sterling.
Strength over beauty, she thought. Titus’s throat beard was ridiculous, but it still beat Sterling’s handlebar moustache. Swan and Titus clobbered their way through the field. Pirates flew left and right. They dived out of the mass of pirates and collapsed onto the ground.
Two figures emerged from the smoking ruins of the pirate field. One was a tiny runt, and the other was Gale, the guy who’d stuck it to the hobnobs at the application. She hadn’t drunk any of the soap wine but frak if she was getting tangled up in his business. You couldn’t trust a cunning bastard like that. A real student would fight the exam on their own strength, a bit of gumption and elbow grease. Besides, he seemed like the sort to do anything to get ahead, a real gunner. She looked down at the countdown on her Safeguard, should she deal with him here? Only a few of them were getting through after all.
Plus he’d ruined her activewear.
&nbs
p; She put a hand to her sword.
Titus glowered at Gale and hiccuped a single bubble. ‘Don’t like him…unmanly.’
Swan brought the Slagblade down in an overhead swing. Gale materialised a harpoon and blocked it, and his knees shook from the blow. The Slagblade hung poised over Gale’s head, its jagged metal edges vibrating as Swan pushed on it.
Gale grunted as Swan pressed downwards. A monster from the deep, bah, she was strong. Frakking gorgeous too but first and foremost she was strong.
Titus tripped as the runt rolled past him. The runt tumbled upwards, drew a hand crossbow from his cloak and jammed it into Swan’s back.
‘That’ll do Swan.’ The runt said. He said her last name with a twist of his mouth.
Swan looked over at Titus. ‘You klutz, what was that.’
Titus shrugged from the ground. ‘My heart wasn’t in it. Gale was the one that’s been unmanly.’ Titus’s tattoo's faded a bit.
The crossbow bolt jabbed into her back again. Swan stared at Gale whose muscles flexed under the strain of holding her sword back.
‘You stand a better chance with us.’ Gale said. ‘This an old blood game and we’re the new blood.’
Swan eyed him off. He wasn’t wrong. She’d nearly fallen to a group of nobles right at the start. Nearly.
‘Don’t trust her Gale,’ called the runt. ‘A Swan’s word is only as good as gold.’
‘Don’t have much choice, Yip.’ Gale said. ‘Besides, we could use her strength.’
Swan grinned, silver-tongued bastard. Still, could she trust them not to shoot her in the back? She could at least knock Gale back into the pirate swarm and finish him off. Even if it cost her the exam, it would be a small victory. Some days small victories were all you got.
‘You won’t knock me back into that mess.’ Gale said with confidence, though his chest was heaving for breath.
‘Why because you think I’m a lady?’
Gale nodded his head down. Swan flicked her eyes down to her feet, a rope of water had her left leg tied to Gale.
‘Sure, let us say its because of your kind heart, my lady.’ Gale said with a wink. ‘If you’re going to eliminate someone from this race, there are bigger dickheads then me.’
Swan glared at him, then snorted a laugh and lowered the Slagblade. There were always bigger dickheads, a general rule for life.
Gale held out a hand, releasing the water bond. ‘Gale Knott, this guy here is Yip.’ He said.
Titus came forward, crushing Yip in an embrace, ‘Titus Mangrove.’ Yip managed to wriggle out of the crushing bear hug. Titus turned to Gale and eyed him off. He pointedly didn’t extend a hand. ‘Con artist, a real man faces challenges head-on.’
Swan clasped Gale’s hand ‘Jane Swan.’ She stuck out her hand to Yip, but he just stared at her then brushed past. Gale froze, his eyes looking at Jane’s chest.
‘Hey eyes up here, water-boy.’ She said. I mean, I know they’re nice, bigger than average really but this was an exam.
Gale shook his head and pointed to the countdown timer on Swan’s shirt.
It now read 199.
Swan - The Hive of Larcs
The nest of metal made a gleaming cavern with sharp edges, like a cuckoos nest of thin platinum strands. The strands stretched from the walls throughout the nest like tripwires. Swan gazed upwards, she squinted. If you glanced at the roof wiring from the right angle, it made a symbol. Nine weapons laid out in a circle, pointing inwards at a wave. The nest was beautiful, elegant, noble.
Probably weak as piss.
Swan stared closer at the strands in front of her. Sprawling throughout the tripwire strands lay burnt-out bodies. They were not candidates from the exam, these were armoured knights, their armour charred and their bodies covered with scale. They looked long since dead.
Then one of them moved.
A body shifted and rose to a slumped position. Its head cocked at an ungainly angle, its jawbone snapping out of alignment. It shuddered forward, lurched past the tripwires. Then gave up, it lay down again in another corner.
‘Death magic.’ Swan muttered.
Scattered on the floor were gleaming metallic eggs, broken open, something having hatched long ago. Each was about the size of a tennis ball, and there were hundreds of them.
