Halfwizard (Book 2 of the Troy Sanders Trilogy)

12: The Only Way to Deal with an Unruly Sibling... Fight Him

“Why are you hellbent on going through with this?” asked Vic as she pouted furiously behind me. We had gone through it all day the previous day and she was back again that morning to antagonize me again.

“Vic, he challenged me,” I reminded her in case she had forgotten, which she seemed to. All I wanted to do was give a speech and Stan had chosen that moment to challenge me; that sly son of a gun. “What was I supposed to do? Say no?”

“But he’s your brother.”

”Half-brother, Vic. Don’t get the facts mixed up,” I corrected. “And if that was how he treated family? Then, I don’t want to be his.”

Vic shot me a disapproving glare but I pretended not to see it. Stan Sanders had asked for a fight and a fight he was going to get; no god on high- or beautiful caramel-haired, absolutely stunning girl in front of me- was going to change that.

“Don’t fret so much over it anyway,” I said to her some time later when her mood still hadn’t improved. “Look, even Francesca agreed to it.”

“Because she knows you guys will just go ahead and fight anyway if she said no,” she returned- wow! That girl really did know how to argue.

But it did nothing to change my mind on the matter so she only stood back as I wore the golden armour- seriously, it’s made out of real gold- that had been selected for me. The armour fit snugly over my body like it had been made especially for me- which was kinda weird because I never remembered giving Francesca or anyone for that matter my size measurement- and I patted it to make sure it was battle-ready.

Well, here goes nothing, I said to myself as I made my way out. But Vic blocked my way again.

“You do know this is starting to grow tiresome, don’t you?” I said to her.

“I only want to give you this,” she replied and brought out a golden-red pin which she stuck to the breast of my armour.

“Lucky charm?” I took a glance at the pin. It was circular and the picture of a flaming dragon was engraved on it. Really charming.

“No, silly,” she replied, smacking my forehead. “It’s the crest of Firewalt. It goes along with the armour.”

“So, you’re cool with me going out to fight then?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, the glare returning to her face. “But what else can I do when you won’t listen to me?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt me,” I said, giving her a kiss- what is it with women and worrying themselves to death anyway?

“That’s good, Troy. Very good, in fact,” she replied. “But what if you’re the one who ended up hurting him? Have you thought about what will happen then?”

That did get me to stop for a while. It was true that I really wanted to show Stan who was boss- which I was in case anyone was wondering- but the question remained that was I willing to go as far as hurting my own half-brother to achieve that.

“Guess we’ll find that out soon enough,” I said, sighing before I stepped out onto the stage.

The moment everyone saw me, a voluminous cheer went round the whole arena. It was as if I was some gladiator champion that the masses had paid a fortune to watch.

I began to wish that there was a helmet and visor to go with the armour because the cheers were really starting to make me feel a whole lot apprehensive about the entire situation- still getting used to the attention, remember?

The arena was actually built to resemble those amphitheatres seen in the movies: round, big, and extremely ancient-looking. A magical barrier had been raised to separate the spectators from the stage in case of misspells- those happen a lot during a duel, believe me.

I looked forward and standing at the extreme edge of the stage was Stan Sanders himself. I really thought he would be dressed like I was but he was only dressed in a simple shirt and trousers with his blue cloak to go. I felt very overdressed for the party.

Judging from the “Let’s get this fight started already” look on his face, it was obvious he’d been waiting for a while. “I thought you chickened out at the last minute, valorwizard,” he said when I got within earshot of him.

“Not a chance,” I replied. “Vic kept me back for a while but nothing can prevent me from coming out here to kick that sorry hind-side you call an ass.”

My threat didn’t seem to have the desired effect on him as he only laughed and replied, “I hope you’ve enjoyed all your things very well before coming out here, Troy. Cos soon, they’ll all be mine.”

The urge to just rush at him and beat him to stupor right there rose in my mind but I quickly subdued it. I couldn’t afford to lose control while the whole world’s attention was on me.

So, I decided to settle for, “I hope you can cast spells as good as you talk, Stan.”

This time, my words stung him and I saw his eyes flare in anger. But he didn’t have the time to pull a comeback as a loud song began to play in that moment; Francesca had arrived.

The Dragon lady wore a grey corporate suit for the event, her hair was tied up properly in her usual bun and she radiated authority; and a little bit of disapproval too, if I saw correctly.

Descending the flight of stairs to the arena, someone passed a mike to her. “The rule of the challenge is simple,” she said. “You duel until one of you surrenders. No extreme spells allowed.” But it wasn’t until, she moved very close to us that she made the last of her statement. “God, I hope you boys know exactly what you’re doing.”

Me too, Francesca. I sighed in my head.

The bell rang and the duel began. Without wasting time, Stan began to throw magic spells at me; and just like I had anticipated, they were easy to deflect. That stupid boy had been so full of himself that he'd forgotten to investigate how good I was with my magic.

“Come on, you can do better than this, Stan,” I goaded and it worked like a charm as he improved the magic stance but still not the execution. Really Stan, you’re making me feel overly good here.

“Water!” he commanded and a flood of water came rushing at me. I had to do something very fast or I would soon be finding out if I could float as well as I thought I could.

All of a sudden, an idea came to my mind and I felt a smile creep up my face; a really mischievous one, I might add.

One, two, three. I counted off in my mind before rushing at the incoming flood head-on. As I was about to reach the flood, I released a wave of air and it sliced the water right into two; just like I wanted. I jumped between them and grinning at the Stan’s widened eyes, I punched him right in the face.

He fell unceremoniously to the ground; the surprise and embarrassment in his eyes doing more damage than my punch. I knew I only had a moment before he recovered; if I was to finish him off, I had to do it then.

But I didn’t. “Get yourself off the ground, Stan Sanders,” I said and turned to walk away.

But I had barely taken three steps when I suddenly felt a wave of heat behind me. I turned around just in time to deflect the fire he had sent at me but the force of the attack was still powerful enough to send me flying across the stage.

“How dare you?!” I shouted at him, anger starting to well up inside me. “I spared you and that was how you repay me?!” I felt rage course through the flames still dancing before my eyes and just like the time I had felt it once before, I didn’t fight it.

It wasn’t until I saw the black particles moving over my hands that I realized what I was about to do. There was no way I was going to allow myself to hurt Stan, especially not with dark magic and in public. “No!” I shouted as I willed myself to stop, even tensing all the muscles in my body to do it; and just like that, a sharp pain drilled through my head and I saw the black particles transform into white ones before rushing out of my grip.

The white particles grew brighter as they went- almost like the light of the sun- and smashed into Stan so hard that he rolled like a gazillion times in the air before striking the border barrier with enough energy to create a hole in it. He hit the ground like a human dummy and didn’t get up again.

The blind strike spell, I realized what I just commanded; a very powerful high-level spell; also very energy consuming too, as I soon realized when my legs suddenly gave way under me and I crashed heavily to the ground.

My head and ears were ringing so much but I forced my head to look around, everyone was off their seats and looking worried. I was very sure that they were confused as to how I could have conjured such a powerful spell; and I was too. I was supposed to be the valorwizard, remember? not “Megawizard the great.”

The sound of my name began to float around my head; someone was calling me. A lot of someones, actually.

But I couldn’t reply to any of them as my eyes drooped and darkness enveloped me. The people had come to watch a big fight; and well, they’d seen one.