Bone Man

Day 3 was well underway, the stands were full to the brim, the crowd cheering on a local favourite in the arena. He had served in the knights for most of his forty year life, his fighting style was incredibly aggressive, his first fight ended with the opponent being dropped from the tourney immediately afterwards. He was given the nickname Bone Man due to his magic usage in fights, but that wasn't his only strength, he was incredibly cunning and from the current fight we were watching, you could tell how strong he truly was.

He would dodge and dive, searching for a weakness then fully exploit it, but he wasn't someone that wouldn't use underhanded tactics to gain an upper hand in a fight. That was why the public loved his style, he was much more devious than the other fighters in the tourney. This was his last fight of the day, if he won he would move on to the bracket, if he lost there would be a three way tie for first and then the fights would be decided by a coin toss. The trumpets blew and off the fighters went, Bone Man quickly engaging with a couple of heavy handed overhead attacks, his strength causing the opponent to continuously drop back to have enough force to block the attacks.

The pair broke into a bind in which Bone Man quickly broke and pushed through, knocking the opponent over. Everyone in the crowd cheered him on but for us we were all on the edge of our seats. His strength was so overwhelming I could tell that none of us stood a chance against someone of his experience. The opponent got back to his feet acrobatically and began to to taunt the Bone Man, then for some reason the air changed after the taunt. Like some deep, dark desire had been brought forth, quickly the Bone Man pushed forward his armour clanking as his crushed the ground beneath him beginning to sink into it slightly. He lifted his sword high above his head quickly and then suddenly it flew downwards, it struck his opponents block with an almighty BANG! The dust kicked up around them, and when it cleared, the opponents sword was cleaved in two, lying a part on the floor.

His opponent scurried backwards towards the edge of the arena in fear, shaking so much that his armour began to echo around the silent arena. The whole place was stunned, and slowly the Bone Man approached his opponent, lifting up the sword calmly and carefully. Suddenly there was a rush of noise and guards came flooding into the arena before he could finish off his opponent, the guards quickly flooded around him and blocked him from stepping forwards as his opponent clambered to their feet and bolted it out of the arena as quickly as they could. There was still this eerie silence over the arena, nobody was sure what would happen next, that was when the Emperor stood on his stand and began to clap. Then slowly the clap went through the crowd like a hive mind, then everyone began clapping, slowly Bone Man sheathed his weapon and stormed out of the arena.

A huge sigh came over the arena, thanking that it was the last fight of the day, me and Mak sat in our seats completely stunned whilst Ash and Phyora had began to stand up and started making their way to the street, Ash quickly turned and screamed both of our names to wake us up, as we quickly got to our feet and began to follow them.

"He's quite strong isn't he." Mak said as we entered the streets, the crowd beginning to flood out and onto the cobbled road.

"Yes, he is." replied Ash a small smile beginning to form on her face and as I looked at Phyora's her face showed the same determination and excitement for someone that strong. Whilst Mak and I understood that they wouldn't be facing him in their side of the bracket, so our fear was for our own lives if we made it that far.

As we walked down the street we came across his last opponent who was sunk head first into a tankard of ale, tears rolling down his face, his body shaking still from his fight. He slowly picked up his tankard from the table, the ale spluttering out of it as he brought it to his mouth, before quickly slamming it to the table and beginning to rant.

"You all saw it! He tried to kill me! He wanted to kill me!" he screamed at the top of his lungs before slamming his head into the table and grasping onto the back of his neck. Quickly some guards moved over to the man and picked him up to move him away, and when he did he kicked off again screaming the same thing over and over. Off into the distance you could hear him slowly drain off till there was silence. The awkward silence lasted a quick minute before breaking into chatter once again, everyone speaking about the Bone Man's victory and the other opponents seemingly easy path into the bracket.

Due to the way the matches today had went, we had missed the second match mainly due to how fast it finished. An opponent the Bone Man kept a particularly sharp eye on, they weren't strong from what we've been told, just ludicrously fast. They went by their last name Herschel, and entered with a weird mask. From the spectators description it seemed to be ancient, the wood was rotting and falling apart at its sides. It was blacker than the night sky with no stars, small bits of green interwoven between the wooden layers. His armour was loose, mainly made of leather pieces sewn together randomly with different hides. A truly mysterious person, and alongside Bone Man they made up the two warriors that most of us competitors feared.

As we returned to our rooms that night, I lay awake for a while. My eyes fixated on the bunk above mine, my mind fixated on tomorrows fights. Then as I went to sleep, the nightmares returned to me, for the first time in a while I was haunted by my past again. I awoke, and sat up for a moment before trying to fall back asleep again, and yet again they turned up. Slowly I slipped in and out of consciousness as I fell asleep for a couple hours before I was awoken by Phyora, who shook me awake.

"Stavn, it's your fight day. Wake up!" she shouted as she tried to wake me up.