CHAPTER 31: King’s Tree

“Some of you will fall, others probably won’t even make it onto the logs—we don’t care.” Instructor Sadick called to the first year cadets as he stood on the center-most and tallest log of the construct in front of us all. “Twenty of you will come forward and attempt to claim this log where I stand, the King’s Tree.”

He pointed to all of the “trees” around him, “You start from the outmost ring and work your way in by knocking off your opponents. This is one of the few places where your magic and combat training will come into play. You can use any magic in your arsenal except lethal magic, and you can use weapons too. You may not purposely maim or kill anyone.”

“Will we be permitted to use magical items?” Someone called, raising a smattering of whispers through out the group of cadets.

“For this?” He motioned all around him, “Yes, however, this is only the first run of this combat course. There will be several today throughout the day, and then the winners will return tonight to duke it all out for chances at prizes.”

He hopped from the top of that log to one closer to us that swayed ever so slightly, but he didn’t seem to care at all, his arms steadying him. “This exercise has been tradition in this academy for generations and we rarely have as many cadets as we do now, so the object of the course will be simply to get there first and keep your claim for only five seconds, not to hold it as long as you can.”

He stared out at all of us and smiled, “Correct. Should you accidentally fall, or be eliminated in the first round, you lose and cannot compete again until the next time we run this course. Am I clear?” We all shouted an affirmation and he called out, “First twenty, step forward!”

I stepped forward without a thought and so did several other students, the breeze rustling my clean shirt for the first time since I had gotten the weighted armor. For this, I would be using my speed to my advantage and the weight wouldn’t be necessary if I wanted to win. And a few things I had managed to collect from the garden earlier on my way back from training with Thane.

There must have been more than enough of us, because the tone of his voice held mirth as he shook his head and motioned to the students around me and said, “Too many, step back.”

I did as I was told and stepped back with the others. “All of you, clamber on up here.” One of the students tried to climb the one he was running to and just managed to missing being kicked off of it. “Good instincts, you.”

After all of the twenty participating cadets stood there, Instructor Sadick joined the other faculty, including a very tired-looking Cleepnir on the sidelines and bellowed, “Begin!”

I blinked and a cadet with dark hair stood crouched on the King’s Tree log, having come out of nowhere and wielded a set of wooden daggers in both hands. None of the other students looked to have noticed him before Sadick called, “Time! Cadet Mult is this round’s king!”

The other cadets looked his way and finally noticed him as he made his way from the log toward the outer ring with ease.

“Next twenty!” Again I stepped forward and again, my side was pushed back. For another two games in a row, my side of the cadets were told to wait, and I wondered what the point of stepping forward was anymore.

Each time the king was picked, the other students made their way sullenly to the mess hall. “Next twenty.” Came again and this time it was followed by, “You, you and you—get out. You already competed, cheaters! Someone destroy them.”

I turned to see the three offenders running from one of the other staff members as they were screamed at like Sadick had screamed at me before.

“Anyone else want to step forward?” I quickly did so with two other cadets, one I recognized from my magic class and another that had failed to make it into the advanced weapons course. Both of them walked mechanically at first, but seemed fine. I just focused on climbing up the Lin front of me and finding my balance.

These ones were wide enough to stand on with your feet apart slightly and still have room to move forward just a bit. The other logs were a lot more spaced out and varied than they had looked from the ground and rose in varying increments as well. I didn’t see anyone I knew that I had to truly worry about, for once, not having a Marki to contend with.

I tried to plot my route quickly, but Sadick’s shout of, “Begin!” Nearly startled me into falling.

My body moved and flowed forward, until the sound of rapid breathing to my right caught my attention and I pulled out my hand axe shuna to prepare for an attack. One of the other two that had stepped out with me, the failed weapons class cadet, sprinted for me with his sword drawn and his face slack.

What’s going on with him? I didn’t have time to dwell on it as the sword stabbed forward and I slapped it aside with my hand axe. My right foot pressed out and kicked at his foot on the side of the log as he swung the sword this time, catching him off balance and dropping him off the log, only to be caught from behind by someone else and tossed forward and off my log.

Feeding mana into the shuna in my hand, I used it to try and halt my fall, smacking it into the side of the log. It jerked me forward into the log painfully, but I didn’t touch the ground, thankfully and started to move back up toward the King’s Tree where some of the other cadets were beginning to crowd around in their own fights.

