by Dante King
The vampiric toad charged.
The toad might have been good at surviving icy needles, but it was nowhere near as good at surviving getting stabbed through the head. Cecilia channeled her inner Snoop Dogg and dropped it like it was hot.
Two down, three to go.
I remembered then, as if I hadn’t been aware of it the whole time, that we were on the goddamn clock. Here I was messing about with this obese three-point chunks, when Cecilia and I should have been making tracks to take out the fifteen point monsters. I had no idea how many of them there might be, but I was willing to bet that Qildro and Arun were battling with them now.
I fired a Blazing Bolt at an incoming Puss-toad, and the soft-skinned creature was turned into instant braunschweiger.
“Ew!” someone yelled.
The exotic-looking, blue-furred Iowyn had just gained the top of the ladder and was now covered in bits of Puss-toad. She scraped something that might have been pulped kidneys out of her eyes and dry heaved.
“Oh my god, that’s the most repulsive thing I have ever smelled,” she said.
Kryn came up behind her, ducked past the other Elemental, and ran off to help Cecilia fight the last couple of toads.
“Justin,” Iowyn gasped, her hand over her mouth as she heaved again. “Justin, you’ve got to get up to the top level. It’s—it’s Arun. He and Qildro have knocked off a few of the other competitors and have a clear run of the fifteen-pointers!”
I looked across at the floating circle that marked the fifty-foot pinnacle of this battleground. As if to emphasize Iowyn’s point, the trailing hem of Arun’s monk-like robe whisked up over the far edge of the platform.
Then, Chaosbane’s voice boomed out once more. It might have been my imagination, but I thought there might have been more than a hint of a slur in his tone.
“And there you see it gentlewomen and lads,” he said, “the first of our intrepid hunters have gained the dizzying heights of the third level and are confronted by red waygates that have spawned none other than… bodachs!”
The crowd let loose a fresh wave of hearty approval.
“Oh, fuck that!” The words came out of my mouth involuntarily.
I grasped Iowyn and gave her a little shake, trying to snap her out of the funk that being covered in Puss-toad guts seemed to have put her in.
“Hey,” I said, “you and Kryn help Cecilia take these toads down. Then meet me up there.” I pointed to the third floating platform.
Iowyn nodded.
I ran to the nearest rope ladder to me, but just as I got there, the ladder fell away. I looked up and saw Qildro flipping me the bird from twenty-five feet above me. He had severed the rope ladder.
My eyes narrowed. My brain fizzed as I tried to figure out what to do. I could use my Flame Flight spell, but it would consume a lot of my mana, and I needed to preserve as much of it as possible. Even as I thought desperately, another rope ladder leading up to the top level fell away. As far as I could see, there was only one avenue open to me. I bided my time.
Then I jumped out into space.
I managed to land squarely on the crystal ball that served as a camera in these tournaments, projecting the arena onto the Mage-o-trons back in the colosseum. Not wanting to lose my momentum, I managed to use this crystal ball as a stepping stone and launched myself up so that I could grab at another one. This second crystal ball was rising up, no doubt moving into a position where it could capture Arun and Qildro on the level above. It towed me easily upward and over the lip of the third floating platform and—
I popped up right in the eyeline of Arun. For a moment, the High Elf looked at me in unconcealed surprise. Then a grin split his face like an axe-wound in a lump of oak. He drew mana from himself in that familiar praying motion I had seen him use before he fired a ghost spear in my direction.
The only option available to me was to drop, so drop I did. I let go of the crystal ball a few milliseconds before Arun’s attack shattered into splintered fragments.
I fell, but I didn’t fall far.
I allowed myself to drop out of sight of Arun, then I activated Flame Flight. Instantly, I came to a hovering stop in midair. Making use of flying skills that must have been lent to me by adrenaline and necessity, I swooped under the platform and reemerged on the other side.
Qildro and Arun were hurrying over to the edge on the side of the platform they had seen me plummet past. They leaned over, patently hoping to see me as a red splodge on the ground below.
