Chapter 67 - The Running of the Beasts

Bjorn was born in fire and shadow, the son claimed by no man, and yet son of all vengeance. The thrall-woman Rose groaned in a darkened hut, alone save for an old crone and the hiss of the hearth.

He came into the world not crying, but growling like a bear cub torn too early from the womb.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 5

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It was Wednesday, the last week before autumn break, and Felix was filing into his Natural World class right behind Emily. The poor girl was sweating buckets and fanning herself. It didn’t seem that hot to Felix - the weather was quite cool compared to Sacramento - but there were only so many layers they could take off. The uniforms were hot.

“Thalorien finally agreed to a duel.” Erik said as he approached the group.

“Yes! When do we get to watch you beat him up?” Sora asked.

“Saturday, right before the Prydwen leaves.” Erik said.

“Everyone’s going to ignore the results, they’ll be too excited by the break.” Vivian said. She pulled out a hand mirror and chapstick, and carefully reapplied it while they were waiting.

“Well. We’ll be around to point and laugh.” Sora said.

“Even I know that’s a jerk move.” Alexandria hissed. “Don’t laugh at people when they’re down.”

“I’m team Morsin’s Monsters, but er, is there a reason we’re all assuming Erik’s going to win?” Felix asked.

“Because Erik’s the best!” Sora punctuated her last word with a jump.

“No, it’s entirely that we’re team Morsin’s Monsters.” Vivian countered. “Gotta cheer on your friends, you know?”

“I’ve got one last quick question before the test starts.” Felix said, switching back to what was actually important. 

Erik swatted Sora.

“What!?” She squawked.

“Sorry, habit.” Erik shrugged. “I was expecting you to say something about swots.”

Sora swiped at Erik.

“You’re the one saying something about them now! Fair’s fair!”

Petra - Professor Pewterwick - took that moment to open the door. Her prior class filed out, and Felix slipped inside a moment later. He took his usual seat, and spent half a second admiring the rose bush that was growing in the potted plant on his desk. Then he pulled out his homework, notes, and pen, quickly reviewing that one last question he had.

“If you’ll all come and put your homework here, then take an exam back to your seats.” Petra asked, patting her desk. Felix filed up along with everyone else, wondering why she couldn’t just flick her wand and summon all the papers like the rest of their professors.

“Excellent. You have 40 minutes. You may begin.”

Felix dutifully put his head down and started working on the problems. Part of him was nervous at how easy the exam seemed - the first of the quarterly tests - but the rest of him was reminding himself that he had studied for this. 

Which was when the screaming started.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Professor Pewterwick said, pacing back and forth in front of the room while biting her nails. 

Which was when a monster half-broke down the door. It was an ugly thing, like a beaver or platypus crossed with an alligator. It had the general body shape of a beaver, but the size and jaws of a crocodile.

Felix looked down at his exam, and debated his chances of filling out more of the test while everything else was going on. He sighed.

He had promised Chris and Beatrix that he’d be careful during the Running of the Beasts, and it sounded like it was going on now.

“Afanc!” Sora shouted.

Af-what now? Felix spotted a half-dozen more of the monsters running through the hallways. They weren’t all trying to get into their room, at least, but it was clearly more than an isolated incident.

Everyone else would be fine. They had wards protecting them. Maybe they’d end up in the hospital wing.

Felix could actually die here. He grabbed his wand out of his bag, and hurried to the back of the room where Petra was standing frozen next to her desk. He didn’t say anything as he walked behind the desk.

Vivian was screaming. Hazel was sitting frozen in fear, staring at the beast’s snapping jaws as the afanc forced its way into the room.

Sora and Erik were already springing into motion. Erik pulled a morningstar out of his bag - he was carrying weapons around!? - and Sora was already casting the small fire spell they’d learned as quickly as she could. Unfortunately, the afanc didn’t seem scared away by them, instead looking more enraged as the flames singed its fur.

“Over here! Come on!” Felix yelled to Vivian and Hazel. Vivian started, and slipped out of her chair to head over. Hazel was still frozen in terror.

Alexandria finally got moving as well, and started casting spells as quickly as she could flick her wrist. Each one created a small gash on the afanc, but its thick fur was getting in the way.

Felix was half-paralyzed with indecision. None of his charms were any good, continuously sabotaged by his slow casting spell, and he couldn’t think of any ritual that he could perform quickly enough to do anything.

Fuck! He hated being useless!

The monster finished forcing its way into the room, and Erik brought his morningstar down on the beast’s snout with a yell. It connected with a satisfying crunch, and blood started to come out of the monster’s face.

It also managed to enrage the beast, and faster than Felix could follow, its jaws snapped out around Erik’s leg. It shook his head back and forth, smashing Erik into chairs and desks.

“No!” Sora yelled and tried to move in closer. With a tearing sound, the afanc ripped off Erik’s leg as the monster threw Erik into Sora. The two tumbled and fell, landing on each other. The afanc then moved in to chomp down on the broken and bleeding girl’s leg, that was sticking out from the pile.

Then Hazel screamed. It wasn’t a high pitched yell of a girl in distress, it was far more than that. It was like a banshee’s wail, the scream of a roc, the cry of a harpy. It wasn’t just sound and fury.

The afanc slumped over with a glassy look in its eyes. Felix could see it still breathing. Hazel was a crying mess, Alexandria was still trying to curse it, the professor hadn’t lifted a finger, and both Erik and Sora were badly hurt.

