Boralus, Ashvane Company Yards, Saturday evening. Daihlia “Dee” Dellaine entered the dockside ring with a nervous smile, surrendered her dagger to Commander Connor Pickens and took several fortifying pulls of cider. She left with a trophy, the name “Scalper, Saber-Slayer” and the distinction of being the Ashvane Docks’ seventh champion.
Getting there required Dellaine to bring down a draenei several times her size, wrestle a friend into submission and survive a close final against the kaldorei Thaela. Around her, fighters were kicked from their feet, driven into the mud and carried away on a stretcher. One of them later struck a medic and escaped those trying to restrain him by leaping into a nearby canal.
Six brawlers answered organiser Archibold Jawkins’ call: Dellaine, Thaela, Greg “the Grappler” McGraw, Taelidori Sunfist, Alessandre and Wakener K’aaros, known in the ring as “the Meteor”. Pickens collected weapons and kept a stretcher beside the circle. This appeared pessimistic for roughly the first few minutes.
McGraw and Sunfist opened the fighting. Sunfist drove forward with a hook aimed at his head, but the larger Kul Tiran caught the blow on a forearm and crowded her before she could recover. He wrapped both arms around her middle while she hammered knees into him at close range, then dipped, drove through her centre and brought her down under his weight. McGraw advanced.
Thaela met Alessandre next. He moved first, testing her stance with a heel towards the knee; she twisted clear and answered with a kick to his thigh. Alessandre caught her leg and tried to turn her momentum into a fall, but the kaldorei staggered, recovered and lashed out again. Her second kick struck his knee and sent him to the ground.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t go kick for kick with a kaldorei,” Alessandre conceded after accepting Thaela’s hand back to his feet. “They’ve always got legs for days.”
Dellaine’s first opponent offered the most obvious mismatch in size. Jawkins initially asked K’aaros to exercise restraint, an arrangement Dellaine rejected from the ring.
“I never accepted the lesser parameters!”
She made herself small, darted inside the draenei’s reach and drove a fist towards his kidney. K’aaros answered with his tail, catching one of her legs and whipping her onto her back. Dellaine kicked upwards into the joint of his leg, rolled away from an attempted crushing embrace and sprang back towards him. Her hands closed around the braid behind his head and she hauled. K’aaros came down hard, taking Dellaine with him but losing the bout.
Jawkins named her “Dee the Scalper”. Pickens, who had kept one hand near the stretcher during the exchange, could only repeat it with some surprise.
A Giant Falls
Thaela’s second bout, against McGraw, became the longest and hardest contest of the evening. The kaldorei circled, kicked at his ribs and repeatedly slipped beyond the reach of his arms. McGraw proved far quicker than his build suggested. He crashed a shoulder into her, sent her stumbling and later ran a tight circle around her before charging in with both arms spread for a lift.
Thaela ducked the grasp, turned and drove a kick into the side of his head. McGraw lurched away, managed an “Ahoy” towards the spectators and fell face-first into the mud.
Alessandre found a pulse. Pickens ran in with the stretcher, while Thaela’s victory celebration stopped long enough for her to ask, “He’s not dead, is he?” He was not, though moving him required both Pickens and K’aaros.
With Thaela through to the final, Dellaine faced Alessandre for the remaining place. Their bout collapsed quickly into wrestling and grappling. Dellaine seized Alessandre by the beard, pulled him into range and punched him sharply in the stomach, bringing his second attempt at the tournament to an end.
The final had to wait.
McGraw regained consciousness after a medic known as Dash used smelling salts. Disoriented and demanding to be left alone, McGraw struck the medic. Pickens issued a warning and Dash initially declined to pursue the matter, but the argument continued until McGraw rose as if ready to fight again. Dash walks with a cane and had approached to provide aid, not to enter the competition.
Bouncers hired from the Hourglass closed on McGraw with Pickens. Rather than submit, the brawler broke away and jumped into the canal. At a dockside contest, the water is always available as an exit. It is rarely the one intended by the organiser.
McGraw’s whereabouts were unknown when the event concluded. The Lion’s Roar has seen no account of a later arrest, nor of any charge arising from the strike.
The Scalper and the Nightsaber
Thaela and Dellaine finally entered the ring with little distance left between them. The two traded a fast series of blows at close quarters, neither giving the other room to settle. Thaela had used her reach and kicks to dismantle Alessandre and McGraw; Dellaine pressed inside them.
The decisive exchange came when Dellaine caught Thaela by both cloak and hair, dragged the kaldorei forward and drove repeated knees into her. Thaela could not break the hold. Jawkins called the bout, and Dellaine emerged as champion.
The organiser hailed her as “the Scalper, Saber-Slayer” and presented her with the champion’s trophy. Coin purses were also awarded to several fighters who had performed well, and the crowd applauded the competitors whose evening had ended without a swim.
The Boralus brawl at the Ashvane Docks happens weekly. It starts at the Hourglass. Signups from 20:00 and the brawl starts at 20:30. It is organised and hosted by Archibold Jawkins.