He lost track of time as the vicious torture went on, and on, and on. They took the sorceress apart bit by bit taking off her fingers and flaps of flesh. When they got done working with her appendages, they went for her face.
For an intelligent species, the banespawn in many ways acted like humans. They carried out cruelty and divvied it out freely to those that they saw as filth or beneath them.
Such a display of horror was meant to occur in the shadows or in a torturer’s dungeon, not here in an arena. Yet here in a place meant for fighting, they instead additionally use it as a place to make a game out of torturing the subjects forced to fight within it.
They couldn’t just simply give her a quick death. They just had to make a mockery of her body and soul.
The only positive he could make out of this affair, was that when she finally died and lay there in pieces, she no longer had to experience pain.
At the center of the arena, the one who had fought and tortured her lifted up her cut-off head by grasping onto her long white bloodied hair. Even from afar, he could tell that the ground below her head, became covered in blood as it continually gushed out.
The crowd all around the three of them hollered and cheered at the gruesome display.
“What a marvelous showing,” one of the banespawn in the crowd loudly proclaimed while they all reveled in it.
Several other banespawn went out onto the arena floor and began dragging away the pieces of her torn-apart body. The only real remainder of her was the blood scattered across the dirt.
“You three are up next.” The bindings around his hands became loosened as a knife cut through it. The second after, his body went plummeting down over the edge of the walled-off arena.
Kiran landed on his back sending a puff of dirt in the air. He coughed and struggled to breathe as the wind became knocked out of him.
Two more bodies went flying down towards him. He rolled avoiding either one of them from landing atop his own body.
Henry let out a yelp as he hit the ground. The other one managed to land on its feet somehow by twisting their body mid-flight perfectly. They brushed their shoulders off and didn’t even think to offer help to either of them.
Kiran went over to help Henry get up by lending out a hand and hunching his back over.
“Thanks,” he said accepting it and getting right on up.
Several horns blew out and the cheering intensified once more. Towards the opposite side of the arena, at the centered pavilion up in the stands, Drexo gestured towards the crowd getting them to quieten down.
“Let all of your thirsts for blood be quenched as our next fight shall be a most glorious affair. These three humans shall fight the legendary trio who have never once seen defeat. Welcome them,” his voice began to grow louder and far more thunderous, “Vavareen, Neeko, and Jaluune, all representing the Ruon clan!”
A closed gate built into the walls of the arena began to open. Only darkness existed within it. But when the gate stopped rising any further, three silhouettes from inside began to appear stepping out into the somewhat dim arena lit by the torches hanging around the arena’s walls.
Within the opposing group, the one in the center of the trio was a woman with an exposed belly. They looked mostly human but with cat-like features such as a tail and ears jutting out of the top of their head. The other two beside her were both men looking similar to her. It appeared this Ruon clan likely all shared this appearance if Kiran were to surmise. Each of the three had a small pauldron over their right shoulders with a leather strap running diagonally across their breast which wrapped around towards their back.
“Um, are they going to even give us a weapon to fight back with?” Henry asked behind him.
Right after he asked the question, several swords were tossed up in the air and landed nearby their feet. He wondered whether whoever had tossed them hadn’t simply planned on injuring them with that rather dangerous method of delivering weapons to them that could’ve easily landed on their heads.
He grabbed one of the swords with his right hand pulling the tip out of the ground. It was perhaps the most pathetic sword he had ever seen. It didn’t even look like it had been sharpened since it was created. It had dents along the sharp parts of the blade. The leather around the handle was falling apart and it wouldn’t surprise him if the blade itself fell off from using the thing.
Henry and the other fellow’s sword didn’t appear all that much better either.
The broken spear from the previous fight that the sorceress had not used properly caught his sight. It was a few meters away towards the left side of the center of the arena.
“Hey uh, Kiran,” Henry said.
“What is it?”
“It’s probably better that I admit it to you now but I uh, can’t exactly fight.”
“Just stay behind me and keep some distance. If they come running after you I’ll chase them down.”
“Oh thanks. I’ll try not to get in your way or anything like that.”
He turned his gaze towards the other man. “What about you? Can you fight?”
