Secrets of Yden (32 page)

A Pytched Battle

A scant fifty feet separated Jon and Homa, but the gulf between them was insurmountable. Surrounded by a protective shield spell, Quixoran stood at the midpoint to open the Mortal Challenge.

"Ready?" Quixoran waited for Homa's nod, and then Jon's. "Begin."

He disappeared in a flash of light and a sound like a far-off thunderclap, taking the shield spell with him. A split second later, Jon shoved a wave of repulsion at Homa, intending to launch him out of the arena. To his utter dismay, Homa didn't bother to deflect the force. Instead, he split it in half and let it flow around him as if he was a rock midstream. The move left Jon dumbfounded and at a loss.
Allowing the repulsion wave to pass by takes a lot less energy than deflecting it. Yikes, that means I can't use blunt force!

In the next instant, Homa made a peculiar motion with his fingers and dissolved into dark mist.
What? I must have skipped out early in Evaporation 101.
Jon tried not to panic, but he was thrown off guard. He couldn't predict where Homa would rematerialize, and if it were right behind him, he'd be toast.
I have to move, and fast.
The only thing he could think to do was to create camouflage of his own. Jon conjured dense white fog from thin air and filled the field. Under the cloud cover, he sprinted toward the far side of the stadium.

Something grabbed his ankles and he fell facedown onto the hard clay. The kudzu-like vines covering much of the stonework had snaked themselves around his legs, holding him captive.
I'm laced up tighter than Fred's football pants!
Kira's knife came in handy then, but the more Jon cut the vine, the more green, leafy fingers came creeping toward him through the fog.
Homa will be on me any second…
The vines fell away, limp, under Jon's spell of undoing and he scrambled to his feet.

An eerie wind lifted Jon's fog, and he spotted Homa's red cape fluttering twenty feet off. Although Jon's binding spell whipped through the air, it passed right through the Shark Clan wizard as if he were a ghost.
Blazes, it's a phantasm!
The realization came too late; Jon was lifted off his feet and slammed so hard into the arena wall he felt his ribs snap. In agony, Jon crumpled to the ground. The real Homa strode toward him, a swagger in his step.

"Do you yield, Dragon Wizard?"

I need to distract Homa while I heal myself.

He whispered, "Right behind you, Shark-face!" into his cupped hands and magically threw his voice. Confused, Homa turned his head toward the sound while Jon hit him with as much repulsion as he could manage, considering it felt like one of his ribs had punctured a lung.

While Homa was picking himself off the field, Jon quickly healed his ribs in a flash of white light.
What do I do now?
Homa might not fall for my voice-throwing trick again, but unless I distract him, he'll split any magical force I sent his way. What I need is an attack from above… and maybe below.
Jon pounded Homa with a sudden, brutal hailstorm. Although the older wizard protected himself with a shield spell, Jon was relieved.
While Homa's using a shield spell, he can't attack me.

In the meantime, he tried to create ice beneath Homa's feet. Unfortunately, the porous, dry clay kept sucking in the moisture and the best he could manage was frost. If he'd had a large source of water nearby, he could have managed it. As it was, his snappy hailstorm was fading in strength because it was using up all the humidity in the air. A few moments later, the hailstorm ceased altogether.

Rats.

After dropping his shield, Homa aimed a bunch of binding spells at Jon in rapid-fire succession. Although Jon deflected each one, he wondered how long he could keep it up.
He's got me on defense… I've got to turn the tables.

Perhaps Homa began to tire as well, since the barrage of binding spells stopped. As the two combatants circled one another, Jon took a moment to assess the situation. His ribs were sore, but otherwise he was okay. Maybe Homa was slightly damp and his boots squelched in the clay, but Jon didn't think he'd made much of a dent on the wizard.
It seems we're at a stalemate.
Time to change things up.

