Chapter 221: Archers and Cowards

“Good job, you prize-winning bastard!” Thundar roared.

Wham!

He clapped Alex on the back so hard that he almost knocked the wind out of him.

“Oof!” Alex grunted. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Not before The Grand Battle,” the minotaur grinned. “We need your big, beautiful clay friend!” He mimed tossing a chimaera up into the air, then punching it as it fell. “By all the gods, I can already taste that prize money.”

Selina looked up at him. “What would gold taste like?”

Thundar’s grin widened. “Rich.”

“Now, let’s have a close look at what fifteen hundred gold looks like,” he laughed, his eyes growing round like coins.

Alex’s friends had gathered around him shortly after he’d emerged from the arena proudly sporting his gold medal around his neck. His big beautiful golem Claygon was right beside him holding onto the winnings. Maybe some desperate cutpurse might be bold enough to try and snatch the gold if he was holding it, but they’d definitely think long and hard before trying to grab it from Claygon.

Trying to leave the stadium to get to his family and friends had been absolutely wild; something he’d never experienced before. It almost seemed like he was in another fight as throngs of people surrounded the two of them at the exit, peppering him with questions about Claygon. They’d moved up beside the golem, oohing and aahing and measuring their height against his. They’d tried touching his armour and his four arms. Some had made requests like: “Could you possibly bring him to my shop or residence for a nice visit?” Or, “Can he use this pen to sign my son’s shirt as a belated birthday present, you’ll make him soooo happy!” The unreasonable woman asking for an autograph had looked familiar. Naturally, Claygon didn’t comply.

In the end, it had taken Grimloch pushing through the crowd like some massive ship cutting through the sea to reach the two of them and extract them from the mob. With Grimloch in the lead, they’d finally been able to head to the rest of their group.

“Yes! We made an awesome golem!!” Selina cried, gripping one of Claygon’s massive fingers. “You did so awesome, Claygon!” She made little punches, copying some of his moves. “And Vesuvius was cool too!”

“You think so?” Alex looked at her with concern. “Was watching the fight okay for you? There was a lot of fire and lava.”

“I’m okay,” she said, giving him a broad smile. She closed her eyes and pointed at them. “I just shut my eyes when there was fire.”

“Oh yes, you did so well!” Mrs. Lu said, resting her hands on Selina’s small shoulders. “All that fire, and you were able to sit through it. I’m proud of you.”

A blush crept along Selina’s cheeks and she smiled up at Theresa’s mother. “Thank you. It helped that you told me what was happening in the fight.”

“I was happy to do it. It made me feel like one of the announcers giving a play by play of the action,” Mrs. Lu laughed.

“That’s awesome, a year ago and you wouldn’t have been able to do that. You did great-” Alex paused, noticing Theresa giving his little sister a long, piercing look. “-uh, yeah, you did great.”

There was a moment of silence, in which Alex’s eyes flicked back to Theresa. The huntress glanced at Selina and gave him an expression that said: ‘I’ll tell you later.’

Then Khalik wrapped his arm around his shoulders.

“So,” the prince said. “We are the champions, my friend.”

Alex smiled. “Yeah, we kept on fighting to the end. And we won!”

“I certainly hope there shall be a repeat performance in the Grand Battle. And that you also gathered good data, Alex,” Isolde said. “What did you learn of Tyris Goldtooth?”

“Well, she’s tough, but we already knew that,” he said. “Experienced, powerful and clever; she’s also got a lot of mana to throw around, and I think she has good mana regeneration techniques. If it weren't for the final bell ending the match, it looked like she coulda kept casting for a while. That tortoise of hers is a monster and a half too.”

He frowned, thinking aloud. “One problem I’m seeing is that since the Grand Battle uses the same kind of spell-marks that Baelin puts on us when we go to The Barrens: if we get hit by a lethal attack or one that’d really injure us, we’ll be teleported out of the contest. And every attack that tortoise makes would definitely trigger those spell-marks.”

“Well, that’s not encouraging,” Thundar grunted.

“Tyris is real confident and pretty eager for revenge though, so, we might be able to use that. If we bait her using…well, me, and catch her off guard, I think we can take her out.”

“Hmmm.” Isolde thought. “That is reassuring. Perhaps we shall place higher than anticipated.”

“Careful,” Khalik said. “We are skilled, but overplaying our hand will only lead to defeat.”

“Yeah, I know,” Alex said. “I still want to go for it.”

“One thing at a time,” Theresa said. “We have another couple of days of events before we get to the Grand Battle. Let’s try and do our best in those first.”

Mr. Lu shook his head. “To think I’d see the day I’d watch a mountain of a tortoise spew fire, what an amazing thing. I can’t wait to see what other events this festival has. What’s next, lassoing the moon?”

