Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

Judging by the lame, limp response from the crowd, Byron gathered they had higher expecations than a matter-of-fact statement.

The trouble was
He didn't particularly want to recall that day. That melee, those barbed, hateful men.

"The first one went down easy, I think because I had told him he had no mother that loved him, and he smelled like a funeral,"

He had broken the tip of his blade swinging wildly at the brute's armor. He stood half a man higher, and wore metal thicker than a cauldron like it was skin. No chinks, no gaps, barely any seams. Byron had called for help the second time his blade flew uselessly back from the barbed man's plate. No help came. His comrades, his fellow damp, grumpy, terrified, underpaid sellswords were piled together in their soggy trench afraid to tackle any smoke spewing iron heathen.

Rightly so.

"We circled round, sized each other up for a bit, he had this big, studded, gnarled club, looked like a tree branch with meathooks and bear traps coming out of it! But I had experience, and the pride of my mother to help defeat him!"

Byron only managed to down the brute by turning his blade like a paddle and smacking his opponent in the knees and face until he finally toppled over, being almost half the man's size, and only wearing a fraction of the armor Byron had the element of speed, but a few backhands and rushes with razor edged armor while Byron was in  to strike had shredded whatever bare skin Byron had.

"With one great whirlwind swing, I spun the way around and caught him right on his jaw- he went flying back and landed with a mud-soaked thud that shook the earth"

The barbed man had been wayleighed, but Byron was bleeding out into his one boot, and halfblind from a cut on his head draining into an unprotected eye.
The rain helped to cleanse his sight, but he smelled the other four warriors long before he saw them approach.

He had time to pull back an overlap of armor and plunge his crooked sword into flesh, or flee back to the relative safety of his trench.

"That's when I noticed the steady march of his comrades, I could hardly wait to layout a dozen more, but they only sent four!"

He got his boot back,
and executed a half-conscious half-giant in front of his comrades, or for all he knew, his four demonic-ilk brothers.

He could've only guessed from the howling and storming and trails of scented smoke. Perhaps there was no difference to them.

"They all got together and started a long, baleful howl, probably for fear of the tiny foreigner that had dropped their friend, and their impending failure, but that's the life of a soldier- we're like loosed arrows once we start the charge- there's no turning back!"

They clattered like a legion of shelled beetles of one mind, their spears and crude wedge-like machetes high overhead. Enraged, and defiant of thunderstrike and god alike.

He hadn't the strength, speed, or remaining blood and conciousness for four more.
Of this he was certain.

"So I rooted myself there, gave them a steely glare that their souls of bare iron feared, and I raised my blade to heaven!"

Byron was barely able to keep his longest fingers locked around the pommel of his wet sword's grip.
The only reason he was still standing was by some cruel joke of the gods as he propped himself on his blade, it was still planted in the steaming, smokey flesh of his enemy. Refusing to yield from the razorman's leathery and stiff core.

The charge was almost upon him, and in desperation he could only think to do one thing
"as the first man of their attack neared, I dropped my blade and with a great crack of lightning I brought it down on his head!"

In a screaming, gibbering, exhausted panic, he cut his hands on the felled warrior's helmet, lifted it from his head and hurled it at the nearest attacker.

He was as shocked as the now halted razormen when that spiked lump of iron flew true and buried a sharp protrusion into the attacker's skull just north of his eye-socket.
A man struck dead in full charge has a very distinct and awkward tumult, especially so in slippery terrain. The force of the charge, and his immense armored body caused him to skip and roll a few times and finally slide a sick, bubbling muddy mess all the way to the body under Byron's sword.
This had a visibly demoralizing and ominous effect on the remaining three.
Byron knew he wouldn't want to fight someone that had just dropped a man by sheer dumb luck with such comical style. If these men were willing to burn smoke, and dress so ludicrous in combat, they had to be at least semi-superstitious, if not outright silly with religion. The dodgy looks and shifty, half-hearted steps were a pretty clear signal too:

They were afraid of this halfdead half-their-size unarmed man.