BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan

by J. Eric Booker

  As a result of the kick, Vaspan flew out of control through the air until crashing on the ground several feet away, which caused him to see shooting stars everywhere.

  From that maneuver, many more of Baltor’s troops began to cheer, while just as many of Vaspan’s began to boo!

  Before Vaspan could stand back up onto his feet, Baltor had already arrived, crossing both swords right in front of him into an “x”—the edges now lightly pinched up both sides of Vaspan’s neck. Though neither sword yet drew blood, Baltor said neutrally, “I don’t believe in luck.”

  Vaspan’s rear hand had already grabbed a handful of dirt, flinging it hard into his opponent’s face and eyes—Vaspan’s body rolled out of the way a nanosecond before Baltor’s swords uncrossed.

  Surprising to everyone present, Baltor did not try to remove the dirt in his blinded eyes, as his opponent began to run away—instead, he simply chose to hold onto both swords in the ready position and simply wait in silence and blindness.

  Meanwhile, Vaspan was already nearing the border of the ring of torches, checking his neck with his left hand to see if it was bleeding, discovering happily that his hand didn’t have any blood on it, and looking for the next best weapon to use.

  Once he saw what he wanted, he instantly averted his running direction straight for them—two curvy sabers! He picked up both weapons, ran to the nearest torch, and swiped the blades through the oily wick at the same time. With sword blades literally on fire, he next turned back around, and then began to run toward his adversary’s unmoving location, while gleefully noting that Baltor’s eyes were still sealed shut.

  As Vaspan began to near, perhaps twenty seconds later, he leapt high into the air—while flying, he threw the flaming saber in his left hand straight for Baltor’s head, but kept a very firm grip of the other saber, readying it for a downwards slice.

  Even though Baltor couldn’t see a thing, he did hear the whirring sounds of the spinning weapon flying toward him. His hands instinctively crossed his swords right in front of him, which not only deflected that saber that caused it to hit the ground and the flame to go out, yet deflected the second saber attack that Vaspan had just launched.

  For the first time in the entire battle, Baltor immediately began to launch a series of offensive strikes that lasted nearly a minute! Not only had Vaspan successfully countered every attack, yet he had managed to pick his other saber off the ground, and was now even turning a few of his own defenses into offenses that surely would have taken out most opponents!

  Despite the fact that Baltor was still “completely blind,” it was instinctively easy for him to deflect every single various type of attack that Vaspan had thrown so far, which had already turned out to be dozens upon dozens—after all, Baltor had truly mastered “the art of blind-fighting.”

  As for the armies on both sides, many now began to believe that Baltor was unbeatable, even by one of the greatest warriors of all the surrounding lands—many soldiers within Vaspan’s army began to cheer for Baltor now.

  While still engaged in swordplay, Vaspan decided to try an offensive tactic he had earlier unsuccessfully used—again, he performed a double roundhouse swing with both sabers going in the same direction—one right after the other!

  Unlike the previous time, Baltor somersaulted to his right, which caused both sabers to miss—before he had even regained his standing position, he had swung his own left sword up and around aimed for Vaspan! As for the sword in Baltor’s right hand, even though it wasn’t in attack range, it too swung up and out … both swords literally “sang” through the air!

  Even though Vaspan was successful in deflecting the first attack by using both of his own sabers—almost unbelievably, except for the fact it was true, Baltor’s sword literally had cut through both sabers, turning them into four pieces halfway down the blade.

  The two ends of the sabers dropped straight to the ground—as for Vaspan, he hightailed for the edge of the circle as fast as he could, dropping his broken sabers and then looking for a new weapon.

  As soon as Baltor had heard his opponent’s footsteps begin to run away this time, he used that time to shift the sword in his left hand into his right, and with his free hand, clean out the dirt still lodged in his eyes.

  Ten seconds later, once the last of the dirt was removed and he could now see, he observed that Vaspan already had a weapon in his hand, in which he was now hurriedly unwrapping it at the edge of the circle. This weapon looked both strange and unfamiliar to Baltor.

