The roar of the crowd is deafening. Kashvi circled working to keep her breathing steady. The sand that scrapped between her boots and the stones below hadn't been changed in too long. In places it was pebbled by clumps of black blood and other less identifiable matter, several times she had to adjust her footing to avoid human teeth. With a roar, her opponent charged, reaching out with bear like arms to enfold her in a crushing hold. She pivoted right, slapped his left wrist aside and ducked under his hairy arm, driving her elbow back hard into his kidney, dropping to a mobile crouch and delivering a second blow to the side of his knee. The brute, a vast tattooed bruiser with thinning hair howled like a wounded bear. Kashvi came up out of the crouch and twisted into a spinning kick that landed on his hip. Unlike the first two strikes this was a low percentage shot, it felt like kicking a slab of beef but the momentum carried her clear of his lunging fist as he spun to follow her.

"Ox! Ox! Ox!" the crowd roared in blood thirsty enthusiasm. It wasn't suprising, almost all of them had money on 'Ox' to easily dispatch a slip of a girl with nothing to recommend her but the prospect of a good thrashing. It wasn't likely to be a fatal beating, these fights weren't to the death, but that didn't mean bones couldn't be broken.

Inspired by the crowd, Ox charged again trying to use his bulk to pin her against the seven foot stone wall that encircled the arena. Kashvi shifted right, as though she were about to repeat her previous trick. Ox was ready for her and swung to intercept. She caught his wrist and vaulted over him, landing with both boots on the rim of the arena before twisting and flipping backwards to land between the brutes shoulder blades. Kashvi didn't weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, but a that much weight focused on a small area couldn't be ignored. Ox staggered and smashed into the stone wall with a crunch that added a few more teeth to the carpeting. His bulk bounced off the stonework and she sprang back, landing on her hands and spring backwards to land in a fighters crouch. Ox wheeled around, blood streaming from his mouth and nose, eyes blink with pain. Seeing no reason to be charitable she kicked sand and grit into his face, ducked his bear like arms and rabbit punched him under the armpit. He kicked her with his trunk like leg and she sprawled away, narrowly avoiding the follow up kick. She set herself again, waiting for his charge, but the brute was finished, he staggered and sank to his knees with a sound like a blacksmith bellows gusting out. Kashvi hesitated for a half second, analyzing for a desperate sham and then danced forward to deliver a crushing kick to the side of the Brutes head. Blood and teeth flew in a tight arc and the Ox faceplanted into the dirt. The crowd errupted in fury, a good portion of them having lost considerable sums and filled with the understandable desire to beat it out of those few who had taken the long odds. A hail of bottles and refused rained down on Kashvi as she retreated to the iron grated entry gate, a pair of guild guards pulled it open and yanked her through out of the shower of improvised missiles.

The guild guards escorted Kashvi back to the book keepers 'office' the office was little more than an alcove fronted by a wooden desk. Behind the desk a dirty little man with bright brass spectacles sat on a pay chest in which the official guild wagers were kept. A sheet of slate was chalked with wagers and odds, including Kashvi's recently completed bout. Twenty to one.

"I guess you can dance girly," the book keeper wheezed. He pulled a pouch from under the desk and tossed it to her underhanded. She snatched it from the air like a cat intercepting a tidbit.

"I took the guilds cut, I'd get the rest to the Nightmaster, dues in two days," he wheezed and then guestured her away. The two guards didn't exactly drag her, but they would have shoved her if she hand't headed for the exit. She hefted the bag. It clinked pleasingly, it wouldn't be enough to cover her dues, but it would buy her a little extra time.