The Tournament of the Gods, First Round (6) - Large Bats and Hairfoot Halflings

The tournament has fallen into abeyance as dawn spills across the sky in pale brightness; some of the gods have run, cackling and whooping, down to the river to wash themselves of the aftermath of Hexaich's exuberance. Others have gone back to the citadel for more brandy, more wine, more arak. Still others loll about on the grass, savouring the cool freshness of the dew. It is already warm, and the day promises to be hot indeed.

The Skurtch is impatient. Scratching his belly and chewing on a lamb cutlet he has somehow found, he beckons the Droll Knave. 'I grow dissatisfied. Let us recommence.' The Droll Knave nods, and others with him - Lap-Laz, the Snem, the Quiet Leaper - murmur approval. Their calls go out, echoing through the trees: 'Return! Return! The tournament begins again! Return!' And soon the gods are flocking back to the purple blanket, waddling dripping from the river or bearing amphora from the citadel gate.

Gathered in place once more they wait in a hubbub to see who will emerge for the fight. Eventually Collequette, the Indigent, edges forward. Draped in black and brown rags, her thin face etched with lines and patinated with dirt, she whispers, 'I have little, but what I have, I will offer.' Kneeling briefly, she waves her arm before her in a flourish, as if casting out a handful of salt or sand. What look like small scraps of crumpled black paper unfurl in mid-air and reveal themselves to be bats, fifteen of them, flapping frantically and wheeling about like fragments of rubbish whipped up by a storm. 

Opposite her now stands Vwaik, the Sherbet-Eater. Thin, graceful, effete, his florid robes a mess of ribbons and sashes, he always conveys the impression that in his own mind he inhabits his finest hour. But he is old now, and bald, and his skin is sallow and blemished. From a very long black sleeve, lined inside with cherry red, he produces his champions - eight halflings, bearing short bows and equipped with smart-looking leather armour and brightly polished helmets. They nod to one another in reassurance as they march forward across the purple.

'Ah, a bout for the purists, is it not?' calls out the Droll Knave, and a snigger goes up among the crowd.

'I for one have a taste for this type of ingenuous digression,' says Lap-Laz. 'Honest fare of the type that was once common, but now lamentably out of fashion!'

There are some nods of agreement. But Hexaich expresses her verdict after a loud belch: 'At least it will be over quickly.'

For the participants, though, the focus is already on the battle. The bats swoop forward and the halflings immediately loose a volley of arrows. But, perhaps overawed by the crowd around them, their shots are wild. Only one bat is struck from the air. And then the beasts are screechingly upon them, biting and clawing - a whirlwind of flapping wings, sharp fangs, tiny malevolent eyes sparkling with the lust for blood. Four halflings lie dead on the blanket as the bats wheel away.

'"Quickly" was an understatement!' shouts the Skurtch. But the bats must come around for another pass, exposing themselves to more arrows. Volleys are fired. Once! Twice! Each time another bat dies, plummeting down to expire on the purple in a tangle of broken wings and snapped wood. But then the remaining bats are on the halflings again, swooping down for the kill. The gods lurch to their feet to watch the slaughter; they bray and cheer and punch the air as another three halflings fall torn and bloody to move no more. 

Just one wounded hairfoot remains, an arrow knocked to his bow. The gods howl with laughter. 'Is this what we came back for? Is this what we gave up our swimming to see?'

'Sherbet-Eater!' Lap-Laz's voice rises above that of the throng. 'You are doing this by half-measures!'

'Not half!' cackles Ya-Besh.

Vwaik wrinkles his upper lip. 'Do your worst,' he hisses to his last champion. The halfling draws his bow, takes careful aim, tracks a target through the air - and shoots wide. As the deadly flock circles back to his position he fires again - again to no effect. Vwaik does not wait to see the outcome. With a single stamp he crushes the life from his champion, and stalks off towards the river, leaving the small broken body oozing and twitching on the blanket. 

The rest of the gods glance at each other and shake their heads. 'Poor show,' says the Snem. 'He was always that way, even as a child,' says Cacomantis. 

