The Lone Dragon Knight

by D. C. Clemens

  “I noticed you left yourself out. You don’t think she likes you?”

  “At best she’s only curious about me… You know, I bet every year she finds strangers to hang out with.”

  “Maybe she’s giving some peasant boys a chance to win her heart.”

  “No way she’s not already attached.”

  “Then why haven’t I seen her suitor around?”

  “First, we aren’t with her every hour of every day, so she might be with him at this very moment. Secondly, even if he’s not here, it’s probably because he’s a busy noble or warrior doing his shit somewhere else. Lastly, Pearl seems to want a beau simply to copy what she sees at home, though I suppose the older sibling might be the example there. Oh, and even more lastly, nobles are always in a hurry to marry off their daughters.”

  Clarissa giggled. “Geez, you haven’t dwelled on her at all.”

  “You can get out of my room now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The early rounds of the tournament began two days later. I was honestly intrigued by the upcoming spectacle. There were hundreds of young warriors from Iazali and Niatrios, and I wanted to see if there was anything to take away from the variety of spells and fighting styles I was sure to witness.

  The rules were as straightforward as they come. Each contestant was permitted to pick a single weapon from a rack that fit their style best and wear either light or medium style armor. So as to not debilitate young warriors for life, every weapon choice was made from a hardy kind of wood, though I heard they had been enchanted to feel much like their real life counterparts.

  For the first two days, the dozens of matches took place in smaller arenas all over the city. Clarissa wanted to join the thousands of bettors, and while I was certain I could safely bet on Catherine to make it to the third or fourth rounds, I didn’t humor the vampire’s wishes. As the smaller venues didn’t really have bad seats, Garnet had informed us on the last night we spoke that it wouldn’t be necessary for her to buy seats for us until the fourth round. When that round arrived, we were to meet Isabella at the Coliseum of Genesis’ main entrance and follow her up to our saved seats.

  Meanwhile, I had to see what would become of the siblings. The first one up was Ethan. He went up against a lithe girl in thick leather armor, which had some small metal plates attached. Seeing her brandish a large wooden maul as though it were no heavier than a table knife made it clear that she trained to use her prana in devastating physical attacks. At the same time, she had a small round shield strapped to her left arm. Ethan was simply armed with a two-handed wooden longsword, a light leather cuirass, and the training I had put him through.

  He started off badly. As soon as the arbiter began the match, the girl became the aggressor. It was all he could do to retreat away from her maul’s wide sweeps. He was taking too much time evaluating her obvious strengths and weaknesses, but he eventually did act on a plan.

  He realized that, despite the speed of her attacks, they still required a long windup and that a swing became impossible to stop once she chose a direction. So in the same moment she commenced her next swing, Ethan, and everyone else with eyes, knew where it was going to end up. The instant the head of the maul passed his nose, he dashed not toward his opponent, but to the maul’s end. Unable to readjust her weapon’s course, Ethan used his own to pin the head of the maul to the ground. He next used his free hand to grasp the maul’s most blunt end and cast his earth spell. The soil under the head erupted and enclosed around it. She could probably pull it out if given a half moment, but Ethan was already bringing his sword down onto her. She had no choice but to react defensively.

  For the next few seconds Ethan vigorously swung his sword into her shield, with the apparent goal of wanting to shatter it, but this made him predictable. His opponent timed it just right. She grabbed a hold of his weapon and pulled him toward her. The stumbling Ethan couldn’t prevent the cracked shield from bashing into his shoulder. She was about to land a second blow, but he had the sense to roll out of the way. He next tried trapping her feet in his earth spell, but with nothing obligating her to standstill, she easily avoided it.

  Within a handful of swift moves, she had once again taken hold of his fake blade and snapped the weakly enchanted weapon in half with the rim of her shield. He threw what was left of his blade at her and ran to release the maul from the ground. He wasn’t too familiar with the type of weapon, but it was better than a fractured shield. There came a point when she almost took back her own weapon from him, but even Ethan wasn’t dumb enough to allow such a thing. She couldn’t recover after being hit squarely in the stomach by her former weapon.

  Catherine fared better in her first round, facing an opponent who couldn’t even get close to her. A weak fireball spell would be extinguished in midair by a surge of wind, and her long pole was employed with grace, strength, and lightning speed.

  As to be expected from young warriors, most incantations they displayed were simple elemental and physical spells. Of course, as Aranath explained in his own volition during a random match, there was still something to be gained by paying careful attention.

  “Do you see how this fire spell is different from the one Catherine faced? How their form is weaker but the power is stronger? Sometimes even the fiercest training can’t elevate one beyond another who is naturally gifted in a particular style. As no mind is the same, no spell is the same. It’s the reason why one being can boil an ocean while the other can barely light a candle with the very same spell, or why a thousand years from now this world will see new incantations learned. Keep this in mind as you fight and you will never be surprised. Surprise is death in a battlefield.”

  The second round began in the evening hours of that first day. Both siblings recovered their energy quickly, and though Catherine experienced some trouble from her portly adversary, they each moved on to the next day’s matches.

