Solitaire POV: Day 42

Current Wealth: 0 silver 0 copper

Current Debt: 6 gold 14 silver 20 copper

Beam couldn’t have fought this one, and I couldn’t have explained why in the time we had. The giant was stronger, tougher and angrier than me without a doubt, but that hammer looked nasty enough to cleave right through whatever resilience my friends had gotten by spending Skillpoints.

Well, in fairness, given the throb of my fucking ribs, I’d need to spend some of my own. But for now I was still the fast guy, which made me the best pick for this fight. There were just different things to consider when weapons came in.

And neither of my friends knew their way around a knife fight like I did.

Around me, men were jeering. They didn’t like my odds against Gonads the Barbarian, and a quick glance showed that neither Beam nor Xangô disagreed. That was fine, it’d just surprise them all the more when I gutted him.

“I accept.” He growled, speaking with a voice that sounded like his lungs were cast in iron. He came on so quickly that the crowd barely had time to start roaring in excitement, hammer whipping around for my head.

I didn’t duck it, and I didn’t jump back. I lunged inwards, anticipating the swing and letting the handle catch my shoulder a full foot below the metal head. The fucker was so strong that I still felt the impact, but it wasn’t damaging, and it left me nice and close. My knife was better at that distance, biting deep into one giant pec in the instant he took to stagger back from the stab.

Fast reflexes, then. Very fast. Annoying. If I’d known about those, I’d have left him to Beam. Well, too late to pussy out now. As my mother always used to say, when the shit hits the fan you either start running, or get splattered.

I started running. It probably surprised him, the sprint was near-superhuman, and ended with a flying knee to the chest that sent him down flat on his back…But didn’t kill him. Odd. Did my force not increase alongside my Skill-enhanced velocity? A thought for later.

I interrupted it by bringing the knife down hard into his face, snarled as the man turned his head just in time to take it through the cheek instead of an eye. Teeth came free where the blade smashed deep into gums, and his agony was loud enough to almost burst my eardrums.

Then he grabbed me.

Bollocks, I thought, just an instant before he pivoted, turning as much of his strength and weight as was possible into the motion, despite the awkward angle, it sent me rolling away. He came up, and I came up faster, kneed his face again and rolled away as the hammer came back around.

I realised, then, that I’d dropped my knife, and could only swear as the giant closed in. He went at it like I was some big fucking tree he wanted to chop down, swinging left, right, always carefully ready to backstep, now, eyes watching me like a hawk.

He didn’t look so confident anymore. There was blood running down his cheek, staining his collar, and he still winced every few moments. I could catch glimpses of his mouth’s inside now that the knife was removed, flashes of white teeth being covered in red, and I didn’t think he’d ever be eating steak again.

Progress, then.

Now I just had to stop him from eating anything else. Easier said than done, because apparently those bulging muscles could swing quite quickly. My foot slipped, the hammer clipped me, and I stumbled. Halted, saw it coming up to fall down on me and realised there was nothing left but the hail-mary.

So I tackled him again.

He didn’t go down, obviously, but his balance was broken and his swing was stopped. We grappled for an instant while he tried to figure out what to do, which gave me all the time in the world to reach down.

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My fist closed tight around his balls.

There’s a technique for crushing testicles. They’re surprisingly tough, and if you want it done right, you can’t just grab on and squeeze away. You need to take a second to measure your grip, add a twist to it, and try to press them against one another. Like cracking walnuts in your hand. I hadn’t done it in quite a while.

Fortunately, I wasn’t that out of practice. I felt the soft organs give with a sickening squelch, and heard their owner scream as he spasmed, hammer dropping to the floor with a clatter. I was on it almost before it had finished rattling, snatching it up by the handle and taking a step back, opening some distance, now, rather than shrinking it.

I needed the extra room for my swing.

The hammer found its home in the man’s torso, catching the lowest ribs on his left side just below his arm. They caved in like twigs under a combat boot, and he folded over, falling to his knees and convulsing. His body was experiencing more pain than it knew what to do with, his mind pulled in too many directions to respond properly. He was still reeling by the time I adjusted my grip and brought the hammer down.

Right onto the top of his skull.

Bone was hardly an obstacle at all, even in a volume as big as this bastard’s body. It shattered, caved in, gave way and let the metal sink deep into squishy brains beneath. He started spasming, properly spasming now, some bizarre seizure taking his whole body. He rolled around, gurgling, eyes aimless and limbs kicking. I hit him again. The second blow left him still as a stone, still as a statue.

Still as a corpse, really, because that’s what he was. I eyed his ruined pulp of a head one last time to make sure, then let the weapon fall by my side.

All eyes were on me, and all mouths were silent. Weird, I hadn’t even noticed when the cheering stopped. Its absence hit me like the hammer almost had, left me stunned, slow. It might’ve gotten me killed if the adrenaline hadn’t kept my thoughts nimble and slick.

Right now, there were about thirty very confused, disbelieving enemies staring at me and my friends. I’d just won an impossible duel. And there wouldn’t be another.

I turned to Beam and Xangô, already sprinting as I called out my warning for them to do the same. They answered quickly enough that we probably had a full two or three seconds’ head start on the crowd at our backs.

Around my third stride, I felt something shift in my torso. Pain blossomed, slowing me, and I had to fight back the urge to stop running entirely. From my perspective I was barely even jogging. Still, that was enough to keep me neck-and-neck with Xangô at least. Any other time, that might’ve been a nice, satisfying reminder of how far I’d come. Now it was an irrelevance, and I ignored it.

Something hit the ground beside me, rolling and bouncing ahead. A brick? Fuck, of course, I wasn’t the only one who could throw rocks. If I remembered correctly, even my idiot species had figured that out about a million years ago. Something thudded against my shoulder, another chunk of rock, and I snarled at the impact. But didn’t fall.

It hadn’t been thrown very hard, things rarely were by the 5’6 manlets inhabiting this world. The subsequent impacts that followed, though, were threatening to compensate for their weakness with volume.

There was an alleyway up ahead, and a nice, sharp corner. Turning that might buy us some distance, if we reached it. Distance might- probably would- let our pursuers lose interest. I risked a glance over my shoulder, saw their numbers had already dwindled to a mere nine. That was more than I’d like to fight, new Skills and muscles or no, but it was a decent chunk out of the battle going on. We might actually win.

A rock hit my nose, and I swore, turning back around and forcing my sprint to hasten even as my side burned in protest. We reached the alley a few moments later, footsteps and thudding stone ringing along the walls, echoing like an orchestra.

We hit the far wall without slowing down, bouncing off it to keep our momentum and hurtling on ahead. A few moments later, the sounds of stumbling and swearing reached us. I glanced again, saw seven men now, and kept running. Another corner, then another, and now the enemy was down to five. That gave me an idea. My legs were burning, my side was splitting, and I was close to collapsing from the fatigue. My injuries had caught up to me while I moved, and I needed a rest. We’d put easily hundreds of metres between us and the pursuers. Enough to get clever.

So I roared out a challenge, turned on my heel and started moving for them. Xangô and Beam were right behind me.

And the bastards ran. Of course they did, even if they hadn’t seen the result of my challenge, they were five shrimps facing down three bastards who probably had a combined weight comparable to their own. The alley, soon enough, only held us.

Then, and only then, did I finally let myself collapse against a wall, close my eyes, and let out a nice, long string of swearing.