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

has been unhorsed in jousts, yet he hadn’t ever been knocked off like this. It was one of those times when everything in the world seemed to stop. Trance thought it was minutes before he opened his eyes; however, only a few seconds had passed. Breathing, such a natural body function when everything works properly seemed to not be possible at the moment. When you’ve been knocked off a horse, and in this case a robot horse, and land on your back it seems that nothing works properly for what may seem to be several minutes.

With a great groan and gasp Trance tried his best to try to take a breath and felt his body shudder. In a moment his senses, that just before had been stunned, began to wake up and register pain and his need for air. It took an effort for him to start breathing and to move, and as he started to move and struggle to roll over to his knees several of his teammates ran up to try to help him. Among the first to get to him were Zam, Gracer, and Mandor. To Trance’s surprise and delight Hamon even ran up with some of his teammates to see if he was okay.

Lying there he let go of his ax and shield. Then painfully he reached and took his helmet off. He was then aided to his feet and he looked around for the one face he really wanted to see. He leaned on Hamon and Zam as he saw with growing relief Corena riding up the field on her horse. She had just won a Swordswoman Joust to advance to the quarterfinals.

“Trance, how are you?” she said as she leaped down from her horse Kishara and ran over to him. With one swift motion she removed her helmet, tossed it down and hugged and kissed him.

“I’m alright. I just got unhorsed is all,” he replied and tried to hug her back as he was still regaining his senses. A few moments’ later Trance’s parents also arrived to check on him. After a few minutes of everyone checking on him, Trance finally got his full bearings and the group of friends and family gathered up their stuff and started back to their places on the field and back to the stands.

As Hamon was about to leave he whispered to Trance, “Don’t worry about Goloc, he’s mine.” With that he strode off toward his own team and horse. Trance went back to the locker room, got out of his armor and then left to go with his family so he could continue to watch more events. Just when he took his seat he saw Hamon and Goloc line up for an Ax Man Joust. As with Trance, Goloc threw his shield away and drew back his ax to take a double-handed swing at Hamon. However, Goloc underestimated Haman and in a shocking upset Hamon came back and defeated him.

Trance yelled and cheered for his friend. He looked up at the scoreboard and cheered more for Haman as he saw that his friend had moved up two slots in the ranking. Trance was also humbled, as he couldn’t help but notice that he had also moved up one slot in the ranks. Trance reflected that he was now favored to win the Swordsman Joust. He smiled to himself as he took a glance at the scoreboards and saw that he might actually meet Rex in the quarterfinal match, if they both got that far.

The tournaments were now starting to wind down. After the Swordsman Joust came the All Weapons Joust. Then there would be the Gladiator Circle tournament and finally the Ultimate matches where all of the boys and girls teams would be combined and compete in a castle assault and defense match, and finally a massive battlefield match. Trance found himself looking forward to these other events.

The next morning seemed to come too soon. The day was slightly overcast and could have put Trance in a depressed mood. As he stood in the locker room and put on his armor he actually felt calm, a strange calm. He felt calmer and more relaxed, feeling confident that he could win this tournament. His mind even tried to analyze why he was this calm. True, he knew he was quite skilled with the sword and had proved he could compete and win here. He had even defeated his great rival Rex, and he recognized from his last tournament that Rex was probably trying to rally any and all of Trance’s possible opponents to defeat him at all costs.

With all this it was still a strange calm. It wasn’t that this tournament mattered or could bring him more glory if he won. He wasn’t usually over-confident and he wasn’t arrogant; at least, he didn’t think so. In general he had always tried to remain humble and remember who he was and what had brought him here. This was different. He sat down and leaned back and closed his eyes. In his mind several things crisscrossed. Winning, losing, being beaten by Rex, defeating Rex, winning the whole tournament, and falling short all flashed through his mind as he sat for a few moments.

His eyes snapped open as Gracer came up and tapped his shoulder, “Hey Trance, let’s go. You’re up shortly.”

He nodded and calmly smiled at his friends and teammates. It was that pure moment that he felt himself the most relaxed before a match. The calm that comes from knowing that he had prepared himself the best he knew how and was ready. This was what he had been working toward for the last year. Destiny was here and he was ready. Whatever happened was okay with him. He had already proven his value to himself; now he could just go out do what he needed to do.

As Trance and Gracer left the locker room, Trance found that he was still lost in his calm as they continued toward