  Clarissa and I were waiting for the third round to start in the same venue as the day before. Not long after the breakfast hour, with the sky clear of any clouds, a suspicion creeped into my vision when a thin line of black smoke started to rise above the brim of the arena. Suspicion turned into unease when two more smoke plumes made themselves known. I stood up from my seat and began making my way up the steps until I ascended the highest step in the squat structure. More smoke columns popped up throughout the city. By the time Clarissa joined me, far-off screaming reached the proper sense. Other spectators had begun to notice the disquieting signs that something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?” Clarissa whispered. “Is the city being attacked?”

  “Let’s see if we can reach Catherine and Ethan.”

  As the murmuring crowd became increasingly nervous with rumor of unplanned violence nearby, Clarissa and I jumped down into the fighting pit with the goal of entering the hall that led to the waiting room for the participants. The arbiter, a man in his mid-twenties, was sitting just inside the hall’s entrance chewing on a toothpick. He stood up on seeing us.

  “Whoa there. You two aren’t allowed down here.”

  “I think the matches are about to be canceled for the day. Listen closely… Hear the people getting restless? They’re seeing smoke and screaming rising outside these walls. While you go get the people in charge here, we’re going to see our companions.”

  The arbiter stepped into the light to see the agitated people for himself. “Just stay here,” he said before leaving.

  Disregarding his request, we went deeper into the hall as soon as he left our sight. We found the sunken waiting room to our left a few strides later. There was a horizontal gap in the wall that the waiting warriors used to watch the matches taking place and give light to the room. Most of the youths stood by this gap, talking amongst themselves. Not a second after Catherine spotted us, the city’s loudest bells began clanging.

  Putting together our sudden appearance and the ringing bells, Catherine said, “Are those warning bells? Is the city under atta
ck?”

  “Where do you keep your real weapons?” I asked.

  “What’s going on?” asked one of the contenders. “Who’s attacking?”

  “We don’t know,” said Clarissa, “but there’s smoke and screaming not too far from here.”

  “I doubt our attackers are using wooden weapons,” I said, “so where do you keep the real ones?”

  Ethan opened a shabby door to expose a small storage room that held both wooden weapons and the real articles. He grabbed his sword and gave Catherine her spear. The others were hesitant at first, but seeing the conviction of the siblings helped spur them. When the arbiter returned with two other men, all were armed.

  “Is the city under attack?” someone asked the older adults.

  “It looks like you’re all ready to find out,” answered who I could only assume was a guild member. “That’s what I like to see! But remember what the goal of a guildsman is—to protect those who cannot defend themselves. If you see soldiers fighting soldiers, do not interfere. Our business is not to meddle in wars. Now come! Do as we say and you might not need any more tournament wins to impress the guild.”

  Clarissa and I followed the rear of the group as they made their way out of the building. The arbiter was told to help a few city guards handle the crowd in and around the arena. Whatever fighting was happening, it wasn’t yet that close to us, so the guard wanted to keep everyone contained, despite some wanting to get back to the streets. The guild member I had not heard speak jumped onto a roof and took point. The bells continued tolling and the air started to smell like burning wood. The group, which the guild captain had split into two lines, headed for the nearest shouting.

  If I had been alone, I would have stayed in the background of all this and waited to see how this was going to shape out, but the presence of Clarissa and, to a lesser extent, the siblings forced me to act sooner than I would have otherwise. The benefit of putting myself in harm’s way was getting information quicker. With a few silent signals from the guildsman on the roof, the captain directed the aspiring guild members and had them surround a small group of men raiding a small temple. By the time Clarissa and I reached the place of worship, two of the three men were dead and one laid on the ground with the captain’s longsword at his throat.

  “What is this?” the captain asked a man donning scale armor under his blue cloak. “Speak all you know and the guild will spare you.”

  “We’ll be here all day if I spoke all I know,” sarcastically answered the raider. The sword punctured skin. “Fuck! All right, all right! I’m with the Blue Swords.”

  “And who hired you?”

  “Don’t know. I just know we’re about to have a lot of backup soon.”

  “From Voreen?”

  The mercenary shrugged. “Probably.”

  After knocking him out with the hilt of his blade, the captain ordered his lieutenant to restrain him inside the temple. A couple of city guards came over and were told to spread the information we received about a possible incoming army. The guards said they had already heard the news, giving me pause. Our assembly began heading for the next area of need.

  As we jogged, I found that something wasn’t sitting right with me. There were too many questions. Why would Voreen attack at a time when the city held thousands of foreigners that would be caught in the fray? Why would they even hire an undisciplined mercenary group to cause a little chaos beforehand? I suppose any amount of disorder before a battle would benefit the invading army, but the city guard alone could handle a mercenary organization while the main army concentrated on assembling for a real battle. Indeed, the Alslana army defending Qutrios now had a warning to prepare to.

  Why would a low level member of the Blue Swords even be aware that a surprise attack was to take place? Surely the plan would have been kept secret from them. There was also the question of how an entire Voreen army could move out without anyone knowing it. As soon as a fleet of ships left Voreen’s ports, Alslana’s spies would send word of the development. Only one conclusion made sense—someone was being played.

