Duel of the Gun Wizards

Photo by Zachary Delorenzo on Unsplash

“You are beaten.”

“What?” Gyle was over extended, his gun stance toppling forward without the push of his fire bullet spell to keep him standing in place. He fell forward into the damp, dusty earth.

Hrothgar—his enemy—chuckled, prancing forward. “Oh, that is a pity, did you think your gun magic would work?” he flourished and spun—his robes twirling in a miasma of conjuring magic—and he fired a bolt of lightning from the barrel of his pistol.

The bolt shot out from his weapon and tore through the damp air with an ear rendering roar before the magically infused bullet struck the ruined cathedral ceiling and crumbled stone.

Gyle pushed himself up and struck a gathering pose. He spread his stance in the dirt and summoned the arcane magik to channel into the bullet chambered in his revolver . . . but nothing happened, the arcane forces refused to respond to his call.

“You might be wondering what’s happened?” Hrothgar struck several complex poses, dancing through the arcane summon poses to channel magik into a fletchet blast from his pistol. One piece of shrapnel was infused in acid, another in fire, and another in ice. All bullets struck the ground around Gyle as he tried in frustration to conjure his own gun magik. “You see, I laced your water with an inhibiting agent, nullifying your gun magik for the next day or so . . . plenty of time to slaughter you in this duel.”

Gyle struck another series of poses, struggling through the drugs to conjure something. But nothing answered his desperate call. “Then finish it!”

“Oh I will!” Hrothgar spun and shot out a beam of light, incinerating the pillar on the other side of Gyle.

The bastard is toying with me . . . And with that thought, Gyle felt a glimmer of hope as a solution formulated in his mind.

“Are you serious?” Gyle asked, quietly.

“Oh?” Hrothgar halted during his second pose, the magik stifling as the spell-through-momentum was interrupted. He stepped closer, dying to hear Gyle’s frustrated last words.

“I said, are you serious?” Gyle exhaled harshly, his heavy wizard’s cloak and akubra hat sagging with the motion.

“Oh, oh yes I’m serious. You came here expecting a fair fight, and yet you now face obliteration, unable to conjure magik into your bullets to fight back!” Hrothgar cackled, stepping closer—close enough for Gyle to enact his plan.

Gyle raised his revolver, forgoing the useless summoning of gun magik, and pulled the trigger.

The regular gunshot rang throughout the arena with a sense of stupefied finality. Hrothgar gasped, a hole torn through his chest, and tumbled back.

“Amateur.” Gyle huffed, spinning his revolver and holstering it in one smooth motion. “You don’t need magik to kill with a gun.”

He turned from his rival’s dead body, and marched out of the ruined cathedral with a tip of his hat.

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