White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) (34 page)

Piotr jumped up thinking that Niklaus had lost his mind inside of the lynx form. Turning back on his path, the lynx strode past looking at the animals in their cages and wondered if the cat would be the only thing he could change into.

“Alright stay calm,” Piotr said pulling up short and began to back away as Niklaus continued to walk forward looking into the cages. “Try thinking of how you look as a boy. You are a human boy, not a lynx.”

Wanting to sigh at his brother already wanting to end his fun, it came out as puff and a little growl. Even though he was curious about what else he could do, Niklaus decided to end his brother’s torment. Thinking of what he looked like, the cadet thought the word, return.

In a flash, Niklaus looked down to see his hands. Straightening up, the mage cracked his back as he stretched before standing. His clothing and limbs were all intact making the cadet smile at his brother.

“Well, look what I can do,” he said with a laugh.

“How did you do that?” Piotr asked in turn.

“You’re the nature wizard. You tell me. Do your books talk about changing into an animal?”

Frowning as he tried to remember if he had seen such a thing, Piotr could only shake his head, “It might be in there, but I haven’t read about it yet. How did it feel?”

Shrugging, Niklaus replied, “At first, it just felt like normal. Until I tried moving around, I could barely tell anything had changed. I mean my body was different, but it all felt natural.”

As the elder twin looked at the cages, his eyes caught on Bo, the bear, in her cage. “I wonder.”

“Don’t, Nik, we don’t know how often you can do it. You’re not a wizard, so you don’t have as much power. You’ve already tried your reflex spell twice. Let’s not push it.”

Niklaus shook his head at his twin and complained, “You worry too much. I can tell when I am getting tired or hungry. I’m not a baby.”

“Neither of us are exactly experts at this stuff, you know. We need to get used to magic and not push ourselves into dangerous situations,” countered the younger boy.

“We won’t know our limits until we hit them, little brother,” Niklaus said waving him off. He looked at the bear and made the triangle as Piotr would have for his spell.

“Mind to mind,” the elder twin ordered. It took three tries, but suddenly his weight shifted. His voice came out as a growl again, though the bear was more like a lower bleat than the higher cutting tone of the lynx.

Coming down on all fours, Niklaus took a couple strides before stopping to turn to look at his little brother. He tried to stand on his back legs and quickly the bear was looking down its nose at the novice wizard.

“Niklaus, come on. Stop that already. You’re going to get us in trouble!”

Trying to talk as a bear, made Niklaus want to laugh. His voice came out and all he heard was bear growls and groans.

Return, he thought and had to adjust as his body changed back to his human form.

“This is so cool, Piotr,” Niklaus stated with a grin. “I’ll have to come practice here some more. I wonder if there is a limit to what kind of animal I can change into. Can I change into a bird maybe?”

“Well, I am glad that you are so happy,” Piotr nearly pouted at his brother making the older twin laugh at him.

“Hey, with your help I learned the reflex spell and now I can shape shift into a bear and lynx. Why wouldn’t I be happy? I still need to learn how to do what you do, but I suppose if I can just turn into any animal that I want, it doesn’t really matter,” he replied. “Try and find out about this spell, but for now I guess I will take your advice and head to the dining hall. I am getting a bit of an appetite.

“I could eat like a bear,” Niklaus added with a laugh as he gathered his book. Turning to take his leave, the boy added, “I’ll see you at supper. Thanks again, little brother.”

Xara leaned in towards the other cadets sitting at their table. While the four had started to get to know some of the others, they had come to be good friends and always found each other for dinner. They practiced together. Studied together and got along very well. Only Krevahs had remained aloof hating the other four.

“Did you hear that the search teams returned with another harvest already?”

“It has only been a little over a week since we got here,” Jeraan mused as he considered how often they would see more new arrivals at the school.

“Didn’t they say that they rarely got over fifty new students a year here?” Xara asked following the boy’s line of thought.

