Chapter 4
Axe

~Aaron~
Wow, I thought, we’re actually here. Somehow we made it. I stole a glance back at Gray. He just walked silently behind us, looking unimportant. What did he say, or do, to that man back there? Whatever it was it sure buttered him up. I wondered what else Gray was capable of, what exactly did he have to hide? My mind was quickly pulled away from those questions as I got drawn to everything around me. Detailed artistry covered the brick walls in the hallway we walked though, depicting scenes of war and violence. Festive flowers hung all around contrasting with the bloody scenes it was surrounded with. The tournament had already begun from the sounds of the screams of the audience and the scattered screams of unknown creatures. That was normal from what I heard. The mass of 150 groups were split into 6 groups with 25 teams in each then faced groups of ten to twenty monsters. Sometimes it was dragons but those were rare now so usually it was something more numerous, either way they were terrible. You see, the first round was used to “weed” out the weak teams; usually it cut the number by half making the tournament not as long. With the number of groups left they then had groups facing off each other; depending on the number of people left the tournament could last from two to twenty days.
I could already feel the adrenaline in my system. I tapped the hilt of my sword anxiously and clenched the muscles in my arms, feeling strength from years of training course through them. A single thought went through my head, we made it, we made it.
“You five, over there!” I turned around and saw a haughty looking guy in a red shirt hurriedly walking toward us. I met his eyes and I pointed at myself questioningly.
“Yes you! What are you doing? No one is allowed in here-”
“Except tournament participants,” I interrupted him; I was getting annoyed with everything getting in our way. “We’re in the tournament.” I held up the paper the man at the desk handed me.
The snooty man looked ruffled, “That’s not possible. There are already one hundred and fifty groups.”
“Come on Coler. Let them through,” said a guy behind us.
“But there are no more spots left,” said Coler incredulously.
“We can just fit them into the next group. It won’t hurt anybody,” the other guy said patiently.
“Fine then,” Coler said, flustered with annoyance, “You deal with them.” With that he walked away speedily, off to reinforce more rules annoyingly.
A guy who looked about my age walked up to us, in the same red shirt that all the tournament officials wore. He looked pretty laid back and had an expression on his face that he had just had a very refreshing nap. “Don’t mind him,” he said, “He deserves to not get his way once and a while. I’m Sean by the way.”
“The Dragon Seekers,” I said, practicing getting used to saying the name.
“Well, Dragon Seekers, we better get down to the arena if we’re going to sneak you in. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that that sheet in your hand is real, it’s just by the time we could sort out the mess of paperwork of having an extra team the entrance rounds would be over. If you would give me that…” he grabbed the sheet in my hand, “I’ll just slip this into the pile. Now follow me.” He lead us at a fast pace down the corridor.
“It would probably be a better idea if you didn’t enter the tournament,” he said not looking at us, “The first group has already gone. Only four groups survived.”
“Only four?” said Brand, surprised.
“Yeah. It’s really not as bad as it sounds though, if you lose more than two people in your group you’re out.”
“But only 4?” What are we up against?” I asked.
“Sorry, I’m not allowed to say,” said Sean ruefully, “But I suggest you get out what you have, you’re going to need it.”
Taking his advice I started to check my sword and armor. I looked back and saw the others doing the same, except of course, Gray who was just looking around whistling. It was a good thing we could lose a few guys and still make it. Was the kid even wearing any chainmail? The only thing that was different about him from the last night was the there were two swords strapped to his left side, both strange looking.
Sean took us down to the underground area and asked another man in red standing by a door if the second group started yet.
“I think Vic is finishing up with his speech,” he answered.
“That’s no good,” said Sean and increased his pace, “Looks like I’m gonna have to sum up what he says. Let’s see…the major one is that killing is discouraged but if it’s in self defense it is okay. If the King or the officials think you’re just killing for fun you’re disqualified.”
“Killing’s only discouraged? That’s not very encouraging,” said Gret.
“Hey, you signed up for this. Going on…you can only use one magic user per round, no pets or magical animals allowed. Then of course if you lose more than two guys you’re out. That’s pretty much it.”
As soon as he finished we approached the second group which was already stepping out onto the arena, walking up the stairs to a hatch in the ceiling. We quickly ran to get to the back of the group.
“Good luck,” said Sean, “Be sure to give me my cut if you make it to the final round.”
