Whitaker looked down from his high box seat, which of course had luxuriously padded seats, angled to view all four quadrants of the arena with ease — as well as looking glasses which magnified objects through some trick of the lenses for those who needed it. Food and drink were brought by courteous servants at the wave of a hand. And, of course, well-appointed lavatories were just around the corner.
If he had any choice in the matter, he would have given it all up in a moment.
Instead of watching the Legendary recruits battling for their right to face the egg, he found his eyes wandering downward to the middling seats where his personal retinue of Rare riders and friends all sat together, drinking and gambling.
They were truly enjoying themselves.
Whitaker enjoyed the privileges of being a Legendary rider, but sometimes rank could be a bore.
"Stop sighing. You sound like a child," Valentina sniffed.
She had a slim pair of spectacles held up to her eyes by use of a long wand. An undrunk glass of wine sat at her side. Valentina ordered it to be polite, but he had never seen her drink when around other riders.
She could be such a bore.
Whitaker leaned forward to follow her gaze. "Have those two finished beating each other up yet?"
"Nearly. I dare say Kane has him on the ropes."
Whitaker squinted. Perhaps he needed a pair of those spectacles because the right quadrant was taken by two boys beating each other up with bare fists alone. Or more specifically — one beating the other. For hours.
The best Whitaker could say about his meeting with Arthur Kane was he hadn't come out disappointed. He was... unexceptional. Certainly not worth the two cards Valentina gave up helping his cause.
Cards that the boy at least seemed to be making good use of.
The two combatants paused to exchange silent words before the boy was knocked down once more.
Whitaker sighed again.
"You must admit it's impressive he has lasted this long," Valentina continued.
"Only because Penn Rowantree has allowed it. Why you didn't back him is a mystery."
Other than the royals, Legendary recruit cards weren't public knowledge. But all had been watched carefully and most noble families passed down cards from one to another.
It was semi-public knowledge young Penn Rowantree had a combat-oriented card. This fight should have been over in minutes, if not seconds.
Whitaker began to turn his attention to the furthest quadrant, which was a duel between two temperature card wielders, when Valentina spoke up.
"Doesn't Kane remind you of anyone?"
With another internal sigh, Whitaker dragged his attention back from the more interesting fire/ice brawl. "Don't tell me you have a great-great grandson floating about..."
If that were the case, he would expect the boy to have something more useful than a crafting card. Crafting, for pity's sake.
Valentina’s eyes didn't leave the duel. "Doesn't he remind you of Lottie?"
“Who?” Whitaker started to say, but then was distracted as the crowd below them suddenly went wild.
It seemed that the one-sided knockdown fight had finally reached a new level.
Whitaker missed the exact moment, but somehow Penn’s clothing was ripped and there was visible blood on his chest.
“It looks like your puppy has some teeth,” he said, and then a moment later, “but of course the combat card will always win out,” as Penn started to punish the other boy for his daring.
“Lottie,” Valentina said, stubbornly. It seemed like she wasn’t even paying attention to the outcome of the fight — even though she was the one who had convinced him — reluctantly — to back Arthur. “Remember Denny’s hatching?”
“Denny?” Whitaker frowned, not because he didn’t remember the hatching but because he hated being dragged back into a conversation he barely cared about.
He glanced longingly to the seats below, watching several of his fellow dragon riders standing up and cheering, practically spilling their drinks while hollering for more blood. They were having a good time. He wished he were able to sit among him.
“That Legendary that hatched twenty years ago —” Valentina said, with a waspish edge to her voice.
“I know who Denny is,” he snapped. “Lottie… Yes.” His frown deepened and not because it seemed Arthur, at last, had been stabbed well enough to count, but because he hadn’t thought of that girl in an age. Pretty thing. Or, she had been.
“What a shame,” he said. “That’s why I’m glad I didn’t have any daughters. You watch one marry the wrong husband, and they die along with them.”
Valentina made a noise of frustration, no doubt because her preferred recruit was currently stabbed through the stomach. Why the Buck Moon judges hadn’t called the fight and ended this nonsense, Whitaker couldn’t say. In fact, Penn Rowantree seemed to be calling for the fight to end, too.
