Dragon Master

Book One of
The Stonedragon Flame

by Alan Carr

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: June 2012

To Ashly, who didn’t try to dissuade me when I told her I suddenly had twenty-one novels in my head that I needed to start writing. Her love and belief in me is overwhelming and immensely empowering.

PROLOGUE

Stone Soul

Caedan Jade came into the world like all other Stone Souls, his fate decided before his birth thanks to a decision made by his parents. That decision was to participate in the Stoneflame ceremony, conceiving their child on the one day every five years when Flame—one of the twin moons of Lævena—eclipsed the sun.

Like all the thousands of other couples who partook in the ceremony, Caedan’s parents were filled with conflicting emotions of hope and fear. Hope that they would conceive a son, a verified Stone Soul, eligible to be enrolled in one of the great academies that would eagerly pay for the privilege of raising him in the art of dragon slaying. Hope that in time he would succeed in this task, that he would be proven to be one of the chosen few able to deliver a killing blow: a Dragon Master. Fear that they would instead be one of the two couples to conceive a dragon, a nearly immortal creature whose first act in life would be to eat through his mother’s flesh. Fear that they’d be responsible for unleashing a monster on their home town, that instead of bringing prestige and riches to their family they would have brought death and destruction on their community.

Caedan’s father thanked the Stonespirits when Caedan had been born. He came out a healthy, blue-eyed boy with a head already covered by thick, matted black hair. Just as fortunately, the Dragonbirths that year occurred in far-off places and so their home town of Helmsbridge would not likely be threatened. Caedan’s mother did not seem so thankful; she would wake their babe in the middle of the night with terrible screams, and she suffered from bouts of confusion and paranoia for months. She was gripped by a new fear. She understood the terrible responsibility that they now bore for what would come to their son.

CHAPTER ONE

Training

“You’ll get the kill. Or you will die in the attempt.”

Commander Hawk wasn’t one to use many words, but he took his time here to set up the scene in detail. “Even if everything goes right, you’ll still be drenched in toxic, highly flammable dragon’s blood. If destiny is not on your side and the dragon lives through your attack, she won’t be slow to make you aware of it.”

Commander Hawk let that set in.

I let that set in.

I imagined the scene. After watching team mates fall around me and barely escaping death a dozen times myself while I maneuvered in close, after timing my one shot to plunge my longsword into the dragon’s throat, after gathering my momentum and shifting my weight for a downward thrust of my blade to guide it blindly through to the dragon’s heart, after all that, I’d finally find out if I was a Dragon Master or if I was a dead man. I had to be a Master. Didn’t I? The dragon would struggle and suffer as the killing blow ended her wretched life, extinguishing her flame and ridding the world of her menace. I’d be the hero, savior of the Realm. I’d be crowned king of some wealthy land in need. I’d have my pick of women for my wives. I’d snap my fingers and be given a flagon—no, a jewel encrusted goblet—of spiced ginger wine to sip as minstrels fell over themselves for my entertainment. I’d be Dragon Master Caedan.

As I was getting lost in the vision, the dancing girls disappeared and were replaced with a furious dragon’s eye, the snort of an enraged beast, and the unnatural warmth of Dragonsfire. I pictured myself impaled on a talon and held up, paralyzed by dragon’s blood. My armor and skin would boil and blister together in the moments before I expired. Not a Dragon Master then, just another failed Stone Soul, another tally scratched permanently onto the seared and blackened wall of the dragon’s lair. A dead man.

Hawk barked an order and snapped me back to the training grounds.

“Boe, go.”

I watched Boe, my closest friend, as he sprinted forward even before the order was finished. His red curls trailed behind him as he leapt into the air, his nimble frame twirling to avoid a spinning wooden beam. He landed with a half roll, then lost his momentum and flopped hard onto his back. His breath was knocked out of him, his practice sword had skittered out of his hand and was scraping loudly through the gravel of the training grounds. The rest of us stood silently and watched. Boe let out a strained groan. I buried my head in my hands, knowing I wasn’t likely to get through the drill any better. A dead man for sure.

