Heir Apparent - a Summoner FanFic

Round One

Dorien sensed the Barrier spell settle into place a heartbeat later and quickly drew mana to create a shield around himself, not daring to look round and see who was creating it. Poppy disappeared as Azdok let loose a trio of lightning bolts that cracked Dorien's shield. She had obviously decided to use the same tactic Almithara and Celia had used against Poppy and Dorien themselves just a few short weeks ago. She won't make the mistake of making herself visible like Celia did. Dorien mused.

Dorien sent Lial out to the right to search for Poppy and positioned Rashik so that Azdok's Minotaur was blocked from following her. Whilst he felt he understood most of the other cadets now, and could predict their most likely plans and tactics, Azdok was one of the few that Dorien knew little about. He'd never seen the dwarf fight a magical duel and so had nothing on which to base his predictions. The Minotaur, Azul, he reminded himself, stood guard over his master, stamping his cloven feet with barely contained rage.

More lightning bolts scattered against Dorien's shield from various directions. They were weak but bright, making it difficult to see. However, he was fairly sure all were coming from Azdok. He's trying to find a weakness to exploit, Dorien guessed with Poppy watching through the Shrike so that she knows when to attack too. He knew that Poppy was the key. If he could take her out then Azdok wouldn't be able to use Virette as his eyes. That would make it a straight up fight to the finish.

Dorien felt a ripple of triumph from Lial and was about to look through her eyes to both find her and to locate Poppy. The Leopine's inexperience put a stop to that. She shot out from the right, from behind the cover of the boulders that had been strewn around the Arena, and across the strip of cleared ground between Azdok and Dorien himself. She was much closer to Azdok now, having stealthily moved around the Arena's edge in her search. In her excitement, Lial had decided to get closer to Poppy. Either Azdok sent a signal to Azul or his control was not quite as complete as it seemed because the Minotaur took this opportunity to pursue the Felid, abandoning his post by Azdok, bellowing as he went.

"Go!" Dorien shouted at Rashik. His Anubid leapt forward, placing himself between Azul and his target. A Minotaur is far more physically powerful than an Anubid and Azdok had specifically trained Azul for hand to hand combat. The brute hefted the enormous double-headed battle ax it carried and swung at Rashik with such force that, as Dorien's demon narrowly avoided the blow, it shattered a boulder into dozens of smaller pieces. For his part, Rashik began to dance and leap out of reach.

Keep him busy. Dorien ordered, and watched carefully as Rashik lead the beast away from Lial. He took two calming breaths, ignoring the continued probing barrage from the dwarf, and looked through Lial's eyes. It appeared Poppy was panicking. Lial stood still about ten paces from the young woman, barely flinching as Poppy sent balls of fire and fists of energy at her. Spells have little effect on demons as a general rule, and Poppy looked exhausted.

Suddenly, her Shrike plummeted from the sky. It took Dorien a few moments to realise that he had seen it with his own eyes, not Lial's, before he sent a warning. It was too late. Lial's vision became a blur and flurry of black feathers. She managed to push her attacker away just in time to see a boulder the size of a small horse rocket towards her.

The image went dark at the same moment Lial was thrown across the Arena. She landed in her back and, before she could regain her feet, was pinned beneath another rock.

Poppy was faking her exhaustion, Dorien realised, until the view from Virette showed I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me, and so must be looking through Lial's eyes, too distracted to watch the Shrike.

Lial was in no pain, but couldn't get enough of a grip on the rock to shift it. Suddenly Dorien found himself being attacked from behind as well as in front, and was forced to begin drawing on more and more mana to keep his shield from falling around his ears.