The Sports Captain's Tale

Chapter Two

“Well,” Jane said. “Are you confident of victory?”

I pasted a big and bright smile on my face. I doubted Jane was fooled for a moment. Her father had been the original muckraker and his daughter had followed in his footsteps, setting up a school newspaper and breaking the big story of the year. And streaking across the pitch to make sure the story couldn’t be buried. I owed her, and yet I was somewhat wary of her. She was the type of person who could shift from being a friend to an enemy and back again at terrifying speed.

“We have a good team,” I said, trying not to think of her naked body. “And we have practiced hard for the match.”

Jane looked unimpressed. I understood. Three of us were old hands, three were young and inexperienced; one had literally never played before now. Mildred was the one who worried me the most, no matter how much I pretended to be confident in her skills. Her practical applications were somewhat lacking and it was going to bite us, hard, if we got caught by surprise.

Sergeant Wills strode past and stopped in front of us. “Are you ready?”

I didn’t look at my team. I didn’t need to be any more nervous than I already was.

“Yes, Sarge,” I said. The sergeant had taken over the task of coordinating the tournaments. I didn’t envy him. It required tact and diplomacy and a willingness to call someone out for shitty behaviour, even when the behaviour didn’t technically break the rules. The sergeant could do the latter, but tact and diplomacy weren’t in his lexicon. He’d been openly sceptical of our chances when we’d entered the tournament. “We’re ready.”

The sergeant snorted. I’d pointed out the importance of testing the winning team, whichever that happened to be, against a wide range of opponents, but the sergeant had been unimpressed. He’d countered by pointing out that my team was just too inexperienced to make a proper challenge. Six of us had been on the field before, true, but not as a united team. Mildred, of course, had never been on the field at all.

“Then go to your base,” Wills ordered. “May the best team win.”

I nodded, trying to hide my jangled nerves as we made our way out of the bunker and into the arena. The rest of the teams jogged past – they looked to have practiced jogging in formation – and vanished into the foliage. I heard a gulp behind me – I didn’t look round to see who’d made the noise – as I led the team onwards. The trees closed in around us, faint flickers of magic darting through the air. It was easy to believe we were all alone in the middle of a vast forest. It was very close to true.

“The base isn’t very well defended,” Mildred said, as the small fort came into view. It looked like a child’s wooden treehouse, a tiny replica of the forts along national borders. I half expected to see a bunch of younger children scrambling in and out of the arrow slits. “Shouldn’t we do something about it?”

I shook my head. “No point,” I said. “We don’t want to stay in the fort.”

“We could,” Jerry pointed out. “They’d have to come to us.”

“We might lose by default,” I said. “We have to take the offensive as quickly as possible.”

I stepped into the fort, checked the wards to be sure we really were alone, then took a long breath. The rest of the terms would be in their forts now, as the timer ticked down to zero. Blair and the other two captains would be planning their tactics … I told myself, as I waited for the whistle, that they’d get in each other’s way. The odds were good they’d see us as insignificant, a handful of losers playing at being sportsmen rather than serious threats. If that was true, they’d whittle each other down and give us a chance to win.

They can’t all go to the big leagues, I told myself. They’ll all have one eye on the real prize.

Mildred looked pale. “How much longer?”

“Not long,” I said. In truth, I had no idea. Each passing second felt like an hour. “The moment the whistle blows, the game will be on.”

I did my best to give her a reassuring look. It was hard to keep from thinking she looked like a walking joke in her shirt and tunic, her hair tied back in a ponytail that was already threatening to come loose and get in her eyes. She was surprisingly plump, for a magician; a clear sign, for those who knew how it worked, she wasn’t particularly interested in practical spellcasting. I hoped that wasn’t going to bite us too. We’d have to run if we ran into something we couldn’t handle.

“We can do this,” Mark said. “We can!”

I nodded, allowing my eyes to drift from player to player. Mark and James looked professional. Bill and Karen looked a little more nervous … I tried not to notice how well Karen filled out her tunic. Jerry … seemed completely calm and composed. I hoped that was a good sign and not proof he’d already given up, deciding to accept whatever happened rather than struggling to the last. I hoped … I shook my head. We’d trained hard in the last two weeks, making mistakes during training we hopefully wouldn’t make on the tournament ground. We’d done everything we could …

The whistle blew. It was on.

“Go, as planned,” I ordered. “And keep your heads down.”

