The Sports Captain's Tale полностью

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 …