These logs were dead, so my magic wouldn’t let me make them grow anything, but I did have other tricks up my sleeves. Or rather, in my Hollow Flower.

My hand flexed and I fed the seed that I called from the spatial spell some mana and threw it above me where my attacker prepared to jump toward the other cadets.

The seed burst and shot its shell in a concussive waved for five feet that sent the cadet reeling and onto the ground, allowing me to clamber back up the log and onto it unsteadily. Once I was up, my legs pumped and I launched myself forward as far as I could, more seeds coming into my grasp where I fed them a snippet of mana before throwing them at the other cadets with great affect for some, and little for others.

The best thing it did was distract the others so that I could surge toward the Kings Tree, chasing the other student that I had in my magic class. He was a few logs ahead of me when he reached back and flung something liquid from his hands that splashed the logs behind him and they began to melt and sizzle with soft pops before lurching forward.

My feet barely registered the next log that I tried to jump to, skidding across it as it began to fall forward. I used one of the booming seeds to toss me toward the next set of logs and grabbed it with my left hand. With a grunt and a shout from the exertion, I was up and onto the uneven log again and ran forward again, my chest heaving.

The acid-slinging cadet had just made it to the King’s tree before I was three logs behind him and as he lifted his hand to defend himself with the same sort of blank look that the other cadet had, I tossed three seeds at him. He waved his hand and one of them was eaten by acid, but the other two detonated and flung the acid back at him. It hit him and he screamed but nothing looked to happen.

It was like water on a ducks back, but the fact that he couldn’t see now worked to my advantage.

I punched forward with a final seed and it burst in front of him, knocking him backward onto a log seven feet away from us and then fell to the ground below.

Heavy breathing drew my attention to four more students converging on me and my position, so I focused and waited until they were almost ready to jump to the closest logs and used the flash from the Axe shuna in my fist, but I was careful to make it look like it came from a stone that I tossed in front of them for effect.

Their screams of surprise and anguish were followed by the thuds of their bodies colliding with wood, then the ground below. I stood on the King’s Tree log and stared down defiantly at the other cadets as time ran down and Instructor Sadick bellowed, “Time! Cadet Thorn is this round’s king!”

He hopped onto the log closest to the students and spoke again, “That’s enough for now. The rest of you will be pulled from classes twenty at a time and then compete. By the end of the day, we will have our final cadets and the winners.” He looked around at all of us, his hidden face still an enigma, “Dismissed!”

With that, the other cadets turned in unison to head off for morning mess and I made my way by the instructor. When I was abreast of him, he turned his head my way and grunted, “Good work Don’t get too comfortable going into the garden though. That Dryad you called in is getting antsy for some reason.”

I frowned at that, she had been perfectly fine with me.

I returned to my room and bathed and donned my armor once more before going to eat with Xanile, her apprehension was odd, but I figured it would be something to do with the fact that I would be introducing her to my friends from the Unseelie.

The food was good, the conversation around us centered wholly on the competition for the King’s Tree and the Marki children were somewhat disappointingly absent for now.

Which was almost as concerning as them being at hand.

“You keep looking for someone.” Xanile broached carefully. “Who?”

“Etran and his sister Sanera are suspiciously not here and there as something off about the students that I had to compete against this morning as well.” I frowned and rubbed my forehead before I said, “I want to say that the two are connected somehow, but that just makes me sound paranoid.”

“Paranoia is a good way to stay alive in the forest.” Xanile offered softly and jerked her head to behind me. I turned and found myself staring at the Marki twins strolling into the mess hall with nary a care and smiles on their faces. “And ahead of them.”

I nodded once and finished my food before standing and making my way back to my room before class to send Lolth the message about introducing Xanile to all of the girls.

You are sure that this is what she wants?

Her simple reply threw me a little bit, but I replied that it was, and that it was important for them to get along because it could mean trouble if it didn’t work out.

Then we will be on our best behavior, but do not expect us to not rise to any disrespect. If we are treated well, we will do so in return.

Also, are you free this evening? I have not been able to think of anything other than falling asleep beside you and how nice it was. Aren said that she thought we were cute.

I opened my mouth as the thought of that sunk in. A spider, that lives in my room, could talk to the girl I was dating and could accurately depict what it saw.

She had a spy in my room. And that could work for, or against me depending on what that creature saw.

