In the air above, two women in brilliant armor soared on wings feathered white. They pressed horns, long twisting spirals of hollow shining bronze, to their lips and blew. Their call was followed by the groaning of metal as the gate opposite was raised. They watched and waited, the simmering tension hissing in their ear. From the dark recesses of the coliseum’s bay all eyes watched as a lone figure entered into the light. He did not walk as they had. His back held straight, colored gambeson torn, and helm raised. The coarse earth did not crunch beneath his feet, as his boots did not touch the earth. Head-to-toe in plate, lance in hand, a proud destrier beneath him.

“A knight.” The short Irrisian man said breathlessly. “They captured a fucking knight. Then they gave him his armor back.”

The grin had vanished from Hereldson’s face, “I guess they had a blue-blood they couldn’t ransom. Here I thought I’d get off’d by some worn-out levy with shit balance.”

Sixteen against one, those odds didn’t seem that bad. Although, as the sun caught the knight’s shiny arms Orin never felt more naked. He fixed his helmet once more. The knight presented himself for the crowd to a dishearteningly warm welcome. Who's the enemy here? Shouldn’t you be rooting for us? As the crowd applauded, the knight encouraged his horse to prance and side step for their amusement before turning his steed to face their loose collective. In a moment not unlike two strangers walking in the night, Orin felt as though they were both seeing each other for the first time.

Then the knight’s horse began to move forward. A cheer, rising throughout the crowd as it struck a gallop. Its muscled legs beating the earth, their hooves a steady beat beneath the crowd's overture of excitement.

A thick-knuckled hand snatched Orin by his shoulder. “Get close.” Hereldson commanded. Those nearby acted on Hereldson’s command with little hesitation. A brief moment later, Orin was at the center of five men. The Irrisian at his left, the burned man at his right, and Hereldson at their head. The sailor raised his weapon towards the knight and the other’s followed suit.

“What do we do if he charges?” Orin said, panic climbing as the knight closed distance.

“Hold.” Hereldson commanded again. “No one breaks,” Hereldson said, pulling Orin further into their formation

They watched as the knight leaned on his horse, arching into the broader group. A lone man with cheeks cracked like leather and salted hair attempted to dive away from the horse’s charge. His effort unsuccessful, a blur of hooves and dust consumed him. As the rider pressed on, the man's body lay mangled and chewed up in the earth behind.

Two men nearby sprinted from the horse’s broadside. If they caught him right he would be unseated, and forced to fight on even terms if the fall from the horse did not break him. In response, the knight deftly skirted around them before turning to run down two others who had been cut off from the safety of the larger group. His destrier’s head rocked in thrill. Then he turned and rode down two more. Just like that half a dozen men had been crushed in his wake. They writhed, crippled where the destrier had stomped on them.

The remaining men scattered, breaking as the knight chose his next target. He frolicked among them. When they fell or cowered he drove his horse over them. There, beneath horse and rider, their bones crunched and folded like the stem of a flower beneath one’s boot. His lance swung about, pecking in the direction of any who attempted to move near enough to challenge him. It was all to the crowd’s delight.

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“What are we to do? We are losing our advantage.” The Irrisian man said as the knight further herded the other contestants away from their group. They watched as a man with mace vainly batted the air as the horse approached him. The knight deftly maneuvered the tip of his lance past the man’s guard finding purchase in the soft flesh of his underarm. He howled, dropping to the earth below.

“Unless you’d like to volunteer to receive the charge of his lance we’ll wait,” Hereldson said, glancing over his shoulder.

The Knight loomed over his most recent victim, the tip of his lance pressing first to his chest to desist his squiriming then raised to the man’s neck. Dead god’s. The knight pressed the tip of his weapon through the wounded man’s throat. The man beneath quivered and clutched at the wooden pole with his one usable arm. His legs kicking, the rough grains of earth beneath his feet rising into a cloud before life left his squirming body.

Behind the knight, a cry went out. The knight’s head snapped back. At the rear of his horse were two men passed in his previous charge. Unseen, they had drawn in close. With his ax raised high, the nearest man shouted, “FOR THE WARD!” He chopped down towards the destrier’s back right leg. The knight tensed, violently yanking at his stallion’s reins. He spurred the horse hard in an attempt to urge it forward with haste. Instinct or training, the horse responded with its own solution. Planting its front legs into the ground, it bucked. Its powerful hind muscles launching two quick successive strikes. In a bloody flash, the ax wielder was tossed to the ground, crippled by the strikes to his chest and face.

The rider spurred his horse away. Together, they cantered to the safety of the coliseum’s wall before turning back toward the field. It was clear who the knight’s next target was as he aligned himself with the ambusher’s accomplice. To Orin’s surprise, the man did not run. Instead, he bent his knees and made himself low. Holding his sword ready, braced and angled like a pike. If the crowd were ignited by the bucking maneuver, this was oil to their flame. One did not have to sit close to recognize a challenge. If he can take one leg. Just one leg. If the rider were unseated it would be an end to this. Please… It was a selfish wish, he knew.

The knight pushed his steed onward. Hunching forward he locked into his charge. Orin watched, mindless of the option to look away. The coliseum’s population braced as the knight couched his lance.

A moment of anticipation was broken abrupty with the knight’s lance entering the man’s chest. Then out his back. Blood and viscera in tow. The interaction, impossibly violent, proved man more relatable to paper than the god who made him. Orin watched as the man’s body gave way to the increasingly thick shaft that penetrated his chest. Then a loud crack sounded in the field. The wooden heft splintered within the man’s chest, its shattering contained within the sheath it had made of the man’s chest.

As the body of the man rocked to the floor, so too did Orin. Saliva filled his mouth. Thick and bitter, it tasted of bad breath and salt. He heaved, but there was nothing to loose on the sandy earth with exception for the globules of spit flooding into his mouth. His legs shook.

It was different. It was so different from what you witnessed above. Orin looked to the lowest seats among the crowd. He could feel their fervor. Their love of it. And now they wanted him. They demanded he stop standing there and fight for their amusement. To reclaim the honor of his kingdom from an enemy soldier of a nation he’d never known.

Chum. Hereldson’s words rang in his mind. Orin smeared the spit across his face as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.