Chapter 2: Fresh Meat

The winds of the empty kypeeran deserts whistled through the air in an endless torrent; attempting to uproot the sparse plants that clung for their lives to the loose soil. The moaning of the wind muffled any sound, making the vast open land seem all the more devastatingly lonely. Every so often the wind would soften, and the faint echo of a song could be heard from a shallow depression in the ground.

            “Happy birthday… to me. “A young man sat at the edge of the plot of land. His legs bent in front of him as he stared with empty eyes at an abandoned bungalow, that was now nearly engulfed in sand drifts.

            Another gust of wind swept through the empty plot of land, carrying away the words of the man’s song. A once intact door creaked open, revealing charred remains of wooden furniture that was slowly being buried by sand and dust. The man remained unmoving as he gazed into the space, wet tears carved their way across a dust laden face.

  “Happy birthday… to…” the young man paused to shield himself from another cloud of sand and the finished the remaining word to his song, “me.” 

            He stood up and wiped his forearm across his eyes. The wind was picking up, making it more difficult to see through the haze of sand clouds. He thumbed a small object in the pocket of his tunic, and had to stoop low enough to enter due to the sand rift that was slowly starting to block the entrance. Once inside he removed the object he had been fiddling in his pocket and placed it on an old shelf. He maneuvered the object to his liking and stared at it with a sad grin. A crystal tiger sat staring back at him, glinting in the darkened room. Its features had been carved to perfection over the course of 2 years, and now closely resembled a proud tiger.

   “You watch over this place now Glacier, I don’t think I’m coming back”.

            The man exited the building and briskly made his way back to the edge of the shallow depression and climbed out. Once he was standing at the border of the small land plot, he turned back for one last look.

            “You’re in good hands now dad… I’ll make you proud of me, I’ll become the greatest rider this world has ever seen. The legacy you built…” The young man clenched his jaw and stared down at the old house. “I’ll become greater, that’s a promise”.

            With that, he turned away and closed his eyes. He mentally reached inside of himself to feel the warmth of the galden that coursed through his blood. The powerful aura was a relieving presence, the warmth that heated his insides like a comforting embrace.

            “Valor.” A familiar and welcome voice echoed in his mind. The young man opened his eyes and turned around to see a massive gorilla with crystal shards protruding from his back standing just 4 feet from behind. “Valor, its time to go…”.

            Valor grimly nodded his head, without walking any closer, he smoothly leapt onto his friend's back with ease, neatly situating himself in between shining crystals.

  He patted his friend on the side of the neck. “You gonna say one last goodbye?” 

  Diargo remained silent before replying with his deep mental voice “I said my last goodbye 2 years ago, my instincts tell me that my kind don’t really focus on the past.” The powerful voice rang in Valor’s mind, “we focus on survival and victory”.

            That was enough to clear Valor’s mind, the wet blanket of grief that clung damply to his heart was lifted, and he nodded in acknowledgement to his friend’s concentration. Diargo was often blunt and lacked empathy. However, his connection with Valor gave him an open window into his mind and his soul. With another pat on his neck Valor showed his appreciation in which the ape grunted in return. Gone were the days of verbal communication, the galden flowed freely through the both of them. Their lifeblood was the same, and it coursed powerfully through their veins. Sensing Valor’s intention to head out, Diargo turned away and started to run across the desert landscape. Once he reached a certain speed, he began to propel himself through the air using massive crystal pillars that shot out of the ground at incredible speeds. After years of practice, Diargo was able to perfect his timing, allowing the pillars to connect with his feet, sending him hurtling through the air. This was a technique that Valor and Diargo agreed would be the best possible means of travel during races. It provided the pair with many advantages.

            “What time do the qualifiers start?” Diargo asked valor as they were falling through the air.

            “The next one is at the start of next quarter, so that’s… 3 days?” Valor sensed his friend mentally prepare his legs to absorb the next pillar, a signal that he learned to recognize immediately.

            “What do you know about our competition, anyone we should be particularly worried about,” Diargo asked.