What was I still doing here?

***

When we returned to our bunks shortly after sunset that evening, Boe was in a good mood. I tried to admire that about him: no matter how hard he fell, he always bounced back, ready to fall again. As for me, I was pretty sore about falling and it was taking longer and longer to get back up again, both physically and mentally. That could sometimes make it hard not to get annoyed at all of Boe’s misplaced enthusiasm.

“Did you see when I hit the target directly in the bullseye?” Boe’s wide hazel eyes searched me, looking for some hint of recognition. I wasn’t in the mood. “Caedan? Did you see?”

“When you didn’t thrust your blade hard enough to break through the leather covering?” I knew it was cruel to tear him down like this, but I was tired and just wanted to sleep. If I encouraged him, I could be up half the night listening to more.

“Commander Hawk said that it was a good attempt, and he helped me figure out what I did wrong with my grip so next time I would slice through.” Perhaps we’d be up half the night anyway. “At least I didn’t totally miss and slice off the supporting beam as you did.” He made a slicing motion in the air between us and then grinned wickedly at me. The ten minutes it took me to rebuild the target after that had probably been the second or third most embarrassing ten-minute period for me this week.

“Well at least I didn’t trip over a low rope while I was in midair.” I grinned back at him.

“Yeah, well while I was falling, Kamelia smiled at me.”

“She was trying not to laugh at your face. Fortunately, a half second later your face was buried in the mud so she was free to laugh it up with the rest of us.” I’d been watching her though, and Kamelia hadn’t laughed with the rest of us. In truth, I’d felt jealous of Boe for a moment, wishing I was the one trying to push myself out of the mud just so that I would have been the target of Kamelia’s smile. Oh, sure, she’d smiled at me before, but not once in the past six days. I was worrying that I was losing my touch. Whatever touch it was that I apparently used to have.

Boe was obviously lost in a vision because his wild grin was getting all soft and unsteady, and his eyes were glazing over; I decided to let him have his dreams. I didn’t deserve Kamelia’s smiles anyway. I didn’t even deserve Boe, naive as he was sometimes.

I fell into my bunk, then instantly regretted it as a sharp pain struck my spine. I’m not twelve anymore, I reminded myself. I’m fourteen. I can’t do things like that anymore. I grimaced to control my pain, then closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like to run away from the academy. Thoughts of living life as an outsider filled my head as I fell asleep.

***

Two weeks passed, and the eve of the Stoneflame festival arrived at last. I’d gotten a letter from my father saying mother had fallen ill, so they wouldn’t be visiting. That was just as well. In my crazier dreams, I imagined using the cover of the Stoneflame festival to make my escape from the academy; if I had to face my parents and listen to their lectures about responsibility then I might feel too guilty to go through with it. But I didn’t ask for this, any of this. Sure, at one time I thought it would be fun. Like any boy I’d dreamt of becoming a Dragon Master, and as a Stone Soul I truly had that chance. I was one in four thousand, or so they kept telling me. But those little boys dreaming of becoming Masters don’t also have to live the nightmares of training to become Masters. They don’t have to face up to the stone truth that they’re far more likely to end up being just another lost Stone Soul, and not finding out until it was far too late to escape death. Being one in four thousand wasn’t enough. I had to be one in four hundred thousand. What were the odds of that?

Boe interrupted my thoughts. “Are you excited to see Daija again?” For some reason, Boe seemed to think I had a thing for his reddish-brown-haired twerp of a twin sister. I played along.

“Yes, of course. We’re going to have our own Stoneflame ceremony this year, didn’t you hear?” He socked me in the arm, harder than he really had to. It started to throb in pain, but I ignored it and pushed further. “We’re going to see what happens when two Stoneflameborn have a kid together. He’ll be a Dragon Master for sure. A super Master, probably.”