But Collequette at least is pleased. She beckons her bats to her, and catches them with a single sweeping and surprisingly graceful motion of her bony hand.

The Tournament of the Gods, First Round (5) - Galeb Duhr and Giant Bombardier Beetle

As spiders who wait unmoving and noiseless the Gods are in perfect stillness as Sleep approaches their glade. No suppressed chuckle from the Droll Knave; not the merest hiccup from the Skurtch; not even the faintest drip of salt water from the belly of the Trident-Bearer betrays them. Sleep is blind, but Sleep can hear so well that he can even detect the motions of thought itself. The Gods must wait unthinking for him to pass, as stones on a hillside sit dumbly through the winter. 

He creeps. His feet pad softly on dewy grass. He sniffs. This way and that. As though swaying his head from side to side like a coursing hound in search of scent. Merely to look on him is to be taken; the Gods hold their eyes shut tightly. Not a cough. Not a wheeze. Not a blink nor a breath. They wait until he circles about their glade, and feel the sun's rays grow warm; by the time he has passed, the light of morning is beginning to gleam through closed eyelids. 

Finally the sounds of his movement recede and it is Lap-Laz who speaks first. "Well, brothers and sisters! He is gone. Do we continue?" He drinks from his apricot brandy and dispels anxiety with a belch. "There are many yet to join battle."

Relieved, the Gods crowd once more around the purple. One already stands at the left of the blanket: tall, slender, with long grey feathered wings and tail iridescent and gleaming in the morning sun. Cacomantis, the yellow-footed, black-billed Cuckoo King, whose soft voice has yet to call out in the dawn's games. Now is his time: he unfurls a wing on the blanket and then withdraws it to reveal six giant iridescent green beetles arranged in a line upon the cloth. "These are mine," he declares. "I welcome a challenge."

The Gods murmur their appreciation; Sleep is forgotten. "I will challenge!" calls out the sonorous voice of Hexaich, the River Mother, her hippopotamus head reared in pride, her dozen breasts leaking milk down her belly. She casts three pebbles onto the blanket; they all bounce once, then twice, then come to a rest. Each, as though rousing itself from sleep, sprouts first arms, then legs, and then a grimacing maw beneath tired and mournful eyes. Galeb duhr, resentful of being wakened, and sorrowful at their own vast age. They fixes their misery upon their foes.

Their foes strike first. The beetles lurch forward, spasmodic but fast, and fling themselves upon the rock-men. Mandibles slice and crush, tearing off hunks of rubble; one of the galeb duhr is cracked and gravely weakened, while another loses many fragments of stone-flesh, spraying like grey tears across the purple. The Gods applaud at the resumption of violence - "That's the way!" yells the Skurtch. "Straight at it!" - and Lap-Laz cannot help himself from blurting out, "An upset is on the cards!" 

But the galeb duhr's misery now turns to anger. Stone fists pound and swing, cracking carapace like thin clay; it shatters in shards of glimmering green. Beetle bodies jerk and flap amidst ichorous ruin - four are dead, and one of the remainder is sorely wounded. In an instant the battle seems won and lost. Hexaich throws her head back and squeezes jets of milk from her udders in the excitement of impending victory; it squirts in great gushes across the crowd and they cackle and shriek in delighted drunken disgust. For a moment all is chaos of laughter and shouting as they roll and caper on the grass in exaggerated horror; the fight is briefly forgotten until the Elder Sister, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling and stern, cries out "Silence! Children! The fight is not yet over! Remember decorum!" 

And certainly it is not. The beetles have earned their name as bombardiers. Both those left alive turn and with deafening blasts spew stinging clouds of steaming, acrid bile at their foes. Each is seared and scarred by the burning sprays, and one is sent reeling, stunned, to slump down to its backside like a sullen, confounded toddler. Hope are raised afresh that the underdog will triumph - Lap-Laz, now carried about by the Droll Knave by piggyback, pours apricot brandy down his gullet and calls out, "Six legs good!" while others among the Gods begin to drum an impromptu rhythm on tree trunks, gourds and bowls to accompany his yells.

