Chapter Sixteen – The Challenge Cup
Less than an hour later, all the teams were in the courtyard. It was brutally cold, and cloudless. The stars were clear as ice in night sky. It was a perfect night for a Challenge Cup. Behind the teams, the school was lit up like a shrine, every window a mix of dark faces and yellow light. Everyone cared what happened in the Cup. They were all watching. Lennox did not dare look up. She didn’t want to see the looks of resigned disappointment aimed in her direction.
The Perissodactyla team was on the far left, warming up, stretching their muscles in what appeared to be an eerie choreography. Next was Feliformia; Daryl and Duncan were whispering, Zac was mute, for once, and Felix was eyeing Caniformia beside them. There appeared to be twice as many Caniformia as there were Feliformia, but it was an illusion. There weren’t more team members, they were simply bigger, only Duncan, and Daryl matched them for bulk. Bambridge had known exactly what he wanted, when he handpicked his crew, he gone for strength. He’d chosen an army. Gram was as broad as a grown man, and the rest of the team worked out in the gym obsessively. On the far right was Aves, muttering and fidgeting. Lennox had the feeling some of them were as nervous as her; that could only be a good thing. But nervous for different reasons. She didn’t care about winning, not the way every other student cared. She just didn’t want to be known as the reason why they lost; and she didn’t know how she was going to spend a night alone next to Duncan. The very thought terrified her. What would he say, do… to her?
In the shadow of the gatehouse, a line of Masters stood, grim faced, studying the teams. Conway and Torkil were talking softly. Kearns, Nighten, and Bambridge, dressed in their field kit, were stood apart, silent, watching their respective teams. Even Gnarle was there, close to the wall, and talking, to Lennox’s surprise with Horace and Kellas. Horace’s exclusion from the Caniformia team had been one of the many talking points of the last few weeks. Horace and Kellas were also dressed in field kit. It seemed they were going to be joining the Masters monitoring the Cup.
'Ready?' Duncan asked, by her side, and leaning over and down, so his mouth was close to her ear.
‘Yes.’ She was good at lying.
He stayed close. She felt the heat from his body.
‘When we start on Caniformia, I don’t want you to join in. I want you to run.’
‘What?’
At that moment, Torkil stepped forward.
‘Of all the Challenge Cup events, this one is always the hardest: 24 hours during winter is a test, no matter who you are. So let me remind you, you have all been given a flare for a reason. Use it and within minutes you will have help. In the field with you, will be Masters Kearns, Nighten, Bambridge and the prefects Horace and Kellas. Between them they will span the distance from border to border. But if you use the flare, you are out of the Cup. We come and get you, and then it’s over. The rest of your team are still in the competition, but you’re out.
He paused, and seemed to catch the eye of every student there. ‘Remember, before you can thrive, you must survive. Show us what you’re made of.’
He walked to the side. The other Masters had already gathered there, Kellas and Horace as well. Lennox looked at Kellas, even in the darkness, he stood out, like burnished gold, among rocks. Watching him, she realised she wished he was on the team too. She wished he was her partner in the forest, rather than Duncan. He didn’t talk to her. He treated her like a pariah, but whenever she had needed help, he was there. And she trusted him. The more he rejected her, the more she had grown to trust him. As she stared at him, she realised, he was staring too, straight at her.
Take care.
Had they been closer, had they been alone, she would have blushed. As it was, in the midst of a teeming courtyard, she simply felt her heart lighten. He would be there, somewhere.
Torkil raised a horn to his lips: the sound that issued was like the scream of a swan dying, it tore the night in two, and hell broke loose.
Duncan put a hand on her back, pushed her forward.
‘Run!’ He hissed. ‘To the forest.’
Ahead of her, the Perrisodactyla captain, Olson, was already sprinting. He led his team from the front, and from its heart, tearing across the courtyard as if his life depended on it. Shergar was right behind him.
