The Story of Evil: Volume I - Heroes of the Siege (17 page)

Even though Ty wished he could have been in the saddle Steve was currently sitting in, he didn’t allow it to bother him or put a damper on his excitement for the Annual Warriors’ Tournaments. He lost the battle fair and square to his best friend. Now he could allow himself to relax, enjoy the festivities of the weekend, and support his friend in the Warriors’ Joust. No one was more proud of how far Steve had come than Ty. Ty was the only one who truly believed that Steve could make it as far as he had.

Ty had actually made it far in one of the tournaments: Warriors’ Combat. He had made it into the top five of qualifying warriors for Celestial, which meant he could participate in the official tournament. The Joust was the only competition limited to one person from each city. Warriors’ Combat was a single, one on one battle with blunted weapons, rather than the Warriors’ Melee, which was hundreds of warriors in a field in an epic last man standing match. Ty would have chosen Melee over Combat. The Melee was an adrenaline rush, amidst the madness of the action. But Ty had missed the Melee Qualifiers because he had advanced so far in the Jousting Qualifiers.

He wasn’t too upset though. Ty’s brother Darren had made it into the Melee. Ty wasn’t sure how he would react if he came across his brother in the chaos. Darren was three years older than Ty, but he graduated from the warriors at the average graduation age – twenty-one. He had two more years of battlefield experience than Ty had.
But I was always better than him with my swords.
Ty didn’t know who would win if they were forced to battle each other. It would be a battle of talent versus experience.
If I was in the Melee, Darren and I could have teamed up and been the last two men standing.

At least Ty had made it into the Warriors’ Combat Tournament. Many warriors didn’t even get to participate in one event. Warriors were allowed to enter the Celestial Qualifier’s for any two competitions of their choice, but they were only allowed to participate in one of the tournaments (if they had won both of their Qualifiers). Since winning in a tournament was so prestigious and it was only held annually, some warriors trained year-round for one specific event. Ty was not that dedicated. Once he had told a warrior, “There’s too much in life to be explored. If I train for a year and lose, then all that time I would have spent would be a waste.”

Ty wanted to do the best that he could in Warriors’ Combat. His father had won the event the year before he died. Caesar Canard’s name was etched on the golden trophy cup. Ty wanted to honor his father’s memory by winning and getting his own name added to the ongoing list of champions. Any weapon other than the bow and arrow was permitted for Warriors’ Combat (the bow and arrow were used in the Archery tournament). A variety of weapons were used: swords, shields, axes, hammers, spears, and maces. Some weapons were one handed, while others required two. Ty equipped what he felt most comfortable with: double swords (one in each hand).

The competition was much harder than the Melee free for all. Ty had to come into each new match and consider the strengths and weaknesses of his double swords against whatever weapon his opponent was using. Ty ended up coming in a respectable sixth place out of the sixty-four that competed.

He beat himself up for not getting first. Even if he had gotten a medal for third or second place, he still would have been frustrated. That was his way. He was only completely satisfied when he was the best. If someone was better than Ty at something, he would freely admit that, but it would bug him so much that he would practice endlessly. Entering the tournament next year and not placing any higher would not be acceptable to him. Steve had encouraged Ty after his loss and told him that at next year’s event, he would get first place.

During the current Annual Warriors’ Tournaments, Ty had enjoyed one thing almost as much as he enjoyed seeing Steve winning every joust. Each year, a parade was held for the cities that had come to Celestial to participate in the events of the special weekend. The parade was held the morning before the tournaments began. It started by going in a full circle around the castle, and then it turned down the south main road and carried on until it reached the arena. Civilians had lined up alongside the sides of the streets for the entire route to cheer on their favorite competitors. Non-competing warriors who had traveled to Celestial to support their city’s participants were also allowed to walk in the parade.

