The Sword of Torakor

Chapter 1 - Yooyuball Practice

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The night was still and deadly quiet. Moonlight hazed into the hall through three slatted windows, falling intermittently on stone statue and marble floor. Heavy silence weighed down on the room, punctured only by the occasional caw of a crokabek, which would echo once or twice before being swallowed into the hush. It was the time of night when every shadow seems a bit more threatening, and when a sting of moonlight can create ghoulish features out of the finest carving. Together, these combined forces gave the Hall of Heroes a distinctly sepulchral feel.

A ring of statues stood in the centre of the great hall, twelve of them if you count the empty plinth, surrounding a giant sun emblazoned across the tiled marble. The unblinking sun on the floor stared up into a spire nicknamed 'The Lighthouse of the Kingdom,' famed for catching the daylight so that it shone brilliantly from sunrise to sunset. At night, however, the tower yawned up into inky blackness.

It was into this scene that a cloaked figure emerged from a grand hallway. Padding quietly into the great open room, the hood of the cloak scanned side to side as though looking for something in the faint beams of silver. The figure stopped short of entering the circle enclosed by the statues, choosing instead to stalk around it, like a spyder stepping carefully around its web. The figure completed its circle, perhaps failing to find the object of their search, and arrived at the empty plinth. Pausing momentarily, the hood swivelled across the room again before focussing on the empty stone tablet.

A finger reached forward to touch the cold stone. The figure waited. After a time the entire palm of a hand pressed down onto the plinth. Still no reaction. The hand withdrew and the figure stared at the empty platform. Then slowly, uncertainly, the figure stepped onto the empty platform that once held the statue of the Darkest Faerie.

Instantly, but intangibly, the atmosphere of the room writhed, as though the plinth itself were protesting the indignity of accommodating anyone but it's original occupant. Was the echo of a crokabek lingering longer? Multiplying? Was the twinkle of the moon in the marble dulling slightly? Did the ring of silence become slightly louder, as though some suffocated occupant of the abyss above them were trying to scream out against the intrusion?

The figure stepped off the pedestal with none of the hesitance with which it stepped on. Hurrying slightly, they exited the hall through the same vaulted doorway through which they entered. Whatever it was that had been disturbed in the room seemed to withdraw slowly returning to its uninterrupted state. Echoing footsteps faded.

The night was still once again.

***

"TEVAN!"

The auburn Ixi whirled as he felt something rush past his face. The high pitched chittering whooshing in his left ear meant the yooyuball must have passed inches from his head the very moment he lost focus. Tightening his grip on his racket, he galloped down the pitch towards the brown practice ball that was rolling right towards the glove of the opposing team's forward. Tevan's opponent, a winged Bruce named Marvin, snapped up the ball and raced away from Tevan towards the centre line. Changing direction so quickly he worried he'd left hoof marks in the turf, Tevan turned tail and ran.

Scanning around, Tevan spotted Kiara near the other team's net. The wocky's exasperated expression emerging from her sweat-matted ruff suggested she was the one who had thrown the ball when Tevan wasn't looking. With the goalie in front of the net and Kiara at the opposite end of the field, Tevan was now the closest player to the ball. Marvin was moving in an arc past the centre line towards the net. Tevan's focus passed just behind Marvin. That could work, he thought. Marvin was running at such an angle that if he kept going he'd run into one of the walls lining the edges of the sunken arena, which gave Tevan an idea.