Chapter 13 — "Goryn"
Twenty feet.
I closed it fast.
No circling. No posturing. No standing there letting him read me while I read him. I'd done enough of that in the last thirty seconds and I knew what I needed to know.
He was bigger. Stronger. Two axes against one which meant he had options I didn't. His ground was better — he was standing on flat rock and I was coming uphill at him with blood in my right eye and a left arm that had started to stiffen from the cold and the cut together.
I closed it fast because fast was the only thing that took those advantages away from him.
He met me halfway
The first exchange lasted three seconds and told me everything.
He was good.
Not garrison good. Not tournament good. The other kind — the kind built by decades of actual killing in terrain that punished mistakes with death rather than bruises. Both axes moving independently, each covering what the other wasn't, his footwork planted and certain on rock he'd been standing on his whole life.
First axe came high. Right side. I ducked under it.
Second came immediately — the low follow, already moving before the high one landed, the combination so practiced it was a single motion split into two parts.
The impact went up through the bone to my shoulder. My whole left arm went briefly numb. I twisted away from it and created distance and stood there for a half second with my left hand not responding properly and the blood from my eyebrow picking that moment to run directly into my eye.
He pressed it.
Of course he did.
He came hard and fast and I moved backward across the rock giving ground I didn't want to give because the alternative was standing still and taking what he was bringing and what he was bringing would have finished it in seconds.
Both axes working. High low. Left right. The combinations changing each time so I couldn't read the pattern. He was smart about it — no repetition, no tells, the kind of fighter who had learned that the moment your opponent found your rhythm was the moment you died.
I took another hit. Left shoulder this time. The flat of the axe rather than the blade — either deliberate or luck — but the impact was enough to knock me sideways and my boot found a loose stone on the rock and my footing went for one terrible moment.
He saw it.
He came in with everything.
I dropped.
Not fell — dropped. Deliberate. Down onto one knee on the rock and let him come over me, his axes cutting through the air where I'd been standing, his momentum carrying him forward and past.
I drove my axe into the back of his thigh as he went by.
Not deep. He was already moving and I was off balance. But deep enough. The blade found muscle and he made a sound that wasn't quite a shout and his left leg buckled briefly and he spun away from it and put the distance back between us.
Both of us breathing hard now.
His left leg was wrong. Slightly.
He knew it too.
Different this time. No combinations. Just direct — one axe driving straight at my chest with his full weight behind it, the kind of strike that said I will take what you give me to land this.
I gave him my left arm.
Let the axe hit it. Let the impact happen — Armour was their but I felt the blade open the cut that was already there wider, felt the warmth of blood coming fast now, felt my grip on that side go unreliable — and stepped inside the strike while it was still landing and drove my forehead into his face.
My skull felt the impact
He staggered.
I hit him three times in his head. Hard. The ribs taking the first two. His right ace was out of his hand now.
He grabbed my axe arm.
Got his hand on it and twisted and for a moment we were chest to chest on the rock with his weight against me and his weight was considerably more than mine and I felt my boots sliding backward on the loose shale.
He was trying to take me off the edge.
I let him push.
Let him feel it working. Let his weight commit to the direction and his feet plant for the final shove and then I dropped my weight straight down and twisted hard to the right and his momentum had nowhere to go and he went with it and we both hit the rock.
The impact knocked the air out of me.
Out of him too.
We came up at the same time.
He was faster.
My shoulder hit stone.
He was coming.
I had one second.
One second with my back against rock and my vision still white at the edges and my left arm bleeding properly now and Goryn coming at me with a axe in his left hand and everything he had left.
I threw the axe.
Not a killing throw. Not aimed at anything vital. Just threw it at his face because a man with a axe coming full speed at you with one second to work with doesn't have many options and making him flinch is one of them.
He flinched.
Turned his head.
I pushed off the rock and closed the distance with nothing in my hands and hit him with my shoulder in the chest before the axe could come back down and we went over together onto the rock and this time I was on top.
He was strong.
His axe was never to be found in his hands.
Stronger than me even then, even wounded, even with the thigh slowing him. He hit me across the ribs hard enough that something flexed in there that shouldn't flex. I felt it as heat and pressure and I ignored it.
I got my hands around his throat.
He hit me again. Ribs. The same place. I felt whatever had flexed the first time decide it had an opinion about the second.
I didn't let go.
I got a hand on it in his throat and tried to crush with all my strength. I tried to pull his throat out with my bare hands
He saw it.
Made his choice.
Both hands went for my wrist and he got them there and locked them and squeezed.
Both his hands on my right wrist.
I hit him in the guts with my left hand.
His grip broke.
The. I moved forward to crush his skull with my bare hands. I crushed it hard.
He was still alive but barely he lost his strength.
I could see that. Breathing. Eyes barely open. The left side of his face was wrong in a way faces didn't recover from and the blood was coming fast and dark onto my face but he was alive.
He looked up at me.
I looked at him.
The ridge was completely silent.
I could feel the warmth of the blood.
Blood on the rock. Blood on my hands. Blood still coming from my eyebrow into my eye and I couldn't tell if the blood in my face was my own or Goryn.
---
Donate your power Stones if you like the story. Please Comment and Share your thoughts about the story