I grinned and rocketed forward. Ethereal flames streaked behind me as I gassed it at the two unsuspecting douchelords. Without slowing or pausing to hit them with a witty one liner, I grabbed them both by their collars, towed them off the edge and let go. I felt slightly bad as I watched them fall, but then I remembered the halfling they’d slain from behind and, more importantly, the dwarf they’d left to be eaten alive.
Still flying, I zoomed down a level and tweaked the spell I was using slightly so that I was now draining more mana and utilizing Greater Flame Flight. I scooped Cecilia up, just as she felled the last toad.
“Thank you, ladies,” I said to Iowyn and Kyn. “Meet you at the top?”
They grinned and nodded before I carried Cecilia up to the third level. My mana wasn’t feeling quite as depleted as it was on the previous times I’d used the spell, so I figured my mana stores were increasing.
At the third level, the bodachs were waiting for us. They were two fairly unassuming creatures, humanoid in shape and gray all over. They had long skeletal fingers that ended in claws and curled up and backward almost to their elbows. They had no eyes and only slits for nostrils, but their mouths looked like the inside of Jack the Ripper’s cutlery draw.
As the pair of bodachs slinked toward me and Cecilia, I recalled that there was something else I should know about th—
The bodach nearest to us leaned forward, taking up a stance that looked as if it was roaring. Instead of noise though, a beam of rippling energy, which looked more like a heatwave than anything else tore up the stone just in front of us. Instinctively, I pushed Cecilia and covered her with my body. I felt the sonic wave pass close by us, sending splinters of stone cascading across our backs.
“Don’t let that sonic beam hit you,” Cecilia said into my shoulder. “It’ll cook your brain from the inside out and blow the back of your head off.”
“That’s what I was trying to remember about these things.”
I rolled off her, got to my feet, and sent a couple of Storm Bolts at the bodach. They ricocheted off its gray hide, leaving only a couple of scorch marks.
“Oh,” I said, and the bodach rushed me.
The two of us exchanged a flurry of blows. The bodach used its skeletal, claw-tipped fingers like a man might use five knives. I blocked the slashes and hacks with my black crystal staff, then jabbed the bodach hard in the center of its eyeless face. This sent it staggering backward, letting loose a soft keening cry. Over its shoulder, the other bodach was making its way toward us.
The second bodach turned its attention on Cecilia, who squared her shoulders and conjured one of her icicle spears.
Then, having apparently run around until they came to the only rope ladder that was still intact, Kryn and Iowyn appeared on the scene.
“Keep close to the bodachs!” I yelled, swiping left and right with my staff. ”I don’t think they can use that fucking microwave or whatever it is when you’re up in their grill!”
The three girls attacked the second bodach with gusto while I tried my hardest to break the defenses of the first. For something with no eyes, the creature was devilishly fast and knew exactly where each of my blows was going, almost before I did. Twice I was nearly gutted by a lightning fast counter from the bodach, its claws raking inches from my stomach.
I pulled up Flame Barriers, but they were sliced apart by the monster’s blade-like fingers. Even my Paralyzing Zap did nothing except make it angrier. A Blazing Bolt was easily deflected and sent over t
he platform.
At that point, I found my mana getting dangerously low, and I needed to preserve it where I could on the off-chance that I needed to throw up another defensive barrier. It seemed like these bodachs were nigh immune to magical attacks.
The girls were using their bodach as a boxing bag, but as pretty and accurate and technically perfect as their kicks and punches were, they could only put the thing off balance. I looked over and could see that the constant battling was taking its toll on them. Then, I saw an opening.
I caught a blow from the bodach’s claws with my vector, then stopped an overhead blow by catching the thing’s wiry wrist. I shoved it backward and planted my hand on its chest. Then I used my Crystalize spell to harden and lengthen my arm and punched the bodach away from me. It tumbled away, skidding across the floor as if it had just been hit by a twelve-gauge shotgun round. It wasn’t dead yet, but my attention was on the women. I spun and knelt down behind the bodach that they were fighting.