We didn’t have time to respond, we were already running up the stairs, trying to catch up. When I stepped into the light, the sounds of the audience enveloped my ears. I raised my hand to block out the blinding sun and as my eyes adjusted they grew wide with amazement. There were thousands of people, more than I had ever seen together in my whole life and they were all cheering. Hearing all the voices swell, it was easy to believe that they were all screaming for me.
I felt a tap on my back, I looked over my shoulder and saw Gray standing there, “We’re going to be left behind,” he said softly. Quickly I turned my head around and saw that the others had gone ahead, I didn’t realize that I stopped. I swiftly walked over to the mass of twenty five groups. We all stood there for a moment, looking around at the massive stadium.
The crowds kept screaming for more of the fighting, they didn’t have to worry about the monsters or any projectiles from the tournament; there was a ring of magic users that made an invisible barrier to protect them. With that security anyone could watch the tournament, at least anyone that could stomach the fighting. And there were plenty of people like that.
I unsheathed my sword, Gret and Gray did the same. Gray only unsheathed one and I saw why it looked so strange, it was clear like glass and more like a rod with a hilt. The “sword” didn’t even have sharp edges or tip. The kid might as well brought a broom handle.
There was a large clank and everyone turned toward a huge doorway behind us. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand.
“That’s where the monsters come out,” said a man behind me eagerly. I didn’t look back, my eyes were glued to the door as it opened creaking. Then suddenly a large, clawed hand grabbed the door from inside and pushed it open. My heart jump-started as a pack of serpentine creatures poured out of the entrance. Dragonets. They were about the size of a small house and had the likeness of a dragon. Green and brown scaled skin ruggedly hugged their wrinkly bodies. They were grotesque looking more like newborn baby than any dragon. Thankfully they could neither breathe fire nor fly; the wings on their backs were more like chicken wings. Still, they were strong and deadly fast and because of that in just a few seconds around ten people were mowed down. No wonder why only four groups survived the last round, it usually took twenty to thirty normal people to take down a dragonet; I estimated that there were about twenty dragonets.
“Split up!” I yelled, hoping that my group would hear. The bigger the group was the bigger the target for the dragonets. I ran right, trying to get away from the massive group. Chaos had already erupted; men were already screaming in pain and every once and awhile a few men were tossed into the air, in other places people were trying to hold their own fighting with whatever weapon they had.
I ducked as a green tail nearly rammed into me, it slammed into a man behind me who didn’t have the time to duck and I heard a few bones crack. I kept running, trying to ignore the bodies I had to step over. My head swerved every direction, watching to see if I was being pursued by any dragonets. From the corner of my eye I saw Ethan having trouble with a dragonet. The monster swiped its claws and tail at him but Ethan was just fast enough to dodge them. I might as well, I thought and ran behind the dragonet with a swing of my sword I cut at its back legs. As quick as a snake the dragonet twisted its long neck around to face me, screeching in pain and annoyance. Ethan, not wasting a second, lunged his sword straight into the beast’s chest. The dragonet shuddered and with a fwomp, fell down to the ground.
Ethan looked around the dragonets body at me, “Thanks,” he said panting.
“No probl-,” before I could finish my sentence Ethan threw his broadsword straight at me. Yelping I stepped to the side, just missing it. There was a loud scream behind me and I turned to see a dragonet clawing at the sword which was impaled in its hand. Without missing a beat I started to swing at it but this one was smarter, seeing me it swiped at me with its tail. I wasn’t fast enough this time; the tail rammed me in the stomach with the force of a bull, making me fly a good distance. My sword flew out of my hand so fast I couldn’t tell the direction it went. Gasping like a fish on land, I tried to catch the breath I just lost. The sun was suddenly shadowed as the dragonet stood over me. Panicking, my hands groped around me searching for anything that could help. The dragonet lowered its head; crap, it was going to eat me. My heart pounded fiercely, my lungs were starting to function again, my hand touched the tip of something. I could feel the dragonets breath now, it smelled of blood, my hand frantically grabbed at the handle of the spear, the dragonet opened its mouth and-
Csk! The spear impaled the dragonet through its mouth; red, hot blood traveled down the spear and soaked my arm. Shakily I let go of the spear and hastily crawled away from the dragonet as it crashed down, dead.
I breathed in raggedly, I really thought I would die, as I inhaled I felt a stab of pain in my side. Gingerly, I touched my left ribs, yep, a few of them were broken. Someone ran up behind me, turning my head around I saw it was Ethan. “Sorry,” he said between breaths, “No,” pant, “Sword.”
