The Fifth Academy - Fantasy Direction / #Wattys2018

Chapter nine. Party hard

Once I blinked, it changed everything. Time was going again, everybody was moving in a colorful stir, like nothing had happened at all. There were neither arrows, nor bullets flying across the hall, Katherine had no donkey ears and Amadeus looked like the most respectable sorcerer and not the most used toilet brush. I blinked again, listening to the classical music – Mozart, the miracle of the eighteenth century. Even magirs didn't dare to call him "mortal".

Magicians adored classical music, Amadeus Dragonwood had an army of personal musicians, most of which were mortals, and two singers.

"Where is my damn elf?" whined the irritated skravin as licked the ladle handle disappointingly. Nobody had the answer; it looked like Dayson really had fallen through the ground. At least he wasn't eaten by the skravin, I had no intention of explaining everything to Rosaline.

"Sorry, Rosy, I didn't drink your love-cocktail but have fed your favorite elf to some starving skravin. Oh, perhaps, not! Your precious elf is stuck under the tail of your daddy's raven-pet! Ask him for more details, please!"

"Nuclear bomb? What else have these mortals created now?" growled Drago, trying to feed Max the roasted wing, all which remained of the goose. "The orcs and even goblins would survive after the apocalypses, we are resistant to the radiation! The problem is our skravins, for they become bald!"

"What?!" squeaked his white pet ferret. But everybody ignored him. Max sighed and turned his head away from the fried wing, he wasn't hungry at all.

"Have you ever heard about the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter?" he asked tiredly, like he was trying to explain two plus two equals four to a stupid three year-old child. "Once upon a time it was a glorious inhabited planed, just like her little sister, Earth. But long ago it was completely destroyed in a cruel war, a few powerful explosions, perhaps, some kind of nuclear bomb. So, Drago do you mind living on an airless, bare asteroid?"

"I hate you!" barked the orc miserably, turning away his burning eyes. I felt like it was time to change the theme. Why the orc did start this argument the first place? Max would be right anyway.

"Hm... what about tomorrow's relay?" I interrupted timidly looking at Drago. "You are rooting for my squad, aren't you?"

"Yeah," answered Drago. "We are playing with the winning team. Orcs against magirs. That would be fun!" I wasn't surprised at all. Of course our kings would like to compare their solders. But with half-mortal Max on my team, I had all the chances to finish the last in relay; the boy couldn't run at all. A sudden sharp pain went through my chest, I glanced shakily at Phillip, my lost finest, tonight was his last dinner with my squad. What I was going to do without him? Oh, hell! I looked at Max, who was still sitting on the orc's wide lap. Suddenly an excellent idea struck my mind. The boy was lean and relatively small, I could put him on my back quite easily, like Drago had just sat him on his lap. I would carry Max on my back when it would come his turn to run the relay, we would do it together. There was no forbidding rule about such case, it was going to happen for the first time in history, a Captain would carry his soldier across the finish line. If only Max would not eat his breakfast tomorrow... my squad could take the third... no, the second place in the royal relay! I closed my eyes and imagined thousands of people were shouting my name and chanting, "Jason is the best Captain ever! Jason is our Capitan!" and Diana was the loudest of them all. When I opened my eyes I saw the miserable face of Phillip... it silently cried, "Jason is the traitor! Jason is the worst Captain ever!" And at that moment, I completely agreed.

"You have a strong chieftain!" admitted Drago looking straight at a sour faced Philip, I wished to fall through the ground. "It would be interesting to compete with your squad."