Sunkissed

Tournament

He was going to die, I know it.

The trumpets sounded off, alerting the crowd of Ejirians that the champions were about to come into the ring but to me, they sounded like warning bells.

Someone was going to die.

My eyes darted to the tents and they landed right onto the guy from my dreams.

Three large scars ran over his face like strikes of lightning with a charming smile plastered on his wildly bearded face for the oblivious audience. His robes flapped in the wind as he ran his fingers over his short auburn red curls of hair and stood with his chest puffed out with a stance that made one think that he would have been a character from an epic.

He addressed the crowd with his thick arms waving in the air and blowing kisses to the hormone-wild crowd in the bleachers. He uncuffed the robe and it went flying off from his shoulders. It revealed his distinguishable red toga that tied with a golden emblem on his shoulder of his family's crest – an eagle with a fish in its claws. The outfit that exposed the battle scars that he seemed to show off with pride.

He unclasped the latches that held his axes at his sides and began swinging the two large axes around in circles and over his head. A showoff and the crowd loved it. They drank his arrogance like wine. Each axe was at least 4 feet in length and probably were specially tailored for the massacre that was going to happen before us.

He looked like a murderer.

The crowd loved him because he was titled the Barbaric King of the ring. His moves were indigenous to the Northwestern archipelagos of Rodange. He was heavy on offense and brutal with force. He brought the audience the type of exciting violence they never expected from the tournament, but they were thrilled to see so up close. Every fight with him felt like you were watching an underground mutt fight instead of an organized tournament between the different kingdoms in commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the peace treaty.

The bear-like man's name was Brutanaous Cornelias-Schwig.

But the crowd kept chanting, "King! King! King! King! King!"

He was going to go up against someone from the Southeastern kingdom of Azinger. Those two kingdoms have a history together as they both had gone to war, which only ended a few years ago. Their war pulled the rest of us into chaos, but a few years ago the new king of Azinger was able to settle a peace treaty with the kingdom of Rodange.

However, the water under the bridge was contaminated with the blood of the fallen.

This was a battle that everyone waited for with anticipation since, in previous tournaments, champions from Azinger and Rodange were never able to be matched for a battle. Until today. They finally made it to the finale and this match that would reignite war flames and rip open old wounds.

People were barbaric themselves when it was for the sake of their own entertainment. After all, this tournament was for their sake. Each year, a kingdom would host and champions from each kingdom would battle each other in the ring. I thought it was a ludicrous idea, but everyone else seemed to love the show. During the tournament, the host kingdom would get tourists and a royal banquet at the end. I understood it was mostly for morale and economics, but I thought the idea of making people fight to celebrate a peace treaty was ridiculously ironic.

I knew how the battle was going to end. I foresaw that it was not going to be a fight at all.

A massacre; one strike and –

"Would you quit it!" I snapped at one of the slaves who was fanning the peacock feathers too close and kept brushing over my neck.

"My apologies," the young slave uttered as he bowed and then took a few steps back, but my attention was drawn away from him as the other champion came out.