All That Lives Must Die

Fiona peered down a long shadowy corridor that led into the Ludus Magnus. She heard distant cheers, angry shouts, and cries of pain. Part of her was afraid and wanted to run away, but part of her was curious and wanted to see.

Dante led the group into the vaulted entrance, through a passage lined with old bricks and ancient stones- even a few skulls and bones had been cemented into the mix.

They came out on a grassy field half a city block wide. In the center sat the most unusual structure Fiona had ever laid eyes on. It was a lattice of posts and crossbeams, a honeycomb of ladders, ropes, and metal poles. It looked like a crisscrossing three-dimensional web spun by an army of mechanical spiders.

In the lower part of the structure, a person could barely squeeze through, with sinuous crawlways, tunnels that angled underground, even a canal filled with roaring white water.

Higher, however, the structure was wide open and towered six stories tall with ropes dangling, rickety bridges, and wooden spans barely a handsbreadth wide-which all swayed in the breeze.

“This is the gym,” Dante said. “It is part obstacle course and part battlefield. You will learn to hate it by the end of the year. Today four sophomore volunteers will give you a demonstration.”

Eliot looked sick.

Fiona moved closer for moral support. This “gym” looked like everything her brother wasn’t good at-running, climbing, and dealing with heights.

Four students ran onto the field. They wore sweatpants and sneakers. Two wore red T-shirts; the others wore green. They ran past, giving Team Scarab a polite wave, then halted in front of the gym, eyeing one another with mischievous grins.

Dante clapped his hands. A red and a green banner unfurled at the very top of the structure.

“Winning is simple,” Dante explained. “Your team must get half their people to their own flag before the other team gets to theirs. Each team has ten minutes to accomplish this, or neither wins.”

Dante raised his arms. The sophomores tensed.

Dante dropped his hands. Both two-man teams scrambled onto the lattice and climbed.

“You can take a safer but slower route,” Dante said. “Or you can go faster, which is more dangerous.”

Fiona saw a green-team student stop climbing about a third of the way up and get onto a narrow beam. There was only a slender iron pipe alongside to help him balance.

“Aye, there be a bit more to it than that,” Jeremy said, and pointed higher.

Two boys were thirty feet off the ground. Both clambered toward a rope swing.

The red-team boy got there first, leaped for the rope, swung around, and knocked the other boy-

— off the platform. The green-team boy twisted and turned through the air. . bounced off a ladder. . landed with a thud in the dirt.

Fiona moved toward him, but Dante stepped in front of her. “No interference,” he said. “It has to play out.”

“Is he-?” Eliot asked, unable to finish his thought.

They watched as the boy who’d fallen slowly got up, his arm hanging at an odd, clearly broken, angle.

“Apparently not,” Dante replied.

“You may use any means to get to your goal,” Dante continued. “And you can use any means to prevent your opponents from getting to their goal-short of bringing weapons onto the field.”

Fiona thought it a razor-fine distinction between getting kicked off a thirty-foot-high platform and not using weapons. Both were potentially lethal.

Meanwhile, the boy who’d knocked his opponent off swung across a wide chasm, landed, traversed across monkey bars, and then grabbed the red flag.

“Red wins,” Dante announced.

“This will be more complicated,” Jezebel remarked, “with two eight-person teams. Sixteen participants. The probability for combat will be much greater.”

There was a glint in the Infernal’s eyes, and Fiona didn’t like that one bit.

Amanda Lane, on the other hand, looked so pale now, Fiona thought she might faint.

“Some students,” Dante said without looking at any of them in particular, “leave after they see this. . or after their first match. It is not for the weak of heart.”

Fiona wondered how she would do. Lose or win? Grab a flag in glory-or fall into the dirt. . maybe breaking her neck? She imagined herself climbing and jumping and swinging through the air high off the ground. It made her blood race.

But there was more to this. Maybe Fiona wasn’t the smartest here, or the prettiest, nor did she have a clue about the social mechanics. . but this she understood. She could win here and prove to everyone that she belonged at Paxington.

“I can handle this,” she said.

“I bet you can,” replied Jeremy, who had moved next to her.

The boys climbed down and helped their wounded classmate get up and off the field-even the boy who had knocked him off. There didn’t seem to be any hard feelings.

Fiona wondered how much forgiveness there would’ve been had the boy snapped his spine.

“Well,” Dante said. “Any questions?”

“When is our first match?” Sarah asked.

“That’s up to your gym teacher, Mr. Ma. He’ll probably run you through practice drills first.”

Fiona was relieved. She’d need time to thoroughly understand all this and strategize.

Dante led them back to the tunnel and outside.

They took another path through the Grove Primeval, through a particularly dense and dark section of ancient black oaks, and came out on the far side of the quad.

A fountain splashed nearby, and Fiona welcomed the cooling effect on the warm day. In the center of the water sat a bronze bearded man holding a trident; leaping fish surrounded him-all frozen forever in gleaming metal.

Dante pointed to a row of stately brownstones. “Those are the dormitories for those living on campus.” He indicated a larger columned building of gray granite in the distance. “The health center. And over these steps on the hill is Plato’s Court, where you’ll have most of your freshman classes. ”

Robert interrupted. “Hey-what’s this?” He pointed back at the fountain.

Two boys stood on opposite sides of the fountain, facing each other across the water. Their Paxington jackets were off, and each held rapiers.

“A freshman duel,” Dante remarked. “I supposed I should’ve covered this. Let’s watch.”

The tips of their rapiers glistened. One boy was as big as a football player, the other smaller than Eliot. . even more so because he crouched low.

“Duels are permitted anytime on campus,” Dante explained. “But only by mutual consent, of course.”

They circled closer toward each other.

The bigger boy rushed his opponent, trying to skewer him through the midsection.

The smaller boy sidestepped and parried-but still stumbled back from the force, and almost fell into the fountain.

“Don’t worry,” Dante told her, “it’s only to first blood.”

“But I hear there are always accidents,” Sarah added.

Fiona thought it the most barbaric thing in the world. People shouldn’t be shoving other people off thirty-foot platforms, and they definitely shouldn’t be attacking each other with swords at school.

The small boy parried another attack, riposted-and with a deft twist, skewered the larger boy’s hand. . pushing his blade almost up to the hilt, and then twisting until the larger boy was on his knees.

“See?” Dante said. “Just first blood.” He turned away, no longer interested.

Fiona was horrified. . but couldn’t look away.

The smaller boy smiled, accentuating a long scar on one cheek. His opponent was escorted away by two older students.

She wouldn’t forget the smaller boy. She might have to face him in gym class.