The once quiet knight academy had become a panicked mess as the thousand-or-so squires tried to escape to the field. Simon and Ethan could barely walk from the exhaustion of being woken up mid-sleep, and yet the crazed state of the school kept them wide-eyed the entire time. Professors Rawlings, Roberts, and Child stood in the hallway to guide the crowd flooding out from the boys’ tower safely.
Ethan walked around a corner with Simon directly behind him, almost reaching the main entryway to the academy where they’d safely be able to exit. Through the crowd of students, it was impossible to make anything out in the dimly lit hallway. The air was damp with the early morning dew, and all Simon and Ethan wanted were their beds back. Even their eyes begged for them to just turn around and go back to the tower with their unfinished business, doing everything in their power to close themselves.
“Whatever monster is bothering us, can it just… not?” asked Simon sleepily.
“Agreed,” said Ethan, only half-hearing what Simon said.
Effort put toward keeping their eyes open was no longer as needed when a creature fell down from the ceiling a few feet from where they were. It was about the size of a large dog, with the head of a rooster and body of a wyvern. Thin wings slowly spread out in reveal as the poor student it had chosen as its perch began to realize exactly what was on their head.
“Cockatrice!” shouted out a nearby student.
Simon and Ethan knew that shout to be Arthur’s. At his cry, the entire student body began to run around in a riot, doing everything it took to get away from the creature. Ethan didn’t catch a good look at the kid the monster landed on before the craze, but could tell that they had fallen face-flat on the ground and weren’t moving. He and Simon ducked into the first door available which just so happened to be the dining hall, left eerily empty. The dramatic turn from panic to silence as the duo slammed the doors shut was so abrupt that they just stood with their backs against the doors for a dozen seconds.
“Hey,” began Ethan. “You’re all nuts about mythical animals and stuff. Wanna tell me what the crap a cockatrice is?”
“Yeah,” began Simon, trying to catch his breath as he and Ethan pulled away from the doors and slowly maneuvered through the tables to reach the other end of the room. “The cockatrice is a rooster-headed draconic creature that has the innate ability to kill anything it breathes on. Known methods of killing it outside of the usual stabby-stab are mirrors and the crow of a morning rooster. It is also worth noting that weasels are immune to their ability.”
“Chicken basilisk, got it,” noted Ethan.
The duo reached the other end of the room where the door leading into the arithmetic hall was positioned, and neither moved to reach for the doorknob.
“What’s the plan, E-hat?”
Ethan paused for a moment. “Equipment room. My sword, your swallow.”
“Shouldn’t we just plan an escape route?”
“We can do that once I know that we have some form of self-defense. It’s possible there are more than just one of these things around the academy.”
Simon nodded.
“All the smaller exits in the castle are probably going to be crowded by the others trying to escape, so we better take a back exit,” explained Ethan.
“Which one do you think is best?”
“Stables are our best bet. It’s a bit further than I’m comfortable walking but at least we know how to get there in a rush.”
Again, Simon nodded.
Ethan inhaled slightly before reaching for the knob and pulling the door open quickly and quietly, making sure it wouldn’t bang against the wall. Simon stepped out into the dark hallway and looked down both ways. On one end was another hallway full of squires running in a panic, being blocked from going down by Professor Fresques, who had his longsword drawn. Ethan made a motion with his hand and the two turned the opposite direction down the hallway, turning a corner as swiftly as possible.
The next hallway was even more eerily quiet, the distant sound of panic acting as the only mention of time passing. Ethan moved past the rows of classrooms, grabbing a torch from the wall for some extra lighting. Echoes of their footsteps reverberated through the hall for a good minute, turning a few more corners with extra caution. Then, something scratching at the floor behind them froze them in place, before letting out a shrill cry.
Both squires bolted in a sprint, dodging around the hallways as the scratching against stone followed them in close pursuit. Neither of them dared look back to confirm what it was that was chasing them, only worrying about the fact that it was chasing them. Simon turned a corner a bit too quickly and blindly, running straight into a statue of some war hero in the history hallway. Ethan turned and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him to his feet before Simon’s back even had the chance to hit the ground. Finally, they turned the corner past the hospital wing and found themselves graced with the sight of the storage room. Standing in front of it was Arthur and Professor Banks, the latter of which was holding a halberd. Both turned to look at Simon and Ethan and whatever third party was chasing them before standing off to the side.
