Renegade Rising (The Renegade Series) (7 page)

A few moments later, Blur’s hands stopped and a single pot wobbled back and forth, echoing across the wooden table. The line looked on as Thomson scratched the back of his head. Gisbo relished Thomson’s nervous tension. Then, all of a sudden, Thomson’s head jerked down. His eyes wandered almost as if he were thinking, but Gisbo could see he must be looking at his father out of the corner of his eye. Gisbo quickly turned his gaze to the General and he swore he saw him quickly flash a hand gesture from his seated position.

Was I the only one who noticed that!?
Gisbo wondered. He examined the crowd around him, but everyone’s eyes were still on Thomson.

A smile stretched across Thomson’s face as he pointed to the third jar in front of him. Blur shot a quick glance over at General Ricard, then lifted the jar to reveal the pebble. The rest of the Wolf Pack began to clap and howl again at his success.

That little crap had daddy cheat for him!
Gisbo thought.

Thomson turned from the table with a wave and a smile for the crowd and made his way beside his father to watch the rest of the results. The kids who followed Thomson were not so lucky, save the members of Thomson’s pack. Most of the kids lost eye contact with Blur’s hands almost as soon as he began and in most cases they guessed wrong. Now it was Gisbo’s turn. He walked forward, feeling Thomson’s gaze burning down upon him. Gisbo reached down and ripped a grass ridden dirt clod off the lawn. He looked up at Thomson on the balcony with his father. Gisbo flashed a wicked grin and crumbled the dirt clod in his hand. Thomson’s expression changed to a snarl and he shook with rage.

“Are you ready?” Blur asked. Gisbo was about to answer when a weird ringing entered his head. The ringing soon turned into a voice. It spoke with a deep, almost frightening tone.

“Concentrate; do not look at his hands. He wears colored rings to trick your eyes. Squint your vision and concentrate on the pots alone,”
the strange voice commanded rather than suggested. Blur’s voice began to sound through the ringing.

“Son? Hello? Are you ready?” Gisbo realized he must have blacked out for a moment. He peered towards the castle grounds, wondering where the voice had come from. Thomson stared at him with squinted eyes.

“Yeah, uh, sorry about that…” Gisbo replied.

“Good, then let us begin.” Blur said.

What the hell is going on here?
Gisbo thought.

Without any time to consider, Gisbo did just as the voice had told him. He squinted his eyes and watched the pots. Blur began to move. To Gisbo’s surprise, the squinting seemed to work. He could see Blur's movements. Twice his eyes wanted to shift to see the colors dancing back and forth, but he fought the temptation. Gisbo’s head bounced to the left and right, following Blur’s exact movements. Blur noticed this and moved even quicker, but Gisbo continued to match his eyes to every movement.

Blur began to sweat and breathe hard as his arms finally ceased flailing. Without a second of thought, Gisbo pointed. The tension rose throughout the crowd as Blur reached forward and tipped over the jar to reveal . . .

Nothing. A smile stretched across Blur’s face.

“Sorry, son, but you lose. Next?” Blur said, looking past Gisbo.

Gisbo raised his hand in front of Blur’s face and snapped his fingers to regain his attention.

“Hey, I’m not done. I never pointed to the pot. I pointed to your lap where the pebble now sits. Put it back and give me a passing score,” Gisbo ordered. Blur was shocked along with everyone else. It was no wonder that so few had gotten it right because Blur was sliding the stone into his lap without anyone noticing. Whatever pot they picked would be wrong, except in cases like Thomson’s. It was all fixed.

Applause erupted at Gisbo’s success. A warm feeling unlike any other washed over Gisbo. Never before had he received this much, or any, admiration. His happiness only grew when he saw the angry looks on the Wolf Pack’s faces.

He basked in his glory for another moment before remembering the voice. He would not have passed if it weren’t for whoever-it-was.

