Without question Elwin pulled on the water hard with an oar of ice, and they all heaved as the boat turned its corner, almost capsizing them. But bravely they endured and sped ever closer, all their eyes upon the one-million point standard.
Lucian fell into the water with his black diamond banner, and in the split second he was surfacing, both Elwin and Mirai grabbed it, and pulled it away from his grip, racing away with a jet of water rocketing behind them.
The black diamond was now theirs; from twelfth place on the giant scoreboard, they immediately shot up to the first.
All eyeballs fell on them.
Lucian, realizing the turn of the tide, bellowed with rage; and without even glancing at his squadra he surfaced like a shark in a somersault of ice, froze the water beneath him into a surfboard, and began chasing after them, his eyes alit with murderous fury. Lightning flashed in the sky, followed by the cracking of thunder; it reverberated all around the Circuleum, and the sky was let loose with a storm of heavy rain.
No one shall take away my banner! And especially not ELWIN!
16 other squadras, who were not guaranteed the win, all fixed their eyes upon Elwin’s racing boat and steered their own like wasps to a honeybee nest, intent on pillaging it all.
“FASTER, ELWIN, FASTER!” His kismets pleaded, as Elwin cartwheeled his arms upon his shoulders like chariot spokes and clefted out bucketfuls of water, his Quan radiant like a morning star. It was fortunate that he had practiced under Professor Aionia’s grueling regimen to improve his Kaha; just like his time with Ursus, this challenge was also a battle of endurance.
“TEN MINUTES TO THE CLOCK!”
They just needed to hold onto the black diamond for 10 minutes. Time was in their favor.
But when the kismets glanced back towards Lucian, they did not find him chasing them; in fact, he was not there at all, or anywhere above the lake. Before the realization could pierce them, a shadow from the water in front of them grew in size, and its subject shot up from the depths, rocking their boat.
Lucian squeezed all the waters from his dripping battle-robe and froze them as he surfaced into the air, shooting them all into needles; Katherine screened them all with a wall of fire as expected of her role as Artillery Guardian, and they all melted upon passing, but Lucian dived through the flames, his robes covering his face, and swung his fist into Katherine’s face.
“OUT OF MY WAY, HERIZ!”
The swing met Katherine squarely in the nose, and she howled in pain, falling backwards and almost hitting her head upon cold wood had it not been for Isaac; Elwin, enraged, flung the black diamond banner onto the floor of the boat, froze the falling rain into a lance and drove it into the chest of his enemy at the blink of an eye, as vengeance for his friend; it pierced his metal armor, but did not pass the thick weave of the Celendir wool. Lucian swung his arm down and broke the lance into two, and sharpening it into a scythe swung at Elwin’s neck, which he dodged; Elwin cracked his neck and headbutted into Lucian, drawing blood from both of their foreheads, driven by a rage he had to suppress three nights ago. A corner of his heart had hoped that after all they faced together as Celendirs, Lucian would at least restrain himself from such a remorseless assault, and had he actually changed, Elwin wouldn’t have been as incensed. But Elwin had hoped too much – Lucian was not such a figure of goodness, and realizing this fact instantly fished forth the memories of his past, of being beaten and tormented by Lucian, how Elwin swore he would overcome him.
“YOU LIKE THAT? HUH?!” Elwin headbutted him once more, roaring a primal scream into the rain as blood and water seeped down into his eyewrap, unbottling the fury of his rivalry which was now fully permitted.
Lucian kicked him with both of his legs, falling into the boat and nearly flinging Elwin off the edge; Isaac desperately grasped the black diamond banner away from the two, while Mirai waited for the right gap to strike and knock Lucian out for good.
Just as Elwin remade his balance, the sleeve on his left wrist became undone, and his Quan became exposed; Lucian, seeing it, froze the water upon Elwin’s arm into a blade and –
“C R A C K !”
Mirai punched Lucian hard in his cheekbone with the metal ring from the galleass deck, just before he could slice the band of Elwin’s Quan. A bruise instantly sprouted upon his face.
