Shambala.
The fabled city of dragons.
The competition had arrived.
The Competition
THE DINING HALL BUZZED with excitement and apprehension at lunch that day. The students of the School of Swords and Sorcery had all heard of the new arrivals. I filled my plate and tried to sift the common sense from the nonsense I heard from the other students’ conversations.
“They were ten feet tall with horns as long as my arm,” an initiate from the Disciples of Jade Flame swore to her classmate. “One of them breathed fire at me.”
“They marched straight down the hall with their axes,” an older student said. She demonstrated what she’d seen by holding one hand over her head and the other down past her waist. “They weren’t even fusion blades. Just dirty old axes.”
The other snippets of conversation I caught didn’t make any more sense than the first two. Some people swore they’d seen the walking dead roaming the corridors. Others claimed to have spotted fish people from Atlantis cavorting in our fountains.
“Did you see anyone from another school?” Clem asked when I arrived at our usual table.
“Dragons from Shambala,” I said. “Where’s Eric and Abi?”
“Abi got pulled off for PDF work,” Clem explained. “He’s been on portal duty helping the other schools get their students here. Eric’s been working with Professor Song on some new maneuver. You didn’t really see dragons, did you?”
“I wish I hadn’t,” I confessed. “There were five of them. Not like the one that delivered the message, though. These were humanoid, but they did have tails and claws.”
“Juveniles.” Clem nodded and took a bite of pizza. “That makes sense. I can’t believe this is really happening. Humans and dragons haven’t fought for eons.”
“And how’d that work out?” All this stuff about dragons and humans fighting over the fate of the world seemed almost too fantastical to be real. It was easier if I thought about the Gauntlet in simpler terms and focused on what I needed to do, rather than everything else that was at stake. Still, I’d rather know more about the competition than less.
“Poorly,” Hagar said as she plopped down in a chair at the end of our table. She had a spooky way of arriving unexpectedly. “One to one, dragons are just plain stronger than humans. In pretty much every way.”
A loud, braying horn blast crashed through the air.
“Students, please make your way to the Gauntlet Courtyard.” Elushinithoc’s unmistakable voice boomed through the school. “It is time to meet the competition.”
Once again, the professors had been caught off guard by the dragon’s unexpected demand. They scrambled to guide all of us out of the dining hall, down the school’s twisting passages, and into the courtyard, where the dragon waited for us between the statues. We marched to the beat of the groans and grumbles of our half-fed stomachs. Why couldn’t the dragon at least try to work with our schedules?
“Move toward the front,” Elushinithoc called out as we filed into the courtyard. “I don’t bite. Unless provoked. Make room, everyone must be in attendance before we can begin.”
Clem clutched my hand and pulled me through the students toward the front. Hagar grabbed a fistful of my robes and was dragged along behind us. No one else was crazy enough to want to get any closer to Elushinithoc than necessary, so we ended up at the edge of the dragon’s platform. We were so close I couldn’t see the creature’s whole body without craning my neck back.
The Lord of the Scaled Council was terrifying at close range. The smallest scales on his tail were the size of my open palm, and the largest would’ve made excellent breastplates. Each of his claws was the length of a scimitar’s blade and looked even sharper. A powerful, feral smell mingled with the scent of old pennies wafted from the dragon. That scent triggered a primal fear that urged me to run far and fast away from this beast.
Clem and Hagar looked even more frightened than I was. They couldn’t take their wide eyes off Elushinithoc, even as we were jostled and pushed from behind by other students squeezing into the courtyard. Despite the number of students crammed together in that space, no one spoke.
The dragon basked in the fading brilliance of the sun’s rays, and his golden scales sent spikes of glinting light across the crowd. The regal creature commanded attention, and the sweep of his eyes was enough to hold us mute. Unlike the rest of us, Elushinithoc didn’t seem the least bit nervous. In fact, the dragon looked bored.
Finally, everyone was in the courtyard. The dragon raised his head even higher, and an enormous scroll of creamy vellum unfolded at his eye level.
“Greetings, students,” Elushinithoc called out in a voice so deep I swear my teeth rattled in their sockets. “We have arrived at the eve of the Empyrean Gauntlet. Tomorrow, the teams will enter the first challenge. As is customary, I have arrived to both adjudicate this event and to introduce the local students to the visiting teams.”
The professors applauded faintly at that, prodding the rest of us to join in with half-hearted claps of our own. It would’ve seemed rude not to bang our hands together, but it also seemed silly to cheer on our opponents. Still, I clapped my palms together a few times and then waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Our first human team hails from the Heron Blade Academy in the heart of the Yzlanti Empire,” the dragon announced. “Known for their wisdom and spirit sight, these challengers will prove wily and unpredictable foes.”
A burst of blue smoke blanketed the stage. It swirled for long moments, then cleared to reveal five students in turquoise robes and cloaks of black feathers. The Heron Blade Academy’s three young men had shaved heads encircled by vivid blue tattoos. The two women with them had long, glossy black hair tied back with brightly colored red and yellow