  My contemplations were interrupted for a few minutes when someone summoned giant millipede things to attack us. It was the first time seeing Clarissa truly afraid of something. She shrieked from a bug crawling over a rooftop and rushed into a shop. In any event, the giant insects and their summoner were dispatched easily enough.

  To be sure, with a group of two dozen mostly competent warriors, I never felt in danger of meeting true resistance. The mercenaries were too scattered and not well organized. I actually felt sort of useless. This only added to my supposition that something was wrong with all this.

  About half an hour after the attack started, I stopped running with the squad.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Clarissa on noticing my standstill.

  “By now, thanks to some low life sell swords with flapping tongues, the Alslana army believes a Voreen fleet may be heading our way, so what do you think they’ll do?”

  “Um, set their army by the shore?”

  “Right, meaning less eyes to the east.”

  “Wait, what are you getting at? You don’t think a fleet is coming at all? Gods, you don’t think they’re already on shore somewhere?”

  “I don’t think there is an army coming.”

  “Then what is the point of all this? No way are these guys attacking a major city for no reason.”

  “Of course there’s a reason, but maybe not the one they think… The guild guys have things covered here. I want to head east.”

  “But shouldn’t we tell-”

  “They’ll be fine. We’ll meet up with them later.”

  Restarting my run, I steered myself eastward. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find, but if I was right, then something important was going to happen where the least amount of eyes were concentrated. Concern for the city itself stayed far back in my mind. I simply wanted to know if my theory turned out to be correct.

  I ran as though I was expecting to run for miles more, so I didn’t dash at my fastest speed, but it was still fast enough to outrun anyone not using prana. The bells had sent most people hiding in their homes or any accessible building, so I stopped seeing citizens altogether as I neared the city’s eastern border. Really, even the enemy appeared most concentrated in the north and west. No coincidence, I thought. At one point, when a row of low buildings made it possible, I scrambled up to a home’s roof and ran across the rooftops. Clarissa followed me from below.

  Then, not three hundred yards away, a massive surge of fire shook the air and trembled the ground. I stopped to see the immeasurable embers exploding out from an arena not much bigger than the one I had left. Something powerful was there, and it pulled me toward it. I had to jump down to street level to head south. Now closer to her, I saw an exhausted Clarissa.

  “Stay here,” I told her. “You’ll be killed if you’re too weak to dodge whatever created that flame.”

  “But-”

  “I know you want to help, but rest until you catch your second wind. I’ll wait for you at the arena.”

  She nodded reluctantly as I pushed myself to full speed.

  A smaller but perhaps fiercer upsurge of flame flared out from the arena’s brim. I actually felt the heat it wrought when I was still thirty yards outside the structure. When the shockwave passed me, the metallic, guttural sounds of battle reached me. I spotted the combatants when I went through the arch of the main entrance.

  To my left were some acquainted faces. The first, with his right forearm lying a few feet away and the other holding a cracked battle-axe, stood a beleaguered Braden Silver. The stump just beyond his elbow was as clean a cut as I had ever seen on a living thing, though a spell stopped it from bleeding too profusely. Behind him was a spear-wielding Isabella standing next to an unmasked Garnet, who held a golden, curved, short sword as her weapon. At her feet rested an insensible young man. No red stains did I see on the blonde youth lying face up, so I guessed he wasn’t dead. Enclosi
ng them was a transparent, crystal-like bubble. I only saw it due to the sunlight it reflected.

  A dozen bodies lay scattered around them, many having been charred to the point where they were nothing more than blistering black masses. A couple of them looked to be Braden’s subordinates, but the majority belonged to the Blue Swords, guardsmen, and a few of the civilian populace.

  The sound of clashing steel came from my right. One of the participants was a vaguely familiar knight I had once seen in the night streets looking for someone. His heavy steel armor was blackened and he had a gash in his nose gushing out blood. He swung a huge claymore that sliced with terrifying speed, but it was hitting nothing but air. His swift foe was a cloaked, but currently unhooded, effeminate looking man. He was tall, lean, and had long white hair. His fleetness alone made the claymore ineffective, but in the few times the heavyweight came close to landing some kind of blow, the cloaked man’s long halberd parried it without difficulty.

  On seeing me running toward the fighters, Braden shouted, “Attack his left side! I was almost able to sever his arm there!”

  The enemy jumped back from his fight. “Hey! No sharing of information! I’m already outnumbered…”

  The tip of his halberd became wreathed in pulsating flame. A swing released this concentrated blast of heat in a feverish wave that looked as solid as an ocean swell. The knight put his hands to the ground and cast an earth spell to raise a wall of rock. I took advantage of the wall as well, though I was still too far back to get the full value of its shield. The wave of scalding heat first hit the arm I used to protect my eyes. Starting from the sleeve, my cloak caught fire, compelling me to remove it. Getting behind the wall of rock gave me the opportunity to cast my illusion spell away from the enemy’s line of sight. Seeing that our enemy as no small fry, I cast two illusions. I then sent each of my false selves around the wall’s right side. At that same moment, the knight placed a hand on his wall and most of the wall became shards of projectiles that fired outward.