“They actually do that in Karth you know,” Boe said, probably just trying to change the subject. “I guess that way parents feel a little better if they come out of the Stoneflame ceremony with just a girl.” The whole reason to endure the Stoneflame ceremony of course was to have a boy who would grow up and kill a dragon, proving himself a Dragon Master. That was why anybody took the risk. To end up with a girl at the end of it all had been known to lead to divorces, broken families, even people just going completely insane. I’d heard that my mother was insane for a full year after having me, and I’d come out exactly as they were hoping. Well, smaller, maybe. But at least I hadn’t been a girl.

“I don’t know why anyone goes through the ceremony. Except maybe Dragon Masters, I guess.” Dragon Masters were rumored to have a better chance to give birth to other Dragon Masters. It was one reason they had so many wives, so they could have many children in the Stoneflame ceremony. Of course, with so many wives, Masters were bound to leave some of their wives feeling lonely and ignored. “Do you think I’ll get assigned to Kamelia when we train for the Watch?”

“Sure, and maybe you’ll finally be able to talk to her if you have a chaperone in the room and realize that you don’t have a shot with her.” Perhaps Boe was right, but I knew he was only echoing his own thoughts. For all the dreaming we did about Kamelia, neither of us had managed to do more than stutter at her, even when she just tried to say hello to us. She’d started showing up around the training grounds around a year ago, and we figured that her status as Master Walker’s favored wife had changed. That wasn’t to say that the Dragon Master would actually allow her to have any kind of relationship with a Stone Soul or anyone else, of course. But she was a beautiful young woman who was being kind to us; it was hard not to dream.

“And maybe if you get assigned to her chambers, you’ll manage not to embarrass yourself so badly that you end up having to run away and become an outsider.” Now I was echoing my own thoughts. I needed to change the subject. I said, “So your family is coming for sure? I just got a letter saying that my parents won’t be able to make it.”

“Absolutely my family will be here,” Boe said, “this is the last Stoneflame festival I’ll get to attend since next time we’ll all be full time chaperones on the Watch.”

“Or dead,” I added.

“Or Dragon Masters,” Boe grinned.

“Or Bayrd will be a Dragon Master, I’ll be Kamelia’s Watch, and you’ll be dead,” I said.

“Or I—”

Boe’s response was cut off by the door abruptly swinging open. It was Commander Hawk, his burly armored silhouette just discernible against the glowing blue of the pre-sunrise sky.

“We start early today,” the commander rasped. He grabbed the door frame and slammed it shut behind him as he marched on to the next bunk.

***

We started by running twenty laps in the bitter cold. In the beginning I was glad for my heavy suit of outer armor which helped me retain my body’s heat, but by the fifth lap the armor was doing nothing for me but holding in my sweat and weighing me down. My practice sword clacked against my back with each stride I took. My arm throbbed in a dull pain every time one of my armored boots impacted the soft gravel beneath. I fell behind the majority of my class and wanted to just take a turn and run straight out of the academy. The sun was up by the time I collapsed to the ground, having completed my final lap and not another step.

I could hear Gable laughing at me from a few paces away, and looked up to see him still doing cool down exercises next to Bayrd. Forget that, the whole last lap was my cool down exercise. I just needed to lay here on the ground and rest.

“On your feet!”

Commander Hawk was standing above me, but he didn’t offer a hand to help me up. I saw that the last of the stragglers were completing their laps, and apparently the commander wasn’t going to allow slower Stone Souls like me time to rest. I was struggling to my feet when one of my fellow Stone Souls, Irvin, jogged over and offered me his hand to help me up. I tried to thank him, but could only manage a wheeze and slight nod. He smiled at me and slapped my back as he turned to give the commander his attention. I looked over to see how Boe was holding up and noticed that Kamelia was strolling down a garden lane toward us, holding a deep fried pastry to her lips. I snapped upright but didn’t take my eyes off her.

The commander said, “Before we break for breakfast, we’re going to have skirmishes. Pair up.” Boe ran over to pair up with me. He knew we’d be easy on each other after those laps, and we were both aware that I was pretty much at my worst before I’d gotten any breakfast in me. The commander looked at the two of us and frowned, then gestured to Bayrd and Gable who were several pairs down from us and said, simply, “Switch.”