If they were running any closer to the ground, they might as well have somersaulted into the weapons storage room. Banks firmly slammed the door shut as the duo crashed into the weapon’s lockers, the sound of a creature ramming into it promptly following.
“What are you guys doing?” asked Arthur in a confused panic.
“Getting our weapons,” said Simon, scrambling to his feet and grabbing one of the two available swallows. He preferred the one that didn’t have a sliver of skeleton bone in its blade.
Ethan stood up and opened the large locker full of battle-ready longswords, finding one he marked with a red ribbon for personal use. Arthur helped him pull it free from the pile as Simon adjusted the handle of the swallow to his liking.
“I need to get you two back with the rest of the school,” said Professor Banks.
“Y’think?” asked Simon sarcastically.
The professor gave Simon a look before turning to Arthur.
“Meet me tomorrow before dawn. You’ll have my location, regardless of where tonight leads us. I’m going to lure this one away from you three so you can make a break for the stables and escape that way. You are to meet up with your peers and stay with them. Understood?”
Arthur gave Banks a somewhat worried nod. Banks nodded back, raising his halberd to the ready and kicking open the door. The cockatrice on the other side, ruffled in feathers, was knocked back against the opposite wall by the door and had to regain its footing. It locked eyes with the survival professor before chasing him off down the hallway. Ethan, stepping in front of Arthur, led the group out of the room and back into the hallway, continuing into the battle tactics hallway. They moved at a speed walk as Ethan tried to lead them through the hallways, struggling to navigate with the foreign walls. Nothing looked familiar thanks to the fact that the castle looked entirely different at night.
“Where’s your weapon, Arthur?” asked Simon as he took note of Arthur’s empty hands.
Arthur didn’t respond, and just kept close behind Ethan. After some struggles in navigating the school, they reached the stables where the horses had already been awakened by the panic of the night. Simon gave Chai a comforting stroke along her mane as he passed, walking out the open doorway into the chill of open night. Everyone took a mild sigh of relief under the newfound cover of the cloudy night.
Ethan turned to look at the sides of the academy, making up his mind on the right side of the structure. “Keep close. They can’t be too far.”
“Copy that Ethan,” said Arthur.
They began to progress around the outer wall of the building, Ethan tracing his fingers along the lines in-between the brick as they walked. Grass tickled Simon’s ankles, revealing that he had forgotten to put his boots on in the rush out of the dorm. He scratched at his feet as Arthur coughed for him to keep up.
“What were you doing with Professor Banks anyway?” asked Simon.
“Important… stuff…” explained Arthur, poorly.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Can you just give me a straight answer?” said Simon, annoyed.
“Maybe you should learn the lesson about how keeping your nose out of business it wasn’t invited to will land you in better situations than what doing so will land you in otherwise,” said Arthur rather defensively.
“You want to open that can of wyrms?” asked Simon, raring to go at it with Arthur. “Maybe you could explain to us why you’re bag isn’t the same as the ones provided by the academy, or why you’re so strangely interested in magic, or why you randomly just chose to hang out with me and Ethan the day you came to the school, or-”
“Simon, knock it off,” said Ethan, trying to focus on tracing the exterior of the school.
“You can’t tell me Arthur hasn’t been suspicious since the moment he arrived at Ethan. I know you know it too, you’re just too noble to bring it up.”
“What’s so wrong about just trying to fit in and live an ordinary life for a few weeks?” asked Arthur. “I’m doing my best over here!”
“If you wanted to fit in, you could have started by just being straight-forward about everything! Why does all of whatever is going on have to be so secretive?!”
“Knock. It. Off!” shouted Ethan in mass disruption to the night. “Would it kill you two to just sit tight and then do a bunch of yelling once we know there aren’t any death-breathing birds wandering about?!”