BattleBorne rules are relatively simple. There are four teams within the arena, a patch of fenced and warded wilderness on the far side of Blackhall. Each team has the same objective: hunt down and take out – immobilise – the other teams, with the goal of being the last team still on the field. Basically jousting, but with magic. If you get taken out – frozen, turned into something, put in a trance – you’re not allowed to free yourself, but your teammates can free you. (It’s considered bad form to free members of another team, although it has been known to happen.) Simple rules, allowing for a considerable degree of cunning, treachery and brute force. I’d witnessed games where one player was put in a trance and ordered to take out their own teammates. Perfectly legal, if it worked.

And when it didn’t, the spellcasters became laughingstocks, I thought. They never quite got over it.

I pushed the thought aside as we hurried into the foliage, moving as quickly and quietly as we could. There were three other teams in the field, all of whom would be spreading out to hunt down their enemies. I didn’t dare risk such a tactic myself. My team wasn’t anything like practiced enough to bring it off. I had to keep my people close together, where we could cover each other, and do our best to stay out of trouble until the other teams weakened themselves. Blair might have been very sarcastic, when he’d heard I really was taking the field, but he wasn’t going to waste time hunting us when there were two other – and far more capable – teams in the field. If he lost badly, he could kiss his dreams of international tournaments goodbye.

Mildred groaned as we squelched through the mud. “Do we have to …?”

“Yeah,” I hissed. I had no idea where she’d grown up, but clearly it didn’t involve farming or playing in the gutters with the other snipes. I’d never had any qualms about coming home covered in mud. It was better to be dirty than caught and taken out of the game. “And keep your voice down.”

I gritted my teeth as we slowed, half-hidden within the foliage. The landscape was supposed to be neutral, and there were no dangerous plants within the arena, but the groundskeepers had a nasty habit of shifting and replanting trees and bushes, seemingly at random. It had taken us longer than it should to realise what they were doing, I recalled. We’d thought we knew the ground like the backs of our hands. Clearly, we’d all been wearing gloves.

It makes sense, I told myself. If we go on to the big leagues, we won’t know anything about their arena.

Time ticked by, slowly. I felt a shiver running down my spine. Mark and James were holding together well, as was Jerry, but Bill and Karen looked as if they wanted to get up and charge while Mildred appeared to want to be somewhere – anywhere – else. I didn’t blame them. Waiting was never easy, even if it was the best tactic. Blair and his team – and the rest – were fighting each other right now, snapping off spells to take out the opposition as quickly as possible. Whoever won would come looking for us … they’d have no choice. If time ran out before we lost a single player, we might win without lifting a finger. I wondered, idly, what Sergeant Wills would think of it. We might have won, perfectly and legally, but it would still leave a foul taste in his mouth.

Something cracked, up ahead. I froze. It was possible – just possible – it was a wild animal … no. It wasn’t likely. Someone was advancing towards our position, someone trying to be stealthy and yet … I glanced at my team, noting how many seemed scared now the enemy was closing on us. I hoped they didn’t know we were here. They were trying to be quiet, but we weren’t moving at all. Their tracking spells weren’t supposed to work very well in the arena …

“Brace yourself,” I hissed, pitching my voice as low as possible. “Ready the spells. The moment you see him, hex him.”

The rustling sound grew louder. Something really was coming towards us. I felt my magic spike, the spell ready to go the moment the person came into view. The wind shifted, blowing around us … I thought I sensed magic in the air, an instant before the figure appeared in front of us. I blinked, surprised. A dog? There were no large animals within the arena and …

Mildred hexed it. The dog froze and toppled over.

“Hey,” Bill said. “You didn’t have to …”

The foliage seemed to explode with magic. I threw myself down as a wave of spells flashed over my head. Bill froze, hexed into immobility; I cursed as I hastily freed him, only to see him frozen again a second later. Someone had been clever, part of my mind noted as I snapped orders for everyone to start crawling backwards. They’d turned one of their teammates into a dog, then sent him out to look for us. Who’d come up with that? It wasn’t Blair. We’d been on the same team and he’d never mentioned anything like that to me. He would have, I was sure. He wasn’t the kind of person who could resist a chance to gloat over his own cleverness.

“Come on,” I hissed at Mildred. She was kneeling on the ground, so still I thought for a moment she’d been caught too. “We have to move!”

I caught her arm and pulled. It broke her out of her trance, forcing her to crawl backwards with me. The enemy were pushing forward with grim determination, sending illusions ahead of themselves to draw our fire. It would have fooled me if I hadn’t seen one of them walk right through a tree. I snapped off a pair of spells of my own, trying to slow them down a little. It didn’t work. They just kept coming … who did they think they’d caught? Hell, which team were they?