But there the contest brutally ends itself before the chant can really gain its momentum. Wounded as they are, the galeb duhr are not to be deterred from visiting their melancholy on their foes. They rend the two last beetles apart and the fight is over.

Cacomantis has been watching affairs aloof. He wipes a drop of milk from his left wingtip with the right, and sniffs. "That was poorly executed. I apologise they offered so little."

Hexaich shrugs. "Life is strong. Unlife is stronger." 

The Tournament of the Gods, First Round (4) - Myconids and Aerial Servant

Dawn, hitherto a mere rumour heard in paler blue, now breathes her message in pink and orange whispers faintly echoing in the bellies of distant clouds. The Droll Knave, through guilt or caprice, has been to the citadel and returned with apricot brandy for Lap-Laz and damson wine for the rest. The gods reconvene at the purple blanket in solemn conclave, as though the dim glow of the approaching morning has brought with it decorum in its exposure of all to the light.

A gaunt figure stalks one side of the arena, long-limbed, long-bearded, long-fingered. Gessum of Gold, whose many necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings and brooches gaily gleam in contrast to his slate-like eyes, his thin unsmiling mouth, his grubby yellowed fingernails. 

"Who will oppose me on the Purple?" he says. "So far none have impressed."

At that, a murmur passes over the lips of the assembled deities. Gessum. Will he ever change? But there is a challenger all the same. A commotion at the back of the crowd and a fish-like figure flaps forward. The newcomer's eyes gaze blankly in opposite directions from the sides of her thin, mouthy face; she twists her head this way and that so she can fix Gessum with first one eye, then the other. This is Appappappa the Trident-Bearer; she leans heavily on her barbed weapon as though ill-equipped to support herself on land. Salt water drips from her fat belly and darkens the purple in blotches.

"I will oppose."

She slowly turns and gestures with webbed hand to the dewy grass at the edge of the blanket. The gods watch as pallid shapes sprout like many phalluses from the soil, and then unfurl; toadstools, eyed and mouthed, with limb-like appendages and the stench of dank earth. "My champions," Appappappa announces as she sweeps them onto the Purple, twenty of them, in five clearly delineated groups of four - each of whose members is larger than the last. "May they triumph."

Gessum watches with creased lip. "Good," he says, and claps his hands together, once, his jewellery jangling. At first, nothing appears to have happened and the other Gods watch in silence. But then the slim miser leans a little forward and gives the void before him a gentle puff from the lips, the heat from within him misting in the chill pre-dawn air. A male figure forms from it: pale blue, legless, ethereal; it glides gently to the ground as gossamer.  "And we commence."

Yet Lap-Laz has already raised an arm in outrage and stepped onto the Purple. "Now look here!" he spits. "What can the Trident-Bearer's minions do to harm that phantom of the air? A precedent has been established on this point!" 

"Quite right," come voices in support. "We seek sport, not the mere spectacle of violence."

The Elder Sister has been sitting cross-legged against a cherry tree and feeding her victorious slaves with honeyed calvados, poured into her shield for them to lap up like dogs. She stands and declares, "Since in the last bout it was I who benefited, I feel it is incumbent upon me to pass on the advantage." From the air she plucks something small, delicate and silvery, and casts it at Appappappa's feet. "Arm your champions, Trident-Bearer."

The weapon she has provided befits her: a tiny bastard sword of platinum. But Appappappa does not yet bend to take it. She turns to fix Lap-Laz with a single blank eye. "Watch. My strongest are strong." 

The mushroom men are already advancing. Their tactic is simple. Unable or unwilling to break up their groups of four, they move forward in their five units like the fingers of a hand. The thumb comprises their biggest and strongest. The aerial servant wheels to meet it. Whether it is confident or afraid, aggressive or calm, is impossible to tell. Its countenance is as impassive as the greyest, dampest mist.

The four biggest myconids encircle Gessum's aerial servant. The gods squatting closest to the blanket bend forward; those behind strain to watch. Are the Trident-Bearer's champions as strong as she believes?

