The Black Mage: Candidate (25 page)

A bit of dirt rose in the air, and my hand shot out in front of my face. I closed my eyes and called on my magic to join. Not only was sand an actual component to the arena—meaning it would cost me less magic to use—it was everywhere.

Then I pressed down on the arrow’s shaft at my leg.

Sharp needles of agony exploded across my thigh. Pain and magic tore at my will, two savage beasts clawing and grasping for control. It felt like a thousand knives gutting my mind at once.

I took a deep, rattling breath and shoved them back, slamming my vision into the ravaging chaos with everything I had. My hands were shaking and sweat was stinging my eyes but I held on, bending the torment to my will. The darkness shuddered just once, and then suddenly all was quiet, an eerie sense of calm rushed out as my casting took hold.

A spinning funnel rose up from the ground. A plague of golden debris and wind, faster and faster, higher and higher, until it was a storm of its own.

I held my ground, heels digging into the earth, a couple strands of hair escaping their hold, and I watched my tempest give chase.

“She still has magic!”

“Get out of her range, Kai!”

The others froze. No one wanted to get caught in a sandstorm that would blind them to their allies’ attacks. The two at my left started to flee, but the three at the front threw up a defensive sphere.

With the twist of my wrist the particles slammed together and melded with ice, my casting as solid as rock. Then I lobbed it at them. With every bit of concentration I had, I threw my granite wall, and then watched as their casting shattered like glass. The impact so great it sent the three sprawling backward into the dirt.

Run-limping forward, I set my projection to break.

A raincloud of sand rushed down on their heads, giant swells of dirt blinding while I cut our distance in half. Coughing and sputtering, they tried in vain to stand and draw up a new casting in time—but their magic was weak and they had more than one enemy to contend. By the time the haze had cleared three hovering blades were pointed at their throats.

I paused, one hand outstretched, as I locked eyes on my three victims. The metal quivered but held.

Slowly, white hot anger burning in the cores of their eyes, one, two, three sets of arms rose in surrender, palms forward. They didn’t bother to speak the words.

I shot a quick glimpse to my left and saw the two remaining mages engaged in a bout of their own.

Now was my chance at escape.

I started toward the right, skirting the edge of the stadium. A moment later a gut-wrenching cry rang out behind me. When I peeked back the taller of the two was on the ground, blood pouring from his side as he whimpered the words for surrender. The other didn’t bother to bask in his victory, like me he was already limping away, sporting a burn that ran up his arm and half his chest.

Two of our six still in play. I wondered how the others had fared in the rest of the arena.

It became my next objective to find out. I was hard-pressed to engage now that I was on my last bit of stamina, and my leg was almost unbearable the more I moved. Pain casting had been a smart decision at the time—I didn’t have enough regular magic left, but now my whole body was throbbing in agony just from the effort to stand. Walking—or limp-running—was even worse.

I took a deep breath and headed toward the center. I needed to get a better idea of how many were left.

Six
. After five more minutes of wary approach I counted five left, and me. And all of them seemed to be conserving their magic or hiding. Somewhere in the last fifty minutes of fighting we had gone from nineteen to not even a third of our original total.

Five. That was all that stood between me and becoming the best second rank.
Of all.

The sharp whistle of a throwing axe, and I chastised myself for the momentary distraction. I threw up a hand and let my magic loose, a shield not a second too soon before the wedge could embed itself in my flesh.
You know better, Ryiah
.

One of the mages had drawn closer since the last time I looked. And he still had magic.

The man threw another axe, and I deflected it only to have the ground cave out right underneath my feet.

I struggled to catch my balance but my injured leg roared in protest. It went down and the rest of me followed. My balance was off and the slippery sand sent me flying on my back.

The mage took off at a run, and as I tried to push myself up off the ground he sent another rush of magic that slammed my head against the sand. My vision blurred and every part of me ached as I pushed up onto my elbows just as he closed in, magic casting an iron grip against my throat and another on my limbs.

“Surrender,” he said.

