The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (41 page)

“He said you were young, but we sure didn’t think you were
that
young.” a Sylvan girl declared as she poured juice.  “You sure don’t act like it.  How’d you get so smart so fast?”

“We spent a lot of time psionicly Linked with each other and with our parents, from before we were even born.” Helemia explained.  “And besides that, we work on getting better at everything as hard as we can, and we have the very best teachers.”

“And exceptional intelligence runs in our families.” Valentia added.

“I’d say from the look of you that you’re about thirty-five years old,” a young male commented to Karzog, “And from what I know of dragons I’d say you act like you’re about eighty. But I bet you’re younger than you seen too, like them.”

“I’m twenty, and you’re right.” Karzog confirmed.  “I’m told I’m the biggest that any dragon has been at my age, and like my friends here, I’m lucky to have exceptional parents.  But to be honest, most of my ability is due to these three.  They’ve helped to train me, their friendship continually delights me, they constantly challenge me to be the very best I can be, and though they haven’t said so, I think they’ve subtly improved the physical state of my brain.”

“We’ll have words about that when next we meet!”
Povon psionicly declared so that only the four could hear her.

“And that’s why we didn’t announce that we’d done it.”
Helemia giggled. 
“I think we’ve already heard those words.”

“I couldn’t help but notice that your name sounds a lot like Zarkog, and he’s a big black dragon too.” another girl commented.   “Any relation?”

“Zarkog is my blood-father, but like most of his thousands of children, I’ve never met him.” Karzog explained.  “And I’m sure I won’t like him when I do.  I was very lucky when I was adopted by my mother Povon and my Father Kragorram, since they’re exceptional in every way and they’ve been very, very good to me.  And when they aren’t on vacation in time-bubbles, they rule Serminak as Dragon Lord Regent and Prince of Serminaki Draconia on behalf of Prince Mark, who is Lord of Serminak since he beat Zarkog.”

“So you’re the royal brats of the whole world, basically.” the girl giggled.  “It’s too bad we can’t beat you.  We could get a pile of ransom for you, I bet!”

“In that context, whether you can beat us is irrelevant.” Helemia laughed.  “Cause if you
did
take us captive, you’d then have to deal with our parents, and there’s no chance they’d just pay the ransom and let you be.  They’re all sworn to justice, and they’d never stop trying to bring you to justice for your crime. 
And
they’re among the most powerful people in the world, and are allied with all the rest of them.”

“Are
you
sworn to justice?” the girl pressed.

“Sure, Osbald’s Oath.” Helemia answered.  “We swore to uphold justice, to not break the peace, and to defend the innocent.  And your next question will be; if it’s unjust for you to capture us for ransom, how do we justify taking all of you captive?

“And the answer is; the fact that we’ve taken you captive is indeed unjust, for we’ve taken your freedom and your choice, but that injustice is outweighed.  All of you have lived in a state of complete injustice; you all kill each other without provocation whenever you can, and without our intervention, only one out of eleven of you will live to twenty-five.  We’ll prevent most of you from dying unjustly.  Also, we didn’t capture you for ransom so we could take what we didn’t deserve; we captured you so we could
give you
what you
do
deserve, which is a long and enjoyable life, and we won’t be taking anything from you.

“Furthermore, only those who can take care of themselves deserve self-determination.  If someone can’t take care of themselves because they’re too foolish to do so, because they’re too young or too incoherent or insane or whatever, then it’s no injustice to prevent them from foolishly harming themselves or others.

“And on top of all that, we’re sworn to protect the innocent.  None of you are innocents, but you’re innocent of any crime against the demons, and you don’t deserve to be destroyed by them.  So we have to protect you from that if we can, and the best way to do that is to teach you to protect yourselves as much as we can.”

“Look around you.” Reggie told the girl.  “Are you less free than you were at this time yesterday?  You can’t leave here, but there were very few places you could go last night without getting killed, so you didn’t have freedom of movement then either.  And other than that, you now have complete freedom, and you can do whatever you want so long as it doesn’t infringe on another’s rights or freedoms.  You’re free to dance, to sing, to yell, to have sex or fall asleep in the open, none of which you could do last night.”