Yes. The myconids flail with club-like fists. Two pound the misty form of their floating enemy - it hisses and gasps in the shock of pain. This, it was not expecting. Lap-Laz lets out a whoop! But if the mushroom men are strong, the servant is stronger still. It reaches out with arms bearing the hideous force of the wind; grasping one of the fungus men who face it, it tears him in twain down the middle with a single brute yank.

There is a fight on. The gods are happy. Somebody calls out "Are you impressed yet, Gessum?" Others raise their voices in laughter. Gessum's lips shrivel even further to the point of a narrow line cut across his chin. He strokes his beard with ringed fingers. 

Unperturbed by the death of their brother, the three biggest mushroom men who remain continue to club at the aerial servant with chitinous fists. Two again bash its body and it quails, flailing wildly with a slap that brings one of the myconids stumbling to its knees, though not dead. It is clear that the thing is desperate and distressed; though its face is as implacable as ever, its movements are not. It understands it faces its end, and a rapid one at that.

The other mushroom men crowd in now from the rear. They lack the power to harm Gessum's champion. But they seem to feel their presence is requested or required. Ordinary emotions are not known to them - not the triumph of victory nor grief for death. Rather, they are aware only that they must bear witness to what transpires. And with the gods they watch as their three mighty brethren beat the aerial servant's form so thoroughly that it disintegrates beneath their blows - as though their sheer force have rendered its body momentarily corporeal so as to more thoroughly destroy it.

The brief pause that follows is ended by a sharp cough from Gessum of Gold. "I am embarrassed," he tells Appappappa. 

For her part, Appappappa twists her head so as to regard him through the left eye, then right, as her champions retreat once more into the soil to await their next call.

The Skurtch is sitting on a tree branch overhead, holding a goblet. He belches and a slick of mead spills down his chest and belly as he guzzles. "That was barely begun before it ended. Who's for more?"

But it is then that somebody - perhaps more sober than the rest - hisses from the edge of the crowd, "Silence. Sleep stalks us!"

The Tournament of the Gods, First Round (3): Iron Golem and Aquatic Elves

There is no further sign of Sleep, for the time being at least; if he indeed creeps among the cedars, he is too quiet and too clever to show even a trace of his presence. The Skurtch, full of the magnanimity of victory as well as wine, goes to look in on the Sucklings and finds them still greedy at the teat. It will be a long time yet before they slumber. The tournament can go on.

The next Gods to be paired against each other are the Elder Sister, unsmiling and haughty in her grey cuirass and greaves, and Lap-Laz, reptilian and blue. Lap-Laz wastes no time in revealing his champion: a great armoured figure forged of solid iron, ponderous with grotesque weight, which he sets on the blanket to a round of gasps from the onlookers.

"Wasn't it you who was complaining of the use of poison in the last bout?" hisses the Elder Sister as she watches the golem march across the felt. "How can my minions even harm that construct?"

"He is like all sticklers for fairness," says the Droll Knave, who is busy slurping a gourd of apricot brandy. "When he personally is concerned, all of a sudden the concept becomes flexible."

The Elder Sister sniffs and sets her shield face down on the blanket. Out of it emerge a host of greenish, web-fingered, flap-footed elves, dripping salt water from their lank hair, wielding nets and tridents. They are led by three mighty warrior women and a great hero carrying a long lance; hunched and ungainly on the land, they arrange themselves into four groups - the women each lead a band of 20, and the hero a band of 16. 

"We must make this a fair contest!" says the Skurtch. "Those sea elves cannot hope to survive!" 

"Agreed," says a voice from the onlookers. "What pleasure is there in watching a slaughter?" 

"Here," says the Droll Knave. He steps onto the blanket and taps a fingertip to the tip of the aquatic elf hero's lance. It begins to gleam with yellow light. "That will give them a fighting chance."