  After Baltor had shifted the extra sword in his right hand back into his left, a split second later, he began to run at top speed for Vaspan, forty feet away.

  Only seconds after he had begun running, he observed that Vaspan was now unwinding his new weapon—Baltor couldn’t understand, however, how it would really be very useful against both of his swords.

  After all, Vaspan’s weapon consisted of two steely nightsticks—attached between two of the ends was a metallic cord made of small sharp, metallic thorns. Once fully unwound, only five seconds later, Vaspan began to laugh maniacally, as his hands speedily and expertly twirled and bounced them all around and off his body like nunchakus.

  Despite Vaspan’s incredible fighting skills, even with this weapon, this did not deter Baltor whatsoever—he leaped forward into two tight somersaults upon the ground before him, back to back.

  The split-second before the second somersault was complete, Baltor immediately propped his legs firmly into the ground, and with everything he had, he propelled himself forward into a powerful leap aimed for Vaspan, who was now about twenty-two feet away!

  As he literally flew headfirst through the air toward Vaspan, thanks to that extra ounce of strength Baltor had used in his left leg while pushing off the ground, his body commenced to spin in tight circles—all the while his arms remained extended straight over his head, and his hands continuously spun around in the “∞” pattern. Both of his swords looked just like two large spinning fans!

  Meanwhile, Vaspan continued to spin his nunchakus, while mentally preparing for the moment that he would simply drop to the ground, which he hoped would cause Baltor to land outside the perimeters of the circle … and thus, end the duel.

  When Baltor was ten feet away, he slowly lowered his arms, though his hands and wrists never stopped twirling those singing swords, which tips were now only inches from the ground—yet another crazy pattern emerged that caused the onlookers to gape in awe.

  Moreover, what Vaspan saw and heard coming at him had scared the hell out of him, as it now looked and sounded like a thousand spinning metallic fans coming at him all at once—never before had he imagined that such a maneuver could be performed. Suddenly, he began to greatly fear there would be a hell of a lot of pain in the instant he died.

  Therefore, as tears began to pour out his eyes, he instantly dropped the weapon in hands and dropped to his hands and knees, all the while pleading, “I surrender!”

  By the time Vaspan had begun to speak, Baltor was now six feet away. He instantly sheathed his swords with a flick of his wrists, and angled his entire flight pattern by throwing his hands back down toward the ground.

  Upon hitting the ground a foot later, he performed a tight forwards somersault, which maneuver included getting back onto his feet. In the end, Baltor had stopped but one foot shy in front of Vaspan’s kneeling position.

  Though most were absolutely shocked at the battle that they had the privilege and honor to witness, all of Baltor’s admiring soldiers instinctively began clapping and cheering, as well the majority of Vaspan’s own troops! The only ones who appeared to be very angry were Vaspan’s five sons, Thorn, Glacius, and one other “dark soul.”

  Not surprisingly, Baltor appeared to be totally worn out as he was forced to take a couple of stumbling steps backwards, while slowly breathing out, “Can… we… can we please, have some peace?” Even though his breathing was haggard, there remarkably wasn’t an ounce of sweat to be seen on his body. />
  Quickly the terrified look on Vaspan’s face transformed to sorrow … seconds later, he confirmed, “Yes, my nephew… I… I am sorry…”

  The look in Vaspan’s eyes, and the tone to his voice, genuinely reflected that sorrow—Baltor’s “warning senses” picked up no hostile-or-underhanded intentions, whatsoever.

  As soon as the word “nephew” crossed Brishava’s ears, tears began to pour steadily out of her eyes in happiness and joy, though she didn’t allow herself to make a single noise so she could continue to hear every single word that was spoken between her uncle and her husband!

  “You are forgiven, Uncle Vaspan,” Baltor had already responded.

  Still on his knees, Vaspan added, “What you said earlier—you’re right! The whole reason that our Empires do not encompass and rule the whole earth is because of the division within our family!”

  Baltor first threw a very warm smile, before he replied, “That’s the way that I see it too, uncle. Now, please, get off your knees, for you are royalty, and you are family! Let us go back to Pavelus and celebrate. In fact, let us all go back and celebrate—we have an empire and a whole world to rule!”

