The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

War Games

Hatim

We were all looking forward to the war game, ‘specially ‘cos we were doing so well with weapons practice. Then it started and suddenly we weren’t anymore. We were all sitting around this flat field with a hill around part of it. The two teams came on at opposite ends of the field and moved up towards each other. When the battle started I saw straight off that we were going to get massacred.

Aliya

The beginning was classic. The two sides entered the arena and hung back while they sized each other up and spotted the known champions. These usually take a centre position at the front, though sometimes cohorts will organize spoilers who can get in the way of the champions and give their own champions an edge. If that happens though, it can mean that the team fielding the spoilers finds itself shorthanded, as they have two onto one in many cases and their weaker players can be overwhelmed by the opposition. Sea Wolves looked much the better organized and positioned team.

Max

Falcons either hadn’t done their homework well enough and scryed out the Sea Wolves champions, or they were going for some elaborate spoiling plan. For myself I’d have guessed the first. They just didn’t look as if they knew who to go for first. Sea Wolves looked from the start like a side that had hit teams prepared to take out the star fighters, you could see the hit teams by the way they stood and the way their mates kept sparse in front of them. When they moved they were fast and direct. Falcons were forming a mob with their stronger fighters to the front, but they didn’t have good positioning at the back – there was just no sign of them being prepared to use the weaker fighters to encircle the Sea Wolves. 

Miya

It was depressing to watch. Okay, Aliya had said that we were getting on quick, but this lot were well ahead of us. They got messed into each other and I watched a load of fighting that looked frightening from where I was. Like, no one got hurt, ‘cos the sticks were only solid when they hit each other. When they hit another person they passed through them, but the one that got ‘hit’ turned red and went down. We couldn’t fight like that. I knew that Brendan could, but in that ruck we’d all be on our own and the rest of us would get massacred.

Serena

It looked like a game of chess where all the pieces moved at once. We didn’t have the skills to fight like that and worse, we didn’t know how to organize ourselves. Even I could see that the Sea Wolves were picking out certain people and going for them first. After that it was mopping up the rest of the Falcons. We didn’t know who we’d be up against, we didn’t know who their best fighters were and we didn’t know who our best ones were to put up against them.  We were going to get massacred.

Xianjin

Well, obviously they were going to get massacred, that’s what always happens to a cohort on their first time out. Always does, always will. In the meantime, there were some Polish boys in the Sea Wolves cohort and they just don’t make them nicer than they do in Poland. I’d love to have the recipe; these British boys they have now just don’t know how to treat a girl properly at all.

Niall

I didn’t even get to see the war game as I was busy discussing things with visitors. From what I heard I didn’t miss much, young teams, not well experienced.

Adam

The L’s came up to talk to me even before the battle was over. “Can you get us all to fight like you do before the end of next week? ‘Cos if you can’t then we are going to get creamed,” said Lucas.