Chapter 13

I lift my staff to launch the first attack. The inquisitor sticks out his palm and says, “Wait. Not here.”

He makes a 180° turn and passes through his men. They part down the middle and let him pass. Cautiously, I follow him through the sea of knights careful not to look at any of them directly. As I pass through, one of the men bites his teeth at me. I ignore him. If I let myself be intimidated, then I won’t be able to concentrate on fighting their leader. At least I presume he’s their leader. The inquisitor who bowled Katherine over is enormously tall. He has to be at least 6’5”. He wears heavy blue and yellow armor with the same mantle draped over the front as Princess Mathilde’s elite bodyguards. He has long sunflower blonde hair tied into a ponytail and the hardened blue eyes of a war veteran. I can decipher from his size and armor that he’s likely a Colossus rather than a Fortissimo.

We step into the front room where the tourists have all now become curious spectators. The inquisitor orders a line of men to form in front of the tourists. I don’t know whether the line is to keep the tourists from straying into the fight or to keep me from retreating. He then positions himself perpendicular to the crowd so that even if I miss a spell it will fly into the back wall rather than into the crowd. Katherine stands off to my left-hand side. I gesture for her to position herself even further away and she obeys. I myself stand face to the face with the inquisitor about 20 feet apart. With everyone now in the proper place, the fight can begin.

“You initiated this duel, so you may have the first strike,” the inquisitor says.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“There’s no need to tell my name to a dead man. Have at you.”

Fine then you arrogant prick. Have at this! I lunge my staff forward and release a powerful Comet. The inquisitor stands in place not even attempting to move. I raise my eyebrow at his curious strategy. Once the Comet is just about to strike him, he swings his sword down and cleaves it in half. A spray of flames shoots past him on both sides, but he remains completely untouched.

“Hmph,” I sneer, only mildly impressed. That must be some kind of Colossus trick. Whatever, no big deal. It’s impossible to chop lightning in half.

I prepare to cast the Lightning Strike spell. In the next instant, the inquisitor has completely closed the distance between us. He swings his sword at my neck and I duck by way of instinct alone. When he uses the momentum of his swing to spin himself around for a low attack, I leap straight up and his sword passes beneath me. However, when he spins a third time for a midlevel attack, I find myself stuck in the air unable to dodge. Desperately, I pull up with my staff just in time to have his heavy sword collide with it, sending me flying through the air. When I touch down to the ground I skip three times off of the brick floor like a smooth pebble.

I landed to the ground wrong on my shoulder. It hurts, but I ignore the pain. Normally I would cast a quick healing spell, but this time I stay crouched low with my eyes in unblinking focus on my enemy. I may have analyzed him wrong. He could very well just be a really tall Fortissimo. If that’s the case, then I need to watch him for speed rather than power and defense. Even still, I can already confirm that this guy hits like a battering ram.

I watch the inquisitor closely. He doesn’t attack. He remains right where he was when he last struck me. I’m having a hard time figuring this guy out. But if I over think things, then I’ll lose the fight. I have to attack to win. To that end, I cast the Water Wave spell with the intention of slamming him into the back wall.

From directly in front of me, a ten-foot tidal wave rises up and surges towards him. He waits until it gets close to him and then charges, passing through the tall wall of water as if it hadn’t been there at all. Before I can even respond, he’s slightly behind me on the right side. He swings down his sword at me and I roll out of the way. As I come out of my roll, I twist and face him. By that very moment, he’s already in front of me again.

He reaches down and clenches his hand around my throat. Lifting, he carries me by the chin and charges forward. Then while still running, he tosses me up into the air and rams me with his shoulder. I sail through the air and hit the floor in a series of backwards rolls. With the last roll, the back of my head slams against the brick floor. My eyes cross themselves from the pain.

