Small random excerpt:

He came out with a short sword and a long dagger, and grinned at me, as if he were going out to the shops or something. My stomach was in knots, and I wasn’t even going to fight! How could he be so calm?

“Wish me luck then,” he said.

“I… Luck.”

“Thank you,” he replied, in elvish.

I raised my eyebrows, but he’d already turned and was trotting out, onto the sands.

“Who’s he facing?” I asked Celina.

“Two outsiders,” she said evenly. “One’s a level two mage.”

“Wait, two of them? Grown adults?”

She nodded.

“Is this why you brought me here, to see him die?”

She scratched her nose. “If you’d have asked me that a week ago, I’d have said yes. But now… I don’t know. I thought I’d seen it all here, but this boy…” She shook her head. “Just watch how he fights.”

I stepped forward, slightly reluctantly, and gazed out over the sand.

Theo was walking steadily towards two opponents. One was a menacing looking giant tiger beastkin, dressed in chain mail and carrying a sword and shield. The other was, maybe a fox beastkin, I couldn’t see clearly from where I was standing. He was wearing brown robes, and a wizard hat, and carried a long staff. Both men looked experienced and formidable opponents.

“How can you send an eight year old out alone against those two?” I gasped.

“Just following orders.”

I could barely look as the wizard raised his staff and started to chant something. He was almost immediately cut off as Theo raised his hand and made a brutal motion.

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“What?” I gasped.

The wizard in brown had staggered backwards, his defensive wards exploding as they intercepted a spell, although what it was I couldn’t see. The mage shouted something at the tiger, who ran forward, swinging his sword in a long overhead arc.

I winced, expecting Theo to be simply cut in half, but somehow, in less than the blink of an eye, he had moved, and the attack simply hit the ground where he had been. Now he was coming in low, running past the tiger, slicing the cat’s thigh as he went, moving so fast he was a blur.

The tiger howled in pain, and whirled around, his sword cutting through the air in a horizontal slash. Theo avoided it without even seeming to look at the thing, throwing his dagger over his shoulder, and striking the crack in the fighter’s armour shoulder joint, drawing further cries of pain from the large beastkin.

The brown mage hadn’t been idle during these seconds. He finished an incantation and thrust his staff at Theo.

Immediately, icicle shaped, black rocks plummeted down from above. Theo didn’t seem to notice or care though, and I realised why a second later. The attack directly above him hit some invisible shield and simply bounced off.

Glancing back over his shoulder to check on the tiger, who was still recovering, Theo turned back and looked at the enemy mage, even as the rocks were exploding all around. The fox beastkin suddenly grabbed at his throat and staggered backwards, dropping his staff.

Theo increased his speed and made a giant leap, doing a summersault far higher than anyone his size had a right to, coming down feet first on the mage’s chest, throwing him to the floor. Simultaneously he brought his sword down, and sliced into the fox’s side, causing a serious, but probably not fatal, injury.

The fox howled in pain.

Rolling forward, over the prone figure, Theo bounced upright and turned, to face the tiger, who was now thundering towards him again.

I swear I saw the boy grin.

“What the hell?” I said.

Celina just nodded.

The crowd was going mental, screaming, cheering and shouting their lungs out.

Again, Theo just stood there, waiting for the tiger to close. Just as he was about in sword range, the big cat tripped, coming crashing down onto the sand right in front of the boy, who stepped forward and placed the tip of his sword at the back of the beastkin’s neck.

The tiger flinched, and then relaxed, letting go of his weapon.

Theo said something, and then nodded, sheathing his blade. Finally, with no further ado, he left his two bested opponents lying on the ground, and walked steadily back to us.

“See what I mean?” Celina said.

“I can’t believe what I’ve just seen,” I said.

“The tiger tripping. That isn’t something he would do.”

“You mean, Theo caused him to fall?”

Celina nodded. “A careful and clever use of magic. Minimum power, highly effective, and not something an amateur would be able to pull off in the middle of a battle. He’s been trained, and trained very well indeed. Plus, he’s had experience. Even someone well trained doesn’t keep their head in a fight like that unless they’ve been in the thick of things before.”