A Dragon's View [Book 1 in Rising Dragons]

Chapter XVI: Arle Mossk Tournament

"Welcome to the Arle Mossk Tournament," a woman said, from the front of the crowd. "My name is Sibyl Valli, and I will be the main official for all competitions of the tournament. As I'm sure you know, the tournament has four dragon and rider pairs from three different schools. You twelve pairs in front of me have been chosen.

"This tournament goes for four days, with three competitions per day, with the exception of the final day. The three events that occur each day are a race with the dragon and rider working together, in air dragon only fights, and fighting as humans – for both dragons and humans. However, the fifth event will be a slightly different type of race. This means that there are ten events, and one person is knocked out per each event. This means that three people will be in the final competition. You will be knocked out based on the amount of points you have, which is based off your position in each competition. The first event of the day will be a pair's fight; I suggest you all get prepared. And congratulations on making it to this tournament."

I looked over towards Sky who seemed to be taking in all the information at once. It's going to be a hard fight, I told Sky.

It will be, but we will manage. If we can avoid being last, we'll be fine.

* * *

The sword shook in my hand and I could feel the grip slipping from my sweaty palm. I tightened my grip, and took a step backward. My back hit Sky's; Sky who was annoyed at how the fight was going. Her weight shifted so I could lean further on her.

Our opponents were circling like predators, which made Sky and myself the prey. Let's swap opponents and see if that goes any better, Sky eventually said. We can't do any worse than we are currently.

If I was a dragon I would just step on them all, I reflected, and don't jinx us.

Sky laughed and we both sprung forward, this time I went to attack the human while Sky handled the dragon. I rammed into the human, stopping her blade with my own and forcing her to step back. The human did so and disengaged with some fancy sword move that I had no way of stopping. I ignored the obvious difference between our proficiencies and pushed forward once again. The female rider didn't budge, but I had saw the slight twitch in her left arm seconds before she had actually moved the sword.

I grinned and stepped backwards, circling the rider. The rider echoed me and I followed her movements carefully, trying to find more tells. One of my tells – which Sky was always pointing out and using against me – was the fact I tended to look down before stepping forward to attack. However, this time I could use my own tell against my adversary. I let my eyes flicked down before leaping towards the rider. As I was looking very carefully, I spotted the way her knees bent and left foot shifted before she moved.

I pulled back, landing on the ground in a crouched position. I wondered how Sky hadn't seen it, before being forced to dodge as the blade whistled towards my head. I figured Sky had been too busy trying to defend herself or attack to spot the tells, too busy to pay attention to them. Nonetheless, now that I had seen them, I used them to my advantage.

I moved around the rider and as she turned to lunge forward, I knocked one foot off balance and then kicked her down. I lowered my sword so it rested beside her neck, "Yield."

* * *

I went into an uneven and unprepared dive. The dragon behind me followed; close on my tail and not giving me any space. I cursed in my head, even as I basically through the sky. I slammed open my wings, hoping that I was facing the right way up. When it turned out I was, I completed a loop-de-loop before performing a barrel roll and then doing it back the way I came.