They say that you shouldn’t sleep with a head injury. But I really feel like taking a nap. I don’t however. Instead, I force myself to sit up and look ahead. I can sort of make out the inquisitor but mostly I just see a hazy blur. This time I have no choice but to cast the Major Heal spell on myself. Once my eyes regain their focus, I see that the inquisitor is just standing still watching me. I rise up to my knees and immediately summon my bag of scripts. Scripts are sheets of parchment with spells written on them. They are created by a script mage who is able to cast the spell written on the script without any assistance. Thus, they imbue the script with the spell written on it. To activate the spell all that is required is a sufficient amount of mana. In this way a mage can cast spells written on scripts that he otherwise would not be able to cast.

I fumble through my script bag for a script with the Rush spell imbued in it. Rush is a master level Support Magic spell that increases the target’s movement speed. I channel my mana into the Rush script and cast the spell on myself. The spectating inquisitors begin to mock me for my action. They boo and call me a cheater and a puny mage. I don’t care. I’m trying to not die. If they want to see something really unfair, then they need only watch this. I focus my mana into my staff and cast the novice level summoning spell: Rhinohorn.

The Rhinohorn is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a large four legged monster rhinoceros that is permanently enchanted with the Berserk spell. It fights with only one strategy, which is to run things over. It’s very susceptible to magic, but so far the inquisitor hasn’t cast a single spell, so I doubt that it will be a problem. I intend to chip away at the inquisitor with lightning spells while the rhinohorn holds his attention at close range.

My rhinohorn charges full speed at the inquisitor. It hits him square on. Impressively, the inquisitor blocks the impact with his sword, but he still gets pushed back. The rhinohorn then veers off to the side to prepare for another charge. As soon as it’s out of the way, I blast the inquisitor with a Lightning Strike. The force of the bolt pushes the inquisitor back even further. I can tell that the bolt hurt him from the way that he grits his teeth while little blue sparks of lightning energy skip across his armor.

I don’t give him a break. The rhinohorn comes at him from his right side. He turns to defend against it. I time my next Lightning Strike to reach him just before the rhinohorn. Getting struck by my lightning bolt breaks his guard long enough for the rhinohorn to land an honest hit. It drives its horn into the inquisitor’s chest plate and he goes down from the impact.

“Okay Soul. This is working. Just keep this up.”

The inquisitor gets back up to his feet. My rhinohorn comes at him from his left side while he stares facing me with his shoulders square in my direction. I guess he wants to try to defend against my lightning magic. So be it. I wait until the rhinohorn closes in so that I can repeat the same pattern as before. Timing the perfect moment, I cast a Lightning Strike. In response, the inquisitor leaps straight up into the air over my lightning, summersaults, and lands with his sword driving straight down through the nape of the rhinohorn’s neck. The stab of his sword causes the rhinohorn to unsummon into nothingness. My mouth blasts open in dread-filled surprise.

Before I can even close it, the inquisitor is on me. He swings at me with his sword using only his left hand. Even with the speed boost from the Rush spell, I barely manage to block it with my staff. Yet as I block his left-handed sword attack, he hook punches me in the jaw with his right fist. The blow sends me to the floor twisting around to my hands and knees. As he steps in to finish me, I push off of the ground with my hands and feet as hard as I can. I shoot up high enough into the air to bludgeon him in the face with a spinning back kick. The kick sends him staggering backwards.

Quickly, while he’s still staggering, I dash at him and leap. Then I skillfully push off of his chest plate with my left foot to gain additional height while twisting and roundhouse kicking him in the temple with my right foot. Now the inquisitor goes spinning down to the floor except, unlike me, he lands flat on his face.

I hear him growl and he immediately springs up to his feet. He closes in on me like a lion and wraps me up in his arms. He then raises me into the air while squeezing me in a tight bear hug. The pressure of his squeeze starts to cave in my spine and ribs and I scream in pain. Desperate, I try to headbutt him in the face. I hit him, but it doesn’t hurt him at all. Rather he gives me a return headbutt that hits me hard enough to bust open a cut over my right eye.

His squeeze starts to break my ribs, making it impossible to breath. As such, I’m forced to resort to my primary magic discipline. Channeling mana energy directly into my mouth, my cheeks expand out wide. I then contract them blowing out a stream of fire directly into the inquisitor’s face.