The three women had been gradually pushing their foe back toward me. I had seen them closing on me out of the corner of my eye as I had fought my bodach. Now, the gray-skinned creature fell over me and onto its back. It opened its mouth to screech its defiance, and that was when Cecilia leapt over me, jumped on its chest, and hit it with a concentrated blast of ice crystals right in the kisser.
“Die...you...fucker…” she hissed as she let loose with everything she had.
The bodach writhed, but Kryn and Iowyn had its arms pinned. Eventually, its jaw stopped moving due to being frozen open.
“That won’t kill it,” I said. “You need something non-magical.”
“Like this?” Cecilia lifted her scepter vector and slammed it with both hands onto the frozen head of the bodach. It cracked like an eggshell, brain matter splattering the ground around it.
“Thank fuck,” I said breathlessly.
Chaosbane’s voice rang through the arena.
“The battle between the top teams: Justin Mauler and Cecilia Chillgrave, and Arun Lightson and Qildro Feybreaker is neck-and-neck. And only a short time until the gong will sound! Carry on!”
Kryn and Iowyn helped me up, and we turned to face the other bodach, the one I had hit with my crystalized arm.
Only to find Qildro fighting it.
“What the hell is this cockroach doing back again?” I growled.
I took a step forward, intent on sending Qildro to the regeneration station, but Cecilia grabbed my arm.
“Wait! We can’t afford to lose the points,” the blonde elf said. “You heard Chillgrave. We’re neck-and-neck.”
“We can—” Kryn began to say and then collapsed with a suddenness that took me aback.
“What…” I said.
Iowyn fell next to her partner.
I spun about.
Arun was strolling across the stone circle. How they had done it I couldn’t say, but the assholes had managed to fight their way back up here from the regeneration stations in record time. No doubt a few more of our fellow competitors had got it in the back as part of their lighting quick return.
I looked down at Kryn’s pretty face. Her green eyes were open wide, and she was breathing. I guessed that Arun had hit her and Iowyn with the same dove spell with which he had stunned the dwarf. It was a cunning move no doubt; taking out the competition without losing the points.
“I’m going to kick your fucking ass, Mauler,” he sneered. “I don’t give a fuck about the sponsors. Only seeing every last tooth removed from your skull.”
“Dentistry?” I said. “Never took you for someone interested in that field of study, but then we don’t really know each other all that much, do we?”
“Fuck you, Mauler.”
“All right. That’s how you want to play this?” I nodded solemnly before I turned my head to Cecilia. “Cecilia,” I said, in a tone that brooked no argument, “get Qildro.”
She ran off.
Arun and I came together like a couple of pit dogs. For all his supercilious airs and haughty manner, there could be no denying that Arun could fight when it mattered. We hammered at each other mercilessly, me with my staff and he with a shepherd’s crook, which I took to be his vector. It was a fitting symbol because I meant to take him apart like a wolf on the fold. I couldn’t kill him for fear of losing crucial points, but I could give him a few bruises to take home.
Magic went out the window. I could have used my Metamorphosis spell, but my pride wouldn’t let me. Not in a fist fight with this Richard Cranium. Punch was answered by punch, kick with kick. I hit him with a doozy of a right jab, and he came back with a stinging sidekick that almost took my leg from under me. The crowd screamed in delight.
Behind us Cecilia and Qildro were having it out with the remaining bodach, but they were in a stalemate too. Something had got to give, and eventually it did.
Arun cracked me in the stomach with a solid uppercut, and I fell over backward. As I lifted myself up, I saw Qildro about to sever Cecilia’s head with a vicious looking scythe while she was occupied with the final bodach.
“Duck, Cecilia!” I cried.
Cecilia ducked.
I thrust my staff forward and cast a Paralyzing Zap. The spell shot across the gap that separated Cecilia and I, hit Qildro in the thigh, and froze him in place. The bodach stepped forward and struck the helpless asshole with a blast of its mind ray. Qildro’s head blurred, then burst apart. Blood jetted from his nose and ears before his entire noggin burst like a pumpkin under a truck tire.
“You motherfucker!” Arun screeched, conjuring an ethereal spear into his hand and raising it.
Well, there’s a time for pride, and there’s a time to just fucking win.