Yip flipped through journal after journal. ‘This makes no sense. I did my frakking research, and there is nothing like this on any of the past exams. Why are we getting these ridiculous challenges?’
Gale’s eyes flicked to his Safeguard, where the number 190 stood out. Swan thought she caught a faint silver spark play over it. Gale’s face grimaced, just briefly. What had she got involved in?
‘The Deep One’s luck.’ Titus cursed.
Swan kept her eyes on Gale and Yip. How far could she trust these two? If it came down to it, if there were only one spot left, she wouldn’t trust them as far as she could throw them.
To be fair, she could throw them quite a distance.
Titus cracked his knuckles, ‘let's take them head-on.’
Swan nodded. She was keeping Titus around for sure. The unkempt bogan had an intoxicating positivity and the thought of him stabbing her in the back was ridiculous. He was no Sterling. She might even buy herself a flannie if she got through this, if they made an activewear version.
‘No.’ Gale said. ‘We do this the smart way, no point burning our Script here, save it for the race to the finish.’
‘Come on,’ Titus said. ‘Rule fifteen, a man faces his challenges head-on.’
Swan winked at him and shifted the slagblade in its sheath. Gale and Yip were so opposed to the direct approach. The KISS method (keep it simple stupid) had always worked for her.
‘At the exit, its gonna be a shitfight.’ Gale said, his counter clocking down to 189. ‘We’ll be fighting the maze and all the other students trying to beat us.’
‘Can you do that metal melting thingy?’ Gale asked.
‘Metal-melting thingy!’ Swan said. ‘That is my unique talent. No one can manipulate liquid metal like me.’
‘Yeah, what’s up with that?’ Titus asked, ‘Aint ever seen that before.’
‘Special talent.’ Swan muttered.
‘Might set off the tripwires.’ Yip said.
Swan led the way, and edged forward into the hive. She shuffled awkwardly around tripwires while the undead around them shifted restlessly. Swan stepped over a particularly high tripwire, and her armour turned. She tripped forwards and fell.
Something grabbed her from behind. She jerked to a stop an inch above a wire. Yip held her up with a surprising strength.
Yip glared at her with fire in his eyes. ‘Be more frakking careful. I don’t care if you fail Swan but don’t drag me down into the dregs with you.’
Flushing red, Swan smacked his hand away. ‘I'm no dainty flower, you want stealth go find yourself a stick-thin model.’
‘Frakking Swans,’ Yip muttered, ‘Always barging through without caring what they wreck.’
‘What did you say?’ Swan said, grabbing at Yip, but he slipped away.
‘Blood tells,’ Yip said, and murky stepped past a series of tripwires. ‘You are your fathers daughter, after all.’
‘Shut up’ Swan said, leaping a web of tripwires and bringing a fist down at Yip. He dodged, and she punched the wall of the nest.
Clang.
The structure dented Swan’s armour. All the metallic strands began to vibrate, and the vibrations soared through the nest.
Nothing woke.
The other three stared at her. Gale and Yip like they wanted to strangle her, Titus with two thumbs up. Swan let out a held breath. Right, deal with Yip later. She kept pushing forward.
An interlocking pattern of nine tripwires shielded the final push for the exit. Yip murky stepped through gaps, reforming on the other side. Gale took a series of deep breaths and then charged forwards, diving through at a run, planting his hand onto a conjured disc of water and pushing off over the final
tripwires, landing on the other side. Titus gestured for her to proceed.
‘Ladies first.’
Swan sheathed the Slagblade and sized up the gaps. She could break through those stands so easily with just a bit of a push.
Slowly Swan manoeuvred through the tripwires, bending and contorting like an acrobat she slid beneath them and around them. Her armour might be heavy, but it was designed to move.
Halfway through her thigh began to cramp. ‘Frak,’ She cursed and paused, trying to relax the knotted muscle.
Something landed on her shoulder. She turned her head and found a tiny bird, a Larc, staring at her with its head cocked. The bird was the same colour as the Hive, a metal construct.
a prim, refined voice spoke in her head.
The Larc hopped along her shoulder. Her hands were keeping her body level, and she couldn't move them. She blew at the Larc and tried to shoo it away.
‘Buzz off.’ She said.
The Larc pecked at her neck, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Came the voice in her head again. Was this bird talking to her?
Swan tried to headbutt the bird away, but it danced backwards behind her neck where she couldn’t see. Then it nipped at her back.
Swan gritted her teeth and swung her head side to side. ‘Piss off.’
‘I said, PISS OFF!’ Swan yelled and swung her hand upwards to swat the Larc.
Three things happened simultaneously.
First she ripped the tripwires free. Second, her hand collided with the Larc knocking it to the floor with a shriek of pain in her head. Third, the hive exploded with movement.
From the walls, a flock of metallic coloured birds burst forth. Each about the size of a fist, they dived downwards at the group and battered at her. A thousand tiny cuts shredded her armour to the sound of birdsong.