My tactic succeeds. In a sense. He hurls me through the air and I crash painfully to the brick floor. Now my back is hurting, some of my ribs are broken, I can barely breath, and blood is starting to trickle into my right eye. I rise to my feet coughing. My body is shattered and I’m almost out of mana to boot. If this next attack doesn’t work, then I don’t know what I’m going to do.

The inquisitor retrieves his sword. He’s breathing heavily and I can only hope that he’s tired and forced to slow down. If he’s as fast as he was at the beginning of the fight, then this ploy won’t work at all. Yet do or die, this is the last gem in my bag of tricks. I cast a large Comet at him. The inquisitor bends his knees and raises his sword. I then immediately use the triple cast technique to hide two slightly smaller Comets behind the leading Comet.

The first Comet arrives. The inquisitor swings down his sword chopping through it. Fire blows off to his sides. In the next instant, he sees the second Comet coming, but his sword is dropped low and he’s off balance. He tries to fling his sword up, but the second Comet catches him. It explodes on top of him and he stumbles back a half step. With deep satisfaction, I watch his eyes grow wide when he realizes that there is a third Comet as well. He’s stuck in position, helpless as it blows up in his face and sends him flopping to the ground. He lands flat on his back and his sword flies out of his hand.

Now I’m completely exhausted and out of mana. I can’t even stand up straight. I burrow my staff into the floor and use it to keep myself propped up. I pant heavily and watch the inquisitor anxiously. If he gets up again, then I’m finished. I don’t know why, maybe wishful thinking, but I begin a ten count in my head as if in the middle of a sporting match. I get as far as seven before the inquisitor starts moving. Oh crap.

“Seven, eight, nine.” He stands up. I’m screwed.

Standing on his feet, the inquisitor examines my condition. I try to look threatening, but it’s hard to do when you can’t stand up straight nor see out of one eye. He pats himself down to throw off the dust. Then he casually walks to his sword and picks it up. He looks his sword over and then sheathes it much to my surprise. I watch him like a hawk as he moves closer to me.

“What is your name?” he asks.

“Souladonis, and you?”

“I am Chief Inquisitor Rupert des Chevaliers.”

“The Chief Inquisitor? That explains a lot. But what it doesn’t explain is whether you’re a Fortissimo or a Colossus.”

“Nonsense. I am a Fortissimo Colossus; the ultra class form of a Colossus.”

“I see. Both in one – the ultimate knight.”

“Much to my regret Souladonis, the king is expecting me. I cannot leave him waiting any longer. Perhaps we can settle our duel another time?”

“I’m ready to go anytime,” I lie through my teeth.

He turns and glances at Katherine. “Your servant’s name?”

“Katherine.”

“I apologize Lady Katherine. It was my mistake.”

He signals to his men who salute. He then proceeds into the interior rooms while the rest of the inquisitors follow him. As the inquisitors who had been charged with lining up in front of the tourists pass, one of them looks at me and remarks, “He’s dead on his feet.”

That inquisitor is wrong. I’m only three quarters dead on my feet. That counts as survival in my book. Sort of. Just as soon as the last inquisitor disappears from view, I collapse to the floor. Katherine immediately rushes to my side. “Master are you okay?”

Katherine’s not blind. I’m obviously not okay. But it could have been worse. I’m happy just to be alive. When I think about how this whole thing got started, I don’t know what came over me.

“The Chief Inquisitor? What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking about me.”

Suddenly I feel the force of a great magic power completely restore me to top condition. “No girlie, he wasn’t thinking at all, I assure you. Not thinking is this one’s dominant character trait.”

I look to my side and see a mage approaching. The mage has elegant jet-black hair, a mustache that is pointy at both ends with an equally pointy goatee, unnaturally gray skin, orange eyes, yellow, black, and orange robes, and black fingernail polish. He looks down at me condemningly as he strokes his mustache. “What do you have to say for yourself this time?”

The same thing that I always say.

“I’m sorry Master.”

Note: I ran a poll on the Story of Hiver Glace to ask if people want me to post one or two chapters a day. The majority said two chapters, so I will apply that answer to Souladonis as well.