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

traditional shaped shield yet it seemed the pattern to have the left slightly higher and a place for the knight to look over the shield. Trance also noticed that there were a couple of teams that had round shields. One of the round shield shapes had a notch out of the top center for the knight to look out. Some teams had oval-shaped shields.

Trance vividly remembered the Boulthorian shield from his encounter with them when they had raided the town near the Markem’s farm and had attacked the farmhouse. The Boulthorian shield was a vertical oval and had a notch cut out at the top of the oval. One team had a horizontal oval shield with a notch out of the top center. Some teams had rectangular shields such as the Azarians. One team even had a diamond shaped shield.

As he was fascinated by the shapes of the shields used Trance saw something else that caught his eye. There were a couple teams that had chariots. They reminded him of either Roman or Egyptian chariots and were pulled by a robot horse. Some chariots had a single driver, and some had two riders in it. Trance watched amazed as the chariots raced around and their riders, mostly archers, swung about and used their bows and arrows. They were swift and efficient. How could he cope with them if his team faced a team with chariots?

Trance also saw that the teams from the planet Kainanth used a rather intriguing field weapon. He was used to teams using great crossbows and catapults, but this was new to him. The arm of the weapon would flip up and swing around three slings as if they were a bola and then when ready the gunner would hit a trigger and one of the slings would launch its ball at the target. In many cases all three balls would be launched. There were three sizes being used. Large slingapults were used with great success for knocking down fort walls. Medium-sized ones were also used on the fort and then turned on castle defenders. The small models seemed to be used just for gunning down opponents.

“Wow, those sling weapons are cool,” Trance said as he watched one team from Kainanth defeat their opponent. He also noted that not only did the teams from Kainanth have the slingapults; they also had men that had slings. Their sling men were just as deadly accurate and efficient as their archers. Remarkably that was one of the smaller teams. Trance was told by Gracer that this particular team, even though they were fairly small, was one of the better small teams. They had in fact come in fifth last year.

As the day moved on Trance saw some other unique teams. There were four teams that were like Samurai warriors and a couple teams that resembled Arabian knights. Each team had their own style that reflected their home planet’s military. To Trance it was fascinating to see all of these knights.

“Come on team let’s go,” Neklon said as he rushed up to Trance and the rest of the Gray Mountain Warriors. “The battles are going a bit faster than usual. We need to go and get ready.”

Trance and his teammates jumped up and rushed back to their locker room to get in their armor and get ready for their battle. Twenty minutes later an official came in and said that they would need to go out in about ten minutes. One battle had just finished and they were clearing and preparing the fort for them.

The official appeared and told Neklon that they were ready for them. Neklon lead his team out to the field and marched with them to the fort. They were at field number four. Neklon gave the team some last minute strategy hints and moved off to the coach’s area. Trance then lead his team into the fort and set them up with their strategy. He was slightly nervous as he had marched in ahead of his team, but as he set himself up with his archers he relaxed.

The Zinfinians came out and advanced on the fort and began their assault. Trance waited for them to get in range of their bows and then gave the order to his archers to fire; his first battle at the tournaments had begun. Arrow after arrow left his bow with three out of five hitting opponents.

The Zinfinians were rather efficient with their catapults. They opened a fair-sized breach in the wall and rushed in. The Gray Mountain Warriors were ready and came out as Trance had planned. The battle really picked up. To the surprise of the Gray Mountain Warriors the Zinfinians put up a very valiant fight. Trance drew his sword and had a real duel with a number of opponents and was nearly eliminated by three of them; however, his natural ability with the sword was evident as he defeated them one at a time.

The Zinfinians didn’t seem to choke at all. They fought bravely and chivalrously to the end. The Gray Mountain Warriors were taken by surprise as they fought and began to admire their opponent’s tenacity. In the end the Gray Mountain Warriors won.

Now they’d have to wait for tomorrow for the second part of the Castle Defense tournament. Trance learned that in this particular tournament his team would defend and then assault the fort against an opposing team. To advance your team had to win both battles; however, if your team won on the defense and lost the assault then the victory to advance would be determined by how many survivors each winning team had. The team that had the most survivors for their victory would advance.

Trance returned to the locker room with his team and changed again before joining them to watch more battles. He met his family later that afternoon and was able to have dinner with them. The next day had more opening battles. As the last opening round battles ended, the first