One of my favorite parts of Senta and the Steel Dragon are the magic duels.  There are many situations when magic is used against someone not magical, but duels between magic users are particularly cool.

Spoiler Alert: I’m not trying to give any spoilers, but there might be some, so be warned.

Book 0: Brechalon

In Brechalon, there is an actual magic battle between the sorceress Zurfina and no less than five wizards.  Since Zurfina starts the series as the most powerful magic wielder in the world, you can imagine that this would be a pretty good fight.

Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur

In this book, Zurfina has a duel with Wizard Suvir Kesi.  He ambushes her with a mechanically produced spell that zaps her magic away before he starts, but then he perhaps doesn’t know that she has spells stored that she doesn’t need additional magic to activate.  The biggest use of magic in the book though happens elsewhere.

Book 2: The Dark and Forbidding Land

Sorceresses apprentice Senta has a duel with washed out wizard-in-training Streck.  Since neither of them is particularly powerful, this is a fairly light-hearted contest.

Book 3: The Drache Girl

In this book Senta has her second magic duel, this time with Master Wizard Bassington.  Though she has gained a great deal of power since the previous book, it’s a big difference between facing a failed apprentice and a fully-powered wizard.  This is one of my favorites though, so I’m going to post an excerpt soon.

Book 4: The Young Sorceress

There are a couple of notable magic battles in this book.  The biggest is Senta and a group of Brech wizards against a group of Freedonian wizards backed by riflemen.  My favorite though is Senta verses a Lizzie witch doctor.

Book 5: The Two Dragons

Again, there are a couple of magic vs. magic battles in this book, and again, they aren’t the biggest uses of magic.  There is Zurfina vs. a dragon.  Then there’s Senta, a dragon, and a wizard verses a dragon– what do you know, two dragons.  My favorite magic duel in this book though is Senta facing off against three Freedonian Journeyman Wizards and a Lizzie Witch Doctor.

I think I’ll post an excerpt of it soon too.  Then again, maybe I’ll post a whole series of magic duel excerpts.