They were facing a swarthy southerner called Samos, who fought alongside a muscular, long-limbed swordsman, wearing a heavy coat of chain mail. Once again, he could sense agitation in them before the bout even began. He could understand why any opponent might be uneasy about fighting a magician with access to powerful gifts they couldn’t use themselves, but he hated fighting desperate magicians who might concoct some wild, dangerous plan to finish the bout early. His fears were realised the moment the first bout began and Samos threw the most powerful soul strike he could summon right at Taurnil. Filled with anger, Gaspi blocked the strike and slammed both his opponents with a wall of force. It was a serious case of overkill, but the crowd was clearly on his side, cheering loudly as both Samos and his warrior were knocked senseless.
The healers managed to get them in reasonable shape for the second bout, but Gaspi wasn’t about to give them a reprieve. Taurnil rammed the butt of his staff into the ground, throwing them to their backs with an earth strike that made the first row of benches shake and sand fly up all over the arena. Gaspi drew on the billowing winds in the skies above him and summoned a gale. Clouds formed around it, black as night and crackling with lightning. With a sharp thrust of his finger he sent it boiling towards Samos and his warrior, bundling them up along with tonnes of stinging sand and tumbling them halfway across the arena. When he opened his hand and let the energies disperse, Samos and his warrior lay in a heap on the ground, blood oozing from abrasions all over the exposed skin of their bodies where the sand had scoured them raw.
“WINNER, GASPI!” the mayor announced, and the crowd cheered with wild abandon.
“Sheesh Gasp!” Taurnil said as they walked back to their bench. “That was brutal!”
Gaspi looked at him sternly. “No-one will try and hit you with a soul-strike again though will they?”
“Trust me, I’m not complaining!” Taurnil said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Gaspi wondered if Emmy might be disapproving, but when they got back to the benches, she leant over and kissed him on the cheek. She looked pale, but a tightly bunched muscle in her jaw line showed she shared something of his sternness.
“I see you’ve given up any notion of refraining from using your gift,” Voltan said.
“He attacked Taurnil with a soul-strike!” Gaspi said defensively.
“I’m not criticising,” Voltan clarified with a small smile. “It was more of a massacre than sword and sorcery but under the circumstances I think it was merited.”
“Oh,” Gaspi responded, the wind leaving his sails. “Thanks.”
Everand clapped him on the shoulder. “Mate, if we end up facing each other, take it easy okay? No storms, no lightning, no fire!”
Gaspi laughed, letting himself relax. “Okay, deal.”
There was another short break after round four, and then the mayor called the beginning of the fifth. There were only eight teams remaining, including Gaspi and Taurnil, Everand and Baard, Ferast and Bork, Kusar and the tall, braided warrior, and Brukasi and the warrior woman. The other three magicians were of lesser strength, and in Gaspi’s opinion two of them were lucky to have made it through the last round. It was coming down to it now. His desire to win was mounting with every round, but it was starting to make him feel anxious as well. Taking a moment to relax, he forced himself to breathe deeply and let go of the tension he was carrying. It was a struggle at first but he closed his eyes and made himself concentrate until he felt the tightly wound knots in his shoulders relax. It wasn’t a true meditation, but it helped clear his head, and when the round began, he was in the right state of mind to compete.
Brukasi was the first to fight, facing one of the weaker magicians, and he won the match convincingly. Gaspi sat on the edge of his seat, waiting for the next set of names to be called. Some instinct told him it would be him, and sure enough, the first name out of the barrel was his, and the second was Kusar’s. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders and looked at Taurnil to see how he felt about the draw. Kusar was a serious opponent, and the warrior he fought alongside was equally formidable. Taurnil looked back, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. He was obviously relishing the challenge of facing such a skilled team. They stuck to a pure brand of highly sophisticated sword and sorcery, and although Kusar wasn’t magically strong, he’d outclassed every magician he’d faced through skill and outstanding teamwork.
“No funny stuff Gasp,” Taurnil said as they left their bench, urged on by the well-wishes of their companions. Gaspi knew exactly what he meant.
“I agree,” he responded. Against such skilled opponents it meant there was a very real chance of losing, but at least they’d have done so honourably.
