The Demon King's Hero Of Light

Her first goal would be to disable those wings, she decided as she stood and moved into position.

As the gong went off, Frederik gave a flap of his wings and dived at her, intending to end this fight quickly. She took of running at him, sliding on her knees as he flew over her, and she sliced his stomach as they pa.s.sed. Climbing to her feet, she turned to see him laying in a crumpled heap, and as the crowd cheered and whistled, she approached to confirm her success.

His wings were tangled and broken where he had landed and rolled. His weapon laying beside him forgotten, he held his stomach with both hands, trying to keep his insides, inside.

"I should have seen that move coming," he panted as he caught sight of her.

"You should have," she agreed, "Do you yield?"

"No, sit and talk with me until they declare you the winner. You should get a chance to rest at my stupidity. I hope you do become our king."

She nodded and kneeled, as if waiting for him to stand back up. Because of his hunched position, no one could see that he didn"t intend to get back up.

"I don"t know why they hate you so, but you should know that we all received special training. From the military, even," he panted.

Blood was starting to pool around him, but he wasn"t at risk of dying immediately, so they both ignored it. The healers were pacing, waiting for the match to be called.

"I figured as much."

"When you do become king, I would like training to become one of your generals. I think I could respect you as my king."

She watched as he carefully repositioned one wing, as if he was about to jump at her, but it didn"t work. The counselors could see that he was done fighting, and called the match. As the healers darted in, she returned to her spot, turning to see who would be her next opponent. To her surprise, they all held weapons already, and were warming up for their turn. Surely, they wouldn"t sic all of them on her?

"The winner is Aella, the Persistent! Her next opponent will be Kapral the Vigorous!"

She eyed the demon that smiled and stepped forward. She had a few moments to looked him over as they hauled Frederik off the field.

Kapral had four horns, two large ones that curved forward, and two small ones that curved back. His dark red skin was covered in tattoos and scars, and small spikes were growing up through his skin on the shoulders. Swinging his battle axe, she could tell that he had also had training in it, probably from the military, as Frederik had said. While Kapral had wings, they were small and obviously not used for true flight. It was clear from the moment that he took his place, she would find no honor in him.

The second the gong went off, he charged with no intentions of waiting to investigate the situation. As he raised his arm to attack, she stepped forward, grabbing his arm and flipped him over her shoulder. He rolled and caught himself on the edge of the arena, stopping inches from being disqualified by leaving the field. Charging at her again, swinging the battle axe back and forth so she couldn"t dodge closer to attack him.

Taking a breath to calm herself, she knew what she had to do. Taking a step to dodge his blow, she stepped back out of his reach, making him chase after her. Aella reduced the amount of movements she had to make to the barest minimum, not trying to attack, only dodge. He was expending so much energy, she knew it wouldn"t take long for him to get tired and slow down.

The crowd cheered every time he missed, egging him on, but she didn"t hear them. Her focus was on him completely. Each time he went to slow his attack, she would step as if to attack, and he would speed up again. Those watching thought she was dancing instead of fighting, as she weaved and stepped, missing each blow he swung at her. Only a few recognized her tactic as one to tire him out. Her father taught her this for when she would inevitably go up against an opponent that was larger than her, but she hadn"t needed to use it until now. It did worry her a bit, giving this tactic away to those who were waiting for their turns to fight her, but she had no choice.

Kapral screamed in rage, slamming his axe down, and jumping into the air, flapping his useless wings furiously to give himself more lift, and swung his blade down at her with everything he had, but she was ready.

Stepping towards him, the blade slid past her face and shoulder with only a breath between her and it, and buried her blade into his stomach, trying to angle it up towards his heart, the best she could. The angle was wrong, and she knew it didn"t reach his heart; rather his lungs, but it did its job.

He fell to the ground, gasping and panting, spitting blood onto the ground. His axe lay beside him, as so many others had, forgotten as he touched the spot where the blade had entered. When he landed, the force of him hitting the ground, had shoved the blade even further into his chest, leaving only the smallest hint of the hilt sticking out.

As the announcer went to call the match, and the healers rushed to drag him off the field, Aella realized they wouldn"t give back her blade. She was down to only one.

"Aella"s next opponent is Rhys the Able!"

The crowd booed when they realized she was down a blade, but the counselors ignored them, watching as her new opponent swung his javelin around and took his place.

She wasn"t even halfway through her opponents yet. She"d had to fight a lot of enemies before, but she had been allowed killing blows to make the fights quick. If any more of these fights dragged out, she was going to be too tired by the end.

"This stinks!" cried one of the people in the crowd, throwing a water bag at her.

She side stepped it, then realized what he had done. s.n.a.t.c.hing it up as the gong went off, she smirked at Rhys and took a long drink. Waving at the crowd, her thanks, she jumped to the side to avoid his spear, and put the stopper back into the bag. Her only chance to survive today was if she had support from the crowd. Since she had never had help like that before, it was a revelation that would probably benefit her once she was king.

"I"m going to chop you into little bits and feed you to the dogs!" he growled, swinging and stabbing the javelin at her.

She wasn"t able to get close enough to him, to stab and slice at him, because he kept her at a distance with his weapon. She didn"t have a prayer of getting him to let go, because he was stronger than her, so her best bet was to dodge all of his attacks. The problem with that, was it required a lot of energy on her part, to stay ahead of his spear tip.

After flipping over and rolling into a crouch, she realized what she had to do. Waiting as he stepped closer, she held off on dodging, as she had been, until just before the spear struck, then stepped aside, and flung her knife at his outstretched form. With both hands on his weapon, trying to shove the end into her, he had no defense against the blade of her knife as it struck him square in the throat.

Had he left the blade in place, until the healers reached him, everything may have been alright, but he chose to grab the handle and jerked it out in anger. Aella jumped back as he slit the jugular and blood began pumping out at an incredible pace.

He went to throw the knife at her, but his hands were so slick from all of the blood everywhere, it slipped out of his hands.

"Aella has been disqualified for an illegal action. The rules state no kill shots, and she went for his throat."

The crowd erupted once again, making it clear they disagreed. She went to pick up her knife, waiting for them to rescind the ruling, as they already had once, but it was picked up by Frederik.

Everyone went quiet as he studied the blade, wiping it clean on his pants, then handed it back to her along with the other knife that had been taken during the last fight.

"It"s not very fair when they stack everything against you, is it?" he asked loudly enough for his voice to carry.

"The hero"s that the humans send, won"t fight very fair, so I don"t mind. The problem comes when they intentionally break their own rules," she replied, causing the few people who could hear from the crowd to quickly spread it among the others.

Some of the counselors were grinding their teeth in frustration and annoyance, demanding that the fights continue without a rescinding of the rules.
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"Aella! Aella! Aella!" the crowd started chanting.

Frederik walked over to the counselors, who looked up at him in confusion and some with fear, and said, "I think the fact that Aella was denied both her weapons during that last fight, dictates an allowance for her actions. Don"t you think?"

"The rules clearly stated at the beginning of the compet.i.tion say she is not allowed to use killing shots to win against her opponents. She struck him in the neck!" argued one of the counselors.

"And yet Rhys is still alive. Clearly it wasn"t a killing blow. Otherwise, any cut or stab any of us were to get, could be considered killing blows if the healers didn"t tend to them. I think the fact that the healers could get to him before he died, should be clear enough that it isn"t a killing blow."

The counselors looked like they would have gladly ripped his head off, but they couldn"t argue against his logic. Aella thought she might have to rethink some of her decisions not to use any of the demons she fought today. It seemed at least a few of them might make good generals.

"Aella the Determined will be fighting Kieran the Big next!"