8 Tournament: First try II

"Today we have new contenders! This new group has been trained by Erwin and are about five years old! As always they will first establish a ranking amongst themselves and join the five till ten years old tournament next month!"

He looks at us kids one at a time and I somehow felt a bit of pity in his cold stare when he looked at me.

"We have twelve contender this year and I expect from all of you your very best! We don´t need cowards and we don´t need weaklings! But! Always remember! This is just the first round of many many fights to come and once you grow complacent you will be soon overtaken by the next generations! Never stop honing your skills and even if you appear now to be the first one to die in a battlefield at least find solace that you will die for your family and for your tribe! Now show us what you have learned!"

He once again measured us and went to the side of the circle.

"Listen well. Everyone of you has the chance to challenge one of you to a match. The challenged cannot refuse unless he can´t fight anymore or has already fought three fights. After those you are still free to accept the challenge or challenge another yourself. The more you fight and win the higher will be your honor. But be warned! Don´t overexert yourself and know when you should stop. There is no honor in losing. If you want to challenge simply stand up!"

I immedeatly stood up. And I could feel surprised looks from my back and from the front I could see them too. But do you know what the best way to get the most honor in those conditions are for me? Be the first to fight and lose against the one who will be the strongest. Simple.

Honor lies in the eyes of the beholder. There is no ranking through wins for me, of course the more you win the higher will be your honor, but I am doomed to fall against anyone of my classmates, so for me to get the most honor is through courage, not wins. And to demontrate my courage I will be the first to challenge the strongest of us. I know most people with brains will tell me that is no courage, but suicidal and I would agree, but for those people... well pretty sure their brain is made of muscle... no offense, mother...

The elder looks at me, then nods but I couldn´t recognice if he was impressed or not... while I try to look confident and imposing.

"Your name?"

"Arn Guldaduther."

My shaking voice betrayed my efforts to look confident and menacing. All the while I looked straight into the deep blue eyes of the elder.

"Who will you challenge?"

As he said that I let my gaze wander between my classmates as if pondering, trying to gauge their confidence even though all of them had only a surprised but unconcerned look on their faces. Of course that was only show I already knew who I would lose against.

"I challenge Zawit."

If I could preserve their faces in a picture I would have quite a laugh afterwwards, but right now I could not appreciate their faces. Even Zawit looked at me as if I lost all of my mind. I suppose that is how I look at them most of the time? I really hope not...

Soon he recovered from the surprise, stoop up and shouted over the laughing and cheering of the tribesmen.

"I accept this challenge!"

And we both moved into the circle. Remember try to exhaust him, don´t fight strenght against strenght that is just dumb. Exhaust him and maybe, just maybe you night win... Yeah I don´t count on it, but... maybe... Enough concentrate you know what will be his first move right?

I looked into Zawis´s eyes and clasped my right fist into the hand of my left and gave him a slight bow. I always wanted to do that. He looked confused for a bit, but gave me a nod in return.

The elder raised his arm and dropped it sharply.

"Begin!"

Zawis charged. Of course he did... Traditional tactic of this tribe is: Charge. I seemingly just stood there, but I really concentrated on his feet. My timing must be perfect and I have never done such a technique. Well I tried, but normally everyone noticed straight away what I wanted to do and never gave me any opening except fpr training purposes. But Zawis did not know such technique and as such even if my gaze is fixed on his feet he would not suspect anything.

Don´t block, don´t block don´t..... I chanted in my head and watched his feet come closer and closer, while picking up speed. Will he punsch? Or will he simply overrun me? I glanced at his upper body. Overrun it is... I am sure...

I sprung at him and hit his foot with mine right before he made contact with the ground, while grabbing his neck and pulling it to my side guiding his body wo narrowly avoid mine and sent him tumbling to the ground.

Success! I watched him tumbling into the ground and a few seconds later into the crowd that stood behind me. I turned and looked how he fared and he stood up his eyes fuming with anger. He let out a roar and charged at me again, but since I didn´t have time to prepare I used the ancient art of rolly polly to avoid the charge.

I turned to him and I saw him stepping on the brakes and turning to me. Still fuming with rage.

Urgh... this time he will punch me... I scanned him, but he seemed fine to me... What a monster. Normally in training our throws and such were supposed to guide our partner to the ground, because well it is our partner and we don´t want to injure him, so the throw is controlled and he can safely fall. And because we want our opponent to fall close to us so we can suppres him, but scratch that! Won´t work here! But despite his uncontrolled fall and his obvious lack of a falling technique he still looks fine to me.

What should I do now? Shit what do I do? Next charge is incoming!