Children of the First

Finally. Writing hates me right now, and I've got to say, I'm not too happy with it either.
Rock on. \m/
-Alex

I barely heard a word Lenis said on Friday morning; I had scram tryouts that afternoon, so there wasn't much room for anything else. He was saying something about "cloud moles nesting in mainly cumulous clouds--scramble scramble scram..."

Magic theory was going to be torture—not only did I have scram on the brain, but all we ever did in class was go over the same thing we had just read the night before, word-for-word-for boring Gai-damn word.

“Hey kin,” Retis said as I took the seat next to him. “ You ready for tryouts this afternoon?”

“Ready as I’m gonna be,” I said. “Sorry we didn’t have more time to practice this week—you think you can pull it off with only a week to learn?”

Retis shrugged. “If I make it, I make it. There’s nothing we could do at this point, anyhow.”

Maybe it’s all the Swiftreed he smoked, or maybe that’s just the way he was, but Retis didn’t seem the slightest bit nervous about trying out; he was as relaxed as ever.

After class, we headed over to the cafeteria for a little pre-scram fuel: whole grains, nuts, mostly that sorta healthy crap. (Well, I had the healthy, balanced stuff; Retis had a pile of fish.)

“I wouldn’t eat so much,” I told him when I saw the massive mound of fish on his plate. “It’ll give you a cramp, or at least slow you down.”

“Maybe it would slow you down,” he said. “But I gotta keep the fires burnin’ bright! Can’t scram on an empty stomach,” he said before gulping down his last fillet.

“Maybe that’s cause you scram like a half-blind Aurochs bull.”

“Hey, I sure as hell wouldn’t stand up to a two-ton thunder bull, would you?”

“Good point. You ready to head back to the dorm? We still need to get our gear and find Roo and Jarn.”

“Sure,” Retis nodded. “As long as you think the elevator can handle my massive bulk.”

“I have my doubts, but it’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

The Gibri weren’t hard to find once we got back to the dorm; Roo was standing outside their room, watching Jarn pace up and down the hallway—he was generally wound a good bit tighter than most people, so I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised to find him bouncing off the walls (literally).

“Hey Roo,” I said. “Ready for our ‘trial by Feral’?”

“Cute,” said Retis.

“Thanks,” I said. “I thought so.”

“I’m ready, I ‘spose,” said Roo. “But Jarn’s still all…”

“Nervous?” I guessed.

“Springy?” Retis offered.

Roo shook his head. “Stupid.” Then he shouted down the hall, “Even though he’s the only one with nothing to worry about!” Roo turned back to us. “It’s like he forgets he’s good at it or somethin’.”

“He’ll be fine as soon as we get out on the pitch.”

“I know, yeah,” Roo agreed. “But that doesn’t make ‘im any less annoyin’ now.”

Jarn may have been the only one bouncing, but we were all getting a little restless; even Retis was starting to look a bit on-edge—well, for him, anyhow.

Finally it was time to head to over to the arena for tryouts. I had expected them to be in the gym’s practice rooms, but apparently tryouts and some of the team practices were held in the Erin-Ikan Arena, the same place as the league tournaments.

The arena was just past the health center, technically off-campus, but not by much. It was originally called Raekos Keep, built as a fortress during the Dragonblood Crusades, and looked sort of like a gigantic well, except there was no little bucket hanging from it. The arena didn’t have a giant hole in the middle either, and very little water at the bottom. Plus, it had windows and doors… and towers… and parapets… and it was oblong instead of round…

Actually, other than the fact that it was made of stone and round-ish , it didn’t look anything like a well—more like a castle, really. We had followed the path through the little wooded area between campus and arena, and were climbing the long staircase to the arena entrance when I noticed the Gargoyles perched along the outer walls.

It’s not unusual to see Gargoyles hanging around old buildings; they make excellent guards because they don’t really sleep, just rest by turning to stone, and even then they can still keep watch. But—since they’ll only protect whatever they consider their territory—Gargoyle guards are nearly impossible to come by. A lot of people just started carving statues to look like the real thing, so you never know which ones are real until they move. Of course, if you try to get past one and it does happen to be real, you probably won’t care; you’ll be too busy looking for your trachea.

So, even though gargoyles are fairly common around older buildings, they still tend to make people uneasy—myself included.