They shrugged. “Sure.” What’s with this guy? Something’s off about him. He at least held the sword in a way that suggested he might be able to use one better than Henry.
Nonetheless, he sighed realizing he might have to face these three primarily on his own. In some ways, he might’ve preferred a three-on-one situation so he didn’t have to worry about keeping the other two alive. There was always simply not worrying about them anyways and just protecting his own hide. Kiran’s mind did not work that way, however. He didn’t want to just discard them even if it might give him an advantage in this upcoming fight.
Trying to do what’s right at all times sure is difficult.
The gate that the three other fighters came out of closed. Dirt went up into the air as it settled on the ground.
Kiran approached nearer to the center of the arena as the other three opposing fighters did so as well. They all kept their distance for now with the expectation that soon, the fighting would begin.
At least they didn’t appear interested in fighting until said so by Drexo. The banespawn at least followed some sense of rule.
While the crowd roared, Drexo got the crowd to quieten down as their gaze met his. “Now then, let the fighting begin!”
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His heart beat faster. The adrenaline came flooding in.
The woman with cat-like ears charged towards him with a glaive while the other two unsurprisingly went to attack the others.
She screamed aloud as she sent it flying towards his face. He blocked it with the dingy little sword he had on hand. His left foot slid backwards and he contorted his body to avoid the downward arc the glaive came at him with.
With the tip of the glaive near the ground, she sent it diagonally towards him in an awkward way that caught him off guard.
A wet liquid ran down his cheek. She grinned and came at him even faster than before now that she had managed to at least graze him early on in the fight. While they fought, all he could hear was someone screaming like a fool.
He managed to briefly spot Henry running across the arena sprinting away from one of the other fighters who did try to pursue them even though it appeared Henry could run away from them pretty fast.
It managed to get the crowd laughing. So long as Henry kept his distance from them, they at least had a chance to live. If he could kill this person trying to kill him, he could redirect his focus towards the one pursuing Henry.
However, while he defended himself against her, the pursuit ended and the other fighter chasing after Henry began rushing towards his backside to instead flank Kiran.
Nice try. Kiran rolled across the ground avoiding their simultaneous attacks. As he rolled, he then sent his body diving directly ahead near the broken spear that sat in the dirt. He grabbed it right as his chest slid along the ground.
With a quick motion contorting his body to force his back to press against the dirt, he thrust his arm wielding the broken spear straight forward seeing it go through the woman’s lower right abdomen. She pulled back as the spear pierced through her and the other guy came slicing down towards him.
While she dealt with that nasty injury, he could fight one on one with this guy. However, after having injured her, this fighter’s attacks were wild and mad. Kiran blocked several of their attacks and just barely managed to get back on his feet so he could avoid having to fight any longer on the ground.
This particular male fighter fought with two swords and committed themselves fully to offensive tactics against him. When he blocked one attack, another attack came swinging towards his face.
Kiran pulled his head back while at the same time forcing his sword to slice through their wrist. Because his sword was dull, it did not cut all the way through but it did manage to force one of their swords to fall onto the ground.
While their left hand was useless it still left them their other hand. However, it was never easy to fight once a nasty injury was sustained.
Henry had gone silent for a while. With a brief stint in the fighting, he thought of the other man who hadn’t given him his name. They were over in a different location in the arena fighting a one-on-one. It didn’t appear that they struggled. If anything they took their time fighting their own opponent.
His attention quickly returned to the one with half of their wrist cut. They chose to keep attacking Kiran who now could defend against them better with both of them injured in some capacity.
The woman screamed as she forced the spear out of her abdomen with both of her hands. Just as she became free of it and blood spilled out of the wound, her eyes widened in shock as a sword went through her back and out between her breasts.
“Jaluune!” The attention of the man who had been entirely focused on Kiran faltered. They rushed towards her only to find her raising a hand open towards him.
She coughed up blood and when she fell over breathing in just one last time, she lay there still and unmoving.
They lashed out towards Henry who had been the one who sent the sword through her. They stumbled back falling on their rear end and prepared to take the man’s sword into their own body like they had done to Jaluune.
Unfortunately for them, they would not make it to Henry in time to do such a thing.
