There was no further warning before Charon found himself gasping for air.
He sat up with a start, spitting chunks of mud.
Despite his best efforts, the slimy substance clung to his tongue, filling his mouth with an overwhelming earthy flavor. Opening his eyes to see how the sludge had gotten there, he realized he couldn't see anything.
'What the? What's going on? I was just on the stage, why am I here? Am I dead?'
The question left him as soon as it came.
'No, I can't be. I can still breathe, and my body feels intact, at least I think it is.'
His vision was dark, and his hearing all but gone. Feeling the ground around him, all he felt was more slippery mud.
Panicking at the loss of his senses, he roughly swiped at his eyes, feeling relief at the cracks of light he saw when the dirt was removed.
'Gods, I was worried I had lost my senses for a minute.'
Doing the same for his other eye and then his ears, he audibly gasped as the sounds of a battle hit him.
Steel clashed all around, followed by the screams of those who failed to block. The rough beating of horse hooves caused the ground to shake, a steady staccato beat that vibrated Charon to his core.
Looking around, he saw that he was in a pit of some kind, clearly made by a small explosion. The sky above was blackened with smoke, and not even the sun was able to pierce the thick smog.
A single thought was all Charon managed to eek out.
'Where the hell am I?'
Planting his feet on the uneven ground, he slowly crawled over the lip of the crater, careful not to fall.
Peering over the edge, he looked with horror at the situation he found himself in.
Hundreds of men clashed in an open brawl.
Swords struck again and again, as men garbed in black fought off those wearing red.
Alerted to a cry behind him, Charon turned just in time to see a beast of a man cleave another in two, his two-handed longsword slicing through the soldier like butter. Three other men in red could only watch as their companion was killed so easily.
The giant, at least seven feet tall, wore a heavy metal armor that covered him from head to toe, and looked to have been cut from the night sky itself.
His foes, by comparison, only wore enough armor to cover their shoulders and heads. Even their swords paled in comparison, being crude weapons of iron compared to the knight's midnight blade.
Despite what had happened to their comrade, the red warriors charged without fear, only to be met with a masterful display of footwork that ended in all three losing their heads.
Without pausing for a second, the knight moved to engage the next group of soldiers, blood still dripping from his large blade.
Charon's mouth was open in horror at the sight, before he closed it with an audible clack.
'The words! They mentioned a trial! This must be it!'
He shuddered as he tried to remember if he had ever heard of a trial accompanying the ceremony, but nothing came to mind.
'Think, Charon, think! There has to be a way out!'
Although he was confused about the situation, his survival instincts took over, forcing him to focus on survival.
Scanning the chaotic field, he noticed that most of the fighting was moving to one direction, leaving the opposite area open.
Sliding back down the ditch, Charon finally noticed that he was also wearing armor.
A thin tunic of black cloth was tightly strapped to his body with a rope belt, and his shoulders were covered by metal. His chest and legs also had some basic chainmail to protect them, but parts looked to have been melted off.
'When did I put this on? Is this part of the trial? Can someone explain to me what's going on here?'
No voice answered him.
Not wanting to waste any more time, he scrambled back up the other side of the crater, rubbing sludge off his armor whenever it got too thick.
'This stuff is heavy enough without the added weight.'
As far as Charon was concerned, the goal was going to be to run to safety, and shedding a few pounds of weight would help make that easier.
'Better the dirt than the armor,' he thought grimly.
Taking in the scene in front of him, Charon noted a few important details.
Most of the soldiers on this side wore red, but they seemed to be disordered, as if this wasn't part of the plan. A few black soldiers were fighting them, but they seemed not to be struggling much, mercilessly butchering their foes.
He also noticed that there weren't any more soldiers like the black knight on this side of the battle.
A strange thought popped into his head.
'Would the black knight even attack me? As far as he knows, I'm wearing his colors. Shouldn't he just see me as another ally and ignore me?'
Despite his question, he decided he would be happier without an answer.