“He has her look,” Valentina ground out.
“Who?” Whitaker’s attention had been drawn to one of the other matches.
Now Valentina made a sound like someone had trod over a cat’s tail. “Lottie.”
Whitaker blinked and then looked back at the two boys. His attention was naturally focused first on Penn, as he was the clear favorite. He was a well-built boy and would surely be a strong man… Assuming the egg didn’t kill him. It didn’t matter how strong a boy was when the unlinked hatchling got in a snit.
The other… “Oh yes I see what you’re saying,” he said with a nod. “Lottie was a blonde, too, wasn’t she? Fetching color on a woman. Is that why you backed her, all those years ago?”
Again, Valentina made that frustrated noise.
Whitaker couldn’t question her as the audience suddenly erupted again.
Finally, a winner had been called.
And it wasn’t Penn.
It was Arthur Kane.
Penn, it seemed, had lost his nerve at the last moment and conceded the match. Huh.
With the shake of his head, Whitaker leaned back in his seat. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times: a card will only take you so far. You must have the heart to truly wield it.”
“You are impossible,” Valentina said.
He glanced at her. “What?”
But the other Wolf hive leader didn’t reply. She was too busy signaling one of the servers for a strong alcoholic drink. This time, she took the shot the moment it was delivered.
Whitaker rolled his eyes and once again turned his attention to the matches.
Seriously, Valentina was getting too old and too fragile for the rigors of leadership. Her mind wandered to the past.
Recruit Lottie had been a favorite for that egg, but the dragon has the last say. While Denny didn’t kill her, he didn’t link with her, either.
Come to think of it… She had married the heir to the Rowantree house, hadn’t she? A couple years before that scandal broke.
If anything, that should be an object lesson for Valentina: don’t back the wrong horse.
Whitaker watched with mild amusement as Valentina’s favorite was healed and then immediately set upon by others wishing to duel. The boy was a juicy piece of meat thrown into a barrel-full of scourgelings. If Whitaker had been in their place, he would’ve challenged the boy, too.
He remembered his own Legendary recruit duels. Ah, those had been the days…
Arthur Kane had to be either touched in the head or truly desperate to enter the arena with a simple crafting card in addition to the little Rare level tricks he and Valentina had gifted. Really, he stood no chance.
Except… The next duel was against a slim young woman with a heat and smoke card as her offensive weapon of choice. The heat/smoke was likely not a Legendary level, though. Either she was keeping their true power in reserve, or their Legendary was more of a utility/support role.
Much like Arthur Kane, in fact.
Well, hopefully the girl would have more sense than to drag this out.
The girl acted the moment the duel was started, throwing up a choking smoke screen that coalesced around Arthur.
Arthur responded, naturally, by phasing through the cloud.
She was ready for him just when he stepped out the other side. The few seconds had given her the moment she needed to generate a wave of fire by way of heating the air around her.
In the next second, Arthur had something in his hand — was that a flour sack? — and threw it right between himself and the girl. Flour exploded upward just as the wave of fire rolled through it.
There was an explosion that tested the shield around the combatants.
As the smoke cleared, the girl had been thrown clear across the quadrant and lay in a crumpled heap, unconscious.
Arthur Kane stood where he was. Presumably, he had phased through the explosion. Though from the pinched look on his face, and the way he gasped for air, most of the oxygen in the shielded quadrant had been eaten up by that little stunt.
“He is quite resourceful, is he not?” Valentina said.
“You always like the stupidly lucky ones,” he commented idly. “Didn’t your favorite from last time, Lottie, have some sort of legendary sewing card?”
“Something like that.”
As the girl didn’t stir within ten seconds, the match was called for Arthur Kane.
Whitaker glanced up at the rankings and shook his head. “They’re not going to credit him much for stupid tricks. He won’t move above third place.”
“Which is a victory all on its own,” Valentina said, smugly. She looked at Whitaker. “Lottie also ranked third place in the duels, did she not? Quite extraordinary for someone with a crafting-type card—”
Whitaker stopped listening to her prattling. There was a boy the next quadrant over who had a fascinating blood-body control card. Now, that was a potent card against the scourge…
When Arthur Kane was called up again for another duel, it was against a skilled illusionist. Prince Francis Orchardtree who had been considered one of the forerunners for the egg. Whitaker would have much rather backed him rather than a no-name son of a baron with dumb tricks up his sleeve. Unfortunately, the royals were tied to their city of birth. That meant they were loyal to the hive closest to them. Orchardtree city was placed close to Harvest Moon hive.