He threw two quick pulses of repulsion at Homa. As Jon had anticipated, the Shark Clan wizard split them. Instead of a third pulse of repulsion, however, he pulled Homa forward with gravitation. Jon couldn't believe his luck when Homa fell for it. As he sailed through the air, the Shark Clan wizard was helpless to do much more than windmill his arms. Jon landed a side kick to the wizard's midsection, and when Homa doubled over, Jon hit him with a bent elbow to the back of his neck. The older wizard dropped to the clay like Sela's beanbag monkey doll, and the crowd roared their approval.

Jon rapidly put a binding spell on him. "Do you yield?"

But even as he spoke, Homa was dissolving, evaporating into mist.
I hate that trick!
The air was too dry now to conjure fog, so Jon surrounded himself with a shield spell until Homa rematerialized a few yards away. Before the wizard was completely solid, Jon dropped the shield spell and gave his next wave of repulsion everything he had. He didn't know how Homa managed it, but the wave bounced off some kind of invisible force field and came right back at him.

When Jon's head slammed into the side of the arena wall, his thinking became muddled. The next thing he knew, Homa had pulled Kira's dagger from its sheath on Jon's belt. In a panic, he struggled to snap out of his confusion, but his ears were roaring. Momentarily helpless, he braced himself for the sting of the blade, but instead heard the sound of fabric ripping as his shirt was torn off his back.

"It's time you were whipped like a puleden, you arrogant dragon scum," Homa snarled.

Did he say whipped?

Although Jon tried to force himself to move, his body wouldn't respond. The initial lash brought him fully back to consciousness, which made him alert enough to feel the second one completely. The impact of the leather whip literally peeled his skin off in ribbons. Jon suspected that Homa's bullwhip had been enchanted to make the wounds it inflicted even more exquisitely painful. A scream welled up in his throat, and he didn't know how long he could bite it back.

As he tried to regain the use of his limbs, a storm of fury suddenly unleashed inside him. Homa drew back his whip for a third strike, but Jon rolled himself to a sitting position and blasted him with twin bolts of lightning — one from each hand.
Go, Tesla.

The streaks of energy moved too fast for Homa to split or deflect, and he shrieked with pain. The Shark Clan wizard crumpled to the ground and the crowd grew quiet. His hands still crackling in anger and his bloody shirt in shreds, Jon struggled to his feet. Kicking Homa's bullwhip off to one side, he shot a flame at it.

The wizard's scorched cape was still draped over one shoulder, and two large, smoking black holes had appeared in his jacket from the lightning. The smell of burning flesh made Jon shudder.
Homa of the Shark Clan is done. It's time to put a fork in him.

"Do you yield?" Jon demanded.

For a moment, he thought Homa had begun to convulse, but then the sound of laughter became audible.
Is the wizard's brain fried?
Homa made a sudden movement, and Jon jumped back when saw the glint of Kira's dagger. But instead of attacking Jon, Homa sliced his own wrist open.

"Are you crazy?" Jon gasped.

As the Shark Clan wizard's blood seeped out from the deep cut, Homa laughed harder.

"Do
you
yield, Jon Hansen?" he managed.

Blood
.

His back was covered with it and Homa was hemorrhaging a river. An odd-shaped shadow appeared on the arena floor, and Jon glanced up in dismay.

"This was your plan the whole time, to bring the wrath of Pytch down on us!" Jon exclaimed.

A huge flock of flying, pterodactyl-like flying reptiles, the rantynith, massed high overhead and Jon felt certain more carnivores were on their way. Almost as soon as he spotted the predators, so did everyone else. Pandemonium and panic spread like wildfire. Dr. Hansen, Quixoran, and Kira appeared at Jon's side. As his anger and adrenaline ebbed, Jon became slightly unsteady on his feet. Kira put a supporting arm around him.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'll be fine, but Homa's bleeding out."

Jon took a moment to heal his own injuries while his father tended to Homa's wounds. Quixoran slapped Jon's transporter cuff onto his wrist.

"I'm not going anywhere," Jon said. "These people need help."

"I wouldn't have it any other way. We shall do what we can, but I fear we will soon be overwhelmed."

