The Sorcerer's Loss by H D A Roberts

Author:H D A Roberts [Roberts, H D A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-30T22:00:00+00:00

Monday turned up, and so did Cassandra. She actually smiled at me before the lecture began. This one was quite useful. She and Hopkins covered a wide variety of magical creatures, particularly the dangerous ones; where to find them, how to deal with them, that sort of thing.

Generally the rule of thumb is leave them alone! Particularly the Unseelie, which were a sort of Fairy; they're nasty, tricky, power-hungry little brutes, and if you think you've seen one, vacate the area, if not the county. The same applied to just about everything else we covered, vampires, salamanders, drakes, succubae (a bit late for that warning); a dozen others.

Afterwards we started to file out, and Cassandra put her hand on my shoulder before I could get away.

"You know what's coming, don't even try to slink off, Shadowborn," she said in a whisper. Bill and Cathy stopped, so did Belle. The Acolytes filed out along with the usual hangers-on.

"Is this absolutely necessary?" I asked in a weak tone that wasn't entirely faked, "I'm fragile."

She looked over at my friends and Belle, who were lingering.

"They're with me," I said.

She nodded, "If you're tough enough to throw lightning at my face, you're tough enough to face the consequences."

"Allegedly! And didn't the punch you administered count as consequences?" I asked as she pulled me back to the ring.

"No," Cassandra said simply with an evil smirk on her face.

Hopkins gestured at my friends and they resumed their seats, grins on their faces. The teacher went to the duelling supplies cupboard and came back with two safety gauntlets, tossing one to each of us, which I promptly dropped. Cassandra smirked again.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I said, picking the gauntlet off the floor and strapping it on. It was basic protective gear, dissipating any magical attack that came at it. It worked in concert with the duelling circle, shielding the participants in the duel from harm. It wouldn't stand up to a deliberate attempt to circumvent it, but it was good enough if everyone was playing by the rules.

"Shall we start off slow?" Cassandra suggested, "No High Magic?"

"Fair enough," I said, "best of three?"

She nodded and dropped into a guard.

"You both ready?" Hopkins asked from outside the ring.

I prepared my shield constructs. We both nodded.

"Alright, duel!" Hopkins barked.

I had my shields up in less than a second, and it was still almost too late. Cassandra bounced off them almost as soon as I'd conjured them, she was scary-fast.

"Ouch," she said, rubbing her fist, which she'd tried to swat me with, if I'm any judge, "quick little brute, aren't you?"

I cast Mage Sight and watched her start to gather energy. She was an unknown quantity as far as ranged magic was concerned, so I erred on the side of caution, and trebled my shield cover. I saw Flesh Magic, so she'd likely throw curses, but that could mean anything from vomiting to a massive brain haemorrhage (hopefully closer to the former rather than the latter!). She cast a spell, almost lazily and it disintegrated on contact with my shield.

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