Hamon leaped at me as he swung with his fire lances from both sides. I jumped back, dodged the strikes, and landed further up the wooden seats. As he advanced again, I called on the power of the Plank Pillar. This was the first time I had used my wood powers while standing on wood, and I was amazed by how much easier that made it. Instead of being summoned from the ground, it was the planks already around me that formed the pillar, taking a fraction of the usual amount of Vigor. They sprang up in front of Hamon and blocked his advance. One of the planks even moved from beneath his feet and threw him off-balance.
I didn’t have long to bask in my success. No sooner was the Plank Pillar up than Hamon’s flaming blades chopped down one plank after another, leaving a heap of fallen wood with smoldering ends. While Hamon was breaking through the barrier, I took a moment to assess the fighting around me.
Despite our initial struggles, the guild members were getting the upper hand. Under the leadership of experienced masters, they were coming together to fight the invading Augmenters. The guild members drove the enemies back across the arena floor and through the stands. The Wysaro warriors were tough and skilled, but so were many of our people, and even the most inexperienced initiates made up for what they lacked with passion and determination to protect their home. I saw Faryn gather a group of initiates to move around the enemy’s flank to shift the flow of battle. Fire flared and weapons crashed, and women and men fell screaming from dreadful wounds, but still the Radiant Dragon Guild pressed on.
Then came a shout from the courtyard. The fighters near the arena entrance were driven back as fresh warriors joined the fray.
These men weren’t wearing the ninja garb of the Wysaro Augmenters, and for a moment, I hoped that they had come to help us. But then, I recognized their uniforms—deep green tabards trimmed with red—the outfit of Wysaro clan guardsmen.
These men might not be Augmenters, but they were still benefiting from elemental power. Someone had infused their weapons with Vigor so that fire ran along the blades of swords and streamed from the tips of spears. They weren’t as skilled at fighting as the Augmenters and they looked less comfortable wielding weapons wreathed in flames, but that didn’t stop them throwing themselves into the fight.
As the guardsmen poured in, the balance of the battle shifted. The guild members were driven into retreat, unable to face the superior numbers. A hundred Wysaro guardsmen crammed into the arena and formed a tightly packed line of fire and steel as they worked under the command of the Augmenters. One on one, they would have been easily defeated, but the line of spears made it hard for our warriors to get in close or to hold their ground as the line advanced.
I flung up three more Plank Pillars to delay Hamon while I looked for a way to help my friends. With more wooden obstructions, I could perhaps hold the guards back for a few minutes, but unless the guild made a counter-attack in that time, I would just be delaying the inevitable.
I summoned a pillar in the middle of the Wysaro front lines and sent enemies flying. As I’d hoped, it made a gap in their formation, but that gap was filled with my planks, leaving no opening that the guild could exploit.
Hamon burst through my wooden pillars, and I jumped back as his sword lashed out. His blade made a narrow incision on my chest, but I’d moved just before it would have gutted me. I recovered quickly and kicked him in the chest before he could strike. He waved his arms as he tried to stay balanced, but a roundhouse kick launched him backward. He fell over the stands and landed on the arena floor.
Before I could leap down to finish him off, an intense wave of heat hit me as Master Xilarion and Lord Wysaro hurtled past, the two of them becoming a single ball of flames as they flew through the air, battling with spells and weapons. Xilarion managed to get his staff past Wysaro’s defenses and hit him in the face. The fire around Wysaro flickered, and he fell from the sky before crashing into a pile of broken seating.
“Ethan!” Xilarion shouted as he drew something from inside his tunic. “Catch!”
He threw the item, and I leaped to catch it. It was a roll of paper, tightly bound around a bamboo stick, sealed with a dollop of red wax.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Your prize for winning the tournament.” Xilarion had already turned his attention away from me. He readied himself as Wysaro took flight once more. Fire flared in the lord’s eyes, and his face was filled with fury. Then, Xilarion hurtled toward Lord Wysaro with his weapon raised.
I cracked the seal, fragments of soft wax falling away beneath my fingers, and unrolled the scroll. As I did so, I could feel power radiating from the page, as it did from the cores of beasts and from Augmenters using their powers.
“Summoning of Greater Fire Golem,” it read at the top of the page. Underneath was a swirling trail of ink, its curves and angles precisely inscribed, a Vigor channel transformed from flesh into paper.
I ran my finger along the ink, followed its pattern, and summoned the power locked within. As I did so, I could feel the Vigor swirl around me. Although the fire itself was familiar, this shape was not, and I was stunned by the sheer force of the spell. Even after months of training, I