“Don’t say that around Baelin,” Alex said. “You might give him ideas.”

“Hah!” Mr. Lu chuckled as the group headed away from the arena.

“I wish I was joking,” Alex muttered.

As they walked through the tournament grounds, Theresa slipped up beside him, glancing at Selina with that same look she’d had before. His sister was walking ahead of them, still holding Claygon’s finger and chatting happily with Sinope.

“Something wrong?” Alex asked quietly.

Theresa’s frown deepened. “It might be nothing.”

“Listen, almost every time I’ve heard someone say, ‘it might be nothing’, it ended up being the exact opposite of nothing. What’s wrong?”

“…during your match, Selina had her eyes closed most of the time…but I think I saw her open them a few times just for a little bit.”

“Really?” he looked at his sister. “Maybe she’s getting better with fire again, like I did.”

“Yeah,” Theresa said. “She still talks about Shiani, a lot. Maybe what she said to her, and maybe being around Claygon, is helping her.”

“Yeah, maybe. Huh. You know, when we were checking out those other events this morning, I think she might’ve been looking back at that fire display too. The one where the fire wizards were trying to melt metals. I wonder if I should talk to her about it later? Maybe, try to bring it up subtly.”

“Yeah-”

“What are you whispering about?” Selina asked. “Gross stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Stop it.”

He paused. “You…sure you enjoyed that match, Selina? If you didn’t, you can tell me.”

“I did!” she insisted.

Alex watched her body language carefully, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “Okay, good.”

He might talk with Theresa’s parents first; they might know how to bring it up with her without it being too intrusive.

The rest of the evening passed quickly as they enjoyed a couple more events, had a hot meal, and then after a very long day, everyone headed home for a well needed rest.

The next morning was bright and sunny when they all met up. It was the dawn of the third day of The Games and the demon summoner hadn’t made so much as a peep.

The thought of an attack seemed to fade further from peoples’ spirits. Everyone seemed lighter.

“Maybe with your chancellor around, that criminal will behave themselves,” Mrs. Lu said as they made their way to the tournament grounds.

“Yeah,” Her husband added. “I remember grandfather telling a story the summer after he’d moved to Alric: it was about cowardly criminals. These bandits had made a camp in the north part of the Coille—that’s the great forest near our home town, for those of you who don't know—it was led by a man who called himself Scar, the Bandit King.”

Isolde snorted. “Bandits always come up with such ‘creative’ names and false titles. On the Von Anmut lands we once had to deal with a man who called himself Giant Lord Krauser. When our vassals finally found him, the man was only five feet tall. Ridiculous!”

“Well, Scar might have had bad taste in names, but he was a terror, the way my grandfather told it,” Mr. Lu continued. “Had himself a magic sabre that he’d won during some war in his mercenary days down in Ar-Bishah.”

“He was well-travelled,” Khalik commented.

“But not well-mannered. He hunted the roads between Canterford and Norchester, raiding caravans, burning fields and just spreading terror with a small army of cutthroats and murderers, all bold as the sun. The bounty on him and his followers kept growing—and the harvest that year was bad in Alric—so my grandfather, Twinblade Lu, picked up his blades again and destroyed one of their raiding parties. Well, bandit kings don’t like to have their raiding parties destroyed, so he sent thirty men to kill my grandfather.

He paused, noticing that the entire group was watching him as they walked beneath the morning sun. He seemed to swell a bit. His wife stifled a snicker.

“Well, he destroyed that force too. And the one after that,” he continued in a louder, more theatrical voice. “Suddenly, this bold-as-the-sun bandit king was noooowhere to be found. He’d fled so deep into the Coille, that you’d think he’d never existed. Even with my grandfather’s skills and enhanced senses, he didn’t find his camp until winter.”

He took a breath. “There was a caravan travelling southwest along Coillewood Road—which cuts straight from Norchester all the way to Shropsbury—on their way to a wedding. It carried a dowry worth a lot of coin, a lot of nobles worth a lot of ransom, and it was passing through the forest, close to Scar’s hideout. The knights guarding it loudly proclaimed Scar to be a coward as they made their way through the forest. Even if laying low was the smart thing to do, Scar couldn’t resist that kind of prize and provocation. So, he had a force ambush the caravan.”

Mr. Lu paused. “But grandfather and some friends of his were hiding in the caravan and ambushed them right back. They broke Scar’s force and tracked the survivors back to an old abandoned keep. He was there, and they wiped him and the rest of his bandits out in a night. Point is, I think it might be the same with this demon summoner: they won’t do anything as long as Baelin’s around, just like how Scar avoided fighting my grandfather. But, if something provokes them, then they might do something stupid anyway.”