“THAT’S MY MOVE, LUCIAN, MINE!” Elwin bellowed, grabbing Lucian’s shoulders to wrestle him into the water, Lucian doing the same to Elwin’s. By knocking the other out, each could prevent their rival from rising to the 4th place and beyond; Elwin could halt Lucian’s advancement in the tournament, and Lucian could do the same; he and his little sister could be spared if Elwin lost.
“ARGH!”
“EUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Lucian countered Elwin’s wrestle, roaring in existential anger, nearly splintering the boat with the weight of their struggle.
It was then and there that the 16 galleys chasing Elwin and his black diamond standard rammed into them all. All around them the woods snapped and the waters roiled like a tempestuous sea; Lucian’s compatriots had also arrived to his rescue, and within seconds, Claudia, Rayo, and Cassius were beating the kismets back with an equal measure of the Mahamastra. Lucian grabbed the banner and threw it like a spear to Rayo, who threw it to Claudia, who threw it to Cassius; they were almost about to jump aboard their own boat when Khan rammed his body into him and threw him into the sea.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Lucian instantly lunged for Khan, but Robert was unwittingly in the way.
“WATCH OUT!” screamed Elwin, as he deflected Lucian’s spear going for Robert’s eyes by a hair’s width of give, and shattered it in two. Robert ducked sideways, and looked upon Elwin, stupefied at what might have become of him; Lucian advanced nevertheless, every Arten that stood in his path nothing more than a stepping stone, only having cooperated those three nights ago because his hands were forced to do so. He swung at Khan with a column of ice, and Khan, ducking, smashed his metal orb into Lucian’s torso; but the ash-blond monster continued his advance with the orb still lodged in his armor, and bodied Khan with a full contact tackle. The black diamond banner was thrown off both of their hands, and it fell upon the sea.
Elwin, sensing the opportunity, dove into the pitch-navy water, almost seeing nothing below the surface like the deep ocean, but somewhere above, a crackle of lightning struck by way of fortune; and by that faint glimmer of light he found the pole and grasped it again.
Elwin shot back up onto his boat, signaling his kismets to disengage at last and steer away, but Lucian’s eyes, dartingly omniscient, were never off of them.
“IF I CAN’T HAVE IT, THEN NO ONE CAN!”
Terror seized every onlooker as the black diamond standard went up in flame, caused by none other than Lucian’s Quan, buzzing just a few feet away – the fuligin banner disappeared in smoke and the pole turned to ash, soot seasoning the surface of the rocking waves like pepper.
The one-million point standard had been destroyed.
As all souls watched dumbfounded, Lucian cleaved the kismets’ boat in half with a strike of ice from below, and whisked away several sapphire and ruby standards from the surrounding boats with air before racing away with his squadra.
He was now in first place again.
Elwin and his kismets fell into the cold, stormy water, their standards lost.
They were now at 20th place on the scoreboard, at the very, very bottom.
“FIVE MINUTES TO THE CLOCK!”
All boats started their races elsewhere, looking for the next prey to climb the ranks. All except one.
“Take my hand!” hollered Robert, extending his arm to Elwin and his kismets.
The audience’s cheers blared above the thunderstorm in a demonstration of his honor.
It was just the help the kismets needed. As Elwin clambered up he froze the surface of the waves into a thick sheet of ice, and helped his friends up onto the improvised mini-iceberg, now their last craft of refuge upon the stormy sea. Robert shook his hand, and spoke.
“We fought together last time. I would like to see you in the final round. Thanks for saving my eye against his spear.”
Elwin made a grateful nod and flexed his arms again, ready to pound the waters; Robert’s squadra, along with Daphne, Rafia, and a boy whose name Elwin did not know, whisked off again to secure their place on the top four.
“Guys,” whispered Elwin under his breath, “are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Katherine winced, coughing out water and rubbing her bruised nose. “What’s the plan?”
“We can’t take the standards the conventional way. We will have to lather a bit of ingenuity upon our hands.”
“How so?”