With every ounce of strength he could muster, he sent his dull sword swiping horizontally. The edge of his dull sword sliced through enough of their neck, that they became unable to do anything from there on forward except fall over on top of Jaluune’s body with blood gushing out of their mouth and torn neck.
The crowd began to boo them. There was no praise to be had for them. There was instead only to ever be anger and rage.
The fighting continued with these two dead. The last remaining fighter from the Ruon clan fought with every ounce of their being against the man who had never given him a name. Both Kiran and Henry approached the two fighting.
More booing occurred as many spectating the fight appeared ready to jump down. Thankfully none did so leaving this fight to a three-on-one.
The one whose name he did not yet know laughed at the banespawn who appeared ragged and tired. Their arms holding up a long sword could hardly slash at them yet they kept on trying to hit him.
The brown-haired man grabbed the banespawn by the neck. “You’ve been a real bore this entire time, you know that?” They twisted them around and kept them in a choke lock. “You see those two over there? Those are your dear friends. Are you happy to see that they’re gone? Oh, you’re not happy, are you? Here then, let me make it easy for you so you no longer have to see them like this.”
Without even giving it a long thought, they thrust them to the ground and plunged the sword through their backside. They then began to force the sword out and begin slicing at their legs and arms ensuring that they wouldn’t be capable of fighting any longer but would surely experience immense pain before they ever died.
Rather than merely kill the last remaining banespawn, they kept unleashing attacks at them that wouldn’t outright kill them. Kiran began to feel a bit nauseated as they kept it up and the roaring boos intensified.
“Is this not how you treat us?” The crowd screamed and sent their arms flailing as the man chose to speak to them directly. “You’re more than pleased when we are tortured, yet you cannot tolerate your own kind being inflicted similarly. Well, if you are so easily upset, be prepared to be upset more!”
Rather than allow them to torture the opposing warrior, Kiran drove his dull sword through the backside of their heart killing them. The man without a name glared at him not liking that he had done that.
“I wasn’t done with him.”
“Just because they torture us doesn’t mean we should torture them too.”
The booing and hollering crowd lessened when Drexo stood up with a disappointed look in their own eyes.
They weren’t expecting us to win. How it must feel to know that the ones they hate so much, can in fact defend themselves successfully.
Humans were to be entertainment for them, not an actual living threat. Kiran and the other two had shown however, that they weren’t so easily killed even when given shoddy equipment to use.
As he stood in the arena, Kiran began to sense Lar’s presence much more strongly now. Since he had been so busy fighting, he hadn’t fully noticed it. But now, he could clearly tell that they weren’t all that far away.
“Congratulations humans,” Drexo said as the spectating banespawn went silent. “You have won. And as a reward, I hereby sentence you all to death.”
The crowd certainly liked that declaration. The reward for winning was to in effect lose.
Drexo gestured to someone behind him. Silvy who Kiran hadn’t seen since they dragged him away to a cell then suddenly appeared. Drexo hoisted her up by her waist as she squirmed about in a somewhat revealing outfit. “I was planning on having you for dessert, but now you’ll get to die with the rest of them instead.”
He thrust her body into the arena. Kiran ran over to her and helped her get up.
“Kill them!” Drexo said pointing towards them. “Kill all of them!”
A large variety of varying banespawn began to jump down into the arena. Anyone who wanted to fight came so willingly. Dozens upon dozens began to surround them as the four of them put their backs up against one another.
Henry fell to their knees crying aloud. “This is it. This is really it. We’re going to die!”
If he was going to have to keep fighting, he was going to use a better sword so he went over and gathered one of the slain fighter’s swords finding it to be in much better condition than his current one. He also handed Silvy one who appeared as fearful as he had ever seen her before.
As they stood together with the approaching banespawn, Kiran was not foolish to think they could win. Or at the very least without utilizing a trick up his sleeve. For that reason, he began to tap into a presence he hadn’t used in quite some time. It was indeed a presence of which he knew little about or how to use. But in dire circumstances such as this one, he had no choice but to see what it might do for him and find out whether it even worked when all other forms of magic hadn’t thus far in this domain.