Guardian Spirit

Chapter 6

The sound of crushing bones drowned under the voice of the crowd exploding to cheers. The large blade of the two-handed sword seemed to cleave its way through the man's shoulder and down to his groin with as much ease as an axe would split a dry piece of wood. Gareth grunted as he kicked the corpse from his sword and rested it against his shoulder with ease – despite the sword being sixty inches long and weighing nearly eight pounds due to its wider than normal blade. The crowd in the arena was still going wild with thunderous roars and chants of his name. He spat on the corpse before him and turned to face the four remaining men.

The men stood there – seemingly stunned – with weapons in their hands. Gareth could see the fear in their eyes as they witnessed what had happened to the first man who had come at him. Being slightly over seven feet tall, Gareth stood there, dwarfing the men before him. The fact that he had muscles in his arms like he had been a blacksmith all of his forty years of life and very little softness in his body, made the size difference seem even bigger. He wore brown leather pants, but his upper body was left bare for the arena fights. His wide chest was covered in unusually thick black hair as were his arms.

Some might have mistaken him for a full blooded troll, but his face was that of an normal man. His nose was well formed and fit his face and the brown eyes confirmed with their shape he was no troll. A thick black beard covered much of his face and his black hair was long enough to reach his neck and cover his slightly pointed ears. As half-human and half-troll, Gareth seemed to have inherited the troll features in moderation. His skin lacked the greenish colour that was common for trolls and his jaw was not the sharp triangle shape. He grinned at the men, exposing his slightly larger than normal lower corner teeth which gave his grin a certain cruelty that any full blooded human would lack.

One of the men dropped his sword as he fell to his knees to vomit out the meagre meal the guards must have given him before sending him out to meet his death. The crowd of the arena burst out laughing at the man's miserable state. This was justice as it was handed out at the grand arena of Ramyn. The men before Gareth had committed severe enough crimes to warrant a death penalty and were now facing that sentence with him as the executioner. In most places the men would have simply been hanged, but the empire of Ramyn had its own sense of justice and executions were treated as entertainment for the people in the form of fights to the death at the arena. Thousands of spectators arrived from all around the city to see convicts face death at the hands of skilled warriors or wild beasts and monsters captured from all around the world.

The arena could hold nearly sixty thousand people and today it was almost full. It was the first day of the seventh month and that meant a large market day in the city of Ramyn. Many people were at the arena to enjoy the show before heading to buy the imports many merchants had reserved specially for this day. The central arena where Gareth was standing was elliptical in shape and nearly three hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide. A fine sand covered the thick wooden floor, providing an good foundation for the sword fights as well as horse races that were occasionally part of the performance.

There were trap doors that opened ramps to the dungeons below the floor so the wild animals and monsters could be safely released to the arena. A fifteen foot tall wall separated the central arena from the crowd and their seats. There were special seats around the arena for the empress and other notable people of the city. The spectators seats rose row by row until they almost reached the height of the one hundred and eighty foot tall outer wall. Built out of white marble and decorated with pillars so finely crafted even a dwarf would find it hard to find something to criticize, the arena truly was an impressive structure.

Gareth took the sword from his shoulder and – with one hand – held it out and pointed it at the men before him.

“So, which one of you is next?” Gareths voice was deep – so deep that a god of thunder would envy him – but it had a softness to it that left you surprised that such a voice could come out of someone like him. None of the men made a move, except the man who had vomited before. He vomited again – or at least tried to, but his stomach was already empty so all he managed were dry gags that made his muscles cramp. “Why don't I make it easy for you. You can stand there and let me kill you one by one..” Gareth paused for a bit to let the words sink into the minds of the men, “or you can all come at me together and hope one of you gets lucky and lands a deadly blow on me. Then you can hope the crowd finds mercy for you and you are shipped off to the mines instead of being fed to the beasts below us. I can assure you that no matter what you choose, my sword will provide a quicker death than the beasts.”