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

Many of the teams that had lost on the first day really tried to best the other team and hope that they would have the numbers to keep them in the competition. Trance watched and learned how the elimination process worked. He saw a few teams just beaten and eliminated. Then there were three ties that had to be fought out and one team that lost on the first day won today. That team won so convincingly that they eliminated their opponents’ chance to advance.

Very late that afternoon Trance led his team out to assault the fort now defended by the Zinfinians. He had prepared his team very well and they protected themselves as they approached. As expected the Zinfinians did all they could to defend their fort. However, in the end Trance and the Gray Mountain Warriors were the better team. They celebrated and were congratulated by their opponents. Trance looked at the great board and saw his team marked to move ahead. The tournament had really just started.

The next few days saw his team gradually advancing through the Castle tournament. As they advanced Trance also caught sight of how the White Knights were doing. It seemed that both teams might meet in the championship match for this tournament.

One team that really gave his team trouble along the way was a team from Kainanth. Trance really had to duck several times to dodge balls from the slingapults. Their sling men were also hard to defend against. For once his team lost their turn of defending the fort. Yet they struggled and managed to win their turn at assaulting the fort, but just barely. Trance was relieved when he was told that his team had advanced by having three more winning survivors.

The next round was harder to win. Trance was actually eliminated by a lucky archer that caught him from behind. Yet his team really rallied and defeated the other team to put them in the quarterfinals. Trance’s friend Hamon was also having a good tournament and had led his team the Amorites into the quarterfinals. In fact it would come down to the White Knights against the Amorites in the semifinal. The Gray Mountain Warriors also advanced and had to battle a Samurai team.

This would be one of his toughest challenges taking on this team. They were very gifted warriors and Trance was stunned at how accurate and lethal they were. It was all he could do to defeat one warrior after another to lead his team to the assault part of the competition. He knew that the next day that his team would have to win the defense part also because Zam, Gracer, Mandor, and himself were the only survivors.

Trance was more nervous for this defense because his team couldn’t afford to lose. He knew that there was a lot riding on his team to win and advance to the final. There was a lot of speculation as to whether he could really lead his team in the tournaments and especially if he could get his team to a final. Here was his first opportunity to get to a final.

The Samurai team was very determined to eliminate the Gray Mountain Warriors. They were very efficient in using their catapults and battering ram to breach the fort’s wall and invaded. However, Trance and his team were ready. He had only placed half of his archers on the wall this time. The remainder he held back until the wall was breached.

Now he and his archers concentrated on sending volley after volley at the invading team. When his team was out of arrows, Trance led his archers and the remainder of his team to meet the invaders right at the breach. The battle was intense as both teams showed their grit and determination to win. In the end the Gray Mountain Warriors advanced to the final.

It was as many people suspected; the final of the Castle tournament would come down to the White Knights and Gray Mountain Warriors of Althora. Trance knew very well that this was going to be the biggest battle of these tournaments.

Both teams went out and faced each other for the coin toss. The winner of the coin toss would get to choose whether to defend or assault the fort. To Rex’s delight his team, the White Knights, won the coin toss and he leered at Trance as he took his time to decide that his team would assault the fort first. He had seen how exhausted the Gray Mountain Warriors were from their defense the day before. Now since his team had had a longer break they could focus their anger at Trance and his team for constantly embarrassing them, rush the fort and not allow the Warriors a break.

Trance led his team to the fort and had a fairly good idea of what was coming. What his team really needed to do was get a break, and to do that they’d need to keep the White Knights away from the fort for as long as possible. He had his men take their places and then went to the top of the wall with his archers. He had an idea that might work to keep the White Knights back a bit to allow the rest of the team to get ready for the inevitable invasion.

Quickly he called his archers and told them what he wanted them to do before Rex got his team in position to begin their advance on the fort. What Trance and his archers were to do was to wait as long as they could and then individually target one opponent at a time, fire at him and then move to another target.

Rex took no time getting his team in order. They were no sooner ready to go than he gave the order to march. With rather reckless abandon the White Knights boldly marched toward the fort, planning on taking their opponents as quickly