“This should be interesting,” Valentina murmured.
“How so?”
She smiled. “You forget so quickly. Arthur Kane was one of the few who was able to resist the mind-mage scourgeling.”
Whitaker scowled, hating to be reminded of that debacle. So he had chosen to forget it and focus on the future. “You’re giving the kid too much credit. You know that Buck Moon hive was simply elevating him just to rub our noses in that disaster and take the egg from us—”
“Quiet, it’s about to start,” she said, chastising him as if he were a schoolboy.
For the first time, Whitaker dearly hoped that his officially backed choice would lose. If only to shut Valentina up.
Arthur didn’t lose.
Worse, for two opponents in the top three, it was a dreadfully boring fight.
Because of the translucent shields, no hint of the illusions leaked out. Otherwise the rest of the crowd would be at risk of falling under the illusion cards sway. Those powers were a bit too close to mind-mage manipulation for most tastes.
Whatever illusion Orchardtree created, Arthur Kane simply walked through it and up to the other recruit with a pair of scissors in hand.
His snip was much more careful and much less desperate than it had been before. Francis’s pants fell down his ankles.
“Oh my,” Valentina said mildly over the crowd’s roaring laughter. “It seems the boy would be rich enough to purchase underclothing.”
Prince Francis Orchardtree hurriedly covered himself. From the way the translucent shields fell, he conceded the match.
Not all the duels that night were so easily one-sided. These were Legendary rank cards, and some were overwhelmingly offensively-based. Too much for a single-support card to manage.
Arthur conceded the match twice at the very start. Once against a boy with volcanic powers — understandable — and another against a girl who had a card aligned with salt and sand. It was an odd combination that made people whisper she had two Legendary cards.
For her sake, Whitaker hoped not.
Physically, these elemental type cards were the strongest. However, those cards also tended to be one-trick ponies. While they won most of the matches, their wins didn’t gain as many points with the judges.
The losses hadn’t hurt Arthur Kane much. He now sat at a comfortable fifth place, with Pennrow Rowantree in second place. Whitaker knew he should have backed that one. He had a whole card for fighting for dragon’s sake!
Legendary hatchlings had minds of their own, but most of them didn’t choose card wielders with narrow scopes.
Take himself, for example. Whitaker’s power was one of telekinesis. He could move inanimate objects with ease. His card’s limitation was on self-aware, conscious individuals. He could fling a dead donkey corpse hundreds of feet at a gesture. Maybe half that length if the donkey were asleep. But he wouldn’t be able to budge that donkey an inch if it were awake and resistant to being moved. Still, that gave him a wide range of options when it came to combat and utility. He knew for a fact that flexibility was what appealed to his dragon.
But there was ‘too much of a good thing’. Take this boy Valentina insisted on backing, for example.
What would he do when faced with a wave of scourgelings? Tailor them a pretty dress? Throw another bag of flour? Perhaps a sack of onions this time and hope their eyes started to sting?
People didn’t call in Legendary dragon support when things were going well. They were the final bulwark before the king had to step in.
Whitaker sighed.
Valentina leaned forward, the lenses pressed tightly to her face. “This may be a problem.”
“What now?”
She gestured below. Arthur Kane had been approached by another recruit.
“Isn’t that the Time Prince?” Whitaker asked. “Uh, Martin—”
“Marion Amberlion,” Valentina corrected.
Whitaker glanced at the list. From the looks of things, the boy hadn’t won a single match yet. He had slipped from number four to number twenty-three. That was a shame for someone with precognition.
“Another boring fight,” Whitaker moaned, signaling the attendant for another beer. Once again, he wished he were sitting with the rest of his friends. “The boy with all tricks and no combat versus the ultimate defense, also with no combat.”
“No,” Valentina said grimly. “Marion is trying to convince our recruit to throw the next match. And I think he just might do it.”
