Rithmatist. He wore the sturdy, yet unremarkable clothing of a servant’s son.
“Well, I’ll be,” York said. “Is that legal?”
“It can’t possibly be!” Professor Hatch said.
“I think it actually is,” said Professor Kim.
Fitch stared down, mentally calculating the arcs between the points on Joel and Melody’s circle. “Oh, lad,” he said, smiling. “You got it right on. Beautiful.”
Nalizar stepped up beside Fitch, looking down. His expression had changed, the haughtiness gone. Instead, there was simply consternation. Fascination, even.
Yes, Fitch thought, I’m sure he’ll turn out to be an all right fellow, if we just give him enough time.…
* * *
Joel’s blue chalk vibrated between his fingers as he dragged it across the black ground. He drew without looking up. He was surrounded by opponents—that was all he needed to know. Keening would do him no good. He needed defense. A powerfully strong defense before he could move on to any kind of attack.
He scratched out a kind of half-person, half-lizard, then attached it to a bind point before moving on.
“Wait,” Melody said. “You call that a chalkling?”
“Well, uh…”
“Is that a walking carrot?”
“It’s a lizard man!” Joel said, drawing on the other side, fixing a circle that had been blown through.
“Yeah, whatever. Look, leave the chalklings to me, all right? Just draw ‘X’ marks where you want them, and I’ll make them to fit the situation.”
“You aren’t going to draw unicorns, are you?” Joel asked, turning, his back to her as he drew.
“What’s wrong with unicorns?” she demanded from behind him, her chalk sounding as it scraped the ground. “They’re a noble and—”
“They’re a noble and incredibly girly animal,” Joel said. “I’ve got my masculine reputation to think of.”
“Oh hush, you,” she said. “You’ll deal with unicorns—maybe some flower people and a pegasus or two—and you’ll like it. Otherwise, you can just go draw your own circle, thank you very much.”
Joel smiled, growing less nervous. The lines felt natural to draw. He’d practiced so much, first with his father, then alone in his rooms, finally with Professor Fitch. Putting the lines where he did just felt right.
The waves of chalklings came first, a surprising number of them. He glanced up to see that Nalizar’s students—with their advanced training in dueling—had already eliminated some opponents. Drawing so quickly and offensively had given them an advantage in the first part of the Melee. It would hurt them as time wore on.
Joel and Melody, along with three or four other unlucky students, were in the direct center of the floor. Surrounded by Nalizar’s team, who formed a ring. Obviously, their plan would be to eliminate those in the direct center, then fight those at the perimeters.
What’s your plan for these students, Nalizar? Joel wondered. What lies are you teaching them?
Joel gritted his teeth—the positioning was great for Nalizar’s students, but terrible for Joel and Melody. He and she were surrounded by a ring of enemies.
Large waves of chalklings swarmed Joel and Melody. By now, however, Melody had up a good dozen of her unicorns. That was one of the great things about an Easton Defense—a large circle with nine bind points, each with a smaller circle bound to it. Each of those smaller circles could theoretically hold up to five bound chalklings.
With Melody on the team, that was a distinct advantage. Her little unicorns frolicked in what Joel thought was a very undignified manner, but they did it even as they ripped apart enemy trolls, dragons, knights, and blobs. The Nalizar chalklings didn’t have a chance. As their broken corpses piled up, Melody added a couple more unicorns to her defense.
“Hey,” she said, “this is actually kind of fun!”
Joel could see the sweat on her brow, and his knees hurt from the kneeling. But he couldn’t help but agree with her.
Lines of Vigor soon began to hit their defenses, blowing chunks off Melody’s unicorns—which made her quite perturbed—and knocking holes in the outer circles. Nalizar’s students had realized that they would have to beat their way through. Fortunately, Joel had built their defense well anchored with Lines of Forbiddance. Too many, maybe. Melody kept running into them and cursing.
He needed to do something. Nalizar’s students would eventually break through.
“You ready to show off?” Joel asked.
“You need to ask?”
Joel drew the new line—the one that was a cross between a Line of Vigor and a Line of Forbiddance. They were calling it a Line of Revocation, and he’d spent hours practicing it already. It was more powerful than a Line of Vigor, but not really that