Finally, I was able to get back up. Being downed was not fun. Everything was black and nothing around me was clear. I could hear, but it was all muffled. Somehow, we were able to win the battle. I was surprised at that. We were outmanned in the fight 3 to 1. It meant that I made a good choice joining up with this noble. The noble was someone I only saw in passing as I joined up with them at the city gates. He was a young man with light brown hair and light brown eyes. From the big menu I was able to see who I was serving under. His name was Lucius Vesnius Protacius. As far as the names went, they differed quite a bit from the naming conventions of today. Men received three names: a praenomen, which was their given name; nomen- their clan name and cognomen (the family name). Women were named after their father's nomen (clan name), but in the feminine form, and either their father's or husband's cognomen in the feminine form. This meant that Lucius was of the Protacius house of the Vesnius clan or dynasty. We won a pyrrhic victory. More than two thirds of us died.
It was not going to be wise to continue. Even those of us who had not died were in terrible shape. I had killed 11 men in the battle. This meant that my rank in the army rose. I was not longer a rank one recruit. I was now at the second rank. Only 3 members of my original 10 man squad survived. I was promoted to the captain spot on the squad and allowed to wear the armor of an Imperial Infantryman. I got a leather helmet to protect my head. My leather armor was still slightly better than the padded cloth armor so I kept what I had on. The sword they offered was of similar quality to what I already had with me, so there was no point changing it. Since we had technically won this battle in enemy territory, there was no shame in us returning to our side of the border to regroup and recover for a bit. I almost survived a battle in a war as a soldier, and I got promoted for it. My new goal would be to survive until the end of a battle next time. Making our way to the border, we squashed a group of bandits that were harassing a village. That was pretty noble of Lucius. I could really respect all that.
Getting back to the safety of Ainon Province, we were still not safe. There was an active war going on. We would not be safe until we were in a settlement. We settled in the high walls of Besontio City. This was not where we had started from. It did not matter. There was a garrison for the guards of the city. There were also barracks for the local militia and stationed soldiers. As we were here now, we could rest there. Besontio was hosting a tournament in their arena. Tournaments were where people could fight for a prize and glory. There were 5 rounds which meant 32 competitors. I decided that I would sign up. There was a nice warhorse up for grabs. I was not really going for cavalry fighting, but I would definitely like riding around on a beast of a horse when I was out of the military. For the first round, there would be 2 separate 16 man bouts. Each fight was split into 4 teams of 4. The teams were color based: red, yellow, blue and green. The fight would go until there was only 1 team remaining. It was decided I would be in the blue team. The final 2 teams would go to the next round.
Having to use the arena's blunted weapons made sense. No one wanted to actually die here. This was not gladiator combat. The province capitals had larger arena and gladiator pits. I was given a fake sword and big shield. As a soldier, I was going to have to get used to these. Another teammate had the same loadout. The other 2 members had quivers full of blunted arrows and a bow. Our fight was first. I did my best to charge at my opponents. I used the shield to block the arrows as I ran towards the archers of the red team. I would be better to get them out of the way. They panicked and tried to run away from me. The enemy swordsmen chased after me, but it left them open to attacks from my teammates. I knew what I was doing and absolutely destroyed one of the archers before a yellow swordsman tried swinging at me. I blocked with my shield. We were locked in combat now. He was a higher tier troop than I was. I threw some feints to get his guard down. I did my best to capitalize, but he also got me good a few times. I outlasted him and knocked him out with a low kick.
