Chapter 101: A Match on the Training Ground

The Adventurers’ Guild training ground was behind the guild’s stone-built main hall, a patch of bare earth fenced round. The ground had been trodden hard, though it was gouged out here and there. Along the edge of the training ground stood rows of bundled straw. Some had holes in them, some marks as though they had been cut open with a sword.

Beyond those were the archery butts. Thick bundles of straw were lashed to plain target stands built up out of logs, and behind them a boarded fence had been put up to keep the arrows from flying far.

“Ren, what happens if that lot win?”

As he stepped onto the training ground and looked about him, Victor put the question to Ren. Ren tilted his head.

“What happens? Nothing in particular…?”

“Are you going to hand the letter boards over to them?”

“How did it turn into that?”

“Well, you’re the one who said to have a match.”

“They looked as though they were about to start hitting each other…. I only thought I’d, well…, shift where they were headed.”

“Shift it?”

“Mm. If they do something and settle down a bit, they might be able to talk it out, mightn’t they.”

Hearing Ren’s words, Victor pulled a puzzled face.

“I thought it was going to be the loser apologises, that sort of thing.”

“I never said anything like that. Isn’t that for the Young Branch Squad and the Black Wolf Band to settle between them?”

“…True enough…”

Victor lowered his eyes, as though thinking it over. Ren, growing a little uneasy, looked round for Mikaila. She was standing a few paces behind them.

“Er…, was it a mistake, my saying we should have a match?”

Seeing the anxious look on Ren’s face, Mikaila lifted the corner of her mouth.

“I shouldn’t think so. It looks likely to let the pressure off.”

She smiled, then, after a small pause, said quietly,

“The guild doesn’t mediate quarrels. Trouble between individuals is for the people concerned to settle. Theft and bloodshed are another matter, of course. And if there’s a disturbance that gets in the way of business, or it looks as though someone will be hurt, we stop it. Well — we do carry beginners a little, but this is neither the church’s reading and writing class nor the guards’ post.”

Mikaila shrugged.

“Still, if it means more adventurers learn their letters, it’s not a bad thing.”

Saying it, she turned her eyes towards Loren and Fred.

“…And something interesting might come of it.”

Adventurers came trooping out onto the training ground, and the place grew noisy. They had heard there was to be a match, apparently, and had come to watch.

The Black Wolf Band were glancing back at the adventurers behind them and looked unsettled.

Ren looked round the training ground. The archery butts caught his eye, and he asked Mikaila,

“Can I use those targets?”

“The targets? Nobody is using them at the moment, so yes…. What are you going to do?”

“I thought arrows might be too hard, so I was going to have them throw stones instead.”

“Stones?”

Mikaila tilted her head. Even hearing Ren’s explanation, she couldn’t picture it clearly. Since Mikaila had given her permission, Ren ran straight off to the targets. Victor came after him.

“Ren, what are you doing with the targets?”

“Victor, help me put hemp sacks over the targets.”

Ren took hemp sacks out of his bag. They were the sacks for carrying things home when he had hunted a magical beast. He had spares, so there were three. He put them over the targets, handed Victor a sack and had him cover the other targets the same way.

“Why hemp sacks?”

“I’m going to glue the letter boards onto the sacks. I thought I’d make them targets to throw stones at.”

“Ohh…”

He pressed the letter cards and number cards onto the sacks at random. Once they were all on, Ren looked over the targets and nodded, satisfied.

“Right! Done!”

Larc, who had come to see what was going on, stood with his arms folded and looked over the targets with the letter boards stuck to them, dubious.

“I thought we were running?”

“I thought it might be better to have a few different things…”

The members of the Young Branch Squad and the Black Wolf Band came to look at the letter-board targets, and Ren went straight on to explaining the rules.

“There are two kinds of match. Let’s do a running match and a stone-throwing match.

The first is ‘Running Board’. You listen to the question, take the right board and come back.

The second is ‘Stone-Throwing Board’. You listen to the question and hit the right board with a stone.”

The onlookers let out a “Ohh.”

“So it isn’t just letters.”

“You need legs as well.”

“Stone-throwing’s more like an adventurer’s business.”

Ren nodded.

“You have to be able to read the letters, but even if you can read them, you lose if you’re slow. And if you can’t hit the right answer with a stone you can’t win — those are the terms.”

Mikaila’s mouth curved up.

“I like that…. That suits adventurers.”

The first match was “Running Board.”

The contestants were Loren of the Young Branch Squad and Gado of the Black Wolf Band.

