Unexpected Guests - Chapter 8 - Don’t lose your head!

“Seriously, who throws sticks in this day and age?” Bandit ranted as the team collected themselves. 

“Do I really need to remind you that we’re on another world, and that what we’re familiar with no longer counts as normal,” Deadbeat exclaimed as she wandered up and examined my armor. “Seems like their weapons pack quite a punch, despite being more archaic than we’re used to. Too bad you never sprung for the auto repair function for your armor, guess you’re stuck with that until we’re done.”

“It’s only a little cracked,” I started, before noticing the disappointed look on Deadbeat’s face. “Fine, someone remind me to investigate some armor upgrades once we get home.” 

Spooky stepped next to Heavy, and swept the area. “Do you think that’s all of them?”

“Nope! We still need to fight the boss!” Bob loudly declared, drawing an unimpressed look from my fuzzy grey second in command. “What? I made sure to remember. Wait! Were those centaurs the boss?”

“No, they weren’t,” Spooky said. “And I was more concerned that there might be another archer, or centaur waiting to ambush us. I suspect the boss is going to be significantly more difficult to deal with.”

“Well, you should have said that,” Bob mumbled, which just caused Spooky to shake his head.

“Enough you two. We still have to clear the rest of the floor, you can bicker in the rest area,” I snapped. Once I was convinced they weren’t going to start up again I turned and tapped heavy on the back. “Let’s continue.”

Heavy nodded, lifted his massive shield so it was just off the ground, and once again started plodding forward. 

The path twisted back and forth, slowly winding towards a large structure in the distance. We passed a number of small areas that appeared to be set up as arenas, but these were unoccupied, almost if they’d been evacuated.

It didn’t take us long to discover why.

At the end of the floor was an arena. It didn’t look like much from the outside, just a squat stone structure, but it wasn’t until we passed through the connecting corridor and into the central area that I got a sense of its full grandeur. 

The arena was surrounded by row upon row of stands, rising so high that they even blocked the view of the manor. These seats weren’t empty either, they were filled by row upon row of skeletons, propped up like spectators. 

A thick fog covered the arena’s floor, flowing almost all the way up to my waist. Although it obscured the floor, I occasionally caught glimpses of blood splatters when the fog thinned.

As we slowly crossed the arena several figures emerged from the fog, and gloom, on the far side of the area. The smaller figures appeared to be skeletons, each one carrying a different weapon. I didn’t pay them much mind, my eyes were locked on the mounted knight at their center.

He was no centaur. He sat astride a horse that nearly rivaled Bob in height, and he was encased in armor so thick that I could barely make out the joints. The most striking thing however, was that he was missing his head.

No, that wasn’t quite true. The man had a head, it was just tucked under his left arm.

“Nice place,” I shouted to the approaching figure. “It must have taken forever to decorate.”

“Indeed,” the knight laughed. He threw his hands out above his head, head in one hand and massive axe in the other. When he spoke again, he was practically shouting, as if he was hamming it up for the audience. “I am the dread knight Sullivan, and welcome to my arena!”

“I thought the final challenge was supposed to be the adventuring team against a single, powerful opponent, not a team fight,” I shouted, sweeping my gaze over the skeletons clustered around Sullivan. 

“Normally, that’s true,” the big man laughed. “But this isn’t an official match, and a friend of mine has become extremely interested in you and your team. Although she only suggested that my employees avoid attacking your two biggest bears, I thought I’d try something far more interesting.”

“And that is?” I asked suspiciously.

“A duel! Between you and me. Oh, I know what’s probably going through your head, how am I supposed to fight you alone….”

“I accept!” I shouted, interrupting his explanation.

“Are you sure?” Sullivan raised an eyebrow, even though his head was tucked under his arm. “My my, you are an unusual one. Very well, just let me finish putting down the rules.”

He raised his axe and swept it over his entourage. “Rembrandt and the other Revenants will square up against your team, and prevent them from intervening. They MAY attempt to intervene, but to do so they must win a duel against their partner before doing so. If you defeat me, your team will be permitted to move on without any further conflict, and if I win, the revenants will leave and your remaining team may fight me like normal.”

“Seems simple enough,” I muttered. 

“I’m not sure this is a smart idea,” Spooky whispered. “That ‘man’ regularly takes on groups of five or six warriors, and I suspect your armor isn’t going to stand up to that axe of his.”

“That’s funny, I doubt his armor is going to hold up to mine either,” I replied. “Besides, if he’s used to fighting groups, he won’t be used to fighting one on one, right?”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Spooky replied flatly.

