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

front, placed their armor and weapons in them and then sat back and talked about the dance. Neklon paced for a couple minutes, trying to give an aura of peace as they waited for the schedule. They didn’t have to wait long. They were only in the locker room for eight minutes before there was a knock on the door. It was one of the tournament officials with their schedule. Neklon read it over before addressing his team.

“Okay, I have our first schedule,” Neklon said as he held it up. “Our first battle will take place this afternoon at two o’clock at field four. You will be castle defenders, and our opponents are the Zinfinians.”

Everyone except Trance took this as very good news. Trance asked Gracer why everyone was so pleased. “Well, the Zinfinians aren’t the best team in the galaxy. They seem to do rather well on their home world. They usually rank high enough to get here to the tournaments, but usually when they get here they choke,” Gracer answered.

Neklon then informed the team that they needed to get into their parade uniforms and get ready to march in the opening service for the tournaments. Trance took out the dress uniform from his bag that was inside his open locker. The uniform was gray slacks and a long-sleeved silk shirt, a white surcoat with a gray mountain embroidered on it and a black belt with a silver buckle around their waist. A few minutes later everyone was dressed and Neklon lined the team up with Trance as captain in the lead, followed by Zam, Mandor, Gracer, and then the rest of the team.

Trance didn’t feel nervous about marching out for the opening until he stepped out into the stadium and took a quick look up at the stands. The stadium was absolutely packed. He had seen the stadium yesterday and had a rough idea of how many people could be seated, but now those seats were filled with a sea of people. He tried his best just to focus on marching straight ahead.

All of the teams came out to march completely around the stadium. Then they went to line up in rows that stretched the length of the stadium. All of the competitors had to stand a while as all of the visiting Kings were introduced. Finally the host King was introduced. A local pastor said a prayer over the competitors, “Dear Lord, please watch over our young knights. Give them the courage and grace to compete in these tournaments. Protect them and keep them safe as they compete, and go with them as they grow and pursue their goals in life. Be with them and all of us always. We pray all this in your son’s name, Amen.”

A representative of the competitors took an oath for the entire group that they would battle each other fairly and accept the results as called by the referees. Now one of the referees took an oath for all of the officials that they would judge each contest fairly and without bias. Finally a line of banner bearers paraded in and presented banners, or flags, for all of the competing teams, boys and girls. And last was the official banner of the entire tournament.

Trance was relieved when he was directed to follow Neklon and lead the march back to their locker room. He took off his dress uniform and put on some comfortable clothes. He then joined his team as they left the locker room for a section in the stands where they could watch the first battles.

From his vantage point in the stands he gained a new appreciation of what he had been doing all year in learning how to be a knight. He watched with renewed excitement as he saw the teams march out and take their places and ready themselves for the coming battle. He watched as each team did their best to defend and assault the forts.

The field was divided to have eight forts with four of the forts being battled for by boy teams, and the other four by girl teams. To Trance’s joy, the Lady Gray Mountain Warriors were one of the early teams to compete. He thrilled watching Corena’s team battle and overcome their adversary. He leaped up and cheered when they were declared the winner.

Trance also noted that while the White Knights competed early and were in the upper part of the bracket for the boy’s tournament, the Gray Mountain Warriors were in the bottom part of the bracket. He also saw that when a battle was over the field was quickly cleared and crews ran out and set the fort up for another battle. Trance was amazed at the efficient way the tournament officials cleared each battle site and got two more teams out to battle. It was stunning to see eight battles going on at the same time.

Trance was fascinated watching the teams from other planets march out for their battles. He was most interested in their shields. It seemed that there was a wide variety of shield shapes. The shields that his team used, with the exception of his round shield and the rectangular shields used by the spearmen were like the shields the knights on Althora used. The bottom point of the shield was rounded and angled up. The top of the shield was curious as the top left came up and then curved down and then straight across before curving down the right side.

Trance had learned from the knights and pawns that he had gotten to know when he lived on the Markem’s farm that the left side was raised higher to give the knight more protection on that side as he held it and yet he could easily look over the right side of the shield. Overall it had struck him as a very sleek and modern shield shape.

It appeared that most of the teams from Althora had this shape of shield. Some had more of a