All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [202]
Fiona looked away. There was no time to feel for Robert now, though.
She took a huge breath and ran.
She jumped over the prone bodies of her classmates and stopped on the far side of the platform—between two telephone poles that held up the bamboo floor.
Robert darted to the other corner. He dropped to all fours, stared at the foot-thick posts, lashing, and bamboo . . . and drew back his fist.
He struck.
The wood shattered.
Robert rolled back as the platform, now free from the support, dipped toward the mangled corner.
The brass knuckles he’d worn when he’d displayed such feats of strength before weren’t there. Robert had done that bare fisted. He was stronger, and tougher, and it wasn’t just from the training they were getting in Mr. Ma’s class. Something else was going on with him.
Robert knelt by the post on the far side and looked to her.
Fiona, still holding her breath, nodded.
She held one stiffened steel string in each hand. She looked along one, then the other; the metal glistened. She fixed them both in her thoughts, imagined them thinner and thinner until their leading edges were so fine and sharp that they flickered in and out of existence.
She lashed out—both arms at once, angled to intercept the floor, ropes, and two supporting telephone poles.
Robert punched.
It sounded like shotgun fire—three shells simultaneously blasted as wood cracked, bamboo fractured, and ropes snapped.
The platform hitched and dropped.
Fiona fell along with it and lost her focus. The bamboo floor rushed up and swatted her. She crumpled—hard—and bit her tongue. The edges of her vision blurred.
She spit and shook her head to clear her confusion.
Dust filled the air, but it no longer stank of sulfur.
She shakily stood and saw Robert dragging two Team Falcon boys away by their feet.
Eliot dropped down, too, and helped by picking up and carrying off one of the unconscious girls.
Fiona grabbed the nearest limp body, a boy, and pulled him by his armpits to the relative safety of the grass—far enough from the jungle gym so if it blew up there was a decent chance they wouldn’t all get incinerated.
Mitch, Amanda, and Jeremy and Sarah (both covered in black splotches) appeared as well, and got the remaining members of Team Falcon away from the danger.
Fiona checked the pulse of the boy at her feet. It was weak, but steady. Would there be brain damage?
How could Mr. Ma do such a dangerous thing?
Robert started mouth-to-mouth, and got one boy breathing again.
The other Falcon team members groaned, threw up, and slowly regained consciousness.
“That was too close,” Eliot whispered.
Jeremy glanced at his wristwatch. “Saving these folk be all well and good,” he murmured, “but there be three minutes. We can still get the flag.”
A gunshot cracked through the air.
The arcs of water and fire on the obstacle course stopped and only swirls of smoke and fog remained.
Mr. Ma strode onto the field. He clicked his stopwatch, made two marks on his clipboard, and then announced: “That is time.”
Fiona approached him. She felt dizzy again, her feet uncertain. Maybe she’d gotten a lungful of that gas . . . but something definitely felt wrong.
“Mr. Ma, there has to be a mistake,” she said. “We have three minutes.”
“I do not make such mistakes, Miss Post.” He narrowed his dark eyes to slits.
“No, sir,” Fiona said. There was no way she was going to say he was wrong. She glanced back to Jeremy, who looked incredulous, shook his head, and pointed emphatically at his watch.
Jeremy might have been sneaky enough to set back his watch, but there was no way he’d be stupid enough to try such a simple lie on Mr. Ma.
“Could you please check again?” Fiona asked.
Mr. Ma stared at her. It felt just like when he stared at her that first day in the Force of Arms class—when he’d fought her.
“No,” he said.
“That’s not fair!” one of the boys from Team Falcon said. “We had a perfect record.”
“Had.”
Fiona understood then what felt so wrong. The rules of gym class