Chapter 49
Rage Vs Fury
It isn’t that Arium is strong, though he is. I’m strong too. The same can be said for his size. He is a little bigger than I am but not enough to matter. It’s not even the unnatural durability his curse gives him, I have fought plenty of people who take a real killing to put down.
No, none of that stuff really puts me off as Arium crashes into range with me. It's the sheer ferocity. The pig cursed’s hammers never stop moving as he looks to overwhelm. There are plenty of gaps in his defence but taking advantage of them without somehow avoiding a counter blow is a weak proposition at best.
It would be a different story if I had my type two medium axe; in that case, I could do what I call the Iron Wall. Stand my ground and use the added weight of the axe to batter the attacks aside to make his openings massive. With the lighter type one in hand, I find his blows a lot harder to stop.
Arium’s war hammers and my stupid little axe seem to weigh about the same, which I could deal with easily enough if the fucking things weren’t such a risk of breaking my blade every time we clash.
You never really want to slam your weapon directly into the other fighter's unless you have a significant weight advantage so I’m used to dodging when I have to, but it would be nice to have the option. This back-foot fighting shit does not suit me at all.
Not that I have a whole lot of choice in the matter. The way one hammer strike follows relentlessly after the other no matter how I dealt with the last blow quickly forces me to give ground across the sands with frightening immediacy.
The pig boy doesn’t get it all his own way of course. I am the Beast of BloodRock, one of the best in the whole city and I’ve been planning for this for days. Every few steps I stop moving backward and pivot to the side changing the direction of my retreat.
It is in these moments that the weakness of Arium’s ceaseless aggression presents itself. He can’t take the time to cut my movement off since he’s swinging all the time and that means I’m given a clean path to send my axe toward his side without the pig-cursed having a real chance to stop it.
It's after the second time I pull the trick that Arium is finally forced to fight like a sane person. My lighter axe finding its way beneath his elbow and biting deep into the muscle around his ribs. The pig boy lets out a high-pitched squeal and disengages for the first time since the fight started.
It’s a good thing too. I’m not sure how long I could have kept his hammers at bay with the fight progressing the way it has been. I’ve already been forced to endure a taste of the bashing weapons once so far. Unable to get out of the way I stepped forward to meet the strike with my tensed and armoured upper arm. It robbed the blow of some of the force but I can’t actually feel my free arm anymore.
None of that matters now. The moment Arium takes a backwards step I’m on him like ants on a dropped meal. Biting at him from all angles with my axe and my jaw as I shift angles around the boy. He shells up pretty well, knocking aside most attacks or catching them on his forearms when he can’t.
What he isn’t good at is avoiding my strikes entirely, where I did my best Xael impersonation to dance and circle away from his relentless assault. He seems to have even less experience fighting on the backfoot than I do.
It makes sense I suppose. When was the last time Arium had fought without Corlin’s long spear backing him up? It couldn’t have been recently and their unique brand of teamwork would make putting the pig boy on the defensive all but impossible.
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He has no such support now. Just my snarling breath and blurring axe. I might not pack the punch I usually do with my type two axe, but even the Arium’s bulk can’t keep him safe from a bladed edge for long. Soon he’s starting to react to my feints and retreat entirely almost every time I raise my axe. Can’t say I blame the boy for the last forty heartbeats or so I’ve been aggressively turning his upper half into a bloody mass of shredded flesh.
He’s breathing hard and bleeding worse but Arium isn’t done yet. I can see it in his squinty little eyes, even as I’m storming my way around his defenses with blows that alternate side, angle, and height to keep him off balance. The pig cursed still thinks he can find a way to win.
I pivot again, taking a slice out of his inner forearm as Arium tries a desperate swing with both hammers at once. It doesn’t come close to catching me and my confidence that victory is only a matter of time soars.
Well, that is if Xael has been able to keep Corlin on the ground. If the human boy can’t live up to his end of the plan things are going to get complicated very quickly, and by complicated I mean awful. I assume the foreigner has things in. If he didn’t I likely would have been stabbed from above by now.
It is still a concern though as I can’t risk looking over at the other pair. On the backfoot or not Arium is too good, and too willing to go right back on the offensive for me to even spare a glance away from him.
It would be nice if my opponent was as stupid as he looked. He’s a little slower than I am physically, but he isn’t dumb. It’s one thing to know you are losing, it's another altogether to understand what you should do about it. Much to my irritation Arium knows.
The methods are different of course, yet just like I did the pig boy keeps looking for ways to change the flow of the fight. He leaves false openings or tries to bait me into attacks he can counter. None of it works until he throws one of the hammers at me.
Even having just done the same at the start of this match I didn’t even consider that he might try it. I guess it really is the kind of technique no one ever sees coming. I manage to bring my axe up in time to stop the weapon from hitting me, causing it to bounce harmlessly off onto the sand.
That doesn’t stop Arium from slamming into my midsection immediately after it though. Off guard and off balance the attempt to tackle me works quite well, sending me stumbling to the ground with the pig cursed atop me. He’s as strong as he looks, under normal circumstances I actually think he would even be more powerful than I am.
Thankfully I’ve been ripping his flesh to chunks for the better part of the fight at this point. It doesn’t matter who you are as wounded as Arium is, his strength is leaking away with each heartbeat. He knows it too and goes to work immediately trying to finish the fight from his favourable position.
I fake moving in one direction before exploding the opposite way sending us into a hectic roll as we struggle for both position and to keep a hold of our own weapons. Even with him practically bleeding to death there is no quit in the pig boy. He fights me for every moment, with everything he has left.
It doesn’t save him. Just like when we were on our feet he seems to struggle if I keep alternating directions. He can predict it I think, but he hasn’t seemed to be able to time my movements properly the whole fight. Even with good technique and ferocity backed by strength. You need to be able to time the other guy at least occasionally or you are going to lose. Just like Arium is going to lose right now.
It costs me a long gash from one of his tusks across my chest, and a few awkward hammer blows to the side but I manage to get firmly on top of the pig boy. With a final twist, I manage to ram the blade of my axe down into his cheek between his tusk and his nose.
“Fucking yield.” I hiss down at him.
When he doesn’t I slam my forearm into the back of the axe driving it into the flesh of his face.
“Yield!” I repeat ferociously.
I smash that axe head further into the meat and bone of his face twice more before Arium finally gets the message and stops fighting me. He can’t exactly get the words out properly with an axe in his face but he tries.
I’m pretty sure I get the message and he doesn’t try anything when I climb off of the boy. Panting furiously I glance around looking for the other two combatants. My spit tastes like metal, my lungs can’t decide if they ache too much to breathe or desperately need air, my chest is bleeding freely and I have at least half a dozen bruises I didn’t step onto the sands with.
“Saffron’s golden balls! I feel good!”