I groaned and tried to find the strength to run over toward Gable. Gable was an idiot, and an ass, but I’d have to be suicidal to face Bayrd in a skirmish the state I was in. Boe ran by me though. It seemed he’d decided he didn’t want to face Bayrd either. I stopped and waited for the end to come. Bayrd practically swaggered over to me, running a gloved hand through his short cropped blonde hair before putting on his helmet. I groaned again and stole a glance at Kamelia before putting my own helmet back on. She was sitting on a bench at the edge of the garden, and was looking right at me. No, she was looking at Bayrd.

Well, this was probably it. This would be my last chance to make an impression on Kamelia before she disappeared for the ceremony, and then I might never see her again. I forced myself to take several long, deep breaths, and then I drew my sword and readied myself. Bayrd was already in a ready stance. The commander said a word and Bayrd was instantly attacking, driving his wooden practice sword forward in a lunge aimed straight at my midsection. I didn’t have the energy to dodge, so I awkwardly tried to bring my sword up for a parry. I wasn’t ready for a thrust opening attack, but then Bayrd was apparently just feinting. My meager defense met with no resistance, and my sword arm went flying into the air wildly, spinning me around. I could just die. Bayrd’s weapon came down on my helmet, and the commander called his name, signifying his victory.

He then called Boe’s name, and I looked up to see Gable staring amazed at Boe’s sword resting on his left thigh. At least one of us was doing well. The one of us that wasn’t facing Bayrd.

When all the other pairs had victors, the commander had us go again, and then again. I lost quickly two more times, and now Bayrd was berating me for my form and my reaction time. I tried to ignore him, and took another glance at Kamelia. I was thankful to see that she was looking down at her pastry, turning it over in her hands, and that she hadn’t been watching me get destroyed by Bayrd. Then, she did look back up, and right at me. Definitely right at me, and not at Bayrd who had his back to her. I looked over my shoulder to make sure and there was nobody else there. I looked back at her and she smiled. At me. For the first time in nineteen days. It had been a very long dry spell. I attempted to smile back beneath my helmet, then prepared for the next skirmish.

It began, and this time I was more determined than ever to win. Just one little win. I could do it. Bayrd tried to open with a feint again, but I dodged away from his followup attack and then got in a weak attack of my own that he parried easily. Bayrd spun his sword in a completely unnecessary showoff gesture and I impulsively leaned forward to jab my weapon at his, trying to knock it out of his control. I succeeded, sort of, since I lost control of my practice sword at the same time, and lost my balance as well. I stumbled forward into Bayrd and knocked him over, then landed on top of him, my hands landing around his neck. He sputtered something at me.

“Caedan,” called Commander Hawk. I’d done it! I’d won the skirmish! I’d defeated Bayrd, and with Kamelia watching the whole thing. “Get your sword and get back on your feet,” continued the commander. I hadn’t won; I’d just broken the rules of the skirmish. I swallowed a sigh and did as I was told.

We sparred eight more times before being released. I won exactly zero times.

It was time to eat breakfast. At last, something I’d be good at.

CHAPTER TWO

Festival

The Stoneflame festival arrived. In kingdoms like Rægena, the festival was a six-week long celebration that the court minstrels and jesters planned for a year or more. There would be new events every day, exotic foods and exotic animals brought in from across the Realm, old familiar songs would be played and new ones would debut. Rægena could celebrate, we had a Dragon Master; we had Walker Ebondell. When he wasn’t out on a dragon quest or some other official duty, Walker tended to stay in his keep, training tirelessly to stay in shape for the next Dragonbirth, his next dragon quest. But for the festival he and his retinue came out to the various parties, sampled the foreign delicacies, and picked out new women to join the ranks of the Master’s wives.

