“Cut at a downward angle!” my mother shouted, the cutter erupting into a five-foot-long length in her hand. “Start high on the inside, midway down from the knee, and cut at a downward angle, so that you end approximately three inches lower on the other end. That will tip them over the edge rather than to the inside!”
She started to cut below Rachel Pine’s knees, just as she had described, the sickly orange color of the cutter glaring white as it bit into the metal, and within seconds it was a quarter of the way through, my mother’s arms flexing as she pushed the cutter along. I watched for a second and then moved over to the edge of the hole, where I could now see Kellan hanging at the edge, looking around for me.
He spotted me, and his mouth opened in question, but I cut him off. “They’re coming in from the back side of the statues. I need you and your team to go past the barricades, about a quarter of the way toward their side, wait for them to pass, and then follow a little bit behind them.”
Kellan hesitated, and then nodded. “You’re right—that’s the only way to get any sort of advantage over them. Catch them between us in a classic pincer move.”
He started to lash off, but paused when I said, “Watch out for anyone on lookout underneath. If they manage to sound the alarm, they can swing around on you and take you out. Don’t get me wrong—it would buy us time to fix this statue problem—but you’re more valuable the longer you stay in this fight.”
Kellan gave a surprised laugh and flashed me a thumbs-up before moving away. I heard him barking orders to his team, and then turned away, confident that he would do the best he could. I looked around and saw that my mother was now two thirds of the way through her statue, but everyone else was moving more slowly.
“Maddox, get over there and help Min-Ha!” I called. I hated pulling Maddox off the statue she was currently working on, but Min-Ha’s was the second one in, which meant it was the lynchpin statue for the other team’s strategy. Without it, there would be a wide gap between the first and third statue that would leave them exposed and vulnerable, while giving us line of sight on them. We needed to remove it first to create a break in that cover, and then we could worry about the other one. “Dylan, Zale! Get up on the third statue in and report how close they are! They’ve got to be getting near.”
Dylan, in an extremely gutsy move, immediately cast her lash onto the first statue—the one that Leo was currently cutting through. The statue creaked as she swung in a wide circle around it, causing Leo to retract the blade and stagger back, concern and fear that he had done something wrong crossing his face. I gritted my teeth together, angry that she would do something so dangerous, and motioned for Leo to keep going as Dylan tossed a lash toward the statue my mother was almost finished cutting through. The statue began to slide just before Dylan’s weight hit it—and then sped up right after, beginning to tilt backward.
Leo watched for a second, and then turned back to cutting. I saw a grim yet satisfied look on Leo’s face as he continued to slice through the statue, and the sight made me pause, until I realized which statue he was taking down: Ezekial Pine, the man who had murdered Leo’s creator. No wonder he looked satisfied—he was exacting his metaphorical revenge on him. I absorbed that for a moment while I continued to track Dylan’s movement.
Dylan threw another lash as she swung up and around Rachel Pine’s falling form, connecting with the third statue and disconnecting her line just as the statue completely detached from the solid anchor its legs had provided. It landed headfirst in the water below with a splash. The legs, still visible over the banister, continued to swing over, until they landed with a second splash.
Dylan finished her belay-like climb up the statue’s arm, and turned so that her back was facing us, leaning forward slightly so she could peek out past the statue for signs of our attackers. It was a good position, as it required very little movement on her part, while keeping her almost invisible to them.
And it would have to do. I needed to make sure that everyone else was in place and that the statues were well on their way down, because we didn’t have a moment to waste. I leaned forward to check on the progress of Min-Ha’s statue, and to see where Zale was.
Zale hadn’t pulled off Dylan’s theatrical stunt, and was now lashing his way up the front of a statue opposite Dylan. Frankly, I was little surprised to see him there—I hadn’t expected him to follow my orders—and watched for a second as he climbed. Then a sharp grating sound caught my attention, and I turned in time to see the statue Min-Ha and Maddox had been working on break free. Only it didn’t fall forward, so much as it slid. I watched, a knot forming in my stomach as the slanted edge of the statue’s shins crashed into the handrails. They snapped free from where they were mounted, and the entire bridge shuddered as the statue scraped along the edge on its way down, kicking up sparks under the friction of the massive slab of metal sliding off the edge of the bridge. Min-Ha and Maddox danced back a few steps, their arms coming up to shield their eyes.
The sparks continued, an acrid smell of smoke filled the air, and then the statue finally hit the water with a splash, leaving only the face of Otto Klein—the first representative from the Mechanics Department and one of the Founders—resting against the outer edge of the bridge. For a second, his head teetered against the side, and then something gave and it dragged off to the left, disappearing with a shredding, metallic sound interrupted by the snap snap snap of the banister breaking.
For a second, I worried that the impact of the statue on the bridge might have tossed a few of our competitors free—but then realized that as long as no one got trapped underneath it, they’d be fine. If they did, they’d be dead.
I hoped for the former over the latter, but didn’t dwell on it. There just wasn’t any time.
