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

The next week seemed to fly by. Trance did his best in his classes, but could not wait for the knight class. His team began working on how to assault and capture a fort. Trance once again came up with a new strategy to capture a castle. This time his team got behind him and gave him their full attention and voiced up additional ideas to help perfect their new strategy. The whole team was now getting excited with the prospects for this year. The Gray Mountain Warriors hadn’t won a major event for seventy years. Now they felt they could have a fantastic year. Maybe they could even get a really good placement in the end of year tournaments.

Their next battle came and this time they really readied themselves for what Trance wanted them to do. Their opponents were the Scarlet Raiders. This team was the same size as the Gray Mountain Warriors. They were dressed in more traditional armor like what the Warriors wore; only they had scarlet surcoats on. They were much more traditional in strategy and proper in their approach. Trance noticed how they approached and was even surprised himself at how easy it was to pick them off. With one rather carefully aimed arrow Trance brought down their captain. The rest of the opposing team got confused and were fairly easy to beat. Trance and his team had to leave the fort and take them on in the open.

Two consecutive victories and the team really thought that they would have a chance in the post-season. The following week came and Trance started to feel a little nervous. This would be his first trip to another school. What would it be like? He felt that their first victory was by luck, the second because they demoralized them early and they were taken completely by surprise. This time his team would be in rather unfriendly territory, and fighting a team in a defensive position.

Early on the day of the battle Trance and his team went to the school and boarded a very large carriage the size of a bus to ride to their destination. They had to ride for four hours to get to the school. Their opponents this time were the Harman Hawk Warriors. They outnumbered the Gray Mountain Warriors ninety men to seventy and lined up the top of their fort to show their might. Trance led his team toward the fort and gazed quickly around.

He was astonished to see how many people were in the stands. The home team stands were packed to overflowing and the visitor’s side had almost as many. He took some very deep breaths to calm himself. Apparently, after winning his first two battles his fame had spread. He had his team form up with the spearmen in front; followed by the archers, and then in rows the swordsmen, ax men, mace men, and the others. He had two groups of men to man their two catapults. They got in range and started the assault.

The battle lasted over two hours. Both sides were amazed to see the intelligent strategy of Trance. After two and a half hours Trance, Zam, Gracer, Mandor, and three other Gray Mountain Warriors survived to win the day. They left and celebrated all of the way home. They would have the next two battles at home before they’d have to go to the next three battles away. Their next home battle castle defense was against the Misty Valley Knights.

Trance did his best to be humble and give his team the credit that they deserved. He tried to remember to thank God for all of his blessings. The Lord had truly been good to him and seemed to be blessing his efforts. He absolutely felt that his dreams were coming true.

The next battle was to be his biggest test. The White Knights were coming and he would have to compete against Rex. Everyone knew that this was going to be a huge battle. The day came and Trance found that he was more nervous than before his first battle. He led his team out to the fort and watched his team go to their places. Then he took a huge deep breath and looked for his opponents to march toward him.

The White Knights came marching toward the fort, all one hundred and forty of them. Rex strode in front, defiantly dodging and blocking the arrows that flew his way. He raised his sword and swept it forward to signal his team to rush the fort, which they did. Trance did not anticipate this and was taken aback as his opponents came charging toward the fort. The White Knights had three very large and powerful catapults that did not take very long to knock out two rather large holes in the fort’s walls. The Knights charged in through the holes and quickly engaged the Warriors.

Trance quickly made his way down the steps to join his team and drew his sword. Three Knights charged him and battled him. He blocked and defended himself, surprised at their aggression toward him. It took him a few minutes, but he was able to defeat them, but as he did so he found that there were two or three more Knights coming at him. In fact it just seemed that the main thrust of the White Knights’ assault was to get him. Why? He couldn’t understand their persistence at trying to specifically get him. His team seemed to sense the same thing and began doing what they could to surround and protect him. They felt that he was the reason that they were having such good success.

Rex came up to the fort and continued to direct his troops to enter the fort and go after the captain of the Warriors. He was angry. He had lost to the Amorites last week and he didn’t want two defeats in a row. In fact, since he had been captain they had never