Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

This drew a chuckle from the group. They were all crowded around the bonfire for warmth and listening dutifully. All eyes were either on the lieutenant, or the subject of his tale.

“I bet on the Valleyan because he’d destroyed his opponents in the preliminary rounds. Our Lion Lord looked like a swollen lump by the time he won his way to the brawl. There were thousands gathered ‘round the fighting circle, screaming out wagers, and carrying on like savages. When they announced the fighters, they called out Lord Lion first. Once I saw the look in his eyes, I knew I had lost my coin.”

“He was hungry that night, and determined, and though he wasn’t bulging with muscle like the Valleyan, he was veined and ropy. He moved like a big cat.

“When the battle began, the Stallion charged in, swinging his huge roundhouse blows. One caught the Lion Lord and sent him to a knee.”

“Aye,” Lord Gregory chimed in, rubbing at the side of his head reflectivity. “It felt like getting hit by an anvil.”

“I thought it was over with,” Lieutenant Welch continued, with arm reached out toward Oarly. “But the Lion Lord leapt back up and kicked the big bastard in the chin. After that, it was blow for bloody blow.” He leaned over and snatched the flask from the dwarf’s hand, since Oarly wasn’t paying attention. After a long sip, Welch eyed the dwarf and then took another. “They went down in a tangle then, the both of ‘em.” He passed the flask back to Oarly, who was staring back at him now. “They rolled around and grappled for a terribly long time, each getting a shot in here and there. The crowd was on the verge of exploding, but then, all of a sudden, the Valleyan was sitting on the Lion’s chest with a bloody grin on his face. He pulled back an arm the size of a tree limb and the whole crowd gasped in horror. The blow would have surely caved in Lord Lion’s skull, but that’s when our Westlander made his move. He bucked his legs up behind the Stallion’s back and scissored them around the man’s drawn arm. The Lion bucked again and rolled over underneath him…”

A knot of wood popped in the fire, sending up a fountain of tiny orange sparks. Telgra eased slightly closer to Phen, who was captivated by the lieutenant’s story.

“The arm went back even farther as the huge Valleyan was pulled sideways and there was a grinding snap and a scream as his shoulder came undone.

“You’d think that would have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. Lord Gregory rolled to his feet and staggered around while the Stallion roared and tugged at his dislocated arm.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Lord Gregory said. “The man should have been down. I felt his arm break. I don’t think I’ve ever been that afraid of anyone in my life. He just looked at me and ground his teeth as he snapped his arm back into place.”

“It showed on your face,” Welch chuckled. “You looked like you might bolt away from the circle.”

“Believe me, I thought about it.”

“Don’t believe him,” said the lieutenant. “Our Lion is too modest. When that big, scary, blood-covered Valleyan charged him, Lord Gregory jumped up and did a spinning thing. When his back fist hit that sucker, he froze in his tracks then slowly toppled over like a felled tree. The Valleyan stayed in the dirt that time. The Red Wolf soldiers guarding the circle had to protect him from being trampled.”

“The next day, my hand was the size my head should have been.” Lord Gregory smiled at the memory of the glory and the pain. “My head was the size of a pumpkin.”

“Will we be able to stop and see your name on the Spire?” Lady Telgra asked.

“Aye,” Lord Gregory answered. “Maybe seeing the names of the elven archery champions carved there will help you remember something.”

“Isn’t that where Hyden met Vaegon?” Phen asked.

“Aye,” Lord Gregory nodded. “The two of them were in the middle of the championship round when the Dragon Queen-she wasn’t the Dragon Queen then, just Pael’s daughter, and one evil bitch-she started the battle that broke the Dragon Pact. They never finished the competition.”

“Hyden told me that Vaegon was winning when the battle started,” Phen said.

“Aye, but Hyden made the most impossible shot and saved Vaegon’s life.”

Lord Gregory strolled over to Oarly and reached for the dwarf’s flask. Oarly passed it up, but it was empty. Lord Gregory threw it at him with a snarl. Oarly laughed and feigned offense, but quickly pulled another full flask out of his boot. Lord Gregory took a pull from it. Phen noted that the look on his face was intense. The Lion Lord had been poisoned, beaten within inches of his life, and then dropped from a great height by some terrible dark beast.

“Hyden shot an arrow out of the air right before it sunk into Vaegon,” Lord Gregory told them. “Then the two of them saved me from Pael’s poison.”

“The squat weed,” Oarly barked with a laugh. “Vaegon gave you the squat weed to get the poison out of you.”

Lord Gregory chuckled with the others, but it wasn’t a very fond memory. “The elf swam the Leif Greyn River in the night to get it from the Reyhall Forest, where it grows.”

“Will there be a festival next year?” Jicks asked from his watch post at the edge of camp.

“There should be a Summer’s Day festival for the ages next year,” Lord Gregory said. “But you won’t find me brawling anymore. The last one nearly killed me.”

“You could win the brawl, Marble Boy.” Oarly cackled drunkenly at his own revelation. “By Doon, we could make a fortune. No man could so much as bruise ye.”

“I read that, before your people went underground, the giants used to have a competition, too,” Phen said, with a flare of annoyance showing in his tone. “They called it dwarf tossing. The giants would throw a dwarf as far out into the swell as they could. Now that your folk have returned, maybe I could get with Borg. You two would make a great team.”

“Bah!” Oarly swatted at the boy then rose and made his way to his bed roll. He muttered under his breath, “No giant’ll be tossin’ this dwarf like a tater sack.”

Everyone laughed, but within moments the camp, and the surrounding valley, was filled with the sound of Oarly’s snoring.

One of the wagon drivers threw a couple of pieces of deadfall on the fire and stirred it to a roar. The cold of the coming season, and the breeze coming from the mountains, made the night bitter to everyone, save for Phen. The clear sky was reflected on the still surface of the reservoir the river formed. Phen sat with Telgra and enjoyed the beauty of the night. It didn’t take long for the others to turn in. Phen looked down to see that Telgra had fallen asleep against him. He gently woke her and helped her to her bed roll. He put one of his blankets over her, since he didn’t need it.

Jicks was on watch with the lieutenant, and Phen would have normally sat with them for a while, but tonight his mind was full. Lord Gregory’s great brawl, and Hyden and Vaegon competing on the archery range, filled his thoughts. Ages and ages of champions had competed against one another here so that the victor could have his name carved on the Spire for people to see for all time.

Phen woke from his light sleep to see that the sun was coming up. Oarly had just crawled out of his bed roll, Phen knew without looking. It was the sudden lack of his friend’s snoring that had woken him. He was feeling less and less intimidated by the dwarf as each day passed. They were the best of friends, and the unsettling image of the bloody dwarf throwing around a dangerous animal that he had killed with his bare hands had lost its edge.

He wished that Oarly would believe him when he said that he had nothing to do with the wildcat. He found Oarly and they spent the morning chatting and speculating about the Spire, Hyden’s village, and the long, treacherous journey beyond that. Apparently, Oarly didn’t like the cold, and Phen didn’t have the heart to tell him that up in the Giant Mountains, even in the summer, it was ten times as cold as it was right now.