RUSTY

Grizzletooth roared, hefting his axe once more. He rushed Froglick, who stepped aside to avoid the charge, his dire rat circling the [Skirmisher] to attack him from behind. The pair worked in perfect unison, putting Grizzletooth on the defensive. He parried Froglick’s sword with the head of his axe, only to receive an ankle bite from the rat. When he attacked the animal, he was forced to pull back on the blow to dodge another attack from Froglick. Leafsniffer was left to contend with Mudroot’s followers on his own, and he broke and ran before he could be surrounded.

The fireball that had destroyed the barrier of crates had not been meant for the gang. Windskip was still locked in his deadly contest with the [Firestarter], unable to touch him again, using all of his skill to evade the spells Sparkfizz was unleashing in rapid succession. The arena was quickly transforming into a hellscape, dotted with lingering flames.

Jiho lifted the crate that had fallen onto Seok, allowing him to crawl free, and the gang headed for a pile of stones, the only source of cover not at risk of being incinerated. They wove around burning shells, snakes, and poisonous frogs to drop behind the rocks. Jiho and Chul helped Seok walk, supporting him under each arm, and the group huddled together, watching the melee unfold.

Windskip closed with Sparkfizz, and the wiry goblin grabbed his face with hands glowing like a forge. Windskip screamed, ripping himself away, leaving the [Firestarter] to continue his rampage.

Grizzletooth and Froglick forgot their duel as an indiscriminate wave of flame cascaded across their side of the arena, forcing them to dive under its crest. With a word from Mudroot, a shimmering barrier appeared in the air, protecting her and her followers from the blast. As if by unspoken agreement, all three candidates turned on Sparkfizz, who was already in the middle of casting another spell.

Sparkfizz stood within his self-created hell, his form nearly lost amidst the embers and smoke. Grizzletooth took off at full speed but had to divert his charge to avoid the wall of red and blue fire that sprang up before him.

Heavyarm emerged from the swirling smoke, calling out a challenge. His sword and shield radiated a pale light, somehow distinct from that of the flames. When he approached Sparkfizz, the wiry goblin shot up into the air, propelled like a rocket, and landed nimbly on top of the pile of stones where the gang had sheltered.

Rusty acted on instinct, scrambling up the pile to sink his fangs into Sparkfizz’s calf. The [Firestarter] yelped, and launched himself up once more, carrying Rusty with him. The little dragon let go, tumbling onto the shells some distance from his friends.

Heavyarm pursued, only to bump into Yellsmash, who was still chasing Slink. The [Screamer] twisted, all sense lost to his ongoing rage, and battered at the [Tribe Champion]’s shield with his iron tipped club.

“Back!” Heavyarm commanded, “My quarrel is not with you.” Yellsmash, the scissors still hanging from his belly, was beyond reason, and the pair were soon locked in a duel. When Mudroot’s followers approached Sparkfizz, he met them with another wave of fire that reduced the lead warrior to a blackened husk. The others lost their stomachs, calling out surrender as they fled the field.

Leafsniffer, no longer under threat, cast an acorn at Sparkfizz’s feet, which erupted into a nest of grasping roots and vines. The wiry goblin tried to escape, tripping as a vine wrapped around one of his legs.

Rusty ducked as Grizzletooth ran by him, then scrambled to return to his friends. Chul met him in the middle, risking the open in his haste to recover his companion, and they both caught sight of Froglick sprinting around behind the [Firestarter]. Busily reducing the roots that had caught him to cinders, he could not avoid the leaping dire rat. It took him in the chest, nearly as large as the goblin, scratching and biting ferociously as Froglick moved in with his sword.

A white-hot column erupted around them both, bright enough to dazzle Rusty, who looked away. Chul grabbed him by one wing, leading him back to the relative safety of the stone mound, where Jiho and Seok still crouched.

“All according to plan,” Jiho grinned, a deranged look in his eyes. Seok’s breathing was less labored, and he was flexing his hands.

“I think I’m about through it,” he said, looking around. “Should we try to help?”

“No!” Jiho snapped. “Stick to the plan.”

Rusty thought it was generous to call insistence that they let all the other candidates kill each other a plan. He couldn’t see any burns on his scales, but his claws and his belly were stinging badly from being latched onto Sparkfizz when the goblin had propelled himself into the air. Still, the field was winnowing down.

Froglick raced toward the exit, his rat in his arms. The animal was missing most of its fur, and the skin underneath was blackened and charred. Rusty winced in sympathy. It didn’t look like the dire rat would survive.

Leafsniffer rolled out of the way of another fireball, and when he came up to his feet again, held up his hands in surrender. Sparkfizz either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The [Firestarter] was singed himself, his robes half gone, and his neck and chest were painted with lacerations from his encounter with the rat. He stalked forward, his arms sweeping in a wide gesture, pulling flame from the air itself, and unleashed a torrent upon the [Herbalist].

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Leafsniffer didn’t even move. Shock registered on his face before he was consumed, vanishing in a cataract of sorcerous fire. Smoke rose into the sky, and what was left after the spell was finished barely constituted a body.

Mudroot had seen her followers abandon her, taking in the chaos that followed with a blank stare before she too retreated. The contest between Heavyarm and Yellsmash drew on without one gaining advantage over the other until the [Screamer] caught his opponent’s downswing on his club and his injured leg gave out on him. He collapsed to his knees, and the [Tribe Champion] bashed him in the face with his tower shield.

Yellsmash’s injuries finally took their full toll, and the rage left his eyes. After receiving another blow to the head, he slumped down to the shells, unconscious. Grizzletooth had come to stand beside Sparkfizz, who was taking a moment to recover from his exertions. His mana pool had to be tremendous, but it couldn’t be unlimited.

