Space Knights: The Arrival by Gregory Samuelson (buy e reader .TXT) 📕

farther back. Trance took more time to aim and did his best to hit the targets and get a good score. His hard work paid off as he advanced to the fifth round. Trance knew that he was slower at shooting at the target, but with patience he was more accurate.

As Trance mounted Odin for his first round match for the Ax Man Joust he looked around and spotted Rex talking to a rather large boy from the planet Saltor. Trance wasn’t too concerned since Rex wasn’t in this tournament. He knew that Rex’s three weapons were the sword, mace, and spear. He turned in his saddle, directed Odin to the starting line and looked toward his first opponent. He hefted his wooden ax and got ready for the referee to signal the start.

At the referee’s signal Trance nudged Odin’s controls and raced toward his charging opponent. It took only a few moments for them to collide as each boy swung his ax at the other as they passed. Trance’s opponent made a rather wild swing that just glanced off his shield. Trance, however, landed a solid blow that unseated his opponent.

As he turned Odin around so he could return to his starting position Trance caught sight of the large ax man Rex had been talking to just smash his way to victory to advance as well. Trance wasn’t worried about this boy no matter how large he was. He had faced other large guys this last year and none had intimidated him. Why worry about this guy?

Trance was also very thankful that the boys that he had seen that were really quite large, well over seven feet tall, had to compete against each other. Gracer had told him, “The rules committee long ago decided that it would not be fair for the giants to compete against the rest of us. Their teams have to face each other. They have all the same events that we compete in.” And indeed Trance had watched them in their contests and was grateful that he didn’t have to face them.

“Hey Trance, nice win,” said a voice from behind him. Trance turned and saw Hamon riding his horse over to him. It was obvious that Hamon had also won his match in the Alternate Weapons Joust.

“Thank you. I see that you’re doing alright in your events,” Trance told his friend.

“Thanks, but I’m not doing as well as you are. Have you been keeping track of your points?” Hamon asked.

“No, not really. I’ve just been concentrating on my matches,” Trance admitted. Truthfully he hadn’t kept up with his scores. This was one of the few rules at the tournaments that he wasn’t too familiar with.

The scoring was actually rather simple. Points were awarded by how far a competitor advanced in each event he or she was entered in. The competitor was also scored on how long they lasted in the team competitions and how far their team advanced in the team tournaments. For the individual events the scoring was five points scored even if the competitor was eliminated in the first round of the event. If the competitor won the first round the score was ten points. From there the scoring went up by five at a time, climbing up with each round of the tournament. Thus fifteen for just making the second round and twenty for advancing to the third round, then twenty-five and thirty in the third round and so on for every advancing round.

The scoring was similar in the team competitions; however, you got a point for how long a competitor lasted in each match and then an additional ten points if your team advanced to the second round, twenty after making it to the third round and so on. For example a competitor who was the sixth member of his team eliminated and saw his team advance to the second round would score sixteen points.

Trance turned and looked to the massive scoreboards and along with seeing how the tournaments were shaping up he spotted that he was currently in fourth place. Rex was sitting in second, behind Orazior. Baltaise was third, Trance fourth, Talthor, a Samurai, fifth, Authric sixth, Hamon seventh, Kintrell captain of the Kainanth knights eighth, Hiram, a very tall and muscular dark skinned boy that was second in command of the Ator Warriors, and a true lancer in ninth, and Holok in tenth.

Trance looked back at Hamon and smiled as he wished his friend good luck as well. As he advanced yet again he became more aware that he might have to face that large boy in the Ax Man Joust. It seemed almost like fate that they would meet, and sure enough they were up to face each other with the winner to advance to the quarterfinals.

With an uneasy feeling Trance mounted Odin, rode up to the starting line and looked across at the large boy, whose name he learned was Goloc. He hefted his ax and waited for the starting signal. At the signal he urged Odin to a full gallop and rode toward Goloc. Trance realized he was in deep trouble as Goloc threw off his shield and grabbed his ax with both hands and took a large back swing and prepared to deliver a devastating blow. Trance braced himself and tucked his arms in behind his shield and rode bravely forward.

Goloc only had one goal in mind as he took up his ax and rode his robot horse toward Trance. He took a huge back swing with both hands and prepared to swing. It only took the two boys just seconds to get to each other and Goloc unleashed a smashing blow that caught Trance completely square on his shield and instantly sent him off of Odin and crashing to the ground.

Trance landed hard on his back and felt all of the air knocked out of him. He had taken falls before, and was familiar with the sensation of hitting the ground when he