Felix rushed forward, well aware that he had no wards on him, unlike his friends, and grabbed Erik’s morningstar out of his hands. He went over to the fallen monster, and hesitated a moment.

Could he…?

Then the afanc twitched, and Felix found, with a surge of fear and adrenaline, that he could. He brought the mace down on the monster’s head, and kept bashing until he was sure it was dead. When there was a little peace, he dropped the mace and backed away.

“I hate this stupid tradition.” Petra muttered. “I suppose I’ll just grade you on what you’ve gotten done so far.” Professor Pewterwick said. “Sutter, Renard, grab Park and get her out of here. I’ll grab Morsin, although it looks like he’ll flame out of here before we can get him to the infirmary.”

The wards protected against lethal injuries, but only kicked in to flame and stasis a student when their injuries were right on the verge of killing them. They didn’t activate for any little injury - cuts, scrapes, and bruises - and apparently, having a leg ripped off and bleeding heavily wasn’t ‘serious enough’. It didn’t help that Thunderbird house had one of the more relaxed ward schemes. If Erik was in Phoenix house, he would’ve flamed out already.

Hazel was still crying in a corner, and Vivian went to comfort her. A puddle of blood was rapidly forming under Erik’s body, pouring out of his stump.

Felix looked around and took in all the gore for the first time.

“Oh.” He said as the room started to spin. “I really don’t feel so good.”

He sat down heavily, then fainted.

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Felix was pissed at the Running of the Beasts tradition.

“What’s wrong?” Beatrix asked in the middle of one of their tutoring sessions. Given that everyone was going home tomorrow for the autumn break, it was more of a chat time with friends.

“Nothing.” Said Felix. Beatrix rolled her eyes.

“Please. I’ve heard that one more times than I can count.” She said.

“Yeah, come on, dish.” Chris said. “I can’t wait to see what the problem is.”

“Your puns suck.” Beatrix said.

The two squabbled good-naturedly while Felix reviewed his exam results.

“Problem with your exams?” Beatrix asked.

“No.” Felix said moodily, in a tone that obviously meant yes.

“You got djinn on all of them. What, were you hoping to score perfect unicorn on everything?” She teased.

“I got low djinn.” Felix muttered. “Stupid Running of the Beasts interrupted stuff.”

“Low djinn… didn’t I hear something about unicorn on Natural World?” Chris said, using his pinky to pretend to pull out a glob of earwax.

“Yeah, but the exams after. Was too busy thinking about blood and gore, or worried that we’d get attacked. Again.” Felix muttered, looking over the questions he got wrong with an angry look on his face. He knew what virgin blood was! He did! Blood from a person never used before in a ritual. How could he have gotten such an easy question wrong!?

“Your professor didn’t step in?” Beatrix asked. “You’re first years in the remedial class, that’s like, the textbook time for the professors to deflect the tradition. Maybe give some good practical demonstrations of magic.”

“She didn’t do a single thing during the attack.” Felix muttered.

“That’s weird.” Chris said.

“I’m glad I don’t have her as a professor.” Beatrix said.

“You know what we need?” Chris said, leaning back in his chair. “We need a party.” His tone was so wistful, Felix did a double-take.

“Wait, what?” He asked.

Chris slammed his chair down as he straightened it back up.

“A party! Everyone else is out there, getting drunk, having a great time, and we’re stuck here on door duty. It’s awful.” He moaned.

“Suck it up, Mau.” Beatrix said.

“I could be dancing with a pretty unicorn girl right now.” He said. 

“Really.” Beatrix’s tone was unimpressed. “Name one unicorn girl you could dance with.”

“Uh. What about L-”

“She’s already dating someone.” Beatrix said.

“Tha- no, that’s a bad idea. Uhhh…” Chris trailed off, and Beatrix smirked.

“And that’s exactly why you’re not going to be dancing with any of the unicorn girls.” She said. “You don’t even know them.”

“Well, how am I supposed to get to know any of them if we’re never going to any of the parties, and are stuck on door duty the entire time?” Chris asked.

Beatrix finally lost her patience and swatted Chris.

“Or you could just talk to them during the day like a normal person.” She said.

“Yeah, but we’re doing classes then.” Chris pointed out. “It’d be rude to approach them then. At a party, everyone’s looking to have fun.”

“Sutter… when you grow up and want to start dating, remember Mau here.” Beatrix said.

“Hey! What do you mean, ‘remember’??” Chris protested. The older girl ignored him.

“And do everything the opposite of what he does.”

Chris made more protesting noises.

“You know…” Felix said, packing away his exam results, then pulled out the copies of his science textbooks. “We’re not actually doing any tutoring. I know how to run the door at this point. Why don’t the two of you go party, like you want?” He wanted to skim over his copied ‘textbooks’ one last time, before he needed to return the library books. 

“Thanks you’re the best bye.” Chris shot out of his chair and was out the door a second later.

Beatrix sighed.

“You sure you want to be alone, Sutter?” She asked. “I won’t stay if I’m not wanted.”

Felix shrugged.

“Yeah, what else am I going to do?” He said, starting to skim through his copy.

Beatrix was silent for a long time.

“You should work on getting your friends into Dragon house. It’ll help.” She said, then patted him on the shoulder and started to leave.

“Wait.” Felix said.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you ask Chris to dance?” He asked.

Beatrix was quiet for a moment, while Felix pulled out another book.

“You should pack tonight. It’ll help tomorrow.” Beatrix said, not answering the question at all before she left.