“Step aside,” Heavyarm demanded of the [Skirmisher]. “That scoundrel cannot be allowed to lead.”

“Yesterday,” Grizzletooth said, hefting his axe, “I would have agreed. But strength recognizes strength, and I have never seen one goblin wield this much power. Sparkfizz should become the Great Goblin. I will give him my pledge, here and now.”

Heavyarm held out his sword, point first. “Then we find ourselves at odds, sir, and my challenge extends to you.”

Heavyarm lunged, his shield held high and his blade thrusting forward in a swift, serpentine arc aimed at Grizzletooth's exposed side. But the [Skirmisher] was prepared; with a guttural shout, he swung his axe down, intercepting the sword mid-flight, steel clashing against steel.

Heavyarm didn’t so much as pause, his lunge transforming into a backstroke. Grizzletooth’s ax seemed to move on its own, carrying his hands with it, blocking the blow, and Rusty wondered if the [Skirmisher] was using a class skill to boost his defense.

Grizzletooth launched into offense, his ax blade a whirlwind of sharp edges that the [Tribe Champion] resisted with his glowing shield. He ducked a strike meant for his head, his sword swishing through the air in a counter that aimed to slice across Grizzletooth’s torso; but Grizzletooth stepped back, evading the blow by a hair's breadth.

The [Skirmisher] pressed forward, wielding his axe in a relentless barrage meant to overwhelm Heavyarm's defense. He struck repeatedly, but he might as well have been assaulting a castle wall.

Heavyarm was a mobile fortress, his shield a bulwark that resounded with the thunks of the blows it absorbed. Despite being made of wood, it suffered only small chips and cracks from the ax blade, which should have sundered it as easily as a log. The sword in his hand moved with calculated efficiency, weaving a network of silver lines that sought to find a way past Grizzletooth's wild, reactive weapon.

Sparkfizz straightened up, his breathing steadying, but seemed content to observe as his newfound champion fought in his stead. The pair appeared evenly matched, shifting back and forth across the shells.

Then, with a bellow, Grizzletooth swung his axe in an overhead arc, leaving his torso exposed. Heavyarm raised his tower shield to catch the blow, and when the ax struck, the force of the impact passed through his opponent’s body to send a shockwave into the ground below. Shells blasted out from around his feet, and Heavyarm’s arm crumpled even as his sword leapt forward to bury itself in the [Skirmisher]’s belly.

Grizzletooth stumbled back, clutching his wounded stomach, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. Then he seemed to gather himself, using [Second Wind] to forget his injury, and his ax spun once more.

Heavyarm’s shield fell. He grimaced at the agony that had to be shooting through his limb, and no longer able to lift his shield, he let it go. It landed on the ground with a dull thud, its light fading, reduced to a battered hunk of wood. Still, he would not yield. Lunging forward in a staggered, painful advance.

Grizzletooth hit him with the flat of his axe, striking the side of his opponent’s skull as the formidable goblin reflexively attempted to block with a shield that was no longer there. The [Tribe Champion] fell and did not rise again.

Grizzletooth, covering the wound in his stomach with one hand, looked over to the arena entrance, where Grik stood atop the wall with his staff shining at his side.

“Are we done?” Grizzletooth shouted.

Grik simply pointed.

Jiho, Seok, Rusty and Chul, froze as the warrior’s attention fell to them, only partially concealed by the mound of stones.

Sparkfizz raised his arms, a mad grin threatening to split his face in two, and a blue ball of flame gathered above his hands, growing larger with each passing second.

The gang was all of the same mind. They sprinted for the nearest wall, Sparkfizz’s laughter chasing them across the shells.

“I surrender!” Seok screamed as they went, but it didn’t matter to Sparkfizz. Rusty caught sight of a pillar of orange hair in the crowd. Jiwoo and Sooji were together. The elder goblin was on his feet, shouting for them to run as fast as they could. Sooji’s eyes were closed, her head bowed, as if she couldn’t bear to watch what was about to transpire. Her mouth was moving, she had clasped her hands tightly under her chin.

She was praying.

Rusty hopped over a wreck of burning fragments that had once been a barrel, only to fumble the landing. His claws slipped on loose shells, and he tripped onto his belly. They were close to the wall, and Jiho kept running, vaulting over the low stone barrier to disappear into the crowd, many of whom were themselves scrambling to take cover. Seok was only a step behind him, but Chul, as aware of Rusty as if they were one being, slid to a stop as soon as he fell.

Chul spun, grabbing Rusty to bring him back up, and the little dragon couldn’t resist glancing back at the roiling ball of blue growing ever larger above Sparkfizz. The goblin was cackling madly, and the spell, more powerful than any he had cast thus far, seemed just barely under control. As Rusty watched, unable to look away, the ball twisted into a mass of writhing tendrils, a creature of nightmare struggling against invisible restraints.

It exploded, and the shockwave knocked Chul and Rusty back off their feet. Heat and light washed over them, blinding in its intensity. They shared their fear, their certainty of death, and then the moment passed.

Rusty blinked. The crowd was silent. Where Sparkfizz had stood, there was only a smoking crater, and Grizzletooth was down in a mound of shells some distance away.

Rusty worked his jaws, unable to formulate a single coherent thought.

Chul sat up, rubbing his eyes, and taking in the scene of destruction behind them.

“Did we just win?” he asked, disbelieving.

Seok had stopped with one hand on the wall, gaping at them both. He seemed about to say something when a lithe figure wrapped in gray and brown cloth stepped between them.

Slink held a dagger in each hand, her eyes unreadable, and the moment stretched out in the pervading silence as she regarded Rusty and Chul. With barely a flick of her wrist, she tossed one blade at Chul’s feet. Then she bowed.

Chul stood up, took one look around the burning, broken field, and lifted Rusty up above his head for the assembled goblins to see.

The crowd went wild.