Elwin pondered for a brief second, and laid out his plan. “Trouble came to us when we tried to go for the black diamond standard, and it didn’t work out well for us when we tried to go for the sapphires, too. Too much attention from other teams.”
“So instead, we’re only going to focus on the low-point standards. I will race our iceberg around the boats with a lot of standards – teams which have so many they are struggling to hold onto them all with their hands. I’m going to freeze the water beneath their crafts so they can’t escape.”
Their thoughts were in rhythm with Elwin’s.
“They’re going to panic and hold onto their high-value standards, like ruby and sapphire, while they let go of their ambers and jades. Rather than fighting, we will just grab the standards they can’t adequately defend, and make a run for it. Speed over brute force. We do it to as many boats as we can, many a minute, excluding Lucian and Robert’s, because they’re too well defended. This way, we get to climb, while everyone lowers in rank.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Their hearts nearly beat out of their chest with each decisive moment.
“Ready?”
“Ready. Just ten yards now. Three – two – one – jump!”
“Two jades!”
“I have them! GO, GO, GO!”
And so Elwin did as his kismets alerted him; they were like a well-greased machine, he their captain through the downpouring mist.
They were now in 15th place.
“TWO MINUTES TO THE CLOCK!” Professor Aionia announced, her voice coming clearly even through the downpour, cheers rolling over them.
“Elwin, another boat coming up!”
“Alright, Katherine, make a feinting attack on their ruby – and three – two – one – !”
In panic at having their boat stuck in ice, the fumbling team held dearly onto their ruby standards, dropping several low-point ones.
“THE AMBERS! THE AMBERS! GRAB IT NOW! NOW! NOW!”
Katherine lit a fireblast behind Mirai’s back; she rocketed past the defenders, hooked the poles of the abandoned standards with her large ring of metal, and jumped onto Elwin’s iceberg before anyone had time to react.
They were in 7th place now.
“Sapphire laden boats!”
They were in 6th place.
“Another one!”
They were in 5th place.
“And another one!”
With the final grasp of a single jade banner, an announcement came upon the Circuleum: the team above them had dropped, and Elwin’s team was now upon the hallowed 4th rank. The scoreboard shifted in an instant to reflect their new position.
“30 SECONDS!”
But suddenly ahead of them appeared Lucian’s boat; he glared at Elwin and his team, cognizant of his chance to destroy the kismets for good, delivering Elwin the final destruction he swore to accomplish. If he could defeat Elwin now and prevent the kismets from ascending to the final challenge, Lucian was confident that the championship would become his, his very own. He roared to his prodigious squadra, blasting the water behind them with a force hitherto unseen, all his eyes fixed on Elwin and his gathered standards.
“10 SECONDS!”
Lucian’s boat swerved and smashed into the iceberg, and in the chaos of impact Lucian snatched away a jade standard from Isaac.
The kismets dropped to 5th place, climbing to the 4th place in their stead a squadra that Lucian neither cared nor recognized. He cackled in hideous laughter, immolating the pole and fabric in flame, holding up the burning jade banner for all to see, for all those in the Circuleum to see, all around him scrambling, struggling amidst the fury of the waves.
ELWIN ERAMIR, YOU WILL PERISH HERE!
“THREE!” Professor Aionia announced.
“TWO!”
“ONE!”
And just then, Robert hurled a sapphire standard onto Elwin’s outstretched arm with all his might.
It touched the nail of his finger, and Elwin grabbed it just in time; through contact it now belonged to the kismets, and they rose to 4th place again for all the audience to see.
“ASTUTE ARTENS, DENIZENS OF AIENWATER! GIVE YOUR PRAISE FOR THE FOUR SQUADRAS WHO SHALL ASCEND TO THE FINAL CHALLENGE OF ALL!”
The combined cheers of the twenty-thousand-strong audience unroofed the downpouring sky, allowing the Sun above to pierce the clouds and illuminate the sea in transient veils.
Elwin fell to the waves, letting it carry him and float him, rejoicing that by the blessing of the FOUNDERS, and their former allies, his kismets were alive to see the final day.
Their final day of all.