Since Steve was Celestial’s Jousting Qualifier’s winner (and jousting was the main tournament), he was allowed to pick a group of warriors to walk beside him with their armor and weapons. He asked every jouster he had defeated in the Qualifiers to do him the honor of walking by his side. Steve wanted to give them one of the highlights of the weekend’s festivities that they would have missed out on by losing to him. He also let his four squires walk alongside him as well.

The Celestial warriors usually pulled a prank on the visiting cities that marched in the parade. One year, they had paid some of the civilians to reroute the path and then snuck away from the back of the line, so that when the other cities’ warriors made it to the arena, the Celestial warriors had magically arrived there before them. Another year, they had civilians run frantically through the middle of the main road, right into the parade, yelling and screaming. They were being followed by some of Celestial’s warriors, who came chasing after the civilians dressed up as fake monsters. That prank was not as well-received.

This year, Ty was a part of the parade. Since he was the funniest person Steve knew, Steve asked him to be the one to come up with the prank. The night before the parade, Ty tasked Steve’s four young squires with sneaking into the stables and feeding laxatives to the visiting warriors’ horses. Instead of having Celestial’s competitors and company walk in the back of the pack, as was the annual custom, Ty had them walk in the front. At first, the cities behind them couldn’t figure out why Celestial had volunteered to walk in front of the parade. Usually Celestial was last, to build up the suspense for the host city. Once they smelled what their horses were leaving behind on the trail, they understood.

All of the excitement and fun of the weekend came to an abrupt end the minute the man ran into the middle of the arena yelling, “We’re under attack!”

Ty forced his way through the panicking crowd, trying to get to his jousting friend in the center of it. After pushing and squeezing his way through people, he realized he was not making any progress.

A spray of tiny rocks and small boulders sprayed down on Ty’s side of the arena. People in the crowd ducked down and covered their heads from the barrage, but Ty saw his opportunity. Unlike the rest of the spectators, he had on most of his warrior’s armor. All warriors had been commanded to wear the top half of their armor out in public for the weekend. It gave civilians the opportunity to recognize them and give special thanks to the men that protected them and the city.

All warriors started out with a full set of silver armor. Once they did something heroic on the battlefield or in the city, they would be allowed to paint their armor. Each city had one or two colors they were known by. Celestial was the red and blue city. Casanovia was the city of blue and yellow. The purple city was called Almiria.

Warriors could choose any piece of their armor to be painted one of the colors of their city. Some veteran Celestial warriors had suits of armor in all red, all blue, or a mixture of both. You gained a lot of respect from fellow warriors and civilians alike for having earned the colors of the city. If a warrior achieved the rank of a Guardian Knight, they could start to earn pieces of rare golden armor to replace their red and blue painted armor made of silver.

Ty was somewhat jealous of Steve, seeing him in all red armor. Even though it was just a special suit only to be worn for the Warriors’ Joust, it made him look like a warrior veteran. Steve and Ty wouldn’t reach that level for at least another twenty years. All Ty had earned up until now was two blue gauntlets.

Because of his armor, Ty was able to vault and hop through the ducked crowd. He still would die if he was hit by a boulder, but unlike the civilians, he was protected from ricocheting debris. Since he wasn’t wearing a helm, Ty held his blue armored forearms up to the sides of his head for protection.

He could see over the entire cowering crowd, but unfortunately that meant he was watching as a flaming boulder crashed down and rolled over a section of people on the arena floor. One of them was one of Steve’s squires. He had been so close to escaping the boulder’s path.

Ty made his way onto the floor and ran in the trail of the boulder’s wreckage. He saw Brightflame next to the boy’s body and picked it up. It was hot to touch, but manageable to hold.

The crowd was back up and running again, making it hard for Ty to see where Steve was. Suddenly, the red armored warrior appeared in a blur. He was still mounted on top of the charging blue armored Clyx. Steve lowered his lance and aimed it at a group of minotaurs.