'Avoiding him will make my chances of survival much higher.'
An overturned cart was less than a thousand feet away. It was mostly intact, but a fire had somehow begun to burn away its wooden interior.
With a slight grin, Charon realized it would be the perfect spot to stop at before continuing his dash.
'Okay, three… two… one… go!'
Throwing himself over the edge, he landed on his feet and pumped them as fast as he could.
Not more than a second after he had left the safety of his ditch, a large ball of fire landed near him, exploding and sending Charon flying.
He hit the ground hard, his shoulder immediately burning in pain as he rolled over multiple times.
Even after he stopped moving, his upper arm throbbed with an agony he did not know existed.
'God's almighty it hurts!'
If he had any air left in his lungs, he might have screamed right then, but he had expelled it all after the impact.
Instead, he pushed himself up, taking care to use the arm that hadn't slammed into the ground.
'It has to be dislocated at least, maybe broken. If the Mistress saw me like this, she would give me ten lashes for being so stupid as to get hurt on a battlefield.'
He stifled the chuckle bubbling up, before regretting the action as fresh waves of pain hit his senses.
His suffering quickly turned to anger as he sought to get out of the danger zone, daring his body to deny him his attempt to survive.
As if called by the gods to check his arrogance, a red soldier noticed him at that moment, raising his blade to attack. Unlike the other soldiers nearby, his tunic was different, sporting a large golden drop of blood in the center of it.
Charon's eyes widened, and his palms instantly began to sweat as he realized the danger he was now in.
'Damnit, damnit, damnit! Who thought this trial was a good idea! I'm going to die!'
Certain in his inability to fight while both unarmed and wounded, he looked around for a way out before realizing that all other paths had more soldiers.
Turning his focus down, he almost cried in relief as he spotted a half-buried sword, before reaching out and pulling it with his good arm.
The blade was dirty, but still straight, a decent weapon in the right hands.
It was a struggle to hold with one limb, but Charon forced himself, dedicated to the idea of living to see another day.
'I want to see the sun again, not this bloody smog!'
As his opponent approached, he noticed something odd about the look on the man's face.
Despite the battle raging all around him, he never once looked anywhere except right at Charon.
In fact, his face hadn't changed in the slightest, not even to smirk or frown at the coming engagement.
It felt robotic, and sent a shiver down Charon's spine.
Deciding that losing to this freak wasn't an option, he steeled his resolve and let out what could barely be considered a war cry, before rushing in with his sword raised and his other arm hanging limply at his side.
With an almost too slow reaction speed, the red soldier narrowly managed to deflect the attack, his eyes unfocused and unresponsive.
Charon, however, being inexperienced, followed after his blade, stumbling forward and almost faceplanting back into the mire.
Catching himself in the knick of time, he whirled around and swung again, this time cutting into his opponent's arm.
He felt excitement at striking his enemy, before it was replaced with disgust as he hit bone.
The reverberation of the blade and the sick thwack the blow made caused his lip to curl up, only intensified by the man's lack of any regard for the normally grievous wound. It was this unusual reaction that warned Charon just in time to release his weapon and step back to avoid the counterattack.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, he threw himself at the unreactive soldier, tackling him to the ground.
Not wanting to relent, he brought his fists down on the man's face, cringing as he felt cartilage break under his blows.
Despite his onslaught, he still didn't hear any sound beyond the ambient noise of battle.
Suddenly, the man smiled, his face splitting in a macabre grin before it opened up and unleashed a tide of blood.
It connected with Charon's chest, and immediately he felt his skin bubble and hiss whenever it entered the holes in his tunic.
Screaming from the pain, he brought his hand down to clamp the mouth shut, only to feel an excruciating burning sensation on his palm.
Not wanting to see what else the man could do, Charon grabbed the blade still lodged in the soldier's arm and tore it out with a sick squelch, before raising it and sinking it deep into the man's mouth, severing his brain stem.
Only then did the body stop struggling.