The first band of elves, led by the hero, circle the golem. Their tridents cannot harm it. They plan to trap it with nets long enough to give their hero a chance to damage it. Four race forward and surround it, and hurl their nets. Three go astray but the fourth covers the golem. The hero then darts in and thrusts his lance into its thigh. A pathetic scratch, but a scratch nonetheless. The golem tears away the net with its fists. 

The four elves in the first wave retreat; four more come forth. Two nets now fall on the golem, though one of the elves slips and manages to become himself entangled. The hero strikes again, hitting the same spot, this time forcing the lancetip deep into scratching metal. The golem again rends the nets which bind it. Lap-Laz smacks his lips and tuts, wafting his tail restlessly. The Elder Sister sits cross-legged, straight-backed. The other Gods are watching keenly. "A tactical one," says Ya-Besh. "It has been a while."

The dance goes on. The golem is netted once more, and struck again, this time in the groin, with the sound of crunching metal. Once again he frees himself from his bonds. It looks as though the pattern will repeat itself until the golem's oblivion. But something upsets it. The golem lurches suddenly forward and slams the hero with its fist, sending him staggering back five paces and down to his knees. His ribcage is a ruin and blood bubbles from his lips; not dead, not quite, but thereabouts. He staggers to his feet, leaning on the lance. The last four members of his band net the golem once more and the hero, coughing and spitting red, jabs again with the lance, driving it into the golem's flank. It hurls off its bindings and the hero retreats, surrounded by his band; they have no more nets, and are replaced by the first of the warrior women with her soldiers. She seizes the lance and takes up the charge.

The Gods murmur their approval at the tactic, All except for Lap-Laz, who holds out his hand for the Droll Knave's brandy and pours a glug of it down his throat, and the Elder Sister, who approves of nothing save emotional restraint. 

But the tide of combat can flow and ebb with all the caprice of the sea. Perhaps because she is unused to the lance, or perhaps from sheer misfortune, despite the waves of net attacks from her men the first warrior women cannot find purchase on the iron golem's frame. The jabbing lance continually misses, or scrapes off the golem's armour with shrieks of metal. As the last four of her elves cast their nets ineffectually wide, the golem is free to bring its open palm slapping down upon her skull and almost carelessly cave it in. Her body flops sideways, and pinkish jelly leaks onto the blanket; the Gods laugh appreciatively, and the game is afoot.

The next warrior woman comes forward; her elves lead the golem away from the twitching corpse of her comrade to allow her time to take up the lance. But she is no more effective. The spectators know that the golem lacks the capacity to learn, yet it almost seems as though it now has the beating of the elves' tactic. Once again, the waves of net-throwers eventually fail and give it an opening, and it is able to pound the lance-bearer with a fist, slamming her sideways so that her spine snaps in twain and she lands on the ground some yards away already stone dead. Her men fall back in disorder. 

If the Elder Sister's demeanour remains unchanged, Lap-Laz has somewhat altered. He now swallows pilchards from a pot, curling his tail delightedly about himself. The other Gods are silent. They watch. Here come the last 20 net-armed elves and their leader, who now carries the lance. Three waves of four net-throwers come forward to no avail. But then come another four and the golem is caught. The warrioress lunges and skewers the golem through the belly - the point of the lance passing out through its back. She clings on with both hands. The final four elves come forward to throw, but their nets go astray! The watching Gods are on their feet. The golem almost nonchalantly takes a hold of the warrioress's head and crushes it like an egg.

Pandemonium now among the Gods as the elves regroup. Their net tactic has failed. Now the time has come for steel hearts. They must die for their hero. 

A phalanx is formed. The hero - wounded, maybe dying - once more has the lance. A rank of six elves stands in front of him. Their task is to die but to buy for him enough time to make his attacks from the rank behind. The others crowd in from the rear, ready to take the place of those who fall. They advance on the golem. It dispatches one elf with a simple punch, but the lance is once more singing in the hands of its original owner, and the hero drives the point home. The elves close ranks. Another is bashed to brutal death; the lance once more thrusts home. It is all Lap-Laz can do to stop himself from interfering. He capers about on the edge of the blanket and almost retches up his pilchards; the other Gods edge away; the Elder Sister remains watching in motionless repose. Again the elves close ranks. Again the golem strikes, picking one of his opponents up by the ankle and flinging his victim into the air. Again the lance hits home!