All over the stadium, wizards were transporting away, leaving hysterical, screaming non-wizards to fend for themselves. People were running toward the transporter platform, which was outside the safety of the arena. Unless someone intervened, they would be picked off like cream puffs at a midnight buffet. Even worse, Jon could feel vibrations in the soles of his feet that could only mean larger, heavier predators were stampeding their way.

Kira gave him a quick kiss. "I'll stand guard at the transporter platform."

"Good hunting," Jon said.

She disappeared just as the flying reptiles dipped toward the arena. Jon took a running start and transformed into a dragon.
I'm going to burn the guano out of those overgrown, pointy-headed, flying death-lizards as long as I can.

At the top of the arena, nymphs took aim at the rantynith with their triton spears. As he rose into the sky, Jon just hoped the nymphs would avoid hitting
him
. Shortly thereafter, he stopped thinking and just fought. He managed to redirect the flying lizards away from the arena by roasting the ones that had taken point in the attack. Although he was surprised at first how easily he repulsed the rantynith, the creatures quickly regrouped and came in again. At the same time, a pack of bearded hodyny had emerged from the jungle on one side of the arena. On the other side, a herd of Godzilla-creatures known as gneeth was closing in.

I can't be everywhere at once.

Or can I
?

His sharpened vision spotted the approach of a huge flock of dragons, so large it was practically blotting out the horizon. Jon only had a moment to hope the dragons were friendly before he had to deal with a rantynith who thought he'd get cute with his wing. As Jon bit the rantynith and launched him into the treetops below, he noticed the reptile tasted a little like chicken.

The rantynith flock withdrew to regroup, and Jon knew it wouldn't be long before they went on another snack run. In the arena, Dragon Clan apprentices and many other brave wizards had stayed behind to protect the non-magical. Dorsit had transformed into an enormous gray-and-black snow leopard. He was pacing and snarling at the bearded hodyny, trying to hold them back. Quixoran took a spot near the gneeth, and was making a collection of huge stone statues out of them. Jon's father teamed with Wheel, and the two wizards ran along the lip of the arena, zapping predators to dust. Jon's feelings of admiration at their display of skill were muted when he saw the onslaught heading their way.

More predators were crashing through the jungle in every direction, like a steadily tightening noose. As Homa had intended, the smell of blood in the air was sending the locals into a frenzy. Jon took a quick nosedive when Dorsit and the biggest bearded hodyny got into a real catfight. The rest of the pack streaked around the two combatants, heading toward people.

With a dragon roar, Jon made an emergency landing between the cats and their prey, spreading his wings and spewing dragon fire. The cats laid their ears back against their heads and crouched warily, but when Jon breathed out another long lick of fire, a couple of the creatures turned tail and ran. He reared up on his hind legs to roar again, but then he couldn't hear himself over the cries of newly-arrived dragons.

The light of the two suns was practically blotted out as the dragons flew overhead. The rantynith scattered as if they were mice, flying off in a desperate attempt to escape their larger cousins. On the ground, people cowered and covered their ears against the glorious trumpet-like blasts, but to Jon it was the most wonderful sound on Yden. The bearded hodyny streaked from the arena with almost comical speed, not even pausing to pick off straggling humans. Dragons landed around the arena's exterior in a thick line of defense against the predators of Pytch, and even the gneeth paused their charge. It was clear which predators on Pytch were at the top of the food chain.

Several of the dragons left their post and flew alongside Jon, circling overhead. His breath caught in his throat as he recognized Adam and Eve's children. Some were battered, and he suspected they'd had to fight their way into being accepted. Nicks and gouges aside, they were absolutely beautiful. From the affectionate way the dragons dipped and swirled around Jon in flight, it was clear they knew him even in his dragon form.

Filled with pride, Jon could have flown with the dragons forever — until he remembered people still needed his help. The way Dorsit had gone at it with the bearded hodyny was particularly worrisome. Anxiety grabbed him when he spied a blood-streaked snow leopard inside the arena. Still in his animal form, Dorsit lay in a pool of blood alongside the carcass of a bearded hodyny. After making an abrupt landing, Jon transformed into a human and rushed over to see if the Leopard Clan wizard was alive.