Glade marched out into the center of the arena to face Drandall. So far, Glade kept his sword in his sheath, but his opponent, a broad, muscular man who stood nearly a head taller, had already lifted his hammer off his back. It was a warhammer-sized blacksmith’s hammer, with a smooth head that tapered aerodynamically and elegantly.
For a moment, Glade debated announcing that he held no ill will against Farrir, Drandall’s sponsor, but if the Forge God had qualms about Glade fighting his champion, he would’ve said so.
“Congratulations on advancing this far,” said Drandall, dipping his head to Glade. “I will not hesitate to seize victory if I see my chance, but know that I have nothing but respect for you.”
“Th—thank you,” Glade said. “I do not really know you, but I imagine I will feel likewise about you.”
“I heard about how you helped save a batch of contestants from Larra, and that you’ve aided the Mediator in her adventures.”
“Ah.” Glade drew his sword. “We are here to help, after all.”
“I’ve spread the word as best I can, and many in the audience are aware of who you are.”
“That might explain the cheering we have been getting.”
Drandall smiled. “Perhaps.”
Before Glade could say anything else, the fight began. He ducked aside one way, then withdrew his swordwyrm, which flew in the other direction. They circled around, trying to slip closer to Drandall, but he whirled his hammer around in a massive arc, preventing any easy approaches. At one point, he struck the swordwyrm, flinging it across the arena and denting the fuller.
Whenever Glade tried to lash out with a whip of metal filings and shavings, Drandall hit them with forge-aspect Arcara, melting and deforming them until they no longer resembled blades at all—and preventing Glade from using them.
He ran out of mana before he could get within striking range, and he had no choice but to back up and raise his hands in surrender. His mouth was dry, his throat was sandpaper, and black specks whirled in front of his eyes.
Not a good look, no matter how he put it.
He kept his head high, though, and returned to the edge of the arena. Right now, only King Tallerion’s aide and Ameena stood at the edge, waiting for him. Ameena held out a bucket of Stream water, and with a thankful nod, he plunged his hands into the bucket.
“I don’t have to remind you of the stakes of your next fight, Mr. Charl,” said the aide. “You cannot afford any more mistakes.”
Glade winced. “Apologies, but he is strong and skilled.”
But Vayra had cleared the way for him. He had to keep up with her and make good on her victory.
“You can do it,” Ameena said. “Glade, I haven’t known you for too long, but I’ve seen more impressive feats from you than anyone else here. You don’t understand—”
“I promise, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” Ameena insisted. “You’ve accomplished what most God-heirs struggle for entire lifetimes over, and you’ve done it with a weak spirit. Sure, you had a good teacher, but even the best teacher can’t turn a ground squirrel into a Mediator.”
“I am not a Mediator.”
“It was just a metaphor…oh, don’t be so literal.” Her ears flicked forward and back. “Trust yourself. Get out there and destroy him…in a half hour.”
And so he waited a half hour. He refilled his mana, absorbing what he could from the bucket and draining the spirit-water of its energies. By the time the second round began, his mana was nearly full.
He drew his sword, then patted the swordwyrm on its hilt. “Alright, buddy, ready?”
“Sword-friend can do this!” the wyrm chittered.
“One can hope.”
Glade approached the center of the arena and faced Drandall, and the second round began almost immediately.
And it started the exact same way. Drandall unleashed broad, sweeping strikes with his hammer, beating Glade back. This time, though, Glade didn’t retreat. He ducked under a swipe, then darted forward and struck Drandall’s hammer on its haft, pushing on it.
He barely moved it.
With a shout, Glade fuelled his enhanced body as hard as he could. He cycled to the swordwyrm, drawing Arcara back and forth, and raised himself up to get better leverage. Finally, the swordwyrm joined him, pushing down on Drandall’s hammer. They drove it into the ground, and the swordwyrm accepted Glade’s strength, pinning the hammer in place while Glade whirled his sword up to Drandall’s throat.
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Drandall dropped his hammer and stopped cycling, then said, “You take victory this time. It was a good fight.”
Glade had nothing nearly as blunt to say back to Drandall, so instead, he nodded and backed away to the edge to refill his mana.
By the time the next round began, his mana was full once more. He approached the center of the arena, and both him and Drandall delivered a curt nod to each other before the last round began.
But this time, Glade knew the strategy. Drandall was slow, and if Glade could pin his hammer or delay it, it opened the man up for attack.
With a shout, he advanced across the arena, ducking away from hammer blows and deflecting pulses of yellow-orange Arcara. There was no point in attacking with his metal filings; Drandall would just disperse them and make them useless. Instead, he split Drandall’s attacks with his enhanced cutting edge, pushing through and dispersing the hot Arcara to either side of himself.
With each attack, Drandall was spending Arcara, potentially weakening himself, but at the point of Admirals, such a loss was miniscule.