The golem is badly damaged. It sways. Staggers. The elves crowd in. The hero attacks. The point of the lance thrusts in beneath its chin. The Gods leap to their feet. Lap-Laz cannot watch, and hurls a mustard pot at a nearby tree. The golem stiffens and straightens for a moment...wobbles...and slams to the ground and is still. 

Lap-Laz has sunk onto his knees. Whirling around, he fixes his gaze on the Droll Knave. "You!" He shrieks. "Another gourd of brandy is the least you owe me for that trick."

The Skurtch and Ya-Besh come and put their arms around the blue lizard. "You overreached," Yab-Besh tells him. "A little unfairness goes a long way in these matters. You went too far and outraged the conscience of the Gods."

The Elder Sister carefully sets down her shield for her elves to clamber on, bearing their hero aloft. She allows him the briefest of smiles as he looks up at her in worship. Her sea elves advance.

The Tournament of the Gods, First Round (2): Cave Bear and Giant Scorpion

The drawing of the next lots begins. The exercise is almost abandoned when one of the Gods, Knepsham of the Webs, thinks she sees Sleep creeping through the tall cedars on the hill overlooking the feast-grounds. For a moment, the Gods debate returning to the citadel in urgent whispers. But, if Sleep it was, he is not seen again, and they consider it likely that the fresh light of the morning will keep him at bay for a time. They resume.

The next bout is between Knepsham of the Webs herself and The Droll Knave, and the Gods gather once more around the purple blanket, some casting glances behind them lest Sleep reappear. But as the champions are revealed they are soon once more engrossed.

Knepsham slides a delicate hand into a silk pouch and produces from it two cave bears, gigantic, shaggy, ponderous. They lumber onto the purple, nosing the air for prey with their mighty heads swaying left and right, murmuring dark threats in their language of growls. 

The Droll Knave smiles ruefully for a moment, as though apologetic for the victory that he is sure is coming, and sits cross legged on the blanket's edge. He holds up a finger, winks at the audience, and then slides forth his tongue. On it are three armoured, many-legged chitinous things, curled up like pods: giant scorpions, which reveal themselves in slow movement as he takes them by the tail one by one and deposits them on the fighting surface. "Kill," he tells them lovingly as they lurch uncertainly forward; all they seem able to sense is that they long to obey his command.

The bears, intelligent, know they must focus their strength. As the scorpions meander towards them, snapping with their pincers at the air, plagued by their slavery to instinct, the bears isolate one and attack. They are pitiless, powerful. The first bear pounds with its claws, tearing at the scorpion's carapace, staving in the armour, making the soft body underneath leak its noxious fluids. The scorpion reacts with silent desperation, whirling to face its attacker; the other bear snaps at its legs on one side with its jaws, ripping limbs free from their sockets, making the scorpion sag and list to its side. Grievously wounded, the scorpion sinks its pincers into the first bear's hide and they clamp onto its body with relentless strength - but the jabbing tail flails wide. Knepsham of the Webs smiles softly, and meets the Droll Knave's gaze with eyes asparkle. 

But the other two scorpions now feel the tremors of the fight and come forward snapping. One fixes a pincer on the second cave bear and holds it still for impalement on its plunging sting. The poison has no effect and the bear roars its fury. The first bear, however, is not so lucky. The third scorpion jabs with its tail and the bear goes suddenly, horribly still. The poison stops its heart. Its body slumps, falls, rolls onto its side. 

The watching Gods make appreciate chuckles at the rapid reversal. The chuckles turn into laughter as the surviving bear turns on the scorpion which attacked it and simply rends it in two with its claws, casting the halves, still jerking and spasming with the vestiges of life, aside. The bear bellows for its fallen comrade; for a moment, all seems in stasis as the two remaining scorpions, one deranged by the damage it has already suffered, mindlessly turn this way and that. Some of the Gods are standing now, to gain a better view; a solitary voice calls out from their midst, "Is not poison to be a violation of the spirit of the game?" and is silenced.

