I feel myself returned very much to A Knight's Tale, which is a pleasant place to be brought at any time, since it's a beloved feel-good around my house.
A few suggestions.
The tense comment halfway through amused me, since I could tell you were having some difficulty making up your mind in this regard. Once that decision has been made and the chapter is edited accordingly, it'll read much more smoothly, so I'm glad you identified that necessity already. The present tense will accent the moment, the play-by-play of your narrative, which is wonderful and intense, but is also difficulty to sustain throughout a full work. The narrative past tense is generally smoother and easier to sustain, but you lose that intensity. So that's a choice that needs making.
You may also want to make explicit the royal nature of our protagonist's opponent at the end, though it's fairly obvious to the discerning reader. The explicit reference will heighten the "Oh SHIT" moment your knight is experiencing here at the end of the chapter, which will make for a lovely ending looking forward to the next.
I look forward to further pieces of the work, and to the direction it will take from here. Like I said, it feels very Knight's Tale, especially with the discussion of the sport''s mechanics there in the middle, but it's obviously not a light-hearted romp through classic rock with a feel-good get-the-girl kind of ending in sight either. I appreciate that. The fact that he's just wounded some royal someone-or-other is a wonderful jumping-off-point for some very thorough drama, and I look forward to seeing which of the myriad of choices ahead of that you take. Keep it up, Sir Author.
A few suggestions.
The tense comment halfway through amused me, since I could tell you were having some difficulty making up your mind in this regard. Once that decision has been made and the chapter is edited accordingly, it'll read much more smoothly, so I'm glad you identified that necessity already. The present tense will accent the moment, the play-by-play of your narrative, which is wonderful and intense, but is also difficulty to sustain throughout a full work. The narrative past tense is generally smoother and easier to sustain, but you lose that intensity. So that's a choice that needs making.
You may also want to make explicit the royal nature of our protagonist's opponent at the end, though it's fairly obvious to the discerning reader. The explicit reference will heighten the "Oh SHIT" moment your knight is experiencing here at the end of the chapter, which will make for a lovely ending looking forward to the next.
I look forward to further pieces of the work, and to the direction it will take from here. Like I said, it feels very Knight's Tale, especially with the discussion of the sport''s mechanics there in the middle, but it's obviously not a light-hearted romp through classic rock with a feel-good get-the-girl kind of ending in sight either. I appreciate that. The fact that he's just wounded some royal someone-or-other is a wonderful jumping-off-point for some very thorough drama, and I look forward to seeing which of the myriad of choices ahead of that you take. Keep it up, Sir Author.