Winter's Warrior

Chapter Four

I was shoved from behind into the arena and stumbled slightly before regaining my stance. I quickly looked around, seeing that the first diamond gate was lifting already. Two polar bears raced out, a male and a female. They were dressed in leather armor with clear spikes jutting out. Trained for battle, I knew these bears were fierce—not animals to be messed with. Scrambling to the weapons, I snatched up a sword at random, pulling out a one and half handed sword. I swung it around lightly to test the balance and weight.

The sword was perfectly balanced and light enough to swing easily, but still heavy enough to do damage and take damage. In no time at all, the male polar bear was on me. I flipped over the hurtling mass as he tried to crash into me and take me down. As the polar bear slid to a stop and turned, I was able to get into a proper fighting stance and prepare myself for the next attack.

Enraged, the bear swiped at me, almost catching me with its massive paws. The bear tried to grapple with me, but I drove the sword into its stomach. The sword didn't go very far because of the thick fur that covered the bear like a leather coat, a natural defense against the cold. I dodged another swipe and shoved the sword in as far as it would go.

The bear staggered back, collapsing onto the ground. I walked over to where he fell and yanked my sword out as the crowd cheered. Cleaning the blood off my sword by wiping it on the snow-covered ground, I was able to keep an eye on my opponent and catch my breath at the same time.

My opponent handled himself well enough, but he often left his stomach exposed, a fatal flaw that I could take advantage of later if needed. He was incredibly talented with his battleax. One wrong move on my part and he could easily kill me with one swing.

I relaxed into a fighting stance once more as another gate opened up. A pack of seven arctic wolves raced out, ready to kill us. In an instant, they were upon us. In one fluid motion, I sliced the leg off of one that lunged for me and then the head.

Twisting the sword, I plunged it behind me into the wolf that had tried to attack me from the back. As quick as a falling drop of water, I had killed the wolf that was attacking me from the front with a stab of my sword to its heart.

The next wolf took me by surprise, attacking me while I was killing a different one. My sword was stuck in the corpse of the other wolf so I threw up my left forearm as I frantically tried to pull my sword free. It was lunging for my throat. I threw my arm up, a natural, life-saving reaction. It kept the wolf's snapping jaws from my throat, but left my arm open to the attack. The crowd went wild at the sight of the blood. I didn't have time to feel the pain.

Abandoning my sword, for the time being, I channeled the ice around me. I gathered it up in my hand, feeling it grow and buzz with excitement. It had been too long since I last used my ice powers for a real battle. When I shot my hand forward, the ice was far more than I intended. The pure blast of power caused the wolf to fly backward, freezing completely in mid-air. The ice froze the water droplets in the air and soon little diamonds of ice were falling to the ground.

The crowd cheered loudly, loving it when I used my powers. Only those belonging to the royal bloodline inherited powers, so the use was rare and crowd-pleasing.

I glanced over and saw that my opponent was alive as well. Just like me, he had taken damage in that second round, but his damage is more extensive, his leg heavily mauled. I was surprised that he could even stand at all with the amount of damage done to his leg. Surely he could feel it, even through the adrenaline.

I barely had time to prepare for the third and final wave, a roaring battle-cry the only warning I got before a familiar creature appeared. A dragon—one found only in the coldest regions of the world.

Its silver scales glistened and glittered in the sunlight, a beautiful, natural armor covering head to toe. A thick and heavy chain clasped to its ankle prevented it from flying off but allowed it enough room to reach every inch of the arena. Clear spikes decorated its head and spine, trailing down to its long, swinging tail. The dragon's enormous and powerful wings curved beautifully, its onyx eyes glittering with malice. There was no trace of mercy in its dark gaze.

My opponent went as white as the snow that surrounds us. I didn't blame him, really. Ice dragons are rarely used in the arena. Once more, I was glad that I took the place of the small boy who was going to be fighting. I wasn't sure who thought it would be acceptable to let him fight in the first place. He would never have made it this far, and if he had, the dragon would have killed him almost immediately. The crowd was cheering even louder than before, but it was almost completely drowned out by the roar of the dragon as it blew a cloud of icy fog, completely freezing and killing my opponent easily.

The dragon tried to do the same to me, send a blast of icy wind my way, but it did nothing. The cool caress of a beautiful icy breeze tickled my bare skin, doing nothing to upset my fragile human body.

"Really?" I taunted, more for the crowd's benefit. "Freeze the ice queen? That's your plan?" The cold didn't bother me. If anything, it was refreshing.

The dragon roared and bared its long white teeth at me as if returning the taunt.

I gathered up my power around me and sent blast after blast of concentrated ice, enlarged daggers aimed directly at the dragon's weakest points. The dragon returned the blasts of ice. It was fighting fire with fire, only with ice. Very deadly ice.

As the fight waged on, I knew that I was losing. The dragon was far more powerful than me, bigger, stronger, faster, icier. Knowing that it was winning, the dragon went for the killing blow. It blew icicles at me, a whole fleet of them, leaving me with no room to flee or dodge them.

Desperately, I threw up my hands channeling the ice, the ice surrounding me and the ice inside of me. In my panicked haze, I did the only thing I could think of.

I created a dome. The ice sheltered me in a thick, icy bubble of protection. The dragon tried to claw through the ice, to shatter it with its tail, to chip away at it with ice. Nothing worked. My ice was too strong.

Through the dome, I could still faintly hear the shouts of the crowd. They were louder than they had ever been. Well, since my first fight, I thought vaguely.

Using the reprieve, I took a moment to catch my breath. I closed my eyes, composed myself, and steeled myself for the end of the fight. The final kill.

My eyes still closed, I felt around with my power. In a detached manner, I corralled the ice. I had the power of all the ice in the land. I had far more power than this small creature.

Snapping my eyes open, I threw my hands out, my fists by my sides and slightly lifted. I burst the entire dome and shards of ice flew everywhere covering the soft snow. The shards of ice were sharp, similar to glass and I was grateful for my leather soled shoes.

Throwing blast after blast, I quickly took control of the fight, pushing the dragon back. I froze its chain and foot completely, preventing it from taking flight or even moving.

Mustering up as much strength as I could manage, I released a final blast of ice directed at the beast's heart. It staggered back, but the frozen chain and leg caused it only to fall. It died before it hit the snow.

Once more, the crowd cheered wildly as I stood there trying to catch my breath. Breathing raggedly, my gaze caught on something in the crowd. Nine somethings. The foreigners, all nine of them, were standing in the crowd. They had seen everything.