‘Are you excited?’ James asked.

Elvie nodded. This was a chance to watch proper magicians demonstrating their skills.

Five battles were slated to take place before a break, although this could change if any battles ran for a remarkably long time. Student gossip had placed one at around three hours, which to Elvie, seemed entirely insane.

Gaiden Maltsworth and Shrinth were the first pair drawn.

Gaiden was a hulking man with a great deal of girth around the stomach barely contained by an Alder House cloak. But as the fight began, it became apparent his weight had nothing to do with his ability as a magician.

From the moment the bell rang to indicate the start of the duel, Shrinth’s attacks came in a blur of motion difficult to follow. The wind in the arena rose rapidly, ripping into a small tornado that obscured Gaiden from sight. Her second spell drew clumps of stone from the ground, and they joined the fury around him, creating audible thuds which a stunned audience listened to.

If one of those hit me… Elvie watched in awe at the ferocity of her attack.

Shrinth paused momentarily.

‘She’s created a problem for herself, as she can no longer see what he’ll do,’ James murmured.

Gaiden had effectively become invisible, so, with a flick of her hand, Shrinth dropped the wind and flying stone to reveal him unharmed and smiling brightly.

During the duelist parade, Elvie’s classmates had always talked about his legendary defences, and it appeared those words were accurate.

‘Nice trick,’ Gaiden told Shrinth calmly. He reached across his back to draw a notched wooden club, testing a swing back and forth. ‘Surely you expected me to be prepared for simple Birch spells?’

It wasn’t unusual for combatants to speak at the duels. Many magicians regarded the psychological component of the battle to be just as important as the magical and physical. However, Gaiden’s words clearly annoyed Shrinth, who released a hiss of frustration loud enough to be heard in the stands. Shrinth was a pocket-rocket, or so her father would say. High intensity and extremely rapid.

Shrinth ripped her hand sideways with a snarl, causing the ground below Gaiden’s feet to soften as it sought to suck him in. Gaiden was a seasoned magician; he floated a shield to walk over the sinkhole and countered by deploying a masterfully erected shield around Shrinth. Before Elvie could blink, an oval of soft blue light encompassed her from head to toe, pinching her hands down against her side. She could get no leverage to cast spells, and only made hollow thuds against the surrounding shield.

Gaiden tapped the club in his hands, smiling casually. ‘Would you like to yield? You’ll never get out of that one – it’s one of my favourites because you cannot push through from your direction. I’m happy to inform you that things do pass through from mine.’

Shrinth’s angry eyes narrowed with focus as those in the area watched with breath held.

Would she be the first eliminated?

No Shrinth… Come on!

Gaiden’s slowly stepped forward, teasingly moving his stick back and forth. Shrinth glared at him, her usually pale face flushed with anger. Gaiden confidently stepped forward with his club, raised it over his head and…

His smile vanished.

The shield holding Shrinth dissolved as Gaiden turned and walked out of the arena without looking back.

Shrinth watched him go, glaring all the way.

Silence surrounded the arena before gentle but patchy applause broke out.

‘What…?’ She turned to her friends and teachers, silently asking them to explain.

‘Mind control.’ Alistar supplied with a cackle. ‘She beat the cocksure bastard with mind control, and sailed him right out of the arena like he was on a Sunday stroll.’

‘Without using her hands, or speaking? Is it even possible to do that without the words and the gestures?’

Alistar grunted. ‘It’s on the extreme level of insanely difficult.’ He paused, considering. ‘She’s always been kind of scary.’

‘Victory to Shrinth,’ the announcer droned.

Shrinth bowed formally and made her way out of the arena.

Three hours for a battle? All in all, this bout had taken well under five minutes.

‘That was very short,’ Elvie said to nobody in particular. ‘I expected...’ It was hard to say what she’d imagined, but it wasn’t the speed with which the duel ended.

James replied. ‘Valuable lessons. There is a common misconception that duels take a long time. But the reality is that you win battles through your offensive skills, rarely your defensive. Overwhelming your opponent is a key part of effective duelling. Sure, you would also want a firm mind, physical strength, skill and dexterity; these are all important. But if you can create an imbalance where you overwhelm your opposition, then you win the duel swiftly.’

‘You know a lot about fighting duels, Professor. Why don’t you enter?’ She asked James.

He laughed at the thought. ‘Knowledge doesn’t equate to skill. You can read a book on cooking, but it doesn’t make you a chef.’

‘But you also have the physical spells from Birch House – and mind control too.’

‘My brother was always the duellist in the family. It’s not my speciality.’

On the whole, Elvie was slightly disappointed by her first duel, telling James: ‘They’re anticlimactic, aren’t they? I mean, if I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought he decided to just quit, and leave.’

‘I expected flashes of lightning, ice-swords and other great things,’ Rilla leant backwards to add. ‘Although, we did get flying rocks.’