Ren held up a board and raised his voice.

“Here comes the question…. ‘5’!”

Loren ran at once. Gado froze for an instant, then dashed to the helper booth a few metres behind the starting line.

A number chart written out on the spot had been set there. It had the figure for each number, and beneath it lines to the same count as the number’s value.

“One, two, three…”

Gado counted the lines desperately.

In the meantime Loren was running for the place where the boards were laid out.

“Nngh.”

Gado set off. He came up on Loren at astonishing speed. Loren noticed Gado bearing down on him and put on speed. He grabbed one of the number boards laid out on the wooden box at the edge of the training ground and turned back.

Gado stood in front of the row of number boards, looked about him, and took one a little late.

“Young Branch Squad, Loren!”

Gado had come up right at Loren’s back, but Loren got away in time.

A cheer went up.

“Got it!”

Loren held up the number board in his hand, out of breath and laughing. Gado screwed up his face in vexation.

The second match, “Stone-Throwing.” Colette of the Young Branch Squad against Jean of the Black Wolf Band.

“‘8’!”

When the question was given, Colette and Jean first snatched up throwing stones from a wooden bucket.

After that Colette ran straight for the targets, while Jean rushed into the helper booth.

While Jean was checking the character, Colette threw her stone at the target. The stone missed the board with the number “8” and hit the letter board beside it.

“Aah, so close!”

“Colette, run!”

Colette hurried back to where the wooden bucket was. In the meantime Jean came running up to the targets. After going along the three targets standing side by side, he drew back his arm at one of them.

Clack.

The stone Jean threw hit a letter board, and the board dropped to the ground.

“Wrong!”

“Ooooh!”

“Jean, run!”

The cheering all round grew louder. In front of the target Colette, her face stiff with nerves, threw a stone carefully.

Clack.

The stone Colette threw didn’t knock the board to the ground, but the board with “8” on it looked on the point of peeling away.

“Young Branch Squad, Colette!”

“Ooooh!”

The onlookers were in high spirits.

“That was close!”

Colette came back, out of breath, to where the Young Branch Squad had gathered, and her face relaxed in relief. She knocked fists with the others.

After giving Loren and Colette their due, Victor went over to where the Black Wolf Band were gathered and called across to them.

“We’ve two wins already. Are you carrying on?”

“Of course we are. I’m next! I’m not losing!”

Larc glared at Victor.

Under the rules Ren had settled, they would go one against one and the side with the most points would win. But since the Black Wolf Band was a party of three, there would only be three matches. The Young Branch Squad already had two wins, so even if Larc won, their victory was decided.

Even so, Victor thought that if it ended without Larc having a match, Larc wouldn’t be satisfied.

“‘3’!”

The moment Ren said the number, Fred set off, and Larc set off an instant later. Larc didn’t make for the helper booth. He was heading straight for the wooden box where the letter boards were laid out.

(Ah — that number, back in the dining hall….)

The numbers he was setting as questions he was reading off cards laid out at random, with a number on the face and nothing on the back. As he called the number out, he remembered that the number board Larc had picked up in the dining hall had been a “3.”

The match went right to the wire, and Fred won.

Victor thought that if Larc hadn’t been that instant late when the question was given, Larc might have won.

“Damn it! I lost! And I’d remembered ‘3’, too!”

Larc kicked at the earth under his feet in frustration.

Fred, Loren and Colette knocked fists happily, but Victor’s face was a little sour.

“Hmph! I won’t lose next time.”

Larc said it grudgingly, still a little short of breath. Victor raised his eyebrows, looking rather torn.

“…We shan’t lose either.”

“We’ll see! Once we’ve learnt the letters we’ll thrash you. You lot barely scraped it as it was.”

“…That’s not so. There’s me as well.”

Victor said it with a sour face, and Larc let out a long breath.

He turned towards Loren and Fred.

“…Sorry about the dining hall. Getting in your way, and taking the cards without asking.”

At Larc’s words Loren and Fred opened their eyes a little, then glanced at each other and nodded.

“…It’s all right now. It isn’t as though they were stolen. You gave them straight back. …And I’m sorry too, getting worked up and saying you couldn’t read. There are plenty of letters I still can’t read either…”

Loren said it with his eyes turned awkwardly aside. Towards the end his voice dropped to a mumble, hard to catch.

“I’m not angry any more either.”

Fred muttered it too.

Seeing that they seemed to have made it up, Ren put a hand to his chest in relief.