My eyes narrowed. Something wasn’t quite right …

Magic flared, again. I blinked in shock as spells hurtled towards us from the other side … what? Had we somehow wound up caught between two teams? James raised his hand and cast a flurry of stunning spells, only to find himself targeted by at least five or six enemy players. James was good, very good, but all it took was one spell getting through his defences to put him out of commission. A wave of seeking spells were rushing towards me, making it harder to cast any spells without drawing them onto me. We were down two players and yet we’d barely laid eyes on the enemy.

“Move,” I snapped, pointing the others north. There was a stream there we could use for cover … I hoped. The groundskeepers could have redirected it too, if they were prepared to invest the time and magic. “Don’t stop for anything!”

Karen screamed, her hands clawing at her eyes. I swore. A blinding spell … that was dirty pool, even though it was technically legal because it wasn’t actually illegal. Technically … whoever had cast that spell would still be in deep shit. Sergeant Wills had never been impressed by rules lawyering and he’d probably order the caster thrashed … if the asshole was lucky. I gritted my teeth, then cast a locomotive spell of my own at the ground. The mud heaved, then arced up in a tidal wave and flew at the enemy position. They’d be drenched in mud … I hoped, vindictively, that I’d accidentally picked up and thrown a stone too. The thrashing would be so worth it.

I grabbed Karen’s arm. She hit out at me, striking my face. “It’s me,” I snapped, as more spells flashed after us. We really had been caught in the middle. “Hold still.”

I cursed the caster under my breath as I tried to undo his hex. Never mind the sergeant. I was going to pummel him senseless when I figured out who it was. Blinding spells were nasty, all the more so because the victim could easily hurt themselves while trying to get it off. Karen was lucky she was a magician. I’d seen the spell used, back in my childhood, to put mundanes – powerless mundanes – in their place. It had always been effective. Grown men could be reduced to sobbing children by a simple spell a mere firstie could cast …

Blue light flicked over her body. She froze, bound in place by a carefully constructed set of hexes that would take several moments to remove, moments I didn’t have. I cursed again and muttered a quick apology, turning and running into the foliage. She’d be safe enough, just out of the match for the moment. She wasn’t going to be pleased, afterwards, but what choice did I have? We were bleeding players like mad. If I was lucky, I’d have a chance to slip back and free her – and the others – before time ran out.

“They sniffed us out,” Mark said. He and Jerry were sheltering Mildred, who was casting a handful of deflection spells. She looked as if she was on the verge of fainting. “Damn them. That was clever.”

I nodded, curtly. “This way,” I ordered. There’d be time for a debate over what we’d done wrong – and they’d done right – later, after the game. “We have to hurry.”

Mildred looked unwell as we staggered onwards, the sound of spellcasting behind us fading away. I hoped that was a good sign, but … something was wrong. My mind turned the question over and over again, unsure what was really happening. I could buy one team ambushing us – the transfigured dog trick had been clever, and I’d never even considered the possibility – but two? Had we gotten really unlucky? Or …

The ground seemed to explode in front of us. I threw myself down as another volley of spells flashed overhead, then cast a shield as best as I could. The barrier wouldn’t last long – I’d be astonished if it stood for more than thirty seconds – but it would give us a moment to catch our breath and react. Jerry was already casing spells of his own, aiming them over the barrier and …

… a spell caught him in the back.

I swore out loud as he melted into a worm. There was no time to counter the spell … Mark grabbed Jerry and carried him as we tried to get out of the second ambush, only to be caught himself a moment later. Mildred was crawling on her belly, moving as fast as she could … it wasn’t fast enough. An invisible force billowed out of nowhere, caught her by the legs and yanked her into the air. She screamed as the force started tugging at her shirt, trying to expose her breasts.

Raw anger shot through me. I charged forward, wrapping myself in a wave of pure magic and casting spells as if there was no tomorrow. Two players fell, stunned; the others opened fire on me, raining spells on my magic until it started to splinter. Mildred’s yells cut off, abruptly, as my defences failed, a final spell locking my body solid. I tumbled forward and hit the ground, the impact driving me into the mud. It was over.

That bastard, I thought. I’d missed the signs earlier – it had been inconceivable – but now it was all too clear. He got all three teams to gang up on us.

I was shocked. Blair was an asshole, but … that sort of asshole? It was cheating … wasn’t it? I’d read the rules from cover to cover and honestly, there was nothing preventing a temporary alliance between two teams, but three? He had gotten three teams to do it, I was sure of it. Two to catch us between them and the third to ambush us when we fled. He knew me well enough, too, to guess which way I would go. We’d been teammates for years.

Despair washed over me. We’d lost, badly. We were going to be the laughingstocks of the school. And if we lost the second match, my dream was done.