Space Knights: The Arrival Gregory Samuelson (superbooks4u .txt) 📖

had to enter and participate in, the Gladiators Circle tournament. As he went and sat down to rest while the other individual weapon events finished up, he found that he was sitting next to the boy that had won the Alternate Weapons Challenge.

The boy’s name was Hamon, and he was the warhammer-wielding captain of the Amorites. He stood six feet tall with fairly broad shoulders and moderately large arms. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes that were rather perceptive. “Hello,” he said in greeting. “I saw your match with Rex. I want to congratulate you on beating that guy. A lot of us were really rooting for you.”

“Thanks,” replied Trance still breathing heavily.

“My name is Hamon,” he said, introducing himself and extending his hand. Trance shook it and introduced himself. “So you’re the Earth boy I’ve heard so much about. I’m impressed; you’re a very good swordsman. Your archery needs some more practice, but you’re not too bad with an ax,” said Hamon as politely as possible.

“Thanks. I know that I need to practice more on my archery. I’m trying to get into the Golden Griffins so I needed to have a third weapon. I figure an ax would be a really good second to have. You have a very interesting weapon. How did you choose your hammer?” Trance said conversationally and pleasantly.

“This?” Hamon said, indicating his warhammer. The wooden hammerhead was carved and resembled a smooth angular sledgehammer head that was attached to a sixteen-inch long handle. “I chose this as my main weapon in memory of my grandfather. He was a weapon smith and forged a lot of weapons and used a hammer similar to this one in his shop. I used to go visit him when I was a child and played with his hammers a lot.

“I’m trying to get in the Golden Griffins also. My grandfather made me the warhammer I’ll use when I join,” Hamon happily explained, and then felt a tear form at the corner of his eye as he went on. “He made the hammer when I became team captain and told him about my dream to be in the Golden Griffins. He passed away four days after completing it and getting it approved for me in advance. That was last year.”

The two boys talked on and soon were becoming good friends. As they talked Gracer and Zam came by to congratulate Trance and soon joined the conversation. Then some of Hamon’s friends came up and congratulated Trance. The main point of the conversation was Trance beating Rex to win the Swordsman Challenge. They could tell that Rex was furious about being beaten, especially by a boy from Earth. Several of the swordsmen complained about Rex in the competitions, because Rex seemed to go out of his way to win everything and make himself look great at their expense. They laughed at the fact that he wasn’t the center of attention any more. They had noticed that many of the judges and recruiters were paying more attention to Trance at the moment.

Trance kept his modesty and tried to direct attention to the other swordsmen and gave them some helpful hints that might help them be better swordsmen. He took the time to demonstrate some of his moves and indicated that they could do them and have just as much success as he was having. Hamon, Gracer, and Zam could easily see that their friend would make a very good leader. They saw how humble Trance was, it wasn’t an act, and they watched as he tried to build the other swordsmen and other knights up to be better and have more success.

Their small group grew larger as they started practicing together, trying to get each other ready for the last tournament, the coveted Gladiator Circle event. They knew that only sixty-four of them would be entered. Trance, Zam, Mandor, Gracer, and Hamon all figured that they would be in the running as well as Orazior. Sure enough they were in and pretty well scattered through the brackets.

Rex was once again the number one seed; however, Trance was surprisingly ranked as tenth. He didn’t worry about this, after all he figured that many of the other knights from the other schools had been in longer than him and had really worked hard to make it this far. Trance was pleased to see that Hamon was in the second position. He knew that he might have to face his new friend in the tournament, but that was okay. He’d rather lose to Hamon than face Rex again and lose.

The tournament started and Trance saw Rex easily advance to the second round. He rooted for his friends and saw all of them advance as well. His turn came and he advanced, too easily he thought. His opponent came at him so recklessly that he literally ran himself out of the circle three times in a row. This made Trance rather uneasy. Obviously he was pleased to advance, yet it seemed that Rex was working behind the scenes to get Trance eliminated from the competitions. Another thought that troubled him was that he didn’t want to get a big head. He wanted to remain humble and wanted any success he had to be well earned.

The second round also saw that every one advanced to the third round. This was a rough round. Orazior beat Zam to advance to the quarterfinals; also Gracer defeated Mandor to advance. Trance had a brutal match. He won but felt he had just escaped being knocked out of the running. Hamon also advanced. Rex kept plowing his way through to the quarterfinals.

Now the top eight boy knights did their best to shine this early in the year to start impressing the recruiters for the various branches of the planetary knights. Rex had a harder time advancing this time, as his opponent was Lamden, the captain of the Black Knights. Orazior advanced over Gracer, and Trance was hard-pressed to advance over