Alistar laughed. ‘It’s the nature of the world. Expect greatness – settle for mediocrity. It’s why I always aim to set the bar low. In fact, I’ve mastered it entirely, haven’t I, James?’ He laughed some more, but James wasn’t paying attention.

‘Hmmm…’ he muttered to himself, scanning the crowd across the arena.

‘What’s the matter?’ Elvie asked, following his line of sight.

‘Oh. Ah. Nothing. Just a strange feeling…’

‘What do you mean?’

James caught the worry in her tone and addressed it instantly. ‘It’s nothing – let’s enjoy the show they’re putting on.’

In contrast to Shrinth’s battle, the next was more in keeping with Elvie’s imagination. She perched on the edge of her seat as Dalen Whistler fought Lochiel McCulloch. From the outset, it was apparent Dalen was a risk-taker and an entertainer. He twirled a quarterstaff in his hands, throwing it up in the sky to cast spells before he caught it on their completion.

Lochiel met his flair with steadfast resolve, using a hammer to attack as his red hair streamed behind him. They duelled staff to hammer, neither feeling the need to cast many spells as they burst back and forth on the earth in an attempt to outmatch the opposition physically. They were closely balanced, and as that realisation dawned for both, they switched to offensive magic to complement their physical skills.

This was where Dalen Whistler excelled. He gathered a rusted chunk of metal and threw it in the air. As it reached its peak over Lochiel, the metal fragmented into small chunks that plummeted down on Lochiel in a hail of ball bearings. They weren’t big enough to cause permanent harm but painful enough to be annoying, and could potentially draw blood for victory unless he had some form of shield charm stored upon his person.

While the ball bearings fell, Dalen sprinted to pole-vault into Lochiel, whose attention was focused upwards on his defence. He desperately sought to dodge but ended with two solid feet to the solar plexus.

Both men fell to the ground, one pinwheeling away through the dust. The crowd roared in appreciation as Dalen flipped himself to his feet like an acrobat.

Lochiel slowly pushed himself up with a wry grin, considering his opposition with a keener eye than before. Then, finally, he tossed his hammer aside to focus purely on magic.

‘Interesting fight, this one,’ James commentated. ‘Both flamboyant, but one is defensive and the other offensive.’

‘So Dalen will win. That’s what you said earlier about being offensive stronger.’

James just smiled back.

Lochiel appeared to have reached a similar conclusion. Offensive spells rocketed from his hands. Following Shrinth’s example, quicksand formed around Dalen’s feet, followed by shards of stone that rocketed up – blunt-tipped by the look of them, but dangerous if they punched into flesh. Dalen flipped and rolled out of harm's way, and Lochiel cast more in pursuit. Lochiel cast, Dalen dodged – in a repeated process that had some members of the crowd booing. But Lochiel’s spells were draining. His pursuit slowed, and Dalen’s escapes became easier.

The jeers switched to cheers of excitement as Dalen dodged a stone dagger and pressed his luck. He dove forward, completing a roll that brought him up close to his slowing adversary. The quarterstaff in his hand punched up into Dalen’s face, sending him staggering back. Dalen pressed his attack, summoning sheets of cold that hardened into thick ice – the ground turned white, followed by Lochiel’s legs.

He countered by disrupting the earth, flinging blocks of stone-ice at Dalen.

The younger man stepped around the projectiles with a cocky grin, sensing his chances of victory growing as he summoned more ice with a casual wave and a few uttered words.

Lochiel attacks became sporadic as he desperately fought a battle to keep the ice from encasing his casting hands.

Dalen circled, cementing ice to Lochiel’s legs, then waist and onto his stomach. Panic beset Lochiel’s face as ice engulfed his chest and encroached upon his neck.

The grin on Dalen’s face was broad; the look of horror on Lochiel’s obvious. The fight was over.

Dalen raised his quarterstaff and walked towards his prey. The spread of ice stopped, and he paused. Would he knock Lochiel out to end the fight?

In the moment of hesitation, Lochiel struck. The fingers he’d desperately sought to keep out of the ice flicked expertly, and with the crack of his voice, the ice vanished.

To encase Dalen Whistler instead.

Fir House was absorption magic – Dalen should have known.

Many in the crowd hissed as their favourite was trapped, but Lochiel did not hesitate to grab his hammer and tap Dalen on the chest. Once, twice… It was the recognised sign that the other man could have done severe damage but opted not to.

Shrinth won with speed and skill; Lochiel with misdirection – but both had worked to their strengths while their opponents underestimated them.

Dalen had lost. The ice fell away as Lochiel released the spell.

Turned away from Elvie, he bowed to Lochiel to accept his defeat.

Lightning lashed from the sky to hammer into his back.

James flinched and grabbed her arm savagely. ‘God – If you know any shields, use them!’ He stood up, waved his arms frantically and pointed. ‘Attack! Attack! We’re – ’

The attack drowned out his words.