Duncan was gone from her side, and charged towards the thick group of Caniformia. Like a Colossus, he was immediately surrounded, swinging his fists, his face glowing red. Next to him, Daryl, his mouth slightly open, was punching down, again and again on someone who had already fallen. Zac and Felix had their backs to her. They were fighting, but were being pressed backwards. Euan was almost on top of Zac. As she watched, he caught a blow to his jaw.
‘Run!’ She heard Duncan shout, and realised he was shouting at her. He had noticed she had stopped to watch.
This time she did run. Perissodactyla and Aves were already gone. They had no interest in getting bogged down in the pitched battle in the courtyard. Torkil and Gnarle were watching the fight. Bambridge and Kearns were living it, following every blow.
Nighten, Horace and Kellas had disappeared. She ran out into the darkness, beyond the sight and sound of the rest of her team. There were a few flickers in the slopes above of receding backs. Aves, she guessed, running in the direction of the Dark Hills. There would be plenty of suitable ambush sites there. Everything was going according to Duncan’s plan. Perissodactyla were long gone, but she did not know where. It didn’t matter. Duncan wanted them to find the flag, and bring it to him. It was too dark for them to do much tonight. Tomorrow, it would all happen.
She did not run fast to the woods. There was no need to hurry. She was not being chased, and she preferred being on the move to hiding. But, even though she moved slowly, she reached the outer fringe of the woods too soon. The forest was threateningly alive to her, groaning with sound and movement. She saw more than she wanted to see, heard even more still. The fallen leaves would not lie still, the boughs ahead cracked, and pinprick eyes glowed while sage eyes stayed hidden. She would have preferred to have followed Aves towards the Dark Hills. There she would have felt at ease, and even in the darkness, she would have seen far, and wide, and feel in control. Here, she saw a landscape that kept back more than it revealed. For every gleam and shiver that caught her eye, there were a thousand more, deeper, beyond her view.
As she travelled deeper into the forest, she studied the trees near the path, looking for suitable cover. There were an abundance of trees to choose from, but she was going to be careful. It had to be just right. Eventually she chose a solid looking tree, an oak, thicker than most, and reaching far over the path. She was up in its branches moments later, tucked away from view. She wasn’t safe. But felt safer.
The night crawled past, every second a minute, every minute an hour, while she waited, and waited. She alternated between believing Duncan would appear any moment, or thinking the plan must have somehow gone horribly wrong. She was without time or communication, and had no way of knowing what was happening other than her senses. Duncan had told her to wait here, for him. He was the captain, and the rest of Feliformia were waiting for her to make a mistake. She had to make sure that didn’t happen. She was given a job, and she had to do it.
But in her pocket, digging into her hip, she could feel the end of the flare. All she had to do was pull the cap, and someone would come. Maybe Kellas. He was out there. He might be looking for her right now. Or maybe Kearns. His face would mean disaster, and a reputation for cowardice; a fate worse than the dark forest around. She was tempted to throw the flare away, just to make sure that humiliation could never happen. But she didn’t quite dare.
Sounds filtered through the wood to her ears, making her heart quicken, her senses sharpen.
Something, or someone, was coming. The sounds solidified into footprints and murmurs. She wanted to lean forward, to hear more clearly, but she didn’t. She knew any movement from her could be catastrophic She had to stay undetected, an
d wait.
It wasn’t until the voices were close by that she could finally hear who it was, and what they were saying.
‘We don’t need Olson! We’ve hit the jackpot. Us. You and me. We get back fast and we get the glory.’
Her heart stopped. It was Shergar. And there was only one thing ‘hit the jackpot’ could mean.
‘But Caniformia or Feliformia or whoever is left at Calgacos, aren’t just going to just let us saunter past.’ It was Godfrey, a tall, slim Perissodactyla senior, fast, one of the fastest. He was almost as arrogant as Kellas, but with less reason to be.