Just then, the same death-breathing bird he was just speaking about squawked as it made its presence known in the darkness. Neither of the three could see it, but the sound froze them solid, as if the sight of medusa had just turned them to stone. Ethan raised his sword above his hip as Simon placed his double-bladed weapon at his front, while Arthur plainly raised his hands in defense.
A horribly long pause followed as the trio stood ready for anything. Before there was any time to react, the bird-headed monster flew into Ethan’s torchlight and bit onto the bar of Simon’s swallow.
Panic, likely better known as adrenaline, shot through Simon’s bloodstream as he threw the weapon as hard as he could into the darkness. It fell into the grass a shorter distance away than he’d have liked, while Ethan jumped forward and swung his sword at the greater darkness. Arthur stepped forward and stopped in his tracks, biting the inside of his cheek, as Simon ran up to help Ethan. One swing through the darkness missed, followed by another, as his torch was ripped from his other hand by Simon and thrown toward the creature. Its scaly neck revealed, Ethan ripped a third swing as hard as he could at it, slicing the beast’s head clean off.
No time was left for a sigh as before, with more shrill cries sounding through the field beyond where the trio stood their ground.
“Where the hell are these things coming from?” asked Simon.
“The Hallowed Wood,” said Arthur in response.
Without any time to question, two more cockatrice stepped into the torchlight as fire caught on the grass of the field. Ethan held his sword at the ready once more, slashing at one as it leaped toward him. It rolled through the air off to the side after meeting with the blunt of the blade, followed by the second as it slipped past Ethan’s responsive swing and but onto his hand. Simon moved quickly to grab the creature by its wings and pull it free of Ethan, who stumbled onto his back, squeezing his injured hand with the other. Arthur reached to grab his dropped longsword and ran past Simon to swing at the oncoming cockatrice.
Every single swing through the firelight missed. Simon and Ethan had learned that Arthur’s proficiency in magical studies came at the cost of any prowess with a sword or melee weapon. Even seeing him wield a basic dagger in dueling made Simon look like a royal knight in comparison. After half-a-dozen missed slices through the air, the weapon slipped from Arthur’s grip and joined Simon’s swallow in the volume of the night.
“Great going Arthur,” said Simon. “Now we’re all dead.”
Arthur stepped back toward the weaponless Simon and fallen Ethan, hands raised in uncertainty of what to do. Joined by another companion, three total draconids began to surround them as they were held back by the stone wall of the academy.
Arthur muttered. “It’s too early for this.”
Simon looked at the boy.
“But I have no other choice.”
Each monster made one more step towards the group as Arthur raised his hands purposefully in the air, motioning with them. Suddenly, the fire that had grown from the torch onto the grass began to rise up even higher, and moved to surround the cockatrice, forming a line between them.
“Columna Flammae!” shouted Arthur.
The ring of fire that had been traced around the reptile-like birds suddenly burst into a bright pillar of fire. Every blade of grass in the field was suddenly made visible by the light which burst upon them. Cries of the cockatrice rang through the air and were then quickly silenced as the bright pillar which stretched into the sky began to thin out and dim. In all but a second, the radiant beam had then vanished, and it had taken the monsters with it. Arthur stumbled backward a few steps, gasping for a moment, before pushing himself up straight. Simon quickly grabbed Ethan’s free hand and pulled him back to his feet.
All three of the group broke out into a full sprint, disregarding any caution to find their way back to the rest of the school. Questions clawed away at Simon’s mind but received the boot as his lungs began to strain for air. Even in dire situations like this, his lack of stamina refused to make any exceptions.
They passed the windows that showed the interiors of various classrooms Simon and Ethan had spent their days droning within. It was all illuminated by an exceptionally bright flame that Arthur appeared to carry in his own hand, with no torch between them. Ethan passed Arthur in their run and began to lead them around the outer walls of the dueling courts and through one of the various courtyards. He felt the splash of water from a fountain at the center of the courtyard on his arm as he passed, the coolness adding to the freezing chill of the night that felt no safer than inside the school. They passed a moss-covered statue of some roman goddess when two more cockatrice appeared in their way. Arthur passed the other two as they came to a halt, continuing his run as his arms raised into the air and he cried out:
“Solis Radius!”
