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

took them six tries before they started to prove that his idea was worth the effort.

Rex indeed had his team at the back of the fort and he was convinced that Trance would look entirely like a fool and not know what to do when he didn’t see anybody on the fort’s walls. He had been joking with some of his lead troops when they looked up and saw the first shot fly overhead.

They had of course heard the front wall being battered and knew that it would be breached in just a matter of moments. Now they could swarm out and knock off Trance’s men easily just as soon as they entered the fort. Rex noticed the second and third catapult shot fly overhead and joked about the accuracy of Trance’s catapult gunners. However, he wasn’t joking much when the fourth fell in the fort and the fifth fell in the inner fort.

Suddenly Rex looked up and all joking gone yelled for his team to run as catapult rounds seemed to rain on them. “How did he know we were back there?” he yelled at his second-in-command. As he rounded the corner and came to the front area of the fort, Rex got another shock.

Trance had sent his spearmen and archers to the breach and set them up in an arc, waiting for the unsuspecting White Knights to come out from hiding and then open fire. The plan worked and now the battle was on.

Rex was furious that Trance had seemingly outsmarted him once again and led his team to brutally storm the archers and spearmen. Yet as the White Knights closed in on them the rest of the Gray Mountain Warriors flooded into the fort. Rex battled fearlessly to get to Trance. Trance was battling valiantly, defeating every opponent that came his way. Now the two met again and dueled.

The battle raged on around them and they fought blow for blow. To Rex’s glee gradually his team slowly started to get the advantage. Trance seemed to notice also and started to take a mental count. It didn’t take long for him to realize that Rex might finally have beaten him, yet as he counted a glimmer of hope came to his mind. Trance started moving from Rex and sweeping in and defeating several other White Knights. Rex was infuriated that Trance could defeat more and more of his men.

Finally Trance knew that the battle was about over. His team had only six men left. He rallied his teammates to make a last stand and for each of them to take down one more opponent. Then one Warrior went down and then a second fell. Trance knew his time was coming yet he fought on. At last he knew that he was the last and he made his mind up and lunged at one more of Rex’s teammates and eliminated him, opening himself up for Rex to gloatingly to finish him.

The crowd roared with approval at the valiant match. Rex and his team were openly celebrating at the victory. They were absolutely elated that they had won and they felt deep down that they had dashed the Warriors’ thoughts of winning this tournament. As they celebrated they noticed that the officials were conferring and they were confident as the head official stood up and signaled that he was going to announce them as the winner.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what an amazing battle that was for the Fort competition. We have your winner. As a result of both teams successfully defending the fort we have looked at the number of survivors for both winning teams. Your winners for this year’s Fort competition are,” he took a small pause, “the Gray Mountain Warriors! They win by a difference of three men.”

The crowd noise was so great that Trance could barely hear his congratulations by the officials and the curses thrown at him by Rex. His team mobbed him and swept him off his feet. Corena found Trance and hugged and kissed him. He was then met by her family and then his own. He had accomplished one of his dreams. He’d led his team to a major tournament win. Now he prayed he could relax and enjoy the rest of the tournaments.

Chapter 22

Tournament Fun

The next few days were more pleasant and less stressful for Trance. He had felt a great deal of pressure to come to the tournaments and win a major title. Now he had done that and he felt more at ease. He even started enjoying watching more battles and getting to meet more of the boys and girls from the other schools. Most importantly he was able to watch Corena lead her team to some great victories.

It appeared that the main competition that Corena and her team of Gray Mountain Lady Warriors had was from Pelleena’s team and Calista’s team. Although Calista had no military ambitions, she was determined to lead her team well and represent her kingdom and planet. There were a few other ladies teams that were quite good, but it seemed that these three ladies and their teams were the major competitors in the ladies side of the tournaments.

Trance learned that most of the planets around did not like or want female knights. Althora, he had learned, was one of the more progressive planets. The kingdoms on Althora had laws that welcomed female knights and stated that they had a fair and equal right to become a knight and to fight and defend their kingdom and planet.

Although the kingdoms on Althora had such laws and many kingdoms truly welcomed lady knights, lady knights only accounted for twenty-nine percent of the various militaries. For the kingdom of Cator the percentage was twenty-seven percent. Trance learned that this wasn’t because Cator wasn’t as progressive; it was very progressive at allowing lady knights. It was that Cator was a really progressive kingdom and had a very large variety of opportunities for ladies in all fields from