This Month's Champion

I had stacked the fire too high, I realized staring into it. It was choking. A small gout of flame flickered from under the topmost log, struggling under its crushing weight, and the rest was a tired glow. I like staring into that wall of flame you get when you first light the kindling, that fire burns out quickly. And if you try to build it higher with thicker logs, it suffocates, or worse, burns too high for your hearth rages out and about your home.

For a while I was frozen by that little gout of flame. Staring, drifting through time, one second at a time, and for those seconds it didn’t matter that I was late. Then I reclaimed my body and sat up, found the floor under my feet, and pushed up till I was standing. A pointless glance up at the clock on the mantelpiece, then I grabbed my well-worn leather jacket, slung my bag over my shoulder, and left the fire to slowly die.

Those who had come to watch where clumped in a rough semicircle around Harren the Bold, this month’s champion. He wasn’t bowing or swinging his weapons around like some of the younger ones tend to do; his armor was clean but not polished, his helmet unadorned, and his face was somber and dutiful, like a priest speaking at a funeral. He didn’t make a speech, or use any of the designated time for ceremony, except to kiss his woman, and to tie her token around his arm. He turned to leave so simply that the trumpet players were taken by surprise, and were a few beats late in the fanfare that announced his departure. The children in the front threw flowers and sweets as he passed, and he flashed them a few smiles. Some of the older children though, who had seen too many champions before, threw nothing, and did not smile. I couldn’t help but be impressed by his quiet dignity. My mother used to say "Be wary of the humble man, for you will never know his true strength".

Once he had passed out of sight down the boulevard I ran back the way I had come, past my house and further along the street to the observatory. There I raced up the steps to the lowest viewing deck, and elbowed my way to one of the great mounted spyglasses. A few people swore at me, but then someone hissed something to them, or they recognized me themselves.

Once he had passed out of sight down the boulevard I ran back the way I had come, past my house and further along the street to the observatory. There I raced up the steps to the lowest viewing deck, and elbowed my way to one of the great mounted spyglasses. A few people swore at me, but then someone hissed something to them, or they recognized me themselves.

Harren had just passed through the tunnel under the mountain. He had not stopped or even slowed. More signs of his strength. Before the mountain, the armies of the enemy waited on the frozen lake. Legend has it that the lake froze beneath their feet as they marched. I don’t know if it’s true, but the water never thaws, and they never move; lines and lines of symmetrical soldiers in white, half head taller than the tallest man, their numbers doubled by the perfect reflections in the ice. From where I looked they might have been two million marble statues, all cast from the same mold.

Their champion stood in his tall white helmet, his two spears in parallel with his fine white legs. His white cape flickered behind him like a ghost while he stood inanimate. The clasps that held it to his broad shoulders were like two round clouds that had been frozen and balanced on either side of his head.

Harren the Bold, picked his way through the mess of bones, weapons, and armor that stopped short at the feet of their champion. When he was close enough he said something to the hulking, pristine figure. It did not move, but it replied in a booming roar that we could all hear despite the distance.

“HARREN THE BOLD! YOU ARE THE GREATEST WARRIOR OF YOUR KIND, AS WE HAVE BEEN TOLD. ALZOXESE OF CALLENBAR CHALLENGES YOU TO FIGHT FOR THIS WORLD’S SOVEREIGNTY, ACCORDING TO THE TERMS SET DOWN BY ALEXANDER THE BLACK IN THE GELDEAN YEAR OF 1055. DO YOU ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE, KNOWING THAT YOUR REFUSAL WILL RESULT IN THE CONTINUATION OF OUR INVASION?”

Harren the Bold was hunched over, looking for something in among the bones. There was a moment more silence, until he came up gripping a shining silver shield, looted from the freshest of the corpses. He said something again, and the voice boomed

“THEN LET THIS COMBAT COMMENCE! KNOW THAT I WILL MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO SLAY YOU.”

And the great statue crouched, leveling its spears. Harren ducked behind the shield, and raised his long sword above his head. Tall Azoxese stepped side to side surprisingly quickly, and began to circle Harren. Its long spears flashed forward again and again, slamming into the silver shield and forcing Harren back. His boot caught on a corpse, and he almost fell to the ice. Azoxese great feet crushed the bones beneath them as if they were blades of frosted grass. The spears moved forward again and again, more than ten feet long and as fast as lightening blots. Harren barely parried a blow with his sword, but the stroke shattered the blade into splinters, and I saw him stagger back, clutching his face. A shard of steel had hit his eye. The white spears raised one final time, and Harren thrust out a hand, and then Azoxese froze. Harren was speaking to the creature. It was impossible to hear him of course but I knew the words well. I mouthed them quietly to myself, trying to pair the sound to the movement of his lips:

“I must speak! In the face of your might, Great Azoxese, I have seen my weakness! I now know that I am not the greatest warrior of mankind and I now know there is one who is greater than I! He is the greatest of our kind! Only by facing him can you meet the terms set by Alexander the Black. He is called…” And here I stopped, because it was my name that Harren the Bold was speaking. My name was to be the last word on his lips.

“FRAILTY! WEAKNESS! IGNORANCE! THESE CANNOT BE FORGIVEN IN AN ENEMY! IF THE CHAMPION YOU HAVE NAMED DOES NOT APPEAR IN 30 GELDEAN DAYS, AS STATED IN THE TERMS SET DOWN BY ALEXANDER THE BLACK IN THE GELDEAN YEAR OF 1055, OUR INVASION SHALL CONTINUE. DIE NOW FOR YOUR FAILURES!”

The spear burst through the chest of Harren the Bold, and his corpse collapsed on the mounds of his predecessors; soon to be just another set of feet and hand bones, ribcage and skull.

I tried to imagine what sort of creature could be surprised in the same way a thousand times, and even more so, what sort of creature would express its rage in the exact same words each time. Surely they should have worked it out by now. The philosophers said that their grasp of time was very different to ours; but these same philosophers were impaled for their ‘IGNORANCE’ trying to trick the invaders into turning around and leaving, or turning on each other, or committing suicide. If one is to be wary of the humble man, then the philosophers never stood a chance.

The city would spend the day in morning. I made a note of where Harren had dropped the Silver Shield, and returned home to train for my fight in 30 days time.

The fire had burned through the heavy log on top, and some more logs had shifted and fallen in the time I had been away. When I returned, it was crackling away happily in the hearth.