The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

The Fight that Couldn't Have Been

Adam

I went back into the hall and stuffed the rest of my breakfast down my neck. I was already regretting telling Phoebe about the books. Now I’d have to get her to promise she wouldn’t say anything when we got out. Bugger.

A bell tolled outside and the seniors came back in to get us all to line up and file out and go down to a field. Communication wasn’t great here and I didn’t have a clue what we were supposed to be doing.

When we arrived, other groups were practising what looked like various styles of martial arts. That looked a bit more like it. Lined up in front of us were a set of straw bales with pumpkin heads set up on poles.

Even as we got there I could see the Yorkshire man from the walk yesterday, talking to… I’d better get used to calling her Malaika; otherwise I’d use the wrong name at some point. He told us to sit down and not fidget. How to describe him? He wasn’t an angry person, just very intense, but it worked out the same way – I didn’t think anyone would try to find out what would happen to fidgetters.

“When you’ve mastered the skills we teach here, you should be able to project your own energy in ways you can use to defend yourself.” He began. “Like this.”

He spun and slashed out at one of the straw dummies. It sliced in half along the diagonal as if cut by a sword.

“Or this.” He spun the other way and pushed a palm towards the dummy on the other end of the line. It shuddered visibly as if shoulder-charged by someone big.

“Or.” He did some gesture and a ball of flame shot from his hand and covered the dummy. He turned back to us, opened his mouth as if to speak and then turned back to the dummy, blew at it as you would a candle and the flames went out.

The cohort was gobsmacked; mouths hanging open all around. For myself, well, I’ve seen Kunetsuka Sensei do things that impressed me as much without having a quantum computer to put in the special effects.

“Now, before you reach that stage, you’ll find it useful if you’ve some object that allows you to focus and direct energies through. The traditional wizard’s wand is one you’ll practice with. Later.”

He drew one from his sleeve. “Its chief advantage is it’s light, which is important if you’re going to carry it all day, and easily hidden. Make no mistake though – it’s not a magical thing in its own right. The power comes from you. I’ve seen young Mages use twigs they plucked from trees as wands. So long as you don’t try to use Rowan wood, and so long as you can think of it as a focus, anything wooden’ll work. Mind, I’d leave your mam’s rolling pin at home or she’ll likely clip your ear for you.”

There were a few laughs, but I think they were being kind.

“The chief disadvantage, for you, at present, is it’s just a small piece of wood. You can’t yet do this…” He turned again to the dummies and blasted one clear out of the ground by flicking the wand at it. “And if you can’t, then a wand’s nowt more than a pencil you can’t even use to write angry letters with. Therefore, we begin our training with the staff. Chuck me that one, would you Max?”

The thing Max threw over to him looked like a broomstick, without the broom bit on the end. This looked interesting. Despite myself, I wanted to see what happened next.

“It’s a big bit of wood. No more useful for magic than a little bit of wood, however, it can do this…”

Again the swing, but this time he faced the dummy with the staff held like a snooker cue and stabbed it forwards in honte tsuki as he lunged. The dummy shook violently and dust rose again. Without pause, he back-stepped, side-stepped, changed his grip on the staff and swung it down like a sword against the side of the pumpkin head on the next dummy – naname uchi. The pumpkin exploded, but the pieces hadn’t all made it to the ground before he’d swirled, side-stepped round to stand in front of the next dummy and stabbed the staff backwards to hit it so hard it canted over at an angle – ushiro tsuki. Text book execution. Very neat. He turned back to us and the dummy slowly tilted and fell. Hub-cap from the exploding car syndrome. That dummy had watched too many films.