“Perhaps that shall be a good thing, in the end,” Khalik said. “Better they should act out with Baelin close by. Thank you for the story, Mr. Lu. Your grandfather sounds like he was an incredible man.”

“Well, it runs in the family.” Mr. Lu smiled, and patted his daughter on the shoulder, looking at the thick-limbed bow she carried. “Which is why I want to see you place first in that archery contest today, Theresa. Both Alex and Khalik have prizes, and I don’t want the Lu family falling behind!”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me that father.”

“Yeah, Theresa’s going to win because she’s awesome,” Selina said.

The huntress blushed a little. “Thanks, Selina.”

“I’ll see if during the spell-joust, I can have a repeat performance of my victory,” Khalik said.

“Yeah, I kinda wished I’d signed up for more events now, I’m just gonna be spectating until the Grand Melee tomorrow,” Thundar said. “What about you, big guy? Anything besides the Grand Water Hunt this afternoon?”

“Grand Melee tomorrow afternoon then Grand Battle after that,” Grimloch growled. “Glad the water’s warm today.”

Nua-Oge smiled up at him. “See, that wasn’t unnerving at all.”

“The heat of blood mixes better with a warm sea. Makes hunting the wounded more of a challenge.”

“Grimloch, will you stop that!” Nua-Oge protested. “There’s a child present!”

“I think Grimloch is cool.” Selina shrugged.

‘She’s right, but maybe I need to find better influences for my sister,’ Alex thought, then noticed that they were drawing eyes.

As they got further into the tournament grounds, a lot of folks were paying close attention to their group. While people looking at Claygon and Grimloch wasn’t exactly rare, now they were looking less with curiosity, and more with recognition, especially at Claygon. Some stopped Khalik to talk about his and Najyah’s victory in their weight division of the Duel by Proxy, while others wanted to know who else in the group was competing, and in what events.

It seemed that some of their early victories in The Games hadn’t gone unnoticed.

That seemed to be why people were openly pointing at them and whispering when they reached the long field for the archery tournament.

Alex held his head a little higher.

Several contests were set up to test accuracy, speed and power.

The first challenge was standard for an archery tournament, the kind that Alex had been to once when he was young.

Bullseye targets—with lines painted along the grass every hundred feet behind the last one—were set up one hundred feet from the archers. The targets floated several feet off the grass: each time an archer hit one, they would receive points, depending on where the arrow struck the bullseye. The target would then move back one hundred feet and the archer would take another shot. The cycle repeated until the archer finally missed, or the target had travelled back a thousand feet. If the archer hit the final target from a thousand feet away, they would have concluded the first challenge.

The second challenge was for accuracy and speed. The contestants had to shoot at small targets moving back and forth across a field of grass, with the goal being to empty a quiver of thirty arrows into them as quickly as they could. Points were awarded based on how many arrows hit a target, and how much time it took to empty their quiver.

The final challenge was one that tested power.

Floating targets were set up twenty feet in front of the archers; each was made of a piece of painted parchment attached to a thin sheet of wood. Multiple targets stood behind each other in a row, and the goal was to fire an arrow at them, piercing through as many sheets as possible. The more targets the archer penetrated, the higher the point total at the end of the contest.

“Well, I’m going to go register and get set up,” Theresa said. “Wish me luck!”

She jogged toward the registration desk.

“Think she’s gonna win?” Thundar asked, as the rest of the group made their way over to the stands which had been set up behind the contestants.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “But I’m a bit biased.”

“Theresa’s been shooting for most of her life,” Mr. Lu said, his chest swelling with pride. “Even if she doesn’t win first place, I’m sure she’s going to do very well.”

As they climbed the stands up to their seats, they were able to get a better view of the field and the other competitors.

“What do you think, Lady von Anmut?” Mrs. Lu asked. “You seem to know everything; do you see any competitors that Theresa will need to worry about?”

Isolde paused, straightening a little at the ‘seem to know everything’. “As I have said, while I am studying at Generasi, friends might call me by my first name, which is Isolde. My title belongs in another realm and so…it…is…strange…” She paused. “Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.”

“What is it?” Khalik asked.

She nodded toward one end of the field. “Do you recall the winners of last year’s Grand Battle? The Outcasts of the Divine Wind?”

“…yes?” Khalik said slowly, as he—and the others—followed her gaze.

Three centaurs were trotting up to the field in perfect unison. Large bows, which had been painted stark white, were slung over their shoulders.

“Look there,” she said. “Those three are the archers from that team. …it would appear that last year’s champions of The Grand Battle have returned.”