I twirled my staff around and slammed Arun in the stomach with another Paralyzing Zap. He was thrown backward and landed on his back, unconscious.
I turned back to see Cecilia dart forward and slide an icicle spear up into the armpit of the distracted bodach. The creature stiffened, then collapsed in a boneless heap to the floor.
Arun groaned, coming to stand while nursing his head. He shook himself free of the fogginess left by my spell and snarled as he conjured another ethereal spear.
The klaxon sounded.
“And there it is!” Chaosbane yelled in his magically enhanced voice. “The end of the final round!”
Arun growled as he held the spear above his head, one motion away from throwing it in my direction. I could see how badly he wanted to perforate me with it, but I also knew that he didn’t dare, not now that the game had ended. Potential sponsors wouldn’t like that. Not one bit.
I walked over to him and patted him condescendingly on the shoulder as, all around us, the stadium went apeshit.
“Ladies and gents,” Chaosbane said over the tumult, “may I have your attention, please?”
The uproar died down a little.
“You looked like you were sweating there for a second, darling,” Cecilia whispered into my ear, standing close to me and squeezing my hand.
“Like a nun in a cucumber farm,” I admitted.
Cecilia laughed.
Arun was looking at me. His eyes sparkled with hate, but that hate was moderated with something else too. After a second, I realized that it was respect.
“I’ll get you next time, Mauler,” he said, though the words seemed to lack a little of their customary venom.
I frowned and wiped a trickle of blood away from the corner of my eye. Despite the fact that Arun’s respect wasn’t worth all that much, I found myself grinning slightly.
“You might need to get up a little earlier and find a partner whose head isn’t lodged quite so firmly up his own ass if you want to catch me napping, pal,” I said.
Arun smirked and turned away.
“The winning pair of this round and, therefore, the overall winners of the exhibition match you have had the very real pleasure of witnessing here this evening are…” Chaosbane paused—some might say for dramatic effect, but I thought I c
ould hear some surreptitious gulping taking place. “Justin Mauler and Cecilia Chillgrave!”
The assembled audience jumped to their feet. Horns blared and throats were screamed hoarse. I blinked and looked around. People—strangers—were smiling and roaring and generally going fucking ballistic, their faces all pointed at me and Cecilia.
I recognized it for what it was: hero worship.
“That’s it,” I said, making Cecilia look up. “That’s sealed it.”
“What?” Cecilia asked.
“I’m going to be a War Mage,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As at all good sporting events, the crowd was now pouring onto the arena floor. They seemed quite unconcerned about the bodies of the numerous raptors that littered the place. Off to the left, I could see some of the more enterprising spectators scooping up vials from the splattered Puss-toad that I’d knocked off the second platform. I wondered if they were going to try and sell them on wizarding eBay or something, like that cheeky bastard who tried to sell bags of air from some Kanye West concert.
Next to me, I felt Cecilia tighten her grip on my arm. She had latched onto me as soon as the crowd had started swirling about us and seemed to loathe to let me go. I looked down at her gorgeous Elven face and smiled.
“You did it,” she said quietly, a note of almost worshipful fervor in her voice.
“We fucking did it, Cecilia,” I corrected her. “You killed that last bodach, remember.”
Cecilia beamed. Her eyes were bright. She couldn’t keep her hands off me.
Those spectators who hadn’t suddenly become opportunists started crowding around Cecilia and me. The sheer number of good-natured remarks, handshakes, and tidbits of advice were enough to give even a guy like me social anxiety.
It was Madame Xel, the Academy's ridiculously sexual potion-making instructor, who pulled Cecilia and I from the river of cheering people, sycophantic comments, and general backslapping.
I looked over and saw the succubus standing nearby. In a crowd of extravagant characters, it was saying something that I was able to pick out Madame Xel. Maybe it was the leathery, bat-like wings that were folded behind her. Maybe it was the pale skin, mauve hair, and popping red lipstick? Maybe it was the plump breasts spilling over the tight, shiny leather corset? Or, maybe, it was all of the above? Whatever it was, she fish-hooked my attention in a heartbeat.