“Good point.” the girl laughed.

One of the youngest Sylvan there, a boy of no more than twelve, stood and moved to stand before Helemia.  “Would you like to dance with me?” he asked with a cocky grin.

“Sure, as long as it’s a dance where we don’t have to touch each other.” she laughed as she stood.

“What, you don’t want me to hold you close and whirl you around?” the boy asked, feigning hurt surprise.  “Don’t you trust me?”

“Are you kidding?!” Helemia retorted.  “You’re an unsworn Sylvan, and I’m fully aware of what that means!  I know darn well that if you thought you’d get away with it, you’d love to kill me and eat me right now!  I’m sure I can deal with whatever you might do, I’d just rather not be bothered with it.”

“Well actually, I’m still pretty full right now, so I’d probably save you to eat later.” he chuckled.  “But if you’d prefer to dance apart, that’s fine with me.  To be honest, I don’t know any close dances anyway.”

“All right then.” Helemia smiled, and followed him to the nearest open space on the dancing ground.

Soon Reggie and Valentia were also asked to dance, and joined the throng who were bouncing and twirling to the music.  Even Karzog was asked to dance, but he begged off so he could continue to supervise the fights.

The three danced until they were tired of it, then rejoined Karzog to continue chatting with the Sylvan and watching the challenges.  Most of the conversation was the Sylvan asking the four of them questions about themselves, their lives, their community, and the world beyond Hiliani.

After another half an hour, Helemia nudged Valentia.  “That last match was so good, watching it made me want to fight!  And we didn’t spar today.  Care to go for a round?”

“Sure!” Valentia laughed.  “But a lot of those in the queue have been waiting to fight for over an hour.  It wouldn’t be fair to just butt into the line.”

“Unless they agreed to it.” Helemia grinned, and turned to the dragon.

“Hey Karz, when this bout is done, hold off a minute before starting the next one so I can ask those waiting for the circle if they’d mind letting me and Val fight next.”

“Sure.” Karzog nodded.  “What limits will you use?”

“Sword pairs?” Valentia asked her sister.

“Sword pairs.” Helemia nodded with eager satisfaction.

The novelty of seeing two of their captors fight was indeed enough to convince most of those in line to allow the girls to fight next, and the few who dissented were shouted down by the rest.  Word spread quickly, and by the time the fight started, most of those at the gathering were watching.

The two young warlocks took their places in the circle armed with two swords each, as Helemia had used against the Sylvan earlier.  Their skills were exactly equal, since they both had The Skills of Visinniria, which made the contest one of physical ability, tactics, and strategy.  What really made it interesting was the fact that Visinniria’s offensive skill with a pair of swords had been slightly better than her defensive skill, which meant that if either of the two half-elves managed to gain the initiative, they had a real chance to press the advantage.  It also meant that it paid to be aggressive, which produced a spectacular fight.  The four light swords whirled and darted around so quickly that it was impossible for most of those watching to follow all of the moves, but enough could be discerned that all of the spectators were soon on their feet and screaming encouragement to their favorite, and the entire gathering was gripped with a palpable excitement as they watched.

The crowd was about equally split as to who they were rooting for.  Some of those who liked to see the underdog win cheered for Helemia since she was smaller, others cheered Valentia because she was younger.  Those who wanted to see the strong crush the weak were equally divided for the same reasons.  Some liked Helemia because her black hair made her look more like a Sylvan, some picked Valentia because the black streaks in her white hair gave her such a striking and exotic appearance.

And they certainly weren’t disappointed with the intensity of the fight.  It lasted for almost nine minutes of constant furious action.  Both of the tiny fighters sustained multiple wounds, some of which were quite serious, but they both Healed themselves as they carried on fighting.  They didn’t take time to clean themselves as they went along though, and both were soon covered in blood, sweat, and sand.

The fight ended with two simultaneous strikes, as Helemia stabbed Valentia through the abdomen, while Valentia thrust her sword through Helemia’s throat and out the back of her neck.

At that moment Valentia, Reggie, and Karzog cried out and Healed Helemia in a flash as Valentia withdrew her sword, then Reggie and Karzog Healed Valentia.

