by Archmage » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:59 pm
The dead guy's plan is decent, mused Zeke. But it's not gonna fly. These guys are desperate religious nutjobs. They know they've already lost. They're gonna go out with a bang.
On the positive side, Zeke had no problem whatsoever with bangs, so long as he was the one causing them.
He had slipped away from the main battle, narrowly avoiding a few arrows that had been blindly fired into the bushes that he had chosen to use for cover. Rolling through those bushes had ultimately provided him with the opportunity he needed to get away from danger, but it was a regrettable decision on his part nonetheless. While his daughter's friends had suffered far worse wounds than he had, scrambling around on the ground in the midst of a bunch of thorny brambles had left the mercenary covered in nasty scrapes. He was bleeding, though not badly, from an entire collection of relatively shallow cuts. Briefly, the Valthi hoped that he hadn't severely misjudged his surroundings and failed to note that the plants in question were poisonous. He was an urban combatant, not a druid, and doubted he would've known the difference on sight even if he had taken the time to look. Somehow, this knowledge failed to comfort him.
Snap!
Fuck, thought Zeke, I didn't see that branch th--
The bowman before him whirled around, dropping his bow to the ground and pulling a knife in one smooth motion. He had perhaps misjudged just how close Zeke had managed to get before the sound of cracking wood had given away his position--the knife hand swung out too far, and the fanatic's elbow connected with Zeke's neck instead. The force of the blow was still sufficient to knock the Valthi off-balance; clearly, that strike had meant to plunge a short blade into its target very deeply. The firearm in Zeke's right hand went off harmlessly as he pulled the trigger out of reflex, burying a bullet into the earth.
A vision flashed briefly in Zeke's mind of a conversation he had with someone some time ago. He was standing in a training hall at the Doman castle, lecturing a young man with viciously-pointed teal hair about the art of martial combat.
You have two hands, kid, he'd said. Don't be an idiot and only use one of them. If you're gonna be conservative, at least use your off-hand for a light shield. The young man nodded. He was following the mercenary's logic so far. But if you're gonna fight like I think you are, and you're the reckless type whose motto is 'kill em' before they kill you, he'd continued, better put a weapon on that off-hand. Better yet, don't have an off-hand. Keeps em' guessing.
Zeke was the type of teacher who followed his own advice, and surely enough, his left hand grasped the handle of a wide-bladed knife with a barbed tip. His body twisted to the right from the force of his opponent's strike, and letting his gun hand fall limply to the side, he swung up toward the bowman in retaliation, using the momentum of his shifting body to his advantage.
It was not a solid blow. Too high, thought Zeke as the barbed edge of the knife scraped flesh off his enemy's forehead. It was a nasty wound, but not a lethal one. The oozing red streak across his enemy's face would not deter him from finishing what he had started. Now there was something in Zeke's left eye, obscuring his vision. Oh, he realized. That's my blood. Fucking brambles.
His opponent's knife found flesh, jabbed downward behind the outer edge of the mercenary's collarbone with a forceful thrust. Artery's that way, man, mused Zeke. Just missed it by half an inch. Your loss. Searing pain forced the Valthi's eyes to squeeze shut for a moment before he gritted his teeth and raised his right arm. The gun came back up to chest level. Fuck. So what if he missed the artery. Gonna lose a lot of blood. Doing it already. Have to pull the trigger before I pass out.
The pistol went off, and this time the shell buried itself in flesh. The fanatic's jaw slackened as he put his hand to his abdomen in disbelief, dropping his knife to the dirt. Wetness greeted his fingers as he fell, collapsing first onto his knees, then face to the ground. He had apparently not intended to part with so many body fluids in the service of Ishtar.
Well, I fucked this one up, thought Zeke as he joined his adversary on the forest floor.