A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind)

I waited until the middle rider of the five was directly underneath me and then I jumped. Time seemed to slow down as I fell through the air. The ability of being able to plan a series of moves, before the completion of an action is a hard won talent. So much energy and opportunity is lost in the panic of the moment.

In the beginning of my time in the arena I had relied on a nerved up approach to combat, with its basis rooted firmly in the simple need to survive. In that approach to fighting one's ability to take damage better than and longer than your opponent is your only hope, as well as the longevity of your energy level. As time had progressed I had learned to tone down the chatter and focus on the simplicity of the action required ignoring the less important factors and unnecessary movements. I had learned to fight smart.

Everything could come into play; environment, frame of mind, abilities' of the opponent, surprise, and last of all mere chance. Some things where impossible to predict how they might occur, which was the risk taken. But no risk taken meant survival was doubtful. Success often belongs to the one willing to sweep in and snatch it out of the jaws of indecision. As my feet landed on the back end of the third horse in the column I allowed my momentum to exaggerate the bending down of my knees forcing a deep squat. In that instance I rammed my left hand, which was holding a Nizak blade backward into the rider behind me, where his armor meshed together in the center of his back. The knife went in to the hilt, as it found the weak spot of the armor.

Pushing off with both legs, I leaped off the back end of the surprised horse straight at the fourth rider dislodging my stuck blade as I sprang forward. My left leg stretched out before me in my leap and cleared the side of the horse's head and landed on the front left shoulder of the horse, which pushed the horse to my left from the momentum of my body hitting it through the contact of my leg. I pushed off with that leg sending me towards a pine tree beyond and off to the side of the rider. As I headed for the tree through the air, I buried the knife in my left hand beneath the rider's shoulder where there was no armor.

I switched the knife from my right hand to my left in midair. Free from the knife it had held, my right hand wrapped around the smooth trunk of a young pine tree, which helped slow my momentum to the ground as I spiraled around the tree trunk. The last rider's horse reacting to the fright of the other animals was shying away from me causing the back of the rider to be exposed, even as he struggled to regain control of his mount. Leaping onto the back of the horse, my left hand made a quick slice across its rider's throat with my knife. I continued on a controlled fall over the right side of the horse as the rider fell clutching at his throat over the left side of the horse.