8 in 10

Tannhauser picked his first opponent from the horde now pouring down the funnel. The man’s boots were black—the orta’s janitor. He carried a mizrak spear over-arm and a rectangular Balkan shield. Tannhauser advanced a step out onto the apron to give himself room and dropped the mace along his thigh. He opened his chest just enough to invite the spear and as the downthrust came he pulled his right leg back in an oblique turn and deflected the shaft with his sword and drove the spike of the mace into the thus exposed armpit, sliding his hand up the haft for a shorter grip. The man bellowed, as any man would, and his lung popped and his feet left the ground, and as Tannhauser took him backward and down, he swiped the sword across his throat and half severed his head.

He turned his face from the spray and snapped the sword back up to block a scimitar blow from above and he brought his head up with it and straightened his legs, hammering the crest of his morion into a face. Blood and sweat flew and he lunged up with the mace, still held short, and drove the spike through the belly of the man’s jaw and heard the crunch of bones, the man squirming like a gaffed tunny, blood streaming down from his nostrils and eyes, and Tannhauser shielded himself with this new prey, and shuffled head-on into the melee, breathing and blowing as Turkish blades hacked the man’s arms off, thrusting with the Milanese sword, chain mail scraping on the steel as it pierced a gut and encountered spine. He twisted it back out, and sucked and blew, teeth gritted, and flung the gaffed and armless wretch at the charging feet of the next, who stumbled and fell to his elbows. Tannhauser lengthened his grip on the mace and coshed him and killed him with a blow, the flanges biting through the rear of the skull and dyeing the white bonnet red.

Straighten up, breathe and blow, shake the sweat. He wheezed. His chest was tight, his gorge scorched. He felt nauseous and weak. He was too far forward. Get back.

The horde shouldered one another in their frenzy to get through the choke point, their weapons constricted, one shield obstructing another. Spot the openings. Swallow the scalding bile. Kill him, kill them, kill them all. A blow glanced off his helm and hammered into his pauldron. Spike him in the privities, stab him in the neck. The fellow fought on from his knees, blinded by the fountain from his arteries, still scrabbling with his blade for the joints in Tannhauser’s plate. Tannhauser drove the finial through his temple and stepped back. Now back step again. Keep them at bay. He threw an upward sword cut to the thighs and a backstroke to the guts and a thrust to the chest, in deep and twist. Don’t look in his eyes. He’s done. And breathe, you fool, keep the knees loose, ignore the battle cries. Get back. Movement to the left—below—a face in the ditch, slash him in the eyes, forget him , face front, step back, here he comes, X-block, no room to swing, struggling face to chest, breath hot and sour, he’s strong—oh yes?—pommel strike, open him up, cosh him on the shoulders, collapse his chest, die, die, stab him in the belly, and out, and again, and out, and some steel in the throat for the Sultan, and step back—but over there—no, step back now, patience, breathe, shake the sweat, blow it off. Still too far down the causeway. Exposed. Ten seconds’ rest. Or five. He had no choice.

The first ten minutes were over and he felt sick to the gut and drained.
-TR, pg. 347-48