Redmane rolled to his feet at the last possible instant before being chopped, clobbered and skewered at the same time.

To his sides, Radovid and Irina were engaged with the others. But he couldn’t pay attention to what they were doing, he had three foes right in front of him and they were closing in.

Redmane tracked the point of that sword with his eyes, swatted it aside with a claw when it stabbed forth, and then ducked an axe swing that might have given his face the same treatment he’d given Powder Keg Pavel.

Then down came the hammer, the blow timed perfectly to land the instant Redmane was in the middle of evading the guard’s comrade. Redmane twisted away from that, but only barely.

He noted that his investment in Grace was beginning to pay off.

These ‘Veteran Guards’ fought well together. They were in sync with one another. It wouldn’t be like fighting Stitchwork horrors, whom he could herd and corral and trip up by leading one into another’s way.

These ones held back. They didn’t advance. They covered each other’s blind spots. They understood the reach and timing of their weapons. They watched Redmane as carefully as he watched them, awaiting any opening, however small.

Redmane briefly found himself vexed by a lack of reach. This was normally not an issue, as he could move in close with alacrity after dodging, sometimes while he was dodging. But with two trained and seasoned warriors guarding his target, whichever one it was, he found his attempts to reach clawing distance thwarted over and over.

Two bullets streaked by his head. It took a moment to realize they were aimed at Irina and not him. Redmane glanced back, and to his relief he saw she’d employed a defensive Skill. The projectiles struck a glowing aegis of green, circular like a target shield, which faded after the moment of impact but remained semi-visible as a vague distortion in the air.

A hammer swung for Redmane’s face and he deflected it with a backhand.

A dramatic lunge sent the tip of a two-handed sword spearing for his gut, and he slipped sideways.

An axe came down diagonally and he stopped it between his upraised claws, struggled briefly with his opponent, and then shoved the head of the weapon aside, freeing himself from the bind.

Already the other two were coming in with more strikes. They were like a team of workmen with hammers pounding a stake into the dirt, striking the same target with such timing that two blows were on their way as soon as the first one landed.

Redmane realized the correct course of action.

It was the weapons themselves he’d have to deal with.

He’d ducked the swipe of an axe. That meant the sword was coming. Sure enough, another thrust came at Redmane’s face.

He bit the end of it off.

The swordsman grunted and looked down at his freshly truncated blade. Then the hammer wielder stepped past him, trying to cut off Redmane’s retreat to the right by swinging a sideways blow.

Redmane caught the head of the hammer in his jaws.

There was a brief tug of war, Redmane’s iron jaws versus the guard’s arms, with his weapon as the prize. During this exchange the axe man landed a direct hit on Redmane, making him wince from the pain as the weapon slammed into his side.

Corpus: 3675

Blood flowed freely from the wound. Redmane felt the cold axe blade pull free from his gut with an unnerving wet sound. He’d rather not take another blow like that, but he had mere moments before it happened again regardless of his wishes.

The guard wasn’t willing to let go of his weapon. Fair enough. Redmane bit the head of the hammer in half instead.

Now two of them had broken toys. They didn’t look happy about it.

The swordsman came at him anyway, behind an advancing flurry of slashes. But his reach was diminished now, he threatened a shorter space in front of him.

So when Redmane deflected the sword this time, he found his foe within reach.

He smacked aside the blade and clawed across the guard’s helmet, his claws slicing cleanly through the steel and deep into the flesh beneath. There was a muffled cry as the guard staggered back, blinded by the blood flowing down his face and out of the fresh rents in his helmet.

Redmane glanced to his right to see how Radovid was doing. The Warrior had already dispatched one of his three foes, and had the other two well occupied with his colossal sword. It was impressive how quickly he whipped that weapon around. Must have been a Warrior Skill of some kind, or else he simply had a very high Might.

With the swordsman grievously wounded, and blinded besides, he only had two opponents to manage as well. Now things would go quickly. The hammer wielder used the good end of his weapon, though it was looking a bit flimsy, as if a good blow against something solid, like the ground, would break it completely.

He slipped to the side of an axe swing and baited the hammer wielder by advancing on him, arms low, his head wide open. He gave him a challenging snarl to further sell it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The hammer guard bellowed back and raised his weapon high.