They reached the centre of the arena and unusually, Taurnil stepped forwards and shook hands with the braided warrior. Following his lead, Gaspi offered his hand to Kusar, and then to the warrior as Taurnil did the same with Kusar.
“Just so you know, Gaspi won’t be using nature magic.” Taurnil said.
“Sword and sorcery, straight down the line,” Gaspi confirmed.
Kusar looked at them with interest and then surprised him by dipping into a bow. He bowed to him first and then to Taurnil, the action mirrored by his warrior. Gaspi and Taurnil returned the unfamiliar gesture and stepped away.
“TAKE YOUR PLACES!” the mayor shouted, and the teams moved to the enchanted circles of light.
“Attack or defence?” Taurnil asked, deferring to him.
“Attack,” Gaspi answered quietly. “If we let them take the lead we may struggle to take control again. All or nothing Taurn.”
“Good choice,” Taurnil responded, the sand crunching beneath his feet as he shifted position.
“BEGIN!”
Gaspi sidestepped as Taurnil shuffled forwards, his staff spinning slowly in his hands as he led the attack. Kusar and his warrior did the same thing, and the two teams approached each other in identical formation. To the observer’s eye it might look like the two teams shared a strategy, but Gaspi knew better. He was a much stronger magician than Kusar, but Kusar was a warrior mage, skilled in physical as well as magical disciplines. Whatever happened, he had to keep him out of range, because if it came to a fist fight, he wouldn’t stand a chance. At that moment he was holding three times more power than Kusar could possibly command, and he intended to use it.
Taurnil took a sudden step forwards, striking out at the braided warrior with a hard thrust of his staff. The warrior blocked him, counterattacking with a vicious swing at his head, which he blocked in turn. Soon the arena was filled with the staccato clack of wood on wood as the two warriors surged back and forth, exchanging a bewildering series of blows. Gaspi fed a steady flow of power into Taurnil’s staff to lend it extra force, while maintaining a strong shield against physical attacks in case Kusar did anything unexpected. Kusar would know that attacking him while he held the shield in place would be pointless, so for the time being, the battle was focussed entirely through the warriors.
Gaspi watched Taurnil carefully as he fought. The other warrior was probably a little more skilled with the staff, but not by much, and the sheer strength of Taurnil’s blows meant that his opponent had to work that much harder to defend himself. The enchantment on Taurnil’s boots was working in his favour as well, his feet shifting effortlessly from position to position and keeping him from having to expend too much energy manoeuvring himself. Overall, the fight was pretty even, and although Gaspi thought it may tip in Taurnil’s favour as tiredness set in, he didn’t want to play it that way. Summoning a strike in his left hand, he dropped his shield and threw it at Kusar. It was just a tester. Kusar’s only weakness was his lack of raw magical strength, and Gaspi wanted to know how he’d handle a moderate strike.
Kusar saw the strike coming and drew up a shield. Gaspi could tell he put all his strength into it, but it held up against the strike, repelling its energies without collapsing. Quick as a flash Kusar struck back, throwing a pair of strikes in his direction. Gaspi drew up a hasty shield and caught them just in time, but he wasn’t prepared for the dagger that flew at him in their wake. His shield was only of use for magical attacks, and it sailed right through. Spinning aside, he managed to get his body out of the way of the sharp blade, but it grazed his arm as it flew past, slicing through his robe and making a shallow cut on his arm.
Reacting instinctively, he pinched off the flow of energy going to Taurnil’s staff and spun out a quick shield against physical attack, throwing it up between him and Kusar. He was just in time. He’d expected another dagger but it was Kusar himself who slammed into the shield and fell back to the ground, stunned by the impact. The magician had pulled out his staves and run at him, attempting to seize the moment and overpower him physically, but Gaspi’s instincts had not only saved him from defeat, they’d given him the advantage. He sprang into action, throwing a containing net over the warrior mage while he was stunned. He spun to face Kusar’s warrior, clapping his hands together and releasing a potent air strike. It ripped through the air and whipped into the braided warrior. He stumbled sideways under its influence, and Taurnil took advantage, slamming his staff into the warrior’s ribs. A loud snapping sound heralded the end of the bout as the warrior collapsed to the ground, clutching his broken ribs.
“WINNER, GASPI!” the mayor announced. While the crowd cheered, Gaspi held a hurried conference with Taurnil, talking through their strategy for the next bout.