I knew I wouldn’t see Kamelia or any of the other wives at the festival. For them, the Stoneflame brought a very different kind of event, the Stoneflame ceremony. They were even now beginning the Watch, each guarded by a team of two veteran Stone Souls trading twelve-hour shifts. As a fourteen-year old Stone Soul, I would only have to spend a single day or evening on the Watch, learning what I’d be expected to do in five years time. Not that there was much to learn: you just sat in a room and made sure you didn’t let your assignment out of your sight. Every day. For six weeks. Well, every day save one. So I was going to enjoy my last Stoneflame festival to its fullest.

“Let’s try the Fællan Flamespirit steaks next,” Daija said. “We’d better have another glass of starberry juice on hand first. I hear those steaks live up to their namesake.”

Daija and the rest of Boe’s family had only just arrived late that morning, but I was already getting tired of being told what to do. Boe’s parents had whisked Boe away as soon as they’d arrived, requesting a tour of the grounds. As if anything had changed since they’d been here last, two years ago. That left me with Daija and her demands.

I looked around desperately for someone else that I could trap into joining us, then it would be two against one. I spotted Bayrd’s golden hair from a distance and guessed that I’d see Gable somewhere following behind him, his own personal human lap dog. Sure enough, there was Gable, and there were two younger girls giggling excitedly at whatever it was Gable was saying. He was gesturing wildly and kept glancing over at Bayrd to make sure he wasn’t missing any of it. I kept searching the crowd until I noticed Irvin at the back of the line for the Fællan foods booth. I motioned for Daija to follow me then took off at a sprint to catch up with him. Daija matched me step for step. Well, sure, I’d spent the past day being tortured mercilessly by Commander Hawk, I wasn’t in the best condition of my life right about now.

“Hey Irvin,” I said when we caught up with him. I hunched over and put my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths. Irvin greeted me, and then stuck his hand out to introduce himself to Daija.

“Daija Valora,” she said, shaking Irvin’s hand and then performing a half curtsey, pulling the long ruffles of her ceremonial Stoneflame blouse out from her body in a flourish. Everyone wore silly looking formal clothing throughout the festival, usually in deep shades of red with silver embellishments. Daija’s outfit was particularly fancy and impractical, especially when compared to the relatively drab straightforward ceremonial outfits that Stone Souls were given to wear. I felt a little restricted in my silk vest and fitted dress pants, but at least my ceremonial garb would keep me warm in the chilly breeze.

“You’re really Boe’s sister?” Irvin’s question was rhetorical, but also mock incredulous, and this caused Daija to blush and turn away shyly. I looked at Daija and could see where Irvin was coming from. Daija was taller than her twin brother by a couple of inches, and filled out her ceremonial Stoneflame blouse while Boe in his outfit had looked more like he was a street cat dressed in a blanket. Daija’s eyes were similarly hazel, but had a sparkle of green in them that had shown for a moment when she’d blushed. And her hair was flowing and brown with reddish highlights in contrast to Boe’s wild red curls. Plus, of course, she was a girl.

“I hope they have starberry juice at this booth too, I hear the Fællan Flamespirit steak is really hot,” I told Irvin. Daija laughed and rolled her eyes and I realized I was repeating what she’d just told me. Oh well.

“Right idea,” said Irvin, “but they don’t have any here, they basically only drink muddy water in Fælla. Why don’t you go get three glasses of juice and we’ll meet you back here?”

I agreed, happy to have an excuse to get away from Daija and be on my own for a few minutes. As I was walking away, I could hear Daija laughing softly at something Irvin whispered to her. Life at the academy could make a guy lonely enough that he’d flirt with anything female, I guess.

***

The evening’s entertainment was the first round of the Realm’s Tournament, an event that other boys my age had spent the past year competing to qualify for. For many, the Tournament offered up a rare chance to travel all around the Realm and see the far-off places that normally only came to your region in small doses during events like the Stoneflame festival. As for me, I knew that I could end up traveling anywhere during a dragon quest, so I wasn’t upset that I wasn’t allowed to participate in the qualifying rounds to enter the Tournament. Besides, it wasn’t as if I’d have stood a chance in them anyway.

