Fire Soldier: An Epic Enemies-to-Allies Fantasy (Throne of Gods Book 1) by J.A. Culican

Author:J.A. Culican [Culican, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dragon Realm Press
Published: 2024-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

She ate sparingly from the platter of food she and Karim were sharing, which consisted of bits of roasted meat and vegetables on a long sliver of wood. It was nutritious fair, and light, which agreed with her stomach after the prior match. It was, however, rather bland, lacking seasoning.

Karim, holding one such stick in his hand and staring at it, muttered, "You'd think they could afford salt."

On the field, two sword-wielding men with medium shields had battered and cut each other practically to bits, though in the end, the sixth-generation warrior was the last man standing, his fifth-generation opponent taken away on a stretcher for healing and medical care. Apparently, the prolonged and brutal fight had pleased Hephaestus to the point that he spared the loser's life.

As fight after fight ended, Xira was unsurprised that the fifth and sixth-gen soldiers were rather easily defeating their third and fourth-generation foes the majority of the time. Among the Fire Soldiers, one's generation was irrelevant to rank, rather than strictly determining it. Ability was all that mattered, and despite their egos and often their more numerous years of life experience, the hardscrabble life of a fifth, or worse, sixth-gen descendant gave them an edge that was impossible to surmount.

Almost as significant as generation was in determining any given match's victor and loser, there was also the fact that Ares had few inhibitions as to who or what, exactly, he mated with. Karim had his pointed ears and otherworldly eyes, the result of magic in his blood courtesy of his mother, who was no human. Some of the contestants had actual scales, or tusks, or even claws. Some had other tricks up their sleeves, like a scent that lured opponents into a vapid state. These kinds of offspring occurred in every generation, but the fewer generations between Ares and them, the stronger the effect. So, there were a few of earlier generations who did very well, winning multiple matches before going down to some mere eksi, beneath their stature in daily life outside of the barracks—but usually their betters within them.

As the hour wore on and her time in the makeshift arena drew closer, a warrior she knew came onto the field. Eiphon was his name, she recalled. "I know that one—"

"The half-fey?"

"What? No, and try not to interrupt," she replied, grinning to take the sting out of her words. "The other one."

Karim raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun and peered carefully for a long moment. "What in Hades is he?"

"His mother is rumored to have been the child of a foreign god from far to the east, whose form was that of an elephant, kind of."

"Elephant?"

"You know, like the mortals ride to battle in Persia. Huge, towering things strong enough to support a kind of castle on its back."

"Oh, right. The ones with a bigger tail on their faces than on their asses. And tusks bigger than a man."

"Yes, though his mother only took part of that form, not an actual elephant.

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