“Do we need to do anything differently?” Taurnil asked.
“I don’t know,” Gaspi answered. “Kusar almost had me there. It was a very close thing.”
“I don’t think we can predict what they’ll do,” Taurnil said. “We’ll just have to stay sharp.”
“Yup,” Gaspi said, as a healer came over and tended to his arm. Cool healing power flowed into him, and in moments the sharp sting of his wound was gone. The other healer had finished seeing to the tall warrior’s broken ribs, and the mayor was ready for the next bout to begin.
“TAKE YOUR PLACES!” he shouted, and they entered their enchanted circle of light.
“Go on the attack again,” Gaspi muttered.
“BEGIN!”
As in the first bout, both teams shuffled forwards, and began to circle each other, but this time it was Kusar who attacked first. Bouncing once on the balls of his feet, he sprang forwards, pulling the pair of short wooden staves from within his robe. The braided warrior attacked Taurnil at the same time, spinning his staff around his body as he advanced, pirouetting from foot to foot. Taurnil backed off from the fearsome whirlwind of spinning wood, readying himself to block the other warrior’s staff. He managed to catch it on his own staff once, twice, and then again, but on each occasion he was forced to retreat a step, and soon he and Gaspi were separated by a gap of several yards.
Gaspi knew he couldn’t let Kusar get in close with those staves, or he’d be knocked out before he could draw breath. Reacting quickly, he threw an enormous force strike at the approaching warrior mage, but it sailed right through him and dispersed into the air. Illusion! Panicking, he thrust out in all directions with an expanding shield. If Taurnil had been near it would have hit him too, but luckily, he was battling against the braided warrior over twenty feet away by that time, and the only person it hit was Kusar. The warrior mage materialised right next to him, stunned by the force of Gaspi’s shield. His hands were lifted to strike with both staves, but Gaspi had stopped him just in time. He staggered backwards, and Gaspi sought to push his advantage, throwing another strike at the off-balance mage, but Kusar was too quick for him. He twisted to the right and disappeared again.
Gaspi shielded himself, caught in momentary indecision. He’d promised not to use nature magic, so he couldn’t just tune into Kusar’s living energies to track his invisible presence. His mind made up, he started casting about with great waves of sand, whipping them off the ground with swathes of moving force. It was much less efficient that summoning wind to do the same thing, but he’d already decided to stick to his promise! The sand scattered about him, and he turned left and then right, looking for any sign of Kusar. Just for a moment he saw him, when a big slap of sand fell against him, outlining him for the briefest second.
Gaspi kept whipping up the sand and casting it about, trying to hide the fact that he’d seen where Kusar was. The warrior mage was moving to Gaspi’s right, pacing steadily towards the furious battle going on between Taurnil and the other warrior. Perhaps he thought he had Gaspi tied up trying to find him, and wanted to take Taurnil out of the fight. Pulling a throwing dagger from his baldric, Gaspi guessed where Kusar would be and flipped it in his direction. The knife spun end over end and for a moment he was elated when it slam into something, but it landed pommel first and fell to the floor.
The disturbance made Kusar’s illusion drop, but the warrior mage just flashed him a grin and disappeared once again, only to reappear in triplicate! A double illusion! They simultaneously broke into a run, the middle one running straight at him, and the other two arcing out to either side before tilting back in towards him. Three versions of the warrior mage, two of them illusory and one real!
Panicked, Gaspi drew deep and summoned fistfuls of power. He flicked a strike at the one on the left, which disappeared on impact. One of the illusions! The other two were much nearer him now, but if he was quick he still had time. He threw a strike at the one on th
e right, and it too disappeared; another illusion. That only left the one right in bearing directly down on him, staves ready to strike. With only a fraction of a second to spare, Gaspi launched a third strike at the oncoming warrior mage. He was so close Gaspi could see the expressive wrinkles lining Kusar’s stern-looking face stretch tight as he leapt into the air, spinning around to deliver a knockout blow. The stave swung towards Gaspi’s head, but it was just a fraction too late, beaten by the final strike, which slammed right into Kusar’s chest. Or it should have slammed, but Kusar just disappeared into thin air. A triple illusion! Gaspi had the briefest moment to realise what Kusar had done before something exploded with shattering force against his skull, and then there was blackness.