“The teams are still pretty near to White Hall, I think,” Niklaus spoke around a piece of beef.

The blonde haired cadet sitting next to him shook her head. “Uliya and I came from Blackwall. That novice wizard Alec came from Windmeer with Lyssa, but Krevahs came from one of the hill towns to the southwest of that, right? I thought that the teams rarely managed to search every town and city each year. Are they that far ahead?”

Niklaus ventured, “It could be that they simply aren’t finding that many candidates. Delanne and our farm supplied four right away. Katya came from Mera, but she wasn’t found in a harvest; so they probably haven’t been there yet. We passed through, but Iris and Qeyr didn’t do a search while they were there. They came from Norcrom originally, I think; but they didn’t have anyone from that city at all.”

Looking thoughtful at Niklaus’ words, Jeraan held his fork in his hand shaking it as he thought aloud, “If they searched Norcrom and came up with nothing and Blackwall just found Uliya and Xara; that isn’t a very big hall for two guardian cities.”

“They search Blackwall every year to make sure that there aren’t any wilders from waiting too long,” Xara said with a shrug. “The guardian cities can keep an eye out all year long with all the wizards living there, I guess. Maybe the harvests are really more for the smaller towns than the cities?”

“What are you losers talking about?” Krevahs asked setting his tray down with a thump beside Jeraan. Uliya was to the boy’s right as the bully and two new friends found places on either side of the table.

“The lack of numbers from the cities to the north,” Xara replied ignoring his insult.

They had noticed the older boy with these two before as he settled into living in White Hall. Both were a bit older and seemed rougher around the edges like their new friend.

“Yeah, must be a bad year for the school. I mean they found you losers!” the boy laughed and received chuckles from his friends.

Niklaus retorted, “Well, we did say the harvest from the north was kind of unimpressive. Say, Krevahs, aren’t you from the northwest of here?”

Frowning as the insult was returned, the older boy tried to come up with something intelligent to say. “From what I can tell it’s the east that can’t find anyone good. They scraped the bottom of the barrel with you especially.”

“Really?” the boy pretended to consider his complaint a moment. “So did you ever manage to cast that flame? Maybe you’re still stuck on mage shields?”

Standing up angrily, Krevahs retorted, “I can show you outside, if you want to find out.”

“What’s the point?” Niklaus shrugged. “Everyone knows that you suck at magic because you refuse to try and learn anything. You’re too busy trying to figure out how to mess with us. Your brain can’t do two things at once apparently.”

Stepping around the table, the bigger boy made to grab for Niklaus’ shirt.

“Do you really want to be peeling even more potatoes?” the younger boy asked standing up to confront him before Krevahs could lay a hand on him. “If we’re losers, what does that make you, potato boy?”

Jeraan made to stand up to help defend his friend, but one of the older boys stood behind him forcing the smaller cadet to sit and watch.

“All right, smart ass. You think you can back up your mouth? Let’s go to the courtyard,” Krevahs said pointing his thumb towards the mage quarters and the two enclosed courtyards behind the building.

“If you really think that you want to do this, then I’m game,” the younger boy stated with a smirk.

A small crowd started to follow the boys as they ignored their food and headed for the door on the mage side of the dining hall. Xara was right on his heels looking worried with Uliya and Jeraan hurrying behind her. Piotr and his friends saw the incident and their table cleared.

The younger twin was unsure what to expect from a fight between the two boys. Krevahs was clearly bigger and stronger, but Niklaus was no slouch for his age. The younger boy also knew the reflex spell and Piotr wondered if his brother would dare reveal his ability to change into an animal.

Though the younger cadets drew less of a crowd than Magnus had fighting Arrimus, the school seemed to smell blood and many left their plates to see them fight. It didn’t take long as Krevahs attacked the smaller boy from behind almost as soon as they were through the door.