Redmane stood prepared. The blow came straight down, and he darted away at the last second so that it struck the ground.

Which broke off the other end of the hammer, leaving the Veteran Guard with a stick.

The axe wielder rushed in, roaring, swinging the head of his weapon in a wheel-like pattern to ward Redmane off before he could lunge in and finish off his comrade. It worked, for a moment. Redmane turned his attention to this one instead, snapping at him, raking claws across armor faster than the guard could hope to keep up.

Which is when the other guard, freshly disarmed, leapt onto Redmane and bear hugged him, pinning his arms.

Redmane grunted and tried to shrug him off, but he couldn’t do so immediately. He was a strong one, and extra heavy in the plate armor. The axe wielding guard acted in perfect sync with his comrade, as they all had throughout this engagement. No sooner did the weaponless guard pin Redmane’s arms against his sides did he bring his weapon high overhead, for a downward stroke that would split Redmane’s head in half.

They were smart, yes. Well trained and experienced.

But somehow unwise enough to repeat the same mistake.

Perhaps they weren’t used to someone biting their weapons.

Redmane didn’t try to break free. He simply turned his head and caught the axe in his teeth.

When his jaw clamped down, the weapon shattered.

Now he could focus on breaking free.

He twisted around, put his hand on the side of the guard’s helmet and bit into it. The guard screamed as he felt teeth stab right through the metal and into his head. He lost his grip on Redmane, lost all sense of composure whatsoever, and desperately flailed while toppling over with a hungry Predator on top of him.

One more solid bite through the head and the guard did naught but twitch on the ground.

Which left only one.

At last Redmane saw his discipline give way. He saw fear. The guard backpedaled slowly, retreating from the image of Redmane crouched over his comrade, grinning, blood on his teeth.

Redmane leapt like a wolf and finished him with a bite to the throat.

Crouched over a second kill, he was sorely tempted to hunch over and glut himself on the flesh of warriors.

There was a deafening boom.

Redmane looked up, and another cannonball struck him full in the gut.

Corpus: 2510

The cannonball kept going, and it took Redmane with it, his body doubled over around the weighty projectile streaking through the air. He and the cannonball flew backward as one, until they struck a corner turret of the bridge itself, the impact crushing Redmane’s midsection from both ends.

He sat on the ground with his back against the cracked stone, coughed up a gout of blood. The cannonball rolled off his stomach and across the stones for a few feet. He could feel his insides knitting themselves back together, but it would be a moment. All those bones and organs had been reduced to a bloody soup inside him.

And Laszlo was already done loading another charge of powder and cannonball into the gun mounted on Stenn’s arm, by the look of it. Redmane’s vision was hazy, but he was relatively sure the giant was aiming right at him.

Another boom.

Redmane tucked and rolled, and the cannonball blasted apart the stones he’d been resting on.

He stumbled to his feet, spat out a mouthful of blood on the stones, and broke into a run toward Laszlo and Stenn.

Radovid was already sprinting in the same direction, his blade held low. And he was ahead of Redmane now, having been fortunate enough not to have been struck in the gut by a cannon and sent flying backwards.

He swung for Stenn’s leg, and the giant blocked the massive sword with his equally massive cannon. Stenn answered with a downward blow with his axe, which the Imbued deflected with his great blade angled downward.

The musketeers in the back finished loading their weapons for another volley, which they aimed at Redmane this time. Six shots cracked off almost as one, sending a hail of merciless metal in his direction. A few of those bullets pelted around his feet harmlessly. One zipped by his ear. Two struck true, one in the shoulder, one in the gut.

Corpus: 1766

For a moment Redmane considered going around the giant and attending to those marksmen, but Irina was a step ahead of him. Two Aelia’s Emerald Lances shot forth from behind him, one after another, taking a beastman each off their feet for good.

She seemed like she could handle those.

So Redmane joined her brother, aimed his charge at Laszlo and Stenn.

He swerved toward Stenn’s blind side and struck, clawing open his armored leg and drawing blood. If it hurt, the giant didn’t show it. At the moment Stenn had his full attention on Radovid, while Laszlo clambered over his comrade’s armor like a monkey, loading another round into his cannon as quickly as he could.

Redmane