            Valor laughed out loud, “Anyone we should be worried about? Is that a joke.”

            Diargo barked a laugh at his friends’ reaction. The two of them had a level of confidence that made them feel invincible.

  After an hour of travel, a massive mountain range started to materialize on the horizon. Looking through the haze of heat, a structure could be seen jutting out of the mountain rock face. After another twenty minutes, the duo arrived at the foot of the mountain. The structure that could be seen extending out of the mountain was the entrance.

  “Siliaph stadium,” Valor breathed in hushed excitement, “Diargo this is it, we’re here”.

  Diargo rolled his eyes, this was not the first time they had travelled to base of the mountain. Sensing his friend’s lack of enthusiasm, Valor leapt off his back and landed facing the monkey.

   “Okay sure, we’ve been here before, BUT we haven’t actually been able to get in”.

            Not waiting to see his friend’s response, Valor turned back to face the entrance to the stadium once more, “I mean, it is just absolute MASSIVE”. He started to jog up to the entrance stopping halfway to whirl back to face his friend. “I wonder what it’s like inside, how big you think it is?” Ignoring Diargo’s nonchalant shrug, Valor continued “It has to be bigger than glen poll right, that stadium is just small time compared to this, I don’t even think it has a Rider lounge”

            Diargo looked at his companion, the childish excitement that was now causing Valor to spout long ramblings of stadium dimensions was an odd look. It certainly did not fit someone who’s seen death, especially not someone who’s about to kill. Shrugging it off Diargo walked up to the doorway that was camouflaged into the stone. The stone door was massive, created specifically for any type of racer that might need to enter the stadium. Carved into the stone beside the doorway was a depiction of a man on the back of tiger, holding a one-handed axe. 

  Diargo glanced back at his friend who was muttering something under his breath about the history of the architecture. “are you gonna get over here and show your ID or should I just talk to them myself,” Diargo asked.

            Valor stopped talking to himself to look at his friend with a puzzled expression. “you can’t talk.”

            Diargo rolled his eyes and snorted at his human friend. “exactly my point."

            Throwing his hands up, Valor walked over to the door, “alright alright, I’m coming, geez.”  After a brief moment of silence Valor cleared his throat and said, “so how do you open this thing anyway”.

            Diargo shrugged his heavy shoulders, “I figured I could always smash my way through it”.

You are reading story Valor’s Race at novel35.com

            Ignoring the monkey’s unhelpful comment, Valor ran his hands along the grooves in the door, inspecting each notch. After another five minutes of peering and prodding, Valor looked at Diargo, who was waiting with raised eyebrows.

            “yeah it’s not a door”, Valor stood there in silence with his lips pressed together staring at his friend.

            Diargo gave his head a quick shake, “I’m sorry that’s it? It’s just not a door”

            Valor put his hands on his hips and gazed thoughtfully at the engraved rock face, “Yeah, I mean, I think these engravings are just decorative, there’s no way of actually- “

            Diargo interrupted Valor’s explanation with a snort, and started to charge the wall, “I’m smashing it.”

            Leaping in front of his friend, Valor frantically waved his arms, “No what are you crazy, we can’t just smash through!” Diargo slammed to halt, inches in front of Valor and let out an impatient bark. Valor continued, “Besides if it actually isn’t a door, you were about to run headfirst into a mountain.”

            Diargo rolled his eyes, “It’s a door”.

            “That’s even worse,” Valor shouted, “imagine if you actually smashed down that door, that's not how it works!"

            “I’m about to kill 4 or 5 people in three days which is fine, but smashing a door in isn’t?” Diargo flicked Valor in the head, who glared at him and rubbed his forehead.

            “I don't make the rules, stonehead!” valor said through gritted teeth.

            As Valor wound up to hit Diargo back, the two of them were interrupted by a deep voice behind them, “Step aside child”.