Clearly, the young man had been conserving his castings.

I pretended to mutter the words, squabbling gibberish that wasn’t hard to fake. Not when I was choking.

He drew closer, cautiously. One casted dagger in hand.

A couple steps closer and then his russet eyes hardened. “Surrender,
now
. Or I put this blade into your ribs. I won’t ask you again. Raise your hands if you can’t speak.”

He released my arms from their invisible chains just far enough to lift. I could feel them vibrating, softly. His magic was waning.

I bit down on my cheek until I tasted blood. My casting sent him careening to the sand a couple feet away. His magic lost its hold, and I shot up and lunged. Pain was just a distant memory as I threw myself at the mage, a knife in hand.

The boy scrambled to rise and call up on a magic of his own when I was seconds away—but nothing came. His whole face was white and pooling sweat by the time my blade was against his throat.

“Surrender.”

“I…” He coughed up blood, and I realized he was already bleeding heavily from a couple wounds at his sides. He’d had the good sense to bandage them with strips of his tunic and cover up underneath his mail, but now I could see why he had been so desperate to use magic to keep me at bay. “I s-surrender.”

My knife vanished from my fist, and I quickly pulled away, gingerly shifting my leg as I stood. It was then I noticed the arrow was gone.
Huh?
I ripped off the hems of my breeches and wrapped them around my leg as tight as I could. I had barely made it two feet away before I saw two red-robed healers hurrying over to treat their newest victim.

There was another healer on the other side of the arena, half-carrying a different candidate—the one with the burns who was now bleeding heavily from his head. That explained my arrow’s absence. But it also meant pools of blood were now seeping through my makeshift bandages every moment I stayed in the arena.
A good blow is not what usually kills an opponent—it’s a loss of blood.
My stomach started to turn and I looked away, breathing deeply through my nose.

Four of us left.

I could see the three others from where I stood. A tall mage with black braids, dark skin, and a limp was farthest away. A bit closer was a stocky man in a full set of chainmail and leg plates, even a helmet. He had to be sweltering about now. The two were eying each other, but so far had made no move to attack.

The closest was a young man one hundred yards away who was bleeding heavily in—well, I wasn’t sure where exactly; he was coated in sand and blood and clutching a wooden shield to his chest—the easiest defense, and also the weakest.

If no one else was going to lead the attacks it was going to have to be me.
Time to make it three
.

The throwing daggers whizzed through the air faster than my breath.

One caught the bleeding man in the shoulder, the other in the leg. Magic sputtered in front of him—the makings of a blast of fire—but it extinguished before it crossed even half the distance between us. The mage crumbled, and I skirted forward, watching as he tried again only to have the flames flicker and die at the tips of his fingers. He swore at me, raising his palms in surrender.

The other two met my eyes across the stadium as the announcer declared yet another candidate down. They had started to inch closer during my attack. All of us knew victory was bare minutes away.

I waited, gulping heavy drags of air in an effort to prepare. My lips were cracked, and sweat was pouring so hard and so fast that I had to keep wiping it away lest I go blind.

The wound in my leg? It ached worse than any injury I had ever encountered during my apprenticeship, possibly even more than that dagger to the ribs during the battle as a fifth year in Ferren. That had only lasted a couple minutes before I lost consciousness—this had lasted thirty minutes and counting. All my movement had tugged and pulled at the head so that my whole thigh was shiny red and tender at the slightest touch. I was quite sure with my pain casting earlier I had scraped against bone. The pain was even worse because it was only increasing every time I moved.

I thanked the gods my constant pain casting had increased my tolerance to bodily abuse.

When they got close enough to pause, the three of us made up a triangle—an equal distance apart.

My gaze flicked to the limping mage first. His expression was fierce and despite his limp I knew he wasn’t out yet. The second man was still inscrutable and deadly. Now that we were on our last limbs of magic he had the best defense with his armor because it didn’t cost him anything to keep it.

I swallowed. If the armored mage had lasted this long despite his lack of agility then his magic had to be great, his stamina even greater.