Well, it seems I’m not alone in this. Somebody wants to help me, but who?
Gisbo continued to ponder this to himself as he rejoined the rest of the group behind him. Of the seventy or so kids that were in line, only about twenty kids had passed the first test. Only a handful of kids managed to guess where the pebble was now that the lap trick had been exposed. Gisbo’s group was first to finish, so they went to watch the other tests.

Gisbo watched as a thin blonde boy sprinted through the line of soldiers in the strength test. He made it past the first and continued running as the second guard thrust his shield forward to knock him down. At the last second, the boy dove under the shield and made his way towards the last guard. The boy jumped right and sprinted to the left, but the guard caught him hard in the mid-section, sending the boy crashing out of bounds unnecessarily hard. The children looked at one another with grimaces.

Gisbo turned to watch the weapon test as a young girl chased after the three soldiers, swinging her stick with tremendous speed. She easily destroyed the apple hanging from the first guard, sending moist green and white flecks flying through the air. She moved on to the second, then the third, demolishing all the apples with over a full minute to spare. Gisbo applauded with the rest of the Elekai’ hopefuls.

The other two groups finally finished their tasks and with a much greater pass rate than the speed test. A total of thirty-two children passed the strength test and forty-six passed the weapon test.

Gisbo’s group was next led to the weapon test and once again Thomson took the front of the line. He grabbed his stick and the guards took their places. A whistle blew and the countdown began. Thomson destroyed the three apples with ease, leaving a full minute and thirty seconds on the clock. Booming applause burst forth at the new record. General Ricard smiled proudly as Thomson again sat beside him, securing his entry into the finals.

The weapon test did prove easier to pass. All but ten had succeeded when it came to Gisbo. A guard walked over and handed him the wooden sword. He gripped the stick tightly and it felt good in his hands. He suddenly laughed out loud at this thought, his dirty mind not being able to help itself. Before he started, he glanced over at Thomson’s face and studied it for a minute. He felt his blood boil. Now he was ready. The guard held a metallic whistle to his lips, waited a moment, and blew. Gisbo lunged forward, catching the first guard by surprise, and obliterated the first apple. Pieces splattered all over the guard’s face. Gisbo gave him a swift jab to his midsection just for good measure as he ran past him and towards the next guard.

The second guard saw him coming and began to sprint away. Distance closed fast between his weapon and the apple hanging from the second guard, who took on the face of Thomson rather realistically to Gisbo’s imagination. Gisbo leapt ahead of the guard, spun around and dove forward, catching the guard straight in the chest and, luckily, causing him to stumble backward into the third guard. As they went down, the third apple broke off its harness and flew into the air. Gisbo watched it soar toward him and with a mighty swing, he connected with it, exploding it in a white mist.

The guards and children stood wide-eyed and silent for a moment. Gisbo dropped his sword to the ground and peered around at the stunned crowd, stupefied by his own actions. A young soldier broke the silence.

“Two minutes and thirty seconds to spare! We have a new record!” he declared as he made his way to Gisbo to pat him on the back. The other contestants clapped hesitantly as if at a poetry reading, remembering that no one actually liked him.

Gisbo didn’t even notice the lackluster applause however
.
He stared at his hands as if they were foreign to him and held up the wooden sword.
Did I just do that? I’ve never even picked up a weapon in my life. It was just so easy . . .

Easy or not, Gisbo had now made it to the finals!

Chapter Three:
The Final Test

As the tests came to a close, the two hundred or so kids had been halved. The guards rounded up the remaining contestants and General Ricard rose to his feet once again. With a booming voice, he explained what would happen next.

“Congratulations to all of you who have made it thus far. I hear whisperings that I might have been wrong on the original thirty count. Let me assure you, I have not led you astray. Even the thirty of you who manage to make it are not guaranteed to learn Elekai’. This is but the first step in a long and rigorous training process. I will, however, receive my thirty and this last test will determine who stays and who leaves.”

A collective muttering ensued from the crowd of kids as they all looked at each other with surprise and terror. Questions began to fly out as General Ricard raised his voice to speak once again.