            Valor whipped around to correct whoever was addressing him like that and came face to face with the largest man he had ever seen. The figure stood at an imposing seven, maybe eight feet tall, he was white, expect for muscle laden arms that were completely black from ink. He had practically no hair left on his head and was missing an eye. Valor swallowed and tried to fight the panic waves that he was inevitably releasing to Diargo, who started a rumble deep in chest. He had to keep his composure unless he wanted to trigger Diargo's hostile and protective nature.

            “I’m 18.” Valor’s panic subsided rapidly, and he gave his head a quick shake to clear it. His composure usually was not shaken so easily. “I’m here for the qualifiers, actually”.

            The man threw his head back and let out a maniacal laugh, another bout of nervousness washed over Valor, and he silently cursed himself for being intimidated. “I didn’t realize we had another one this quarter.” The giant man walked closer to Valor and stared at him with his single eye, “You ready to die kid?”

            Valor felt his stomach turned to stone, the strange panic was threatening to overwhelm him, and to make matters worse, he could sense Diargo’s nervous energy. Valor tried to access his galden but found it dull and far away, as though some force was blocking him off it. Diargo’s primal instincts kicked and he shoved Valor aside and roared at the giant. Sending a blast of hot hair and spit into the man’s face. Without flinching, the man reached up to touch the four-inch fang that was only a couple feet away from his throat. He gave the ape a toothy grin.

            “Boy you are an impeccable creature, I’ll tell you what, after I break your rider’s spine, you can be MY racer.” The man gave Diargo and Valor another wide smile “It’s going to be really fun beating you guys, I can already tell.” 

            With a condescending pat on the side of Diargo’s face, the behemoth pushed his way past the stunned ape. As the man got to the wall, he placed his hand onto a carved depiction of a disk and pushed. The carving seemed to retract into the wall until there was a loud click, and the giant gate started to slowly swing open. Diargo and Valor watched silently as the man whistled and beckoned for something in the desert. A couple seconds later, a massive boar came charging around a particularly large rocky outcrop. The boar trotted past Diargo and Valor, and the two could see the eyes of the pig rolling nervously.  As the massive stone doors finally came to a halt, the man climbed on to his mount who squealed slightly in defiance, before a heavy hand struck it into silence. As he guided the boar into the now cavernous opening, the man started to sing in a loud off tune voice, “We race, we race, in the devils chase…” His voice still echoing of the interior walls, could be heard for another five minutes as the pair stood outside, still discussing their previous interaction.

            “Diargo, how-” Valor started to say.

            His friend cut him off, “It was galden, he was using it to intimidate us.”

            Valor looked at his friend in surprise. “Galden? But how, no human should be able to control it like that. You remember what my dad said.”

            “Your dad said that ALL living creatures have galden flowing through them, just that they couldn’t control it. And besides, YOU can control it, what’s stopping other people from being able to as well.”

            Valor wiped the sweat that was now dripping off of his brow, whether it was from the heat or his previous encounter, he couldn’t tell.

            “Diargo, don’t you think it’s weird I couldn’t sense his galden? I tried to probe his heart, but I couldn’t even connect with my lifeblood.” Valor ran a hand through his sweaty hair, he could feel a headache coming in. “I shouldn’t even have needed to probe him, power strong enough to intimidate you would have been giving off unmistakeable signals”.

            Diargo looked thoughtfully at his friend and slowly took a couple steps towards him. “when he was talking to you, I could feel his galden creep into my head like fog. And then I couldn’t sense anything at all. The only reason I even stepped in to confront him was because of some animal instinct.” Diargo stared into the palm of his massive hand, and then squeezed it. “For a second, I didn’t feel you or my galden, it was almost as if I was – “

            “Disconnected?” Valor cut in.

            The monkey curled his lip back in distaste and nodded. The two of them made eye contact, and Diargo could see a fresh panic in Valor’s eyes.

            “Valor, why do I sense a different kind of fear from you.”

            Valor swallowed and looked into the dark tunnel that the giant rode into. “Because buddy, this time it’s real.”

You can find story with these keywords: Valor’s Race, Read Valor’s Race, Valor’s Race novel, Valor’s Race book, Valor’s Race story, Valor’s Race full, Valor’s Race Latest Chapter