  Hundreds of thousands of people cheered at that last bit of news!

  Once the cheering had abated a minute later, which cheering included Vaspan’s four youngest sons, Vaspan asked, “Can you help me to my feet, nephew? I’m not as young as I used to be…”

  “Of course, Uncle Vaspan,” Baltor replied with a warm smile.

  As Baltor drew within arm’s reach, he extended his right hand out, though unsure how his uncle might need it. Meanwhile Vaspan grabbed his nephew’s forearm with his right hand, and as he slowly began to pull himself up onto his feet, he leaned closer and closer into his nephew’s right side.

  Upon regaining a standing position just to Baltor’s right, he began to gaze proudly at his nephew … until suddenly, Vaspan’s eyes flashed that red color again!

  Before Baltor could do anything about it, it was already too late, for Vaspan’s boot knife was now buried to the hilt in between his back and right armor shoulder plates of armor, which five-inch blade had punctured deep into his right lung, thus causing a whole lot of blood to spray!

  Baltor screamed in both pain and anger, just before his left fist instinctively delivered an uppercut punch into his uncle’s face very-very-very hard—flying out of control, Vaspan’s body literally flew up and into the air for an amazing ten feet before crashing back into the ground! Vaspan had been knocked out in one punch!

  Now grunting both angrily and painfully, Baltor plucked the dagger out and dropped it to the ground—though the monstrous beast inside of him wanted to come out and play, he forcibly kept IT in check!

  Instead, with but a flick of his wrists, Baltor extended his swords out in front of him in the defensive position, while stumbling toward Vaspan, who he saw was already returning to consciousness and slowly sitting up although his face had swollen to twice its normal size!

  Without a word spoken, Baltor slowly approached Vaspan until he was two feet away. Meanwhile, Vaspan had just begun to sit up, though still a bit clumsily.

  “Now, Vaspan, you die,” Baltor replied without emotion.

  After Vaspan had quickly lifted up his left arm until his hand was pointing directly at Baltor, he said, “I’ve got one more trick up my sleeve, punk!”

  Specially created and installed within the sleeve of his armor, he had a blowgun device, which, when triggered by a specific upwards flick of the wrist, shot out a lethal dart wherever the end of the sleeve pointed—Vaspan flicked.

  Baltor fell backwards to the ground as the dart zinged just millimeters over his head—he next performed a reverse somersault, returned to his feet and hurled both swords at Vaspan—one right after the other!

  Both swords—one right after the other yet side-by-side—buried themselves to the hilt through both Vaspan’s armor and chest, causing his mortally wounded body to crash back to the ground!

  As Baltor inched forward, even though he could see that his opponent was barely moving at all, his very keen ears heard the man whispering Baltor’s name repeatedly.

  Several seconds later, Baltor stood over his opponent, and his wound was now fully healed—Vaspan had been looking straight up into the night sky with a bleeding smile on his face, until his glowing red pupils ran across Baltor!

  With a light snap of Vaspan’s right index finger and thumb, time magically stopped—everyone, except for the two men, were now frozen in place.

  Though Baltor was aware of the finger snap, he was not aware of the time freeze, because his focus and gaze remained completely upon his still-living opponent, of whom he thought might be trying still another trick he had up his sleeve.

  Vaspan, now strangely bearing the voice of a shrilly/snaky-sounding woman as well those glowing red pupils, began to deliver this message that only Baltor could hear, “Baltor Elysian, you do not know me, but I certainly know everything about you… You have never seen me, but I have alwaysss watched you—oh, you were so close to changing your uncle’sss mind, but oh so far…

  “Now watch out, for I, my minionsss, and my mastersss shall soon utterly destroy Trendon Harrn, so that we can once again posssesss the Rod of Ro’shain, and control the Realm of Darknessss, asss well all the other universal planesss!”

  “I have a question for you, Baltor Elysian: Will you join the rest of your vompareus brothersss and sistersss…or do we have to utterly destroy you, asss well your massster?”