But the denouement comes quickly, anticlimactically. The scorpions finally seize upon the second bear and it is cut, torn, lanced by stings; the poison ends the contest and the Droll Knave is the victor. 

He nods to Knepsham, winks. "Bad fortune. That could have gone either way" 

The Goddess of the Webs stands. "I like you better as a braggart."

The Droll Knave laughs. His scorpions advance to the next stage of the contest.

The Tournament of the Gods, First Round (1) - Tyrgs and Voadkyn

The Gods of Yem-Shut grow tired and their drunkenness abates as dawn begins to bleach the night sky into a paler blue. Sleep, that hateful seducer, must be kept at bay, for the Sucklings have only just begun to nurse at the Sow's teats and none at the feast may retire until the holy piglets slumber. Entertainments will refresh the Gods and prevent them dozing; a gamble will fulfil that purpose perfectly. The Gods spread a purple blanket across the turf and sip the dew off their fingers; this will be the arena, and their champions will fight and die upon it. 

Lots are drawn and the Gods gather their forces. Ya-Besh the Silent Swimmer first releases a representative: a single voadkyn that he takes from up a voluminous sleeve and sets strutting across the felt of the blanket with a sword and bow as tall and stretched as their wielder. Ya-Besh's challenger is The Skurtch, and that fat squat deity brings from his palm three tyrgs, half-tiger, half-dog, which he carefully, almost lovingly, sets onto the purple. They lope towards the voadkyn, slavering.

Combat begins. The voadkyn sheathes his sword and slides free a long black raven-feathered arrow. He knocks it to his bow. The tyrgs, running towards him now in column, make no attempt to evade. The arrow flies wide and the voadkyn curses. The tyrgs come on. The Gods chuckle; Ya-Besh, briefly excited when his minion let fly, shakes his head and scratches his gills. The voadkyn only has time to cast his bow aside and draw his sword before the beasts are on him. He skips aside the lunge of the first. But the others tear into him. Jaws close on his thigh and calf; fangs sink in. He swipes, panicked, with his blade and cuts the air, then finally struggles clear.

He is bleeding from deep lacerations on both legs. The tyrgs circle him and then press their attack again. But this time he holds them at bay with his sword tip and they back off. The Gods, who had thought the fight over almost as soon as it began, now sit upright and watch intently. Ya-Besh, who thought the voadkyn finished, is on his haunches, urging his champion to fight. 

The tyrgs attack again. The voadkyn foins the first in its ribs, his sword lancing it deep. It howls and bleeds. Ya-Besh, watching, clenches a fist. One of the tyrgs catches the voadkyn with its teeth across the chest - a flesh wound. But now there is no more pausing. Both sides intend to kill or die. The trygs are like hyenas on a carcass. Each ploughs into the flailing voadkyn. Jaws tear at skin slick with blood, and gouge chunks from the wood giant's flesh. His sword delivers another grievous wound to the first of them, and then he crushes his skull with the pommel as it plunges its teeth into his side. It falls to the ground limp, its head a ruin. 

Ya-Besh and The Skurtch's eyes meet and the two Gods cackle, relishing the sight of blood staining the purple of the blanket. But the voadkyn is weakened. He is bleeding from many wounds and the two remaining tyrgs pull him to his knees with the remorseless power of a predator scenting its meal. They finally take his face and throat and shake and twist until his thrashing ends. And then they begin to feed.

Ya-Besh the Silent Swimmer sits silent for a moment, and then shrugs and folds his arms. "An unfair contest."

The Skurtch smiles and lolls on his back, fat legs kicking. "Bring wine for the victor!"

The Skurtch's tyrgs advance to the next round. The Gods draw lots again to determine who joins the next bout.

[I decided to do a 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual 'Top Trumps' elimination tournament, with all the monsters randomly paired against each other for round 1 and then advancing from there until there is only one left standing. The idea kind of took on a life of its own from there...]