‘They will if I pretend to be injured and you carry me.’
Shergar was right. It was a good plan. Tomorrow, it probably wouldn’t have worked. Everyone would be suspicious, but not now when the Cup was only a couple of hours in and no one could see clearly. No one expected the object to have been found. It might work.
Lennox had a split second to make her decision. She could do nothing and stay quiet tomorrow when Perissodactyla won, knowing she could have stopped them. Or she could stop them. It was no choice at all.
She dropped from her perch, silently, and landed on a Godfrey’s back. She knew it was him, because of the way he yelled, and the height she was from the ground. Of Shergar all she saw were the whites of his eyes, and the shape of his retreating back. He had to be the one with the object. That’s why he was running. He did not even hesitate.
She scrambled off Godfrey and sprinted after Shergar, stretching her limbs the way she never did in training, flying through the trees, gaining unmistakeably on Shergar; and he knew it.
She never expected she would be able to catch him. He was fast. He led the pack, in fitness, alongside Nighten. But she gained ground, straight away; and he heard her. She could tell. He did not slow, but he panicked, slipping instead of sprinting. He stumbled once, down to a knee, and she was on him. Her knee in his groin, pressing down hard, and her hands everywhere, feeling for the object. She found it straight away. It was impossible to miss. It was the shield from the Great Hall, and it weighed almost as much as a small child. She tried to hoist it onto her back, but dropped it instead when she was hit hard in the side of her head.
Confused, she teetered from side to side, her vision blurred, and completely vulnerable. Moments later another blow caught her on the side of her jaw. She staggered, almost fell, and while she swayed, confused, in pain, she lost control. She lost all sense of purpose and reason. She was flooded with an uncontrollable bloodlust. She just fought back, ferociously, by tooth and claw, punching, flailing, hitting, biting, anything she could make contact with. She had no idea how long her attack lasted. It could have been moments. It could have been minutes.
It wasn’t the first time she had lost control. The last time was at Kingham College. Some boy, Quentin, had tried to make her do what she didn’t want to do. He had ended up in Hospital and she had ended up at Calgacos. She still didn’t know what she’d done. She never saw him again. They’d made sure of that.
This time she was stopped mid-fight. She was seized from behind, her arms locked tight, unable to move. She thrashed her head from side to side, the taste of blood in her mouth, but it was useless. She was caught like a caged animal.
Gradually, the fit exhausted itself. She stopped struggling, and slumped forwards, held upright only by the fierce pressure on her arms. She let her head fall forwards, let her hair spill out and cover her face. She had no idea where the shield was, and she didn’t care. Nothing mattered, but her shame. She couldn’t even bring herself to raise her head and see what she’d done.
Gradually, the pressure on her arms eased, and disappeared. She dropped to her knees like a condemned woman. Before, the woods had been alive with nocturnal creatures. Now, it was a graveyard, silent and still.
‘Are you finished?’
She snapped her head up, and saw nothing but the glittering eyes of Kellas fixed on her.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was diminished, like an imprint, without substance.
In front of her lay the prostrate forms of two bodies, face down in the dirt .Kellas left her, and bent towards the nearest body. She averted her gaze. Moments later, she heard a crackle and watched a flare soaring up. It coloured the sky like a wound, illuminating the bodies below.
‘They need help,’ Kellas murmured, though she had not asked for an explanation.
She stared at him, at his broad back, bent over the nearer body, while his words sunk slowly in. Then she rose silently. She had to get out of here.
‘Lennox!’
She stopped at once. He had not said her name before, not like that, as if he knew her.
‘What?’
‘You must take this. Then go, straight to Calgacos.’
He stooped, picked up the shield, and thrust it into her arms.
She did not need telling twice. She turned and walked away, back down the path from which she had come. With the shield, she would be slow, it would take most of the night, but she had no choice. It was the only way back inside, the only reason for her to return to Calgacos early, without everyone knowing what she’d done.