“Aaaaah!” The creature screamed in shock as it fell from the sky, landing hard against the surface of the stage.
Derek landed atop it. “An excellent fight. You should be proud.”
Then he shoved his gleaming sword into its neck.
I winced as the karvensi vanished.
The crowd erupted in uproarious applause.
My feelings were…mixed. Had they just killed an intelligent creature for a mere show?
I knew summoned creatures worked more like simulacra. They were copies of a person, not real people. But I still felt a sinking in my gut at the thought.
For the moment, though, most of what I felt was relief. Sera was safe.
“Well done, contestants! You have cleared the second round.”
More applause.
“As you know, normally this would be our final round for the competition. Tonight, however, we are honored by the presence of a special guest!”
Oh, no.
“Our house Summoners are quite exhausted, but our guest is among the most talented in her field. Our audience should know her well — and our contestants should know her even better. Introducing Derek Hartigan’s former partner, the incredible Elora Theas!”
A woman in a pristine red and gold suit, complimented by a tall hat and a dueling cane, appeared in the largest box directly above the stage. She was definitely the same woman I’d seen in the memory crystal working with my mother. “Found a replacement for me so quickly, Derek? She’s quite lovely, but a little young, even for you."
Oh, resh no.
This cannot possibly go anywhere good.
Derek glanced upward at the box. “Elora! My love, my life, my light. You must be so lonely up in that box all by yourself, without any of your many usual acquaintances to keep you company for the evening. Why don’t you come down here and join us?” He snarled. “I’d be glad to give you a proper greeting.”
“Distracted as you are by my beauty, you seem to have forgotten you are in the midst of a contest. But worry not! I will be here to console you while you recover from my contribution.”
Delsys, his wounds no longer streaming fire, finally collapsed on the stage and vanished a moment later. Derek did not spare him a glance, but Sera rushed and retrieved the sword that fell to the stage in Delsys’ absence.
“Contestants, prepare yourselves for your final battle!”
A faster song emerged from the musician’s pit beside the arena, and the arena’s barrier walls flashed.
Derek glanced at Sera. “You may want to step out of the ring, Sera. This is not going to be pretty.”
Sera glanced upward, then back down to Derek. “I’m not pleased with this little lover’s quarrel you’ve dragged me into, but I’m not one to back down from a fight.”
The swordsman nodded silently. There was nothing more to say.
Elora steepled her fingers. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to bear witness to something rare. A summoning of something beyond the mere pittances often strewn across this arena.”
She closed her eyes.
“You who are born of the serpent,
Wrought with scales of adamant and bearing claws of fire,
I call upon our pact.
Visage of venom, hear my voice!
Wyvern, I summon you!”
A gasp escaped the collective voice of the crowd.
They knew, as I did, what she had invoked.
The wyvern. One of the guardians of the tower.
And as she spoke her final word, it appeared.
Twenty feet of muscle, sinew, and scales. It floated above the stage on serpentine wings, opening its draconic jaws into the air.
It screamed, and the room quaked at its voice.
“Very well.” Derek glanced upward, flourishing his golden blade. “Shall we begin?”
In reply, the creature dove straight down.
Derek jumped, landing a glancing strike against its neck. The sword failed to cut through the creature’s scales. It responded with a strike from its viciously barbed tail.
The swordsman battered the tail aside, but one of the spines along the edge ripped across his chest, drawing blood. He hissed as he fell, clutching at the wound.
“Poison,” he spat, clenching his fists as he landed. “I hate poison.”
Sera was not standing idle. She had been finishing an incantation as Derek fought in the air.
“Winds, carry upon you blades of ice!”
A handful of icy daggers appeared behind her, firing forward. It resembled a weaker version of her Permafrost Cascade.
If she was using it, that meant she was probably too low on mana for her more powerful spell. Not a good sign for fighting something as powerful as the wyvern.
The icy knives struck the wyvern’s left wing, burrowing holes into the sinews between bones. The monster roared, but remained afloat. The damage wasn’t significant enough to render it incapable of flight.
Sera’s right hand was shaking heavily. Definitely not a good sign.
Derek swung his blade in the air, sending a golden crescent at the creature’s wounded wing. It twisted sideways, avoiding the attack, but Derek repeated the gesture and struck it in the opposite side.
The wyvern hissed and dove.
Derek ran.
The wyvern hit the stage, breaking boards where it landed, smashing a path as it surged toward Derek with open jaws.
Sera raised the gauntlet and sent a blast into its side.
The visual difference between a burst of gray mana and a blast of transference mana wasn’t very obvious.
The effect, however, was quite distinct.
The wyvern must have weighed twenty times more than a man, but the burst of mana was still sufficient to knock it off course. Its jaws closed around the empty air just to Derek’s side.
And Derek, never to miss such a perfect window of opportunity, thrust his sword into its neck.
“Hah!” He slammed the palm of his other hand into the pommel of his sword, driving it deeper into the creature’s throat. It thrashed wildly as his hand began to glow, sending a surge of golden mana across the blade and blasting a deep hole into the wyvern’s neck.
Derek grinned, pulling away. “You see that, Elora?”
The wyvern’s tail smashed into him a moment later, leaving a bloody smear across the stage.
The motion carried him all the way out of the ring.
And then, it rose, roaring.
Sera was alone.
The wyvern turned, coughing blood onto the ruined stage. Standing on its two legs, it raised its tail like a scorpion, poised to strike.
“Run, Sera!” I shouted.
I knew there was no chance she could hear me from my position in the stands.
The tail shot downward like the thrust of a spear, and Sera spoke.
“Ogre, I summon you.”
The ogre’s hands caught the wyvern’s tail.
And suddenly, I understood.
Those “Binding” spells she’d been using weren’t to slow the monsters down.
She’d been marking the monsters for her later use.
The wyvern hissed, pulling its tail free from the ogre’s grasp. As strong as the ogre was, it was nowhere near as large or powerful as the wyvern.
That didn’t stop it from charging the wyvern with fists flailing, though.
Sera fell to a knee, shaking. She looked pale. Too pale.
The ogre smashed a fist into the wyvern’s jaw. The wyvern recoiled at the blow, but quickly retorted, snapping its fangs around the ogre’s arm.