My eyes flicked back and forth between the two, my fists ready to cast at the slightest attack. A movement caught my eye and my chin jerked, ever so slightly to catch the limping mage’s wink. He did it one more time, and then I casually returned my stare to the armored mage who was shifting from one foot to the next, no injury that I could see.

I prayed it wasn’t a trick. After all, it made sense. We could waste our magic battling each other, neither keeping enough to challenge the armored mage on our own. Or we could both take him on first, and then let the best mage win.

Please, please don’t let this be a trick.

Magic shot out of my palms at the same moment as the other. The armored mage threw up a sphere not a moment too soon—but cracks crept across, snaking trails of purple across his globe, and then the shield vanished and our castings sent him flying back against the sand.

The man struggled to rise, clunky mail making the stand difficult as twin bolts of ice shot at the two of us. One ball of fire from the black-haired mage deflected one as I sent up a gust of sand to overtake the second.

Back and forth our magic danced. After a couple quick bouts the armored mage dug his blade into his flesh. There was a ricocheting boom that echoed across the arena as the black-haired mage and I collapsed to the ground, spheres up just in time before a hot wall of fire cut across the gap.

I held back another cry as the bandage cut into my thigh, clinging to my casted shield with the last of my regular magic. The moment the wave passed my shield fell, and I pressed down on my wound, sending a set of three war hammers slamming against the armored mage’s chains. The black-haired mage set his magic with a mace, and two of our castings pounded into the armored mage’s flesh.

Chainmail might protect against sharp blades but it did not prevent a blunt but powerful force.

The armored man roared a surrender after his next pain casting barely charged—dying before it even reached the air. His magic had run out, and he wasn’t in a position to outmatch two of us still with magic.

I barely heard the announcer declare his loss. My eyes had flown to the black-haired man and his to me.

And then there were two.

This was it. I was so,
so
close. Every bit of me was crying out in pain as I pushed myself to stand; I could see he was struggling to do the same.

For a moment neither of us moved. He cocked his head, studying me as I studied him. The mage was definitely older—but not quite thirty if my assessment was correct. He was slimmer than most, and if he had survived this long he had to be my equal in agility and strength. He was down to pain casting just like me—and neither of us was faring well. His skin was clammy and red and he was shaking just to stand. I could see blood seeping through his bandages; blood was streaking down my leg.

That didn’t stop him from casting, and it didn’t stop me.

WHAM!

Our castings collided. His ice melded with my sand, and I snorted as the cluster dropped like a pile of crumbled debris between us. Clearly we had our favorite moves.

He scooted closer and I followed suit. This time neither of us chose a casting until we were barely fifteen feet apart. He knew his limits—well, so did I.

Another flare as this time I cast flying daggers and he arrows. Both of our castings fell as we threw up shields that crumbled the barest second after deflecting one another’s casting.

I couldn’t help but notice he had been digging a finger into his wound as I had pressed down on mine. Pain casting and we were already at our second limits. I bit down on my tongue as I added pressure but a wave of sickness roared up in its place. I bowled over and the other mage seemed to have a similar effect.

Our magic was gone.

I sucked in a deep breath and charged, every bit of me crying out as a fist feigned right and my leg swept at his feet. The man anticipated the move and caught my leg with both hands and pulled—causing me to stumble—before jerking back and throwing his weight forward so that I lost footing and fell to my back.

My hand had shot out and grabbed onto one of his long braids. When I fell the man came crashing down on top of me. The blow momentarily knocked the wind from my lungs and then the two of us were rolling and struggling in the sand.

When he had my hands and legs pinned—he was a bit heavier—I wriggled with all my might. Before the mage could make his hips and chest parallel to mine, my fingernails clawed desperately at the sand. I managed a small wad and shut my eyes and mouth just as I lobbed it at his face. The granules barely reached—my aim was severely hampered by the positioning of my wrist—but just enough took flight to catch in his breath. He started to sputter, and I thrust all my weight to the side, rolling with all my might until it was
me
on top of
him
.