A shiver ran down my spine and I sighed softly to myself, then answered, I liked it as well. If you would like to come over, I would enjoy the company. Or I could come to you?

She saw it immediately and there was no response. I wondered if I had said something wrong until a single word scrawled onto the page with shaky lines.

Alright.

Frowning, I put the paper into the drawer of the desk and made it go into the Hollow Flower on my arm before I left for my classes throughout the day. They were boring, as they had been the first time and I barely paid attention, wondering if the other cadets were coming up with better strategies to combat their foes and me as I would be.

By the end of the day, we stood at the training grounds in six groups of five.

“Welcome, our semi-finalists!” Instructor Sadick sounded like he was smiling proudly as he spoke above us. “All of you will be participating in a smaller circle of the course now. The course has been made a little more treacherous as the number of you participating will be smaller. The group that you are in now is your pod, one of each of you will be called forward to compete against the other groups to keep things interesting. Once there are only six of you left standing, we will go into our final round. Do you all understand?”

I nodded with the others and shouted, “Yes, sir!”

There rounds of the competition raged, one of the winners being Marki, his sister bowing out to allow him to win. The others I didn’t readily recognize, but their skills were undeniable.

The only thing that gave me some semblance of comfort in all of this was that the course had become significantly more difficult to manage and maneuver on.

If I went against them, I would need to ensure that I had enough weapons in my arsenal, or at least blinded them to keep things even.

Finally, it was my turn. Three other cadets I still couldn’t place stepped forward and so did Cadet Mult, the one that had just appeared on the King’s Tree. I grimaced, not really having been able to come up with a completely safe way to handle him without having complete and utter control over the field around me and even then, it would be harder to judge what he would do.

Would he appear there again outright?

A steadying breath allowed me to get my head on straight and formulate a plan. It would be a little odd, but I could do it. I just needed to put my head into it and trust myself.

“Mount up, Cadet.” Instructor Sadick growled, grabbing my attention. I was the only one still on the ground. I scrambled up the log in front of me and hissed as it shook while I tried to stand on it.

Instructor Sadick glanced around at all of us and snarled, “Begin!”

First thing I did was throw one of the concussive seeds directly at the King’s Tree but instead of appearing there, Mult appeared in front of me, his face slack like the others. His daggers wove out and slashed at my midsection, my log teetering dangerously as I writhed to avoid being hit.

He disappeared and appeared on my left, but I had time to jump away to a surprisingly solid log and dodged his attack.

Two of the other six cadets sprang from nowhere and I growled, flowing under their attacks and using the beard of my axe to trap one sword and slam it downward, disarming the boy and knocking him off the log he stood on into the path of the girl who tried to leap forward at me with her fists clenched.

She vaulted over him and kicked at me, catching me in the hip, but I used the weight of the armor I wore, whispering the command word so that I was too heavy to knock off and she bounced away from me.

She managed to catch herself on one of the logs by her fingertips, but I lowered the weight of the armor and jumped onto her fingers and dropped her, making my way toward the goal of the King’s Tree.

She caught my ankle and held on, yanking me backward and almost off the log I had landed on. I kicked her in the face, but she held on tightly and I had to keep kicking until she let go, but Mult was there instantly to try and kick my fingers.

I growled and wrapped my legs around the log, then threw three seeds into the air in front of him. Two were vines that sprang out of their pods and wrapped around his chest and legs, the other my last concussive seed. It threw him backward and away from me long enough to regain my footing and launch myself toward the King’s Tree again.

The logs here grew smaller, uneven-faced and the gaps grew wider as well. It took every bit of focus that I had to get to the other side closest to it and the thicker wobbling logs there in order to fight the cadet who had made it there before me.

She was good, her axe weaving and swinging back and forth faster and faster until I finally gave up on winning through finesse and pulled out my knife shuna and stabbed it forward toward her leg and she just smirked at me. Her swing rocketed toward my head but it my knife lengthened thanks to the ability of the core in it and slid into her leg, making her scream in pain.

1 point of strength consumed temporarily.

I smiled and noted that a small clock appeared in the bottom left-hand corner of my vision that counted down five minutes. She knelt on the log in front of me and I kicked her aside to step onto the King’s Tree log while the Grass Blade faded.

“Cadet Thorn is the King for this round!” Instructor Sadick called and motioned for me to step aside.

If this was what it was going to be like trying to stop people without giving away my capabilities, I would be in a world of hurt in the next round.