Irvin, Daija, and I met up with Boe and his parents, Verrill and Tahlor, just as everyone was filing into the training grounds. Long rows of benches were set up, and as each filled with people it was lifted into the air by powerful wizards that Rægena brought in for the festival. I felt as though I would be sick as our bench was lifted. We wobbled unsteadily forward before leveling out and lifting to a set height that afforded us an unobstructed view of the training grounds. It was strange seeing my home of the past decade transformed so much, even though it should have been familiar to me since they did the same thing five years ago.

“This should be good,” I said, trying to start up a conversation with Boe. When he didn’t respond I looked to my right and saw that he was listening to something Daija was telling Irvin at the end of the bench. He hadn’t heard me.

“Yes, I always do enjoy the Tournament,” Boe’s father responded to me with a wink.

The fiery-haired hulk of a man was sitting to my left, which was a little unnerving since he had no arm on the right side of his body, only a stump where his arm had once been. He’d been a Stone Soul and lost his arm battling a dragon long ago. He was lucky that he’d survived at all, but another member of his dragon quest had been able to jump in to deliver a killing blow to the dragon. I thought about how terrifying and exhilarating that situation must have been when Verrill had stabbed through the dragon’s heart and the dragon hadn’t fallen. I wondered if he even bothered to continue to fight as the dragon tore off his arm, or if he just dropped to his knees and accepted his fate once he learned that he was not a Dragon Master. It was a question I would certainly never ask him, and while he could be liquored up enough to tell the story of how Master Perceval saved his life, he never got into those more personal details. I couldn’t blame him.

We watched a half dozen rounds of highly entertaining combat. The Tournament used combat rules similar to the ones we used at the academy in skirmishes, so it was easy to follow the action. There were combatants of all sorts, some relied on well developed strength, others on cunning and quick reflexes, while still others seemed to rely on gimmicks and tricks to score victories in unexpected ways. I found myself cheering for the little guys, though they seemed to have less success than the more muscular combatants.

When the Tournament reached a halfway point, the benches were lowered so that we could go get drink refills, snacks, and relieve ourselves. I felt queasy again when the bench started to move and feared that the steak kabobs I’d eaten were going to come out like so much Dragonsfire. Their hot spices hadn’t gone down very well, and I desperately wanted to avoid finding out how well they would come back up. I closed my eyes and held my breath even after I felt the clunk of the bench landing.

Daija came to ask me whether I wanted to get some spicy pretzel sticks with her and Boe, but I just kept my mouth shut and ignored her until she threw her hands in the air and left me alone. What was it with that girl and fiery foods?

I looked up and saw Commander Hawk through a break in the crowd. He was walking with Gable and Bayrd, talking with more vigor than I could remember ever seeing before. I decided to make my way through the crowd to see what was happening. When I reached them and understood what was happening, I smiled. Gable was preparing to skirmish with one of the combatants who had won his match earlier in the Tournament. I wished I had some popped corn because this promised to be a good show.

The first round went slowly, the unfamiliar opponents circling each other, sizing each other up but neither committing to an attack. Finally, the competitor sprang into action, slamming his sword forward so fiercely that he knocked Gable’s sword to the ground. He then brought the blunt wooden tip of his sword to Gable’s throat and laughed out loud as his victory was called. The next round didn’t go much better for Gable, though at least he was able to hold on to his sword throughout the match. They fought two more times, with Commander Hawk and Bayrd getting visibly more agitated each time Gable fell to the challenger. I was starting to feel bad for Gable, and for Commander Hawk, but then I began to notice certain patterns in the combatant’s attacks. He was always most slow and deliberate in his moves immediately before striking out with his winning move, and it was fooling Gable every time. I was sure that Bayrd wouldn’t fall for it if he got a chance to challenge the competitor, and the honor of the Stone Souls would be restored.

I started to leave to find Boe and Daija when I heard the commander bark out, “Caedan.”

I stopped in my tracks and slowly looked back at the tableau behind me. Gable was resting on one knee, supporting himself by resting with his weight on his sword which was jabbed into the ground beside him. Bayrd was jogging away toward the barracks. Hawk and the combatant were both staring at me.