“Silence now. I will explain. This next test will separate the men from the boys and the women from the girls. As you see, the soldiers are laying down white powder to form a large circle enveloping this whole courtyard. Once you step inside this circle, it will become your world. Once inside the circle, you will step out of your role as children and briefly step into the role of a novice Elekai’ Warrior. It will be all of you against one another, fighting for your position in a Battle Royal. You will be handed the same type of wooden sword used in the weapon test. The rules are simple.

“If you step out of the circle for any reason, any reason at all, then you are eliminated. If you are rendered unconscious in any way, you are also eliminated. Other than that, there are no rules. Anything goes, like a real battle. Honor is among fellow comrades, not against an enemy. As of right now, you are all each other’s enemies. You may choose to make alliances to eliminate your enemies or stand alone. The choice is yours. Life is uncertain. Life is hard. Battle is no different.

“This is no ordinary exam, boys and girls. Only those with the warrior’s spirit will survive this. I say this every year and every year you each claim you will stay and fight, yet as soon as the swinging starts, many of you will quickly run out of the circle and back to your homes . . . make no mistake . . . the life of a warrior is not intended for everyone.” There was dead silence in the castle grounds as Ricard finished his ominous warning.

The children gathered in a tight circle and spaced out within the barrier, gripping their weapons. All of them had fearful looks on their faces, except for the Wolf Pack. They looked hungry and all stood together. Gisbo was on the far side of the circle near the castle gates. He was near ten boys and three girls. Their eyes darted back and forth in anticipation as they all contemplated the task at hand. The girls started to move together and whispered something, forming an uneasy alliance for survival.

Gisbo was shaking, but not from nervousness. In this moment, he had found just what he was looking for. A piece of the old world he so desperately craved. Not even Thomson’s fiendish sneer could match the one plastered on Gisbo’s face. He stared downward at his weapon, then across the circle at Thomson, the source of his trouble. Gisbo felt that for once, he held the solution in his hands.

Just then, a boy made his way over to Gisbo. The boy was huge and towered a good six inches over Gisbo and was nearly twice his width, but not at all fat. He was solid muscle and had arms like a gorilla, but the rest of him was human looking. He had sandy blonde hair, soft blue eyes. Gisbo recognized him from school and noticed with surprise that the boy was also grinning ear to ear. He also looked as if he just rolled out of a manure pile as he shuffled nervously in his farmer overalls before speaking.

“Hey, you're that guy who passed that eye test, right? That was, that was awesome,” the boy said. He had a very deep voice as if puberty had struck him about ten years too early. Still, it was friendly. However, Gisbo only half listened, too immersed in his own vengeful thoughts against Thomson and said nothing in return.

“Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but everyone else around us is forming small teams. And, uh, what do you say you and me form a team? I’ll watch your back and you watch mine and we’ll get through this together? What do you say?” the boy asked Gisbo.

“Where I’m going, pal, I don’t want help,” Gisbo said as he turned his back on the boy. Not at all deterred by this, the boy continued.

“Aren’t you nervous at all? By the way, the name’s Rolce. You?” Rolce asked.

“My name’s Gisbo. Go ahead, yuck it up,” he replied, emotionless.

“Whoa, whoa, you’re Gisbo? The Gisbo who went to my school? The one who took on the entire clash team by himself?” Rolce's surprise rivaled Gisbo's initial reaction to him.

“Uh . . . yeah,” Gisbo responded, this time with interest.

“Wow! Well, I hope you know that you aren’t the only one who hates those guys. Because of you always messing with them, you made them leave kids like me alone. I heard all about your fight. It’s amazing you're even walking! And just a day later! You know, I was reluctant to think I stood a chance of being an Elekai’ warrior, but, well, not to get all sappy or anything, when I heard that one kid stood up to the starting line of the clash team, it honestly inspired me. I want to thank you, man. You’re the reason why I’m here,” Rolce said. Gisbo cringed at the awkward series of compliments.