The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) by J. K. (Keith) Wilson Page B

the entrance and exit tunnels to block the bad air and most of the water filtering down after heavy rains. Afterwards they filled in the train tracks to fashion a mostly flat training quad three hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide.
    Ten Battle Groups, one hundred and thirty students, would form in this cavernous space. Each group numbered an even dozen plus one Queen, including two male Hunters, and ten female Troopers. This was their first time in a full-scale live training exercise.
    Four groups, with yellow plumes on their battle helmets, would protect the Wicca Council and its thirteen Leaders, who were watching from the large flat landing above the steps leading to the entrance doors of Number 2 Building. Four more groups, with green plumes, stood facing the steps less the one hundred yards further out on the training quad. They would attack the yellow force guarding the Wicca.
    Each side kept a single Battle Group in reserve to break up fights started by overzealous troops. Their helmet plume colors were peacekeeper orange. They stood twenty yards away facing the path the attack force would follow. These older, more experienced troops would keep the peace.
    Except Geri-5 who was not older or more experienced. The Leaders who had mistakenly championed her were forced to save Geri from herself; they buried her where another Queen could watch her. She was so inept; her experienced Hunters had to remind her to replenish the water in her personal canteen.
    It was time, let the battle begin.
    Two of the four Battle Groups with green plumes began the mock attack. After these groups had advanced ten paces, the remaining two groups followed. Hidden in the back of each set of two groups was one extra member, they thought that extra member would be undetectable from a full frontal view. The red battle helmet of a Leader gleamed from that spot. As subtle as it seemed, this was their first mistake.
    Inexperienced but alert, Breen-3 stood at the back of her Battle Group, up on the first step leading up to Number 2 Building. Of their three additional yellow plumed groups, one was beside her group, two more in front of each of them. The Wicca watched the Graduation Ceremonies from the landing above. Looking over the yellow plums of her groups, Breen-3 noticed quick flashes of red from two groups marching toward her.
    Red meant Leaders, she thought. There were no Leaders in training groups. I saw them behind me, on the steps watching the graduation battle.
    The ominous cadence of fifty plus booted troops shook the broken glass in the skylights and chipped gray dust from the concave ceiling.
    Breen-3 turned and ran up the four steps towards the Wicca. Her two Hunters followed. A quick count found only eleven Leaders on the stairs. Two were gone. Looking back over her Battle Group, she verified two red helmets leading two groups each. Breen-3 remained unsure of why two Leaders were missing, but was taking no chances with the lives of the remaining eleven women under her protection.
    Quickly, as if she had done this before, Breen-3 assigned her personal Hunters to secure the eleven women inside Number 2 Building. She issued orders to her Hunters to kill anyone who entered, then waited to hear the doors lock behind them. For a mock exercise, the order seemed strange to her Hunters but they had no doubt of her meaning.
    The Leaders in red made their second mistake. They ordered their groups to throw their spears in volleys. Each group carried steel tipped spears, instead of flat harmless training models, and they launched them from each of the four advancing groups. The spears trajectory had to remain low to clear the train station ceiling. With the Wicca behind closed doors, they would need more than one battle to get to them.
    But they had thrown too soon. The distance blunted the devastation each volley would have caused if they had been closer.
    Breen-3 had not registered the sound of battle only the playing of it in front of