Niklaus had been ready for something like that. He slipped free of his jacket as the bigger boy tried to use it to drag him to the ground. Turning to face Krevahs, he put out his arms gesturing for him to attack with his hands curling towards his chest. “Are you that afraid of me, Krevahs? You can’t even try and fight fair? Is it because you’re a complete failure as a battle mage? You can barely do any magic and put a sword in your hand, you’re just as much of a joke. You can only beat the girls by grappling instead of being any good with a weapon.”

Growling at the younger boy, Krevahs threw his jacket onto the ground hunching his shoulders looking ready to attack. “Well, we don’t have pretend swords now, do we? You should have thought about that before taking this fight. At least sparring you might have a chance!”

“Bring it then. Stop saying you’re so tough and fight me like a man. Better yet fight me like a mage,” Niklaus finished and breathed the word ‘reflex’ under his breath.

The world seemed to slow for the cadet and a second spell was called aloud next for Krevahs to hear. “Stone skin.”

Krevahs grinned and leaped at the smaller boy thinking the stone skin would slow him down as it had in practices where the cadets had started using the basic spells. To Niklaus, the boy might as well have been wading through the depths of a river to get to him. The distance wasn’t much, but to his heightened reflexes, it might as well have been from one courtyard wall to the other.

Sidestepping the larger boy, Niklaus pushed him to the side causing Krevahs to stumble and fall onto one knee. He was up quickly to most eyes; but the younger cadet maintained the reflex spell. A fist went for his face, but the boy was already moving to the side before it was halfway there. A slap to the inner arm knocked the limb away as Krevahs tried to grasp for him.

Dancing back, the boy slapped the hand out of his way, but he noticed Krevahs smirk as he called out, “Reflex!”

With eyes opening in surprise to see the older boy had finally figured out a spell as quickly as he had for once, Niklaus found his opponent suddenly moving quick enough to lay punches on him. The stone skin barely let him feel a thing and his speed continued to make them only grazing hits.

The fight began to drag on. Both boys knew enough to fight as decent brawlers. Where Krevahs still preferred to try and use his strength and size, Niklaus preferred his speed. Sped up, much of his edge was nullified.

He connected a strike to the older boy’s stomach finally. Coated in the stone skin spell, the hit looked like it hurt; but not enough to get Krevahs to stop.

Leaping at him, the larger boy didn’t leave him any room to avoid the attack. Setting his legs to absorb the mass, Niklaus fended him off by throwing Krevahs to the side. It barely slowed the bigger boy, who altered course trying to grab him again.

A glint in Niklaus’ eyes was the only warning Piotr had as his brother suddenly said quietly, “Mind to mind, bear.”

In a shift of magical light, the boy disappeared changing into a brown bear like Bo. Rising up on his back legs, Niklaus let out a menacing growl and watched Krevahs stumble back scrambling away from the massive bear in fear. He came down onto his front paws to charge towards the bully a few steps and heard his scream of fear.

Running back through the crowd by the doorway, Krevahs ran back inside as Niklaus used his return command to shift back into his original body. “What’s the matter, Krevahs? Don’t want to fight one of the losers from the east?”

Shocked looks ran through the crowd, but his friends were quick to come to him congratulating their leader and asking him to show them how he had done his shape shifting spell. It was a unique spell that wasn't in any battle mage's book. The question would be asked by the battle mage leaders soon enough as well.

Chapter 18- Ties Between

Piotr looked at his brother with a frown. The tower office of the battle mage officers was new to him and the boy wasn’t completely sure why he had been dragged to the tower to speak with the falconis. His brother had used an unknown spell and he guessed that, being a novice nature wizard and Niklaus’ twin, it was their opinion that it was his fault.

Wizard Zieran and Falcon Elijah stood behind their charges making Piotr feel trapped and once again wondered why? He hadn’t done anything.

The white wizard and leader of the White Hall wizards, Herrol was in attendance with another older looking woman in the green robes of the nature school. Falconi Garrett along with his top aides stood with them staring at the boys with questions that no one seemed to want to ask.