Maddox and Min-Ha were racing toward the other statue, cutters in hand, when Zale whistled, and I looked up to see him making a hand signal at me—two open palms followed by two fingers. They were twelve statues away. I looked at Dylan, and she flashed eleven fingers.
“Zale! Min-Ha! Fill the void where the statue used to be. Dylan, you’re with Holly, there, opposite of them!” I ordered, pointing at my mother. “Maddox, get that other statue down. Grey, how’s it coming?”
“Almost got it!” he shouted back, and sure enough, seconds later, his statue came crashing down. Relief poured through me; we had limited their ability to enter on that side, somewhat. Now we just needed to make sure that Maddox got finished on the other side as well, and we could gain at least a level playing field.
“Great! Back up, Holly and Dylan. Maddox?”
“Give me a second,” she grunted, and I glanced over to see her already about halfway through the statue.
Meanwhile, Zale and Dylan had clambered down their own statues to get into position, and I pulled my baton out, prepared to back up Min-Ha’s side, while my father rushed over from his position in front of the hall, helping to fill the hole.
With him in place, and Leo backing up my mother and Dylan on the other side, I forced myself to stand still, needing to keep a clear picture of the battlefield as it unfurled. I saw Frederick racing back, almost to the forwardmost barricade, and realized that he had figured out that something was up. I was surprisingly glad to see him, his nebulous legacy status notwithstanding. We were going to need all the help we could get.
Seconds later, the first crimson-clad figure swung around the third statue on Min-Ha’s side, and suddenly, both sides of the bridge were embroiled in battle. I checked on Maddox and saw that she was almost finished cutting through her statue, and then checked on the side of the battle that Zale was now leading. The first person through was already flying past him in an uncontrolled tumble that told me she’d been caught and thrown by the team there, but three more were swinging in behind her. Min-Ha got hit in the chest with a brutal, two-legged kick, and went flying in the direction of the hole.
I snapped into action, throwing my lash end a few feet in front of her, anticipating her
trajectory. It landed with a blue flash, and I immediately braced a leg against the barricade. She wasn’t heavy, but she was falling, and the weight of her body hitting the end of the line was enough to make my bones rattle in my joints. As soon as she stopped bouncing, I began to reel in the line using my gyros. Then her weight suddenly disappeared, and seconds later, I saw her climbing over the edge of the hole under the power of her own lashes, and moving to rejoin the fight.
The bridge shuddered as the last statue dropped, and then Maddox was suddenly in the fray as well, her baton flying to push back three attackers. I watched them for a second, and then turned my attention to my mother’s side of the bridge, checking to see how the battle was going.
The first thing I noticed was that Dylan was missing—and then I saw her clinging to the side of the third statue, lying in wait. Sure enough, a second person swung past her, and to my utmost surprise, she flexed her thighs and leapt off the side of the statue, aiming a kick for the attacker.
She caught him in the side, knocking him off course, and then swung back, narrowly avoiding a kick to her head as a third attacker swung by. My mother was in the process of electrocuting their first attacker when the guy who got past Dylan planted a foot into her shoulder, slamming her back several staggering steps, and right into Leo.
Leo caught her with a steadying grip, but then the man was on them, his baton whirling and swinging for my mom. I grabbed the edge of the barricade, preparing to vault over and intercede, but Leo, with one steadying arm still around my mother’s shoulder, neatly deflected the blow with his own baton.
Something grabbed my wrist, and I looked down in time to see a baton aimed for my arm. I jerked my hand back, breaking the grip of the candidate who had somehow found a way to sneak up under the bridge, and stumbled back, still fumbling to understand how they could’ve gotten up here me without me noticing. Before I could figure it out, he swung up and charged.
I ducked down, avoiding the blow from the baton, but his knee caught me in the stomach, hard enough to knock the breath out of me and drop me to the ground. I curled up around myself as a deep, throbbing pain radiated from the impact site. I drew in a ragged, difficult breath, and then forced my body to roll, anticipating the next attack.
Sharp bursts of heat hit the back of my head as his baton came down in the place where it had just been, and panic suddenly gripped me. He had been aiming for my head! It could’ve been an accident, but my gut told me it wasn’t. He was trying to kill me.
I scrambled to my hands and feet, a surge of adrenaline helping to neutralize the pain. Getting my feet under me, I tried to move away, but a hand grabbed my hair, yanking me back.
I slammed my foot back on instinct, and was rewarded with a deep crack and a sharp cry. I then twisted around and lashed out with an elbow, but my timing was off and I missed him as he fell to the ground. He retaliated by shoving a hand into my back, strongly enough that I fell forward onto my stomach.
My chin slammed into the metal ground, and then I felt a hand grabbing a fistful of my uniform on the back of my thigh, and an intense weight coming over my legs, and realized that he was climbing up the back of my body.
I heard the hum of the baton and began to struggle, but my legs were weighed down by his torso. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end in anticipation of the blow he was about to plant there with his baton—but then there was a wet smacking sound, and suddenly his weight was gone.