“Hey, you saved me, I saved you. I’d call it even.”
Ethan smiled then grimaced, putting his hand to a ragged cut on his shoulder I didn’t see before. “It looks worse than it is,” he said seeing my look, “I’d worry more about everyone else.”
Carefully, I got up and looked around, the chaos had died down, only three dragonets were left and they were on the other side of the stadium. There was about six or eight people around each one, seeing as how they survived this long they would take care of the creatures left quickly. I squinted my eyes but it was no use I couldn’t make out the remaining people’s faces. I didn’t see any more survivors besides them, the first round did its job; it took out the weak and unlucky of us.
Sighing I looked around for my sword, the arena was littered with dead and wounded dragonets and people, broken weapons, and blood. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t but I knew I was looking to see if any of my team had been cut down. From the sounds behind me I guessed Ethan was doing the same.
After a few minutes I spotted my sword right in front of the open doorway the dragonets came from. The crowd suddenly erupted into louder cheers and I knew that the last dragonet was dead. I started walking toward my sword; I didn’t really care about the crowd at the moment.
I was some paces away from my sword when suddenly I got a chill down my back, the kind of intuition that a guy gets before somebody dies. Shaken I quickly glanced around. There was nothing. I shrugged the feeling off and continued walking over to my sword. I had just stepped over a man lying on the ground when I felt a warm breeze coming from the doorway. My heart stopped, there was no way a breeze could have reached this place in the stadium, I was too close to the wall. Frozen I tried to move my legs-
“RAAAUG!!” a huge scream exploded out of the doorway, so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. There was a dragonet, so large I wondered if it could fit out of the door. Lighting fast it lunged at me, instinctively I stepped back tripping over the body behind me. In that millisecond I fell I could do nothing to protect myself, this was it, I was going to die.
Suddenly there was the metallic hum of something large being thrown in the air and I saw something silver collide into the dragonets neck with a large spurt of blood. We both fell at the same time the dragonet and I, me over the man and the dragonet to the side with the force of the silver projectile.
I cringed as I hit the ground and put my hand to my ribs, scrambling to my feet I tried to see what just saved my life. The dragonet lay on its side, blood started to pool on the ground where it lay; in its neck was an axe the length of my sword. The axe had almost cut through the dragons neck, looking closer I saw that the massive weapon was jewel encrusted and had elaborate designs along its sides. I looked around for the giant that had thrown it. By the looks of the axe it probably weighed as much as me and to me thrown that at that power and that fast… There was no one. The audience was murmuring and I realized that they must have seen what had happened. Did they see who threw it?
Adrenaline was still pouring in my veins, my heart was still pounding. With shaky steps I resumed walking toward my sword which I hoped wasn’t buried by the dragonet.
“Aaron!” I heard Gret yell at me. I turned to see Gret, Brand, and Rook running toward me. I sighed, relieved.
“Status report,” I said to them as they approached.
“Just a nick,” said Gret, quickly pointing to an ugly scratch on his left arm then started to work on getting out some bandages.
“A hit to the head,” said Brand, looking a little woozy, “I’ll shake it off.”
“A few scratches and bruises,” shrugged Rook who looked like he got attacked by a cat.
“That’s not too bad, and Gray?” I asked feeling my heart sink.
“Right here,” came a voice behind me, twisting around I saw it was Gray, who I didn’t hear or see coming. There wasn’t so much as a scratch or smudge of dirt on his pristine attire.
I had to say, I was surprised, I honestly didn’t think the little guy would make it. “Where were you?” I asked him.
“Running around,” he said, emotionless as ever.
That explained him being spotless, still, it was impressive he managed to avoid any trouble; maybe he’d make it through the fighting rounds.
“What’s with your arm?” asked Gret who came over and started to check me for any wounds.
I looked down at my arms, the one I stabbed the dragon with was soaked with blood, “It’s not my blood. I think I have a few broken ribs.” At that Gret felt at my ribcage, I hissed as he touched the broken ones.
“Yep, I’d say you’ve broken four. I’ll fix them with a little magic once we’re out of here.
Brand walked over to the dead dragonet, “Ain’t this a monster?” he said crouching down beside it. “How’d you kill it? I didn’t see you hit it from the side.”
“Someone threw that axe,” I said, “I didn’t see who though.”
“What axe?” asked Gray.
“The one right-,” I stopped, I looked at the dragons neck. The axe was gone.