“Caedan, suit up.” Training was supposed to be on hiatus for the festival, but it was unmistakably an order. I spun around and jogged after Bayrd into the barracks to don my armor and retrieve my practice sword. I could not believe this was happening.

Once we were prepared, Commander Hawk had Bayrd face another challenger, the combatant who had won his match immediately before the intermission. He was much smaller than Bayrd, and shorter even than Boe. Although he was around my age, his hair was a silvery white, marking him as someone from the far west, possibly Waldron or Tiger’s Wharf. I didn’t have a chance to watch the battle though as I was matched up with the combatant who had just humiliated Gable. He was large, with great muscles that gave him strength without slowing his movements. He laughed when he saw me draw my sword, and he threw his own sword up in the air before snapping it by the hilt with a flourish and bringing it to bear. Neat trick.

The commander told us to begin.

I circled my opponent, watching and waiting for him to prepare his killing blow. A bead of sweat worked its way into my left eye, stinging and distracting me. Just what I needed. I tried to ignore it and focus on my foe, but my vision was blurring up. It was getting difficult to process what was happening. I lifted my sword to block a strike, then blocked another strike, low. The combatant was teasing me, goading me into committing to an attack. So be it. I jumped into the air and let out a battle cry, then kicked at my opponent’s sword hand on my way down. My kick missed his sword arm, but I brought my wooden blade swinging at that same arm. I felt contact and looked up, surprised, only to see that I’d struck the combatant’s blocking sword. His sword didn’t give on contact as I was expecting, he held it in place solidly; I tried not to think of how many layers on layers of muscle it must take to be able to defend a blow like that. Then, I was lying on my stomach, face against the gravel, as the competitor had reached out with his other hand and thrown me to the ground. I felt wood on the back of my neck and heard Hawk call out for us to go again.

I got up, blinking, and wiped at my eyes. When my vision cleared, I could see that most of the crowd had retaken their seats and some benches had already been lifted back into the air. I looked to see Boe and his family sitting on our bench, still on the ground but with a clear view of the action. Boe was screaming something at me, and his mother had her hand to her lips. Irvin wasn’t paying attention, thankfully, he was too busy talking earnestly to Daija; but she was watching me. I stretched out my arms and took up a ready position, and Commander Hawk told us this would be the last skirmish. I could see Bayrd and his silver-haired adversary still in combat. The little guy kept moving in close and then darting out of Bayrd’s range instantly, using a strategy similar to what he’d used to win his Tournament match. Bayrd snuck a glance my way and I could tell he was wishing that he was fighting this brute instead of his own opponent. In that moment, his foe darted in and struck, landing a blow to Bayrd’s lightly protected underarm. That battle was over, the Stone Souls had still not won a single match.

I tried to imagine Kamelia sitting atop the Stoneflame Watch tower, looking down at the training grounds with the aid of a wizard’s clear sight spell. She loved to come visit the Stone Souls and watch us train, and here we were embarrassing her and her kingdom in front of the entire festival crowd. It was unbearable. I wiped my brow one more time as our fight began, then intently watched my opponent as he lunged forward and started with an attack. I dodged, then dodged another attack. I feinted, then drew back and avoided the counterattack I knew was coming. We circled once, twice, and then the competitor charged at me, letting out a savage yell and swinging his sword at my helmet. I ducked and rolled away just in time, then spun back to face him as I regained my footing. He closed the gap between us, and then began to slowly raise his sword with a two handed grip. I realized that this was his move, he was lulling me by moving slowly and his attack would be coming quicker than any I’d faced from him before. Even though I could tell it was coming and was already sprinting sideways to dodge the attack, his sword only barely missed my abdomen and I could hear and even feel the air whoosh past me as my opponent lunged forward. Then, I was clear and he was exposed. I automatically dropped my sword low and then thrust upwards in the competitor’s general direction, not sure where I was aiming exactly. It didn’t matter; the brute was so large that it was impossible to miss.

I couldn’t even hear the commander call out my victory over the roar of the approving crowd.

***

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