I twisted around to see my mother standing over me, shaking out her fist, and my attacker on the ground, his right eye already beginning to swell. He groaned and started to push up off the ground, but my mother’s foot snapped out and hit him square in the face, knocking him out.
“You okay?” she asked, offering me a hand up, her features lined with concern and fear. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. I didn’t want her or the rest of the Knights thinking I needed my mother to save me, but at the same time… I wanted to give her a hug for intervening. The guy had caught me off guard.
Instead, I settled for taking her hand, letting her help me up, and looking around. “Why are you here? What’s going on?”
Frederick was down on the ground unconscious, but Zale, Norman, and Min-Ha were in the process of eliminating the last attacker on their side. Dylan was losing ground on hers, but she and Leo were being joined by Kellan and Sella, who were rushing in behind the two remaining attackers on that side, their batons already out.
“We took out three; Maddox’s side took out four. Kellan’s team got two on the statues, and with this guy here—”
My mother’s voice was cut off as the final guy was pitched over the side by Leo and Kellan, and then a booming chime sounded. I looked around, stunned by how suddenly everything just stopped, and then the walls of the arena filled with Scipio’s face.
“Congratulations, candidates,” he announced in a booming voice that was encased in ice. I suddenly thought of Rose, and found myself wondering if she was the reason he sounded that way. Or rather… the lack of her. I made a mental note to ask Leo, and focused on what Scipio was saying, rather than how he was saying it. Now that the fight was over, all I wanted to do was go home and take a nap.
“—Under Liana Castell’s leadership, you were able to repel the invaders. Now, normally, you would be given the rest of the day to rest and prepare for the next challenge, but due to heightened security concerns, we will be concluding the Tourney this evening. You are expected to report tonight at eight o’clock, and will be accompanied by officials for the remainder of the day. This change is top secret; only you, the council members, and the test designers are aware of this change, until it is announced to the rest of the Tower just before the challenge begins.” I looked around and quickly saw that all the drones had left, leaving us alone in the still of the arena. It was disquieting. I knew they would be back—the Knights of the Tower would not uphold any Champion that won without being able to view their actions during the final challenge—but still it was eerie to realize that no one was watching this. “This secrecy is for your protection, so act accordingly. Please return to your starting elevators and proceed to the preparation rooms to have your equipment checked and exchanged for your own, as well as to meet your escorts. I will see you soon, candidates. Until then, rest, and prepare, for before the day is over, one of you will be named Champion.”
The screen went dark, and I found the elation that had barely begun to form suddenly dashed under the realization that the Tourney would be finished. Tonight.
30
We walked back to the elevators that the officials had used to lead us into the arena, and I caught one last glimpse of my mother before we were lowered down into the starting rooms. The same officials who had overseen our preparation stripped us of everything, including our uniforms. My bracelet with Quess’s shockers was left alone, thankfully, but all forms of jewelry were pretty much ignored, from the ring on Dylan’s finger to the chain around Maddox’s neck. We were issued new uniforms, our pads returned, and were then escorted from the room to our apartments.
Dylan insisted on going back to her own apartment instead of joining us in ours, and I didn’t press her too hard about it. Now that the final challenge was upon us, we were back to being competitors again—not that we had ever really stopped. I knew she was worried about her standing after the stunt I had pulled on the bridge, and I felt a small pang of guilt that I had sabotaged her chances, though I didn’t allow it to become remorse. I had done what I needed to at the time to ensure our victory and make it to the final challenge.
She and the official exited a few floors below us, and then we walked down the hall, escorted by three officials, right up to our door.
“You will remain here while the designers set up the arena,” the lead official announced. “You are not permitted to exit the Citadel, as an additional security feature, so if you have need for any food, you will contact us, and we will have meals sent u
p to you. If any of you wish to drop out of the Tourney before the final challenge, you may do so from the Knights’ server through your pad. Net permissions will not be restored until the end of the final challenge, to prevent any cheating, and you will have no visitors.”
I blinked, growing alarmed by all the restrictions she was listing off. I wasn’t completely sure about Tourney security protocols, but I was certain these were new, and meant to make us feel safe and secure. Still, all I heard was that we couldn’t reach out to our friends, and they couldn’t reach out to us. That we were potentially trapped, should anyone come after us. And that we would be susceptible to being poisoned or otherwise adversely affected, if we ordered our food from them.
Thank Scipio I had made us use our ration cards for the week to buy enough food to feed us all in our apartment, but that only addressed one of my concerns. I needed to figure out a way to get in touch with Zoe, Eric, and Quess, to let them know that the Tourney was ending today, but that we were fine, and still together. I didn’t want to think about what they might do trying to find out what had happened to us, so keeping them informed was critical. Maybe I could try to net Alex. He frequently monitored my net, which meant there was every chance he would see that I was trying to reach out to him and override the block, right?
I honestly wasn’t certain about that. I knew Alex could scramble the transmission and hide it from the logs, but overriding a block might be a bit more difficult. Even worse, it could put him at a higher risk of getting caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, and I knew for a fact that Sadie Monroe was gunning for him in an attempt to get to me.