Ty pushed through the crowd, only to see Clyx running around without a rider. “Steve!” he called out, not seeing his brother. It wasn’t like Steve to abandon Clyx in the midst of battle. For a second, Ty feared the worst.

But then he saw Steve on the ground, with a black minotaur about to bring its electrical axe down on him. Ty reached the monster just in time to stab Brightflame through its back. “And with that I take the lead! Five points to four,” Ty yelled, pulling a blood-dripping Brightflame out of the minotaur’s back. He reached down and grabbed the arm of his best friend Steve and pulled him up off the ground.

“Cutting it close that time, huh?” Steve yelled over the sounds of destruction.

“I wanted you to see how helpless and vulnerable you are without me around.”

“What would I do without you?” Steve sarcastically smiled.

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to live in a world without me.” Ty flipped the sword and grabbed the blade, holding it hilt out towards Steve.

“Brightflame!” Steve said as he grabbed it from the Elf excitedly.

“I know how much that sword means to you.” Ty said, happy he was able to retrieve the weapon for his friend.

“Why is this hot?” Steve asked, as he looked up to Ty.

Ty didn’t want to tell Steve about the grotesque sight he saw when Steve’s squire was trying to run out of the way to avoid getting crushed by a rolling, flaming boulder barreling down his path. Unfortunately, the poor boy had no chance to escape. The boulder rolled over top of him and stopped, crushing him partially underneath. Trapped, the child burned to death.

Ty could already see Steve mentally reaching the answer for the question he had just asked. Ty didn’t need to give him the details, so he saw no point in giving an answer at all.

“You didn’t hear any warning horns from the outer watchtowers did you?” Steve asked.

“No, there was no alarm. I have no idea how the catapults got close enough to launch into the city without being noticed by the patrolling warriors.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Ty.”

“As do I. Where are you headed?” he asked Steve.

“To protect the castle,” Steve said as he nodded in the direction he would be heading. “What about you?”

Ty pointed up to the sky, to the monsters flying overhead.

“Be safe, brother.” Steve told Ty before they hugged.

“What’s the fun in being safe?” Ty said before running off into the dense smoke, leaving his friend behind. He hoped the next time they saw each other that they would both still be on Element, alive.

As Ty ran out of the stadium his eye caught the colors of pink and blue lying on the ground. The stick of cotton clouds had been half eaten. Next to the candy, Sam and his mother were lying dead on the arena floor. One of the minotaurs had killed them. Ty continued running out of the arena while trying to mentally erase the images from his mind and focus on the battle above him that he would soon be joining.

That was the last day Tyrus Canard ever ate cotton clouds.

Chapter 15

Ty headed for the warrior barracks, where his gryphon Wildwing would be waiting for him. Ty was an aerial warrior. It was a very dangerous role, but one of the most important.

Enemy flying monsters were some of the most powerful. They were not held back by fortifying walls and could easily do major damage to a city. Aerial warriors flew one of three types of monsters: phoenixes, giant hawk-like feathered birds; gryphons, winged lion’s bodies with the oversized head of an eagle; and dragons, the main and most vicious flying monster. All of them could attack with the element or elements they were born with.

Warriors had some phoenixes, gryphons, and dragons of their own. They were monsters who had converted from their evil ways and decided to serve the good god instead of the evil god. Once a monster turned good and decided not to harm people, they often sought out shelter in a city, to avoid being persecuted by monsters in the wild. The warriors gave them this protection, but requested use of the monster’s elemental abilities to aid them in battle.

Female friendly monsters were mainly used to produce eggs. Since larger monsters had longer lives, their time from conception to birth was prolonged. Phoenixes, gryphons, and dragons spent almost a full year in their egg.

Warriors who were interested in becoming an aerial warrior could obtain a monster by finding an egg in the wild or by having a monster “choose them.” Young monsters sometimes sought out the person who they believed was meant to be their rider. It was said that there was a mental connection between a monster and its true rider. When the two met for the first time, both would feel an immediate bond.