Three beams of light struck the creatures and fell them where they stood, inviting Ethan and Simon to progress with their ally. They ducked through some trees and bushes, breaking out through the courtyard to the front fields of the school at long last. Standing in uniform lines, divided among individual professors, were their peers, who roared with whispers of worry and anxiety. Simon, Ethan, and Arthur gave a final push to their legs as their run became as fast as they could travel. Arthur extinguished the flame in his hand as Professor Rawlings noticed them, opening his arm and standing off to the side to let them join his group of students.
At long last, the trio came to a complete halt. Having been running for so long, it now felt unnatural to not be moving. The students around them looked at them in wonder as they all tried best to catch their breath. Simon gave in to gravity and fell onto his back, arms and legs wide as the reality of exhaustion fell upon him. Ethan fell to a sitting position himself and Arthur squatted down in a furious pant.
“What the crap were you three doing?!” demanded Rawlings.
“Give us… a break… teach…” Simon failed to say clearly. “Those birds… ain’t like your everyday… canary.”
A few squires in the audience chuckled.
“You could have died!”
“But we didn’t,” said Ethan.
Arthur smiled slightly and gave the other two a glance, muttering under his breath. “Something about this rings a bit familiar.”
Simon and Ethan smiled a little too.
“Do I worry what the Headmaster’s going to tell me when he finds out-” began Rawlings.
“Leave them be Professor,” defended a girl. It was the blonde girl Simon duelled last week. “They look worse for wear without you dragging over them too.”
Rawlings sighed and turned back to the school, leaving the group to their own wits. Arthur fell back on his butt as Ethan coughed a little. Simon felt like he might die from exhaustion at that very moment if it were possible. His entire chest was filled with an unpleasant metallic taste that he was all too familiar with.
“Betcha wish you were better at dueling now, eh Simon?” teased Ethan.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Simon wearily. There wasn’t any fight left in him even for getting back at his best friend.
“At least we lucked out at getting the wildcard over here.”
Arthur swallowed and let his gaze drop to the ground a bit further. Simon caught his eye for a moment and gave him a reassuring wink. His secret was safe with him. Ethan seemed to have caught the drift as well and forced himself to stand up.
“Did you guys see the cockatrice?” asked a squire nearby.
“See?” said Simon. “Things almost killed us.”
The audience gasped slightly. “Things? As in, plural?”
“Yes, that was plural,” confirmed Ethan. “Now give us some space.”
The student body backed off a little bit and resorted to their individual groups for smaller whisperings as Headmaster Smith rode up towards them all on horseback from the school. Sweat dripped from his balding head as he lifted his torch and voice high to be heard by everyone who was present.
“All students are to follow your professors into Lay Town! Professors will arrange students into rooms at Inns for the night and will take count of them before turning themselves into bed! No one is to return to the school until further specified! Move out!”
The masses of squires began to march behind their professors as the Headmaster rode out beyond them at full-throttle out of sight. The woods separating the academy from the rest of town weren’t as dense as the woods that surrounded the riding grounds, so it wasn’t hard to stay in a solid group. Everyone walked zombielike, praying to any heavenly powers that they might get whisked away to the covers of their beds at that very moment. Even the teachers seemed to be excessively sleep deprived. None as tired as Arthur, Ethan, and Simon, however.
Nothing of the walk from the school field into Lay Town even registered in the trios’ minds. Something about reaching a cobblestone street and being led into some place called the Enchanted Brew happened, and before anything was ever said, they were under three layers of extremely comfortable, heavy blankets in a room exclusively for them. If they heard right, or heard anything at all for that matter, Rawlings wanted to keep them in the same room to rat them out the next day. They didn’t care one way or another. All that mattered was the fact that they were in bed now. But there was one pressing question that Simon needed answered in that moment before his brain could finally relax itself into dreams.
“Arthur…” he said sleepily into the darkness of their Inn room. “Who are you really?”
A pause followed.
“At the mage school, they called me Lorian of Class C13, novice pyromancer.”
Sounded about right.
“But you two can just go back to calling me Logan.”
