Rise of the Blade - Charles Moffat [7]
The giff frowned, which looked strange on his huge chubby face. Pierce's name was known all over the realms and even a giff from the south knew and feared his name. They also knew that Pierce was rumoured to have slayed the tarrasque, a monster so great and vicious that even dragons feared it. Every giff dreamed of being distinguished as a mighty fighter and ever since the rumour of Pierce being the Tarrasqueslayer had begun years ago, many a challenger had sought that title. Which Pierce had defended time and time again. And now, instead of fear of the great warrior, the giff charged ahead, wanting the title for himself.
Pierce sidestepped easily and watched the giff slip on his fallen sabers, slide across the floor and impale himself on the unfinished foremast of the great schooner. A pool of blood dripped down off the giff's uniform and formed on the floor
The remaining bodyguard dropped his hands from above his head and stepped forward into the light, staring at the blood that flowed from the giff's wound. He turned slowly to face Pierce in awe.
"Eleven men," said Valentino as he too emerged from the shadows, staring at the fighter as he sheathed his sabers. "And a giff."
"Its not going to make any ballads I'm afraid," Pierce spat, who didn't like the constant awe surrounding his name. "People are still making up stories of how I killed the tarrasque."
"Did you?" asked the bodyguard.
"No," the Doctor said sharply. He sighed and muttered under his breath, "Stupidity rules."
Where the merchant district met the rich estates of the nobility, there was a building surrounded by a marble wall twenty feet high. Beyond that wall and its bronze gates was a garden maze of rose bushes, maple trees, and a vast assortment of plants in every size and shape. Beyond the maze and rolling lawns stood the proud white marble of the Academy of Combat. The stairs led up to the massive westwing, past marble pillars and ended at its heavy bronze doors. Soaring a hundred and fifty feet into the air was the dome, the central piece of the Academy with four wings extending out from it like a compass.
The Academy of Combat, the premier school in Waterdeep for teaching the arts of single combat was also one of the greatest feats of architecture in the city's history. The domed ceiling, inlaid with a multitude of windows to let the light in, was crafted by dwarven marblesmiths had been a feat alone where many dwarves claimed that it wouldn't hold and would collapse. That was before they learned that a powerful cleric had been hired to cast a dweomer that would help hold it. And so they built it and stood by it with confidence.
Only then did Pierce, as headmaster and founder of the academy, tell them that there had been no such cleric aiding the structure, rather it was the single column in the centre of the domed amphitheatre that held it. When the dwarves inquired about the nature of the column, the doctor assured them it was not witchcraft that made it so strong, but a substance stolen from drow mines.
Platinum they had asked. Mithril? Titanium? Pierce shook his head and drew his famous sabers. "Adamantite," he answered. A metal so imposible to break that it might as well be considered indestructable.
The dwarves had nodded, all knowing the value of adamantite. They wouldn't dare try to steal the blades though, and the hundred-fifty foot tall column of pure white adamantite wasn't about to be stolen. Unless you really wanted several hundred tonnes of marble dropping down on your head.
Rather, the statues that stood around the domed amphitheatre between marble columns, were worth far more. Each represented a famous fighter in the history of the realms, many of them from Waterdeep. Today, a new addition to the collection was a statue of Chev, the head bodyguard of the immensely wealthy d'Or merchant family. The warrior had lived over a hundred and fifty years ago and died, presumably in defense of the city or the family. The statue was considered to be one of the