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

he proved to be a little above average as an archer, and he was also a rather able ax man; however, he was really an excellent swordsman. Many of the judges were very impressed by his skill with the sword, and he started getting compared to Rex.

Rex noticed that Trance was getting almost as much attention as he did and glared malevolently at him. Rex had gotten used to all of the attention when he started taking the knight class and working toward being a knight and trying to get into the Golden Griffins. Up to now the only real competition he had in being the best swordsman was from Orazior, and Lamden, the captain of the main rivals to the White Knights, the Black Knights. He had been spoken of as the single best swordsman seen in twenty years. Rex had relished the fact that he had won every swordsmanship competition for the last four years and had even won the two biggest competitions back to back.

The biggest competition was the Swordsman Challenge. It was similar to the Gladiator Circle but was battled inside a ten-foot circle. To win you had to defeat your opponent by “killing” him three times, or making him leave the circle three times. You only had your sword, shield, and dagger. The other competition Rex had won was of course the huge Gladiators Circle Tournament at the end of the year, when all of the post-season tournaments were held.

Orazior and Lamden were also very gifted swordsmen but were often overlooked because they kept coming in second or third to Rex. They just couldn’t quite get that victory over him. However, they seemed to enjoy watching Rex as they saw Trance enter the competition. Both of them got together and watched as Trance arrived and registered for the first invitational tournament of the year. They seemed to know that they probably wouldn’t win again, Rex was still so very good, yet they had hope that since Trance had beaten Rex at defending a castle that he might beat him here.

There had been a great debate about this first invitational tournament. Some of the judges from the White Knight school didn’t want the Gray Mountain Warriors to be invited. They said that they only wanted the best, and the Warriors had been ranked fifteenth overall last year. Amazingly, the deciding vote to allow them to be invited to come and compete was from a judge representing the Black Knights. He stated that their record was so impressive this year and such a huge improvement that they had truly earned the right to be invited.

Trance was nervous about the singles competitions and wondered how he’d do. In archery he had to shoot at a variety of targets, some circular as he was used to, and some shaped like knights. He was happy to make it to the third round, but missed the quarterfinals by ten points. He was better with his ax in the ax man tournament. He made it clear up to the semifinals. But the knight he faced in the match was from the White Knights and was extremely aggressive. He knocked him out of the circle three times to his one kill. Now the event everyone was anticipating, the Swordsman Challenge.

Once again there was a great discussion as the participants were being given a ranking and then placed appropriately in the bracket. As last year’s overall winner Rex was given the number one position, yet many thought that Trance should be number four or even lower. In a strange twist it was once again the judge from the Black Knights that said that Trance had proved himself with a sword in all of his battles so far and had been very impressive. He noted that the Gray Mountain Warriors were as yet unbeaten under Trance, and that Trance had not even been eliminated in any battle yet. His reason won over the majority and Trance was placed in the number two position at the bottom of the bracket.

Trance saw the huge screen that had been set up to show the bracket for the Swordsman Challenge and saw that he was number two in rank out of sixty-four competitors. He easily advanced to the second round and had a fairly even contest to advance to be in the top sixteen. One of the White Knights was his next opponent, who seemed to be very zealous in coming after him. Trance had to use all of his skill to defeat him. He shook slightly. Was Rex that relentless to get him out of the tournament?

His next opponent was Lamden. Lamden, he discovered, was nobler and more gracious than most of the competition he had faced. It seemed that Lamden really appreciated Trance’s skill and bearing. They had a rather even match with one of them first scoring and then the other one. It was a really fair battle and drew a rather large crowd as the two competed and stood toe-to-toe matching every swing. Suddenly Trance lost his shield to one rather lucky blow by Lamden, so he quickly drew his dagger and used it as both shield and weapon. Moments later Trance scored his third “kill” and won.

“Congratulations,” said Lamden after he lost. He was sincere and stepped forward and shook Trance’s hand.

Now he was in the second semifinal. He watched Rex approach the first semifinal against Orazior. Both participants knew each other quite well and battled rather fiercely. Rex took the early lead, but Orazior came back and twice nearly won. However, Rex proved that he was a fantastic swordsman and won the match. Orazior tried to be a good sportsman and reached out his hand only to see Rex sheath his sword and rather arrogantly stalk away and whisper something to Trance’s opponent, a knight from the Harmon Hawks.

Trance was rather suspicious and approached his match rather cautiously. It took only moments for his suspicion to be accurate. The knight from the Harmon