“Valentia is the winner!” Karzog announced, while the two fighters still lay on the sand in their bloodied white under-armor wear, gasping and panting with one hand still held to where their last wounds had been.  The audience manically yelled and screamed their approval.

Finally the two combatants slowly sat up and extended a hand to each other, and helped each other up.

“Sorry about cutting your spine.” Valentia said with a rueful smile.  “I was just going for your throat and the big artery, but I missed because you were stabbing me in the guts at the time.”

“That’s okay.” Helemia returned with the same expression.  “You were a fraction of a blink ahead of me.  I missed anything vital because you made contact first.  Otherwise I’d have at least got a tie with a heart wound.  Good fight, and congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

They shared a hug, then left the ring to the next pair of fighters.

“Let me get that for you.” Reggie chuckled as the girls approached where Karzog reclined on the sand.  He cast Clean on them, and the blood and sweat fell off them with the sand, leaving them pristine again, including their hair and their clothing.  Karzog did his gentlemanly bit by casting Restore on their clothes to repair the many holes and slashes.

“Wow, you girls don’t fool around, do you?” a Sylvan female laughed.  She was one of the oldest there, at almost twenty-five.  “I’ve never seen so many wounds taken in a fight between two people before!  But then, I’ve never seen anyone who could Heal as fast as you two!  Do you block the pain of the wounds you take?”

“Yah, about a third of it.” Valentia nodded as she stretched to release some tension.  “It’s not smart to block more than that.  In the heat of battle, you might not realize when you’ve been seriously wounded if you do.  It still hurts like hell though.”

“Do you fight to the death like that all the time?” someone else asked.

“Generally.” Helemia nodded.  “To what would be a lethal wound without some fast Healing, anyway.  We try not to go for the brain or the spine, because you usually lose the ability to Heal when you get a wound there, so that’s pretty risky, even with another Healer or two watching out for you.  And if you get a wound in the brain, you have to Heal it in less than half a second or the damage just cascades so fast, you have to call in a better Healer than me or there could be permanent damage.  But we’ve never done that yet.  We have pretty good control, so even spinal wounds are pretty rare.  I think we’ve had four since we started seriously sparring, and that’s the first one I’ve taken.”

“I’ve taken two.” Karzog snickered.  “Helemia almost cut my head completely off once.”

“Wow.” a boy breathed in amazement.  “I’ve seen enemies fighting to the death that weren’t as serious about it as you two sisters were just now, fighting for fun.  But it’s still hard to believe any of you little half-elves could beat a dragon, even a young one like Karzog here.”

“You’d be surprised.” Karzog snickered again.  “I constantly am.  As you’d expect, I can take all three of them at once in unarmed physical combat.  But give them a short sword each, and I can only take two of them, even if I also have a sword.  If they have their full armor and weaponry, I can only beat one of them at a time, even if I have the same.  All that assumes that we aren’t using any magic except Flight, and I’m not using my fire.

“But in a contest of magic I come out a distant fourth, though I can keep up with one of the twins if I also use my fire.  Valentia is our undisputed champion of magic.

“The twins are so dangerous in psionic warfare that it’s almost unbelievable.

“And the fact of the matter is, we usually spar with no limitations, except we don’t complete lethal attacks.  No conventional Healing can save you from a really good magic or psionic attack, so when we’re pretty sure one would succeed, the loser concedes. And on any given day, when we’re using
all
of our abilities and equipment, which one of us is likely to win is almost a matter of chance.  We’re pretty closely matched, all four of us.”

“I’m really looking forward to getting out of the time-bubble and attending some big tournaments.” Valentia grinned.  “By then we’ll be some of the most dangerous people in the world, and I’m eager to prove it.”

“Wow.” the boy repeated.

“I just got a message from my mother.” Helemia announced.  “Our parents are sending us some snacks.  Clear some ground right here, about six meters square.”

A few seconds later a huge U-shaped table appeared, piled high with baked treats, cookies, whole fruits, iced fruit purees, and dozens of varieties of small hors d’oeuvres.