There were three giant archways at the top of the stairs, designed to allow quick deployment of soldiers and artillery in case of attack. The problem, of course, was that doors tend to work both ways; we could send a bunch of soldiers out really fast, but then they could send a bunch in just as quickly. The best solution (besides “kill them before they get to the door”) was apparently the creation of three massive portcullises, each one ornately crafted for maximum stabbyness.

“You know why they call those the Splattergates?” Retis asked. “Cause if they land on you, you splatter.”

“You’re so full of shit,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? Look at those things.” He pointed to the middle one, which was half-open. “They’ve got to weigh at least two tons each; there’s no way you’d come out of that without leaving bits of you stuck to it.”

“I don’t mean those things wouldn’t pop you like a balloon filled with vegetable soup, I meant you’re full of shit that anyone called them ‘The Splattergates’.”

“No way, kin, Hand of Saurus; I looked it up.” Retis said, raising his hand in oath. “Wait a sec—does this mean I knew something about history you didn’t?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Don’t get used to it.” I looked up at the gargoyle perched over the gate. Then, on impulse, I said, “Hello,” and gave him a little wave.

The other guys looked confused for a split second before the Gargoyle returned my wave. “Hello. Are you here for tryouts too?”

“Yep,” I said, as though I talked to Gargoyles every day. “Why? Are there a lot of people here already?”

“Twenty-four so far,” said the Gargoyle. “Plus you four and the six behind you.”

“Gaia.” Jarn sounded worried. “Wonder how many Feral’s gonna take,” he said.

“Shut up,” said Roo. “You’re gonna make it, now yer just bein’ a jerk.”

Jarn frowned, but I saw the corners of his mouth twitch slightly.

“Well, we’d better get going,” I told the Gargoyle.

“Of course. Go straight ahead and down the stairs to the left,” he replied. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. Oh, and I’m Shawn, by the way.”

“Good to meet you, Shawn.”

“You too,” I called back as we entered the gatehouse

The Gargoyle’s directions took us down a spiral staircase that led all the way to the arena floor. On the way down, Retis asked, “What did the Gargoyle say his name was?”

“He didn’t; Gargoyles don’t have names.”

“Then how do you tell them apart?”

“Fuck if I know,” I said. “That’s the first one I’ve met.”

We reached the end of the staircase and walked through the door out onto the arena floor—eighteen acres of forest surrounded by seventy-foot stone walls. The gatehouse was behind us and at the far end was the inner keep, a sort of castle within a castle.

“Gaia,” Retis breathed. “How many fields are in here?”

“Six of em,” I said. “See? They’re separated by rows of bleachers; three fields here and three more past those.”

There were a bunch of students hanging around the nearest goal post—the one at this end of the center field. We spotted Pebbles on our way over, but no sign of Feral yet.

“Hey squishies,” Pebbles said when we got there. “Cuttin’ it a little close, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “We’re five minutes early.”

“Next time, make it ten; Feral’s not the most patient person in Khartan.”

As Pebbles said this, we heard Feral shouting from the door to the stairs. We turned to see her chasing the last group of students out onto the floor. “Move!” she shouted. “This is scramble, Gai-damnit!”

The kids looked terrified as they bolted toward us, touching the goal tower once they’d made it. I smiled; it was like the tower was “base” or something. Touching it saved them from Feral’s fury.

“You’re gonna have to move faster than that if you want to make the team,” she said. “I assume that’s why you’re all here?”

“Yes,” said someone behind me.

“Rhetorical question, numb-nuts.” Feral said without looking to see who said it. “Obviously, you all want to be on the scram team.” She had started pacing—or rather, prowling—back and forth in front of the group. “Well, that’s too bad,” she said. “Because it’s not gonna happen.”

She stopped in front of one of the latecomers. “By the end of the day, all most of you will be is disappointed and sore. We don’t have much time to get you that way, so I’ll keep this quick and dirty. There are thirty-couple of you here; I only need seven of you to make a full team, but I may take as many as five more if I think you’re worth it. I want you smart, I want you focused, and I want you working.”

“When will we know if we’re cut?” someone asked.

“When I tell you,” Feral said. “This is Pebbles, team captain, and it’s time for follow the leader. Ready?”

The four of us got ready to run, though we were the only ones who knew what was coming.

“Go.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Chapters, CotF Main Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.