  After only a moment’s consideration, Baltor replied, “My answer is no—I will not join any of you. What you will come to discover is that you are the ones who will become destroyed by my master’s hand, and not the other way around. Justice and order must prevail in the universes, dimensions, and realms, and so it shall until the very end of time—that is what I firmly believe!”

  Vaspan first hissed like a snake, “Sssss…” Still bearing the voice of that female, he said, “Beware—I am the anti-soul you were forewarned about! What Trendon Harrn did not forewarn you about are these five factsss—one, I am a black dragon; two, I—like you—am a vompareusss; which makesss three, I am the first vompareusss dragon in history!”

  Obviously not done, Vaspan continued, “Four, I am the only one of my kind who can teleport through the Realm of Darknessss without the Rod of Ro’shain, or any other realm for that matter at any time…

  “And five, I’ve brought along me an unstoppable gnome army, consisting of tensss of millionsss of warriorsss and priestessesss, which army I have bred for the sole purpose of destroying three things—you, your master, and your world!”

  Baltor said in disbelief, “Yeah right!”

  “You don’t believe me yet, Baltor Elysian, but you will soon enough…and when we meet again on the battlefield, along with all my forcesss, I will ask you once more if you will join ussss! If you say no then, Baltor Elysian, then it isss you who will die in the—!”

  At that moment, Baltor had grabbed the blades still inside of Vaspan, and pushed just a bit further. Baltor said, “I seriously doubt that, but good luck!”

  Vaspan instantly died—time just as instantly recommenced!

  Baltor slowly raised his two bloodied swords into the sky above him, which caused the blood from his opponent to seep down his arms and make “the vompareus” in him extremely hungry, though he forcibly kept that vampire hunger “in check.”

  As for the troops on both sides, they had already begun to chant, each time getting progressively louder, “Hail to the Sultan!”

  Surprisingly enough, just about everybody began chanting out, “Hail to the Sultan,” too include most of Vaspan’s sons! Minutes ago, Glacius, had already disappeared into the night.

  Only the eldest of Vaspan’s sons, Jumblee, was not chanting, yet instead bore a terribly-upset-look on his face … after all, not only was he not going to rule the Sharia Empire as his father had promised, but he was no longer going to get to inherit the Vaspan Empire
either! Even his brothers, Jumblee realized, had turned on he and his father.

  Once Baltor had crossed his swords high over his head, he somehow managed to shout above the din of the hundreds of thousands still chanting, “Hail to the Sharia Empire!”

  Now frenzied, the soldiers shouted back, “Hail to the Sharia Empire! Hail to the Sharia Empire!”

  While continuing to shout this in place, they then began to stomp their boots into the ground in unison, which caused the earth to shake for miles around, while concurrently beating their armored gloves into their armored chests every time their left foot hit the ground!

  Baltor felt the blissful energy from all his soldiers as he slowly turned to look at all of his men and women, which was equally blissful for the lot of them!

  The only people worried at all was everyone back in Pavelus, who still did not know the victor of the duel, or what was going on to cause such loud noises—though nearly all there hoped and prayed that Baltor had won.

  As for Brishava, she threw a sidelong glance over at Humonus and Chelsea on the platform, noting that they too were clapping and chanting with tears of joy pouring from all eyes.

  It was in the next moment that Baltor faced toward Chelsea, and as soon as his gaze locked onto her, a warm smile suddenly crossed his face—Chelsea couldn’t help but continue smiling back, though she did bow her head very respectfully before her Sultan.

  In the next moment, Baltor’s gaze fell onto Humonus, and that smile widened further still—Humonus closed his eyes while slowly bowing his head before his Sultan.

  It was then that Brishava’s gaze fell back to her husband—her mind thought, ‘I can’t believe how lucky I am to have the man I do—the incredible power he holds over his army, over me, over us all, is absolutely unquestionable!’

  It was just as Brishava had finished her thought that Baltor stopped looking at Humonus—Baltor’s gaze, at that moment, locked onto hers!