“I’ll be fine,” I declared as I stepped into the middle of the arena. “However, if you wanted to fight your partner, and try and help me out, I wouldn’t be against it.”

As I approached the center of the arena Sullivan slowly dismounted. There was a dull thud as he stepped onto the floor, and I thought I could even a tiny vibration through the ground. Probably just my imagination. Probably.

I didn’t realize how large he actually was until he stood across from me. He had to be eight feet tall, even without his head, and he seemed to be swinging what I originally thought was a two handed axe effortlessly with one hand.

“Are you ready?” Sullivan asked. Although he didn’t speak that loudly, his voice seemed to fill the arena.

“Sure, whenever you are,” I shrugged.

“Very well,” Sullivan said. He performed the same salute that the centaurs had, which I now suspected was a sign of respect, so I clumsily attempted to mirror the gesture. 

“Good luck to you young one,” Sullivan said with a smile. He twirled his axe a couple times, adjusting his grip until he was comfortable with it and when he was his face went cold. 

“BEGIN,” he shouted, as he lowered one broad shoulder and charged across the arena. He moved extremely quickly for someone wearing that much armor, and he didn’t appear to be restricted by it at all, so it was probably going to be difficult for me to block or dodge his strike. 

So I didn’t even try. Instead I dropped to my knees and rolled to the side. 

The fog instantly enveloped me, and through the thermal vision in my helmet I was able to track Sullivan. Instead of a nice warm outline, his body was cold, but it was still different enough from the surrounding area to register on the visor. He did a fairly good job of tracking my movement, bringing the axe down only a couple inches from my position. It didn’t matter if it was inches or miles, a miss was a miss, and I was going to take full advantage of it. 

Lunging forward, axe flaring in my hands, I brought my weapon down on Sullivan’s arm. The man staggered back, jerking his blade out of the blade just fast enough to block my blow. Unphased, I took a step to the side, and swung again, this time targeting his leg. Sullivan’s axe intercepted again, just barely.

“Why’d I choose to arm the bears with such a slow weapon?” I mumbled, taking a step back.

You didn’t exactly have that much exposure to more traditional weapons and, in fairness, axes are a fairly reasonable weapon for fighting plants.

“True…” I murmured as I slowly paced, stalking around the giant armored knight. He slowly rotated, always keeping his right side and his massive axe towards me. He was watching me warily, we both knew how close I’d come to ending the fight right there in that opening exchange. He was strong, and had a massive reach, but I was far, far faster. 

He probably thought my speed was my greatest attribute, and it probably was, but it wasn’t all I had. 

Stepping forward I feigned an attack with my axe, then immediately slipped to the side, avoiding Sulliven’s counter strike. Instead of swinging again I slipped the head of my axe under the head of his, and pulled. I slid forward, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone considering the difference in our sizes, but what Sullivan didn’t expect is that I had enough strength to prevent him from pulling his own axe back. 

Once I was close enough I clamped my left hand on the shaft of Sullivan’s axe, while swinging my own axe with my right.

The knight retreated, trying to wrench his weapon out of my grip, but all that did was drag me along for the ride. 

I swung again, scoring a shallow knick in Sulivan’s chestplate as he desperately tried to dislodge me from his weapon. 

A quick glance at his face confirmed what I already suspected. This was already over, and we both knew it. Choking up on my axe, I swapped targets. Pulling myself as close as I could I brought my axe down not on Sullivan’s body, but his arm.

The impact sent vibrations up my arm, nearly causing me to drop the axe. Although the blow hadn’t managed to cleanly cut through the heavy armor, it had caused massive damage. 

Sullivan managed to shake his axe one last time before I brought my weapon down again. The knight hissed in pain, stumbling, then finally falling as his arm was severed.

“I underestimated you,” Sullivan laughed weakly. “I should have known better, Talia has a good eye for talent. Hopefully she’ll be able to learn something from this duel.”

“I uh… have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admitted, stepping closer to the downed knight. Considering how strong, and fast he was, there was a very good chance he would have come out on top if he had the ability to use both hands. Thankfully for me, he had to hold his head. He was practically fighting with one arm tied behind his back.

“It doesn’t matter. Go on, finish me. You still have five more floors to complete, and I can guarantee things’ll only get harder for you.”

I performed the salute once again, bringing a brief smile to the headless man’s face, before I brought my axe down on his head. Sullivan’s body exploded into a shower of light.

When I turned to check on everyone else I saw that the Revenants had already backed down, taking positions around the arena’s perimeter. As the door to the hidden rest room slid open behind me I let out a long breath. “Five more to go.”