The Sorcerer's Destiny (The Sorcerer's Path) by Brock Deskins Page B

could imagine stepped into the arena. This was a true brute with little but malice in its heart and murder on its mind. He was what Bron had envisioned of the ogre race.
    Bojan was a wall of muscle and barely restrained violence. He paced back and forth as he swung a club as long as Bron’s staff and three times as thick with one hand. Even with his magic, this creature would have been formidable. Without it, it seemed impossible. Movement atop the boulders drew Bron’s eye. Kramloc stood atop the largest boulder surrounding the ring, looked down at the two gladiators impassively, and spoke a single word.
    Bron did not understand the guttural word, but Bojan instantly burst toward him at an astonishing speed with his club raised. Bron was barely able to leap and roll away as the huge bludgeon came crashing down in the spot he occupied a split-second before. The druid felt the earth shake with the weapon’s impact as if to cry out in pain from the powerful blow.
    Bojan swept his club in a fierce backhand, and Bron was just barely able to leap backward to avoid the swing. The ogre’s attack took his weapon wide and left him open for reprisal. Bron darted in, struck Bojan hard in his midriff before spinning around and smashing the bronze-shrouded end of his staff into the ogre’s back.
    It was like hitting a tree covered in a thick layer of leather. The ogres might call him weak blood, but Bron made a formidable foe for most mortal creatures. Bojan grunted from the strike to his gut and took two involuntary steps forward from the one in the back. Such blows would have caused serious injury, or at least pain, to most creatures, but the ogre simply spun, slapped away a third strike with his bare hand, and smiled.
    Bron backed away as Bojan strode confidently toward him, swinging his club from side to side as if scything down tall grass. The druid studied the way Bojan moved, gauging his speed and strength. He found them both to be terrifying. Bron focused his mind inward so he could calm his nerves and think. Unfortunately, Bojan was not of a mind to give him time to do either.
    The enormous ogre rushed forward and swung his club in a lethal, horizontal arc. Bron ducked and rolled away, but despite his opinion that Bojan was unlikely to win any sort spelling contest, the ogre was a skilled warrior and prepared for the move. He kicked out just as Bron tried to roll away and caught him square in the ribs with a foot nearly the size of a dwarf and just as solid. Bron felt himself lifted into the air and felt the sensation of weightlessness for a full two seconds before crashing back to the ground and completing his tumble.
    The crowd roared its approval as Bojan stomped forward, pressing his attack without needless showmanship. Bron rolled onto his hands and knees, the throbbing pain in his ribs eliciting a grunt of pain. The ogre swung his massive foot at his head like an enormous pendulum. Bron blocked the kick with his staff braced against his left forearm and slung a fistful of dirt and gravel into the champion’s face. 
    Bojan dropped his club and his hands flew to his face, wiping frantically to clear his eyes. Bron stabbed out with his staff from a kneeling position and jabbed the end just below the ogre’s sternum. Foul breath hit the druid in the face as the air was violently expelled from Bojan’s lungs.
    Bron quickly raised himself to his feet and launched a flurry of strikes against the stunned ogre. The sound of wood and bronze striking thick, leathery flesh echoed over the crowd, competing to be heard over the roars of the spectators. Bojan staggered back under the furious onslaught, trying to ward off the pummeling strikes with his hands and arms. Bron switched the target of his attacks from the head and body to the ogre’s tree trunk-like legs, punishing the thighs and shins with strikes that would have cracked and shattered small timbers.
    Bojan wavered and fell to a knee, his body quivering as he tried to