When Drandall swung to one side, Glade and the swordwyrm jumped in and pushed his hammer down again. This time, though, when Glade tried to reach up and swipe at the man’s neck, his sword collided with a Ward. It hovered in the air.
Glade concentrated more Arcara into the cutting edge of his blade and tried again. He cut through the air-suspended shield, but Drandall had bought time to free his hammer. With a broad swipe, he pushed Glade back.
The fight continued a few more long minutes, Glade seeking an opening and Drandall pushing him back, until Glade and the swordwyrm managed once more to pin the man’s sword down to the side.
Glade didn’t waste his chance. He funnelled as much Arcara as he could into his sword, letting it run down the Moulded Arcara inscriptions and ornaments, transmitting and filling the sword with extra, Ward-splitting sharpness.
He hacked straight through a shield of yellow light, then brought the blade right up to Drandall’s throat, stopping only an inch or two away.
Drandall nodded and backed away slowly. He released his hammer and stopped cycling, then said, “Well fought.”
“For you as well.”
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The Harmony arrived at Barra Secundus early in the planet’s morning, though by her best guess, it would only have been late evening on the Shattered Moon. The sun rose over the eastern coast, illuminating a steep wall of obsidian cliffs. Tough grasses covered the tops, along with gray shrubs and sparse copses of purple-leaved aspens. The atmosphere tasted sweet, and something in the air left a faint magenta haze in the sky—no matter how high the sun climbed.
The main port clung to the cliff walls like barnacles on a ship’s hull. Its houses had dark wooden frames and pale plaster walls, and the roofs had been thatched with gray hay or magenta tiles. Smoke chuffed out of chimneys, and the stench of fish being processed wafted across the water for miles.
Walkways ran down to a sheltered inlet, where the ships docked and accepted cargo. Workers stacked bundles of gray hay and crates of grain on the ships’ decks, and unloaded imports from belowdeck.
“Any big cities here?” Vayra asked, glancing back at Captain Pels and the navigators, who laid out maps of the planet’s surface on the table. “Or, are the Vale Chamber entrances marked?”
“There is a city of a couple thousand to the south,” Pels said. “But it’s largely a producer world; they create and export goods for the larger ecuminopises.”
‘Which suits our purposes,’ Phasoné said. ‘A heavily-populated world would’ve raided even the furthest depths of their Chambers long ago, if they had some. Eventually, a Grand Admiral would’ve ventured down, or a god would’ve sent a party into the depths.’
Vayra turned and walked back to the table, then circled around. The navigators had spread out a detailed map of the coast and the inlets, plus a few inland trails. Myrrir stood behind them, his arms crossed, watching with an awkward expression on his face.
Tiny dots of ink lined the coast. They were more condensed than the villages could be—Vayra could still only see one village, but by this maps’ reckoning, she should’ve been able to see three.
So half the dots couldn’t have been villages.
She ran her finger across the sheet of parchment until she found the nearest village (named Gloamhead), then traced a path north—the direction the wind was blowing—until she reached a dot. Only a few miles north. It, like most of the other specks, had a name with some variation of ‘door’ in it. Wedgedoor was the nearest.
“Pels,” Vayra said. “Can you bring us there? We’ll make a jump for it.”
“As you wish,” he said, then delivered her instructions to the coxswain and lieutenants. The Harmony turned, heading northward up the coast.
As they approached, Vayra stared at the shoreline cliffs. They were about a quarter-mile high, but with no beach or even shards of rock in the sea. Just a sheer, unnatural-looking wall of rock. Halfway up the wall, a doorway made of gray stone emerged. It would barely be large enough for a human to duck through, and simple rune-covered columns demarcated it from the rest of the rock. A ledge, only a few feet wide, separated it from the rest of the cliff.
“That is the entrance,” Myrrir said, walking up to the railing. “Can you jump the distance?” He drew gunpowder out from his powderhorn and used it to Brace his legs. When he stepped up onto the railing, it shook the boards and rattled the entire ship.
“I can make it,” Vayra said, though she didn’t exactly believe herself. The Harmony was a half mile from the coast.
“I will meet you ashore, then.” He leapt of the railing, the force of his takeoff making the ship rock and shudder, then launched himself through the air.
“Phas,” Vayra whispered, “is our regular Bracing strong enough?”
‘Not enough to get you all the way. But you are an Admiral now, and with your internal Ward, you might be able to extend your flight.’
“How?”
‘You drew the starlight into your channels. Your channels have a strong physical presence, now. Manipulate it, control it, and pull your entire body up into the air. Hover.’
Vayra grimaced, but the principle made sense. She stepped up onto the railing, then looked back at Pels. “We won’t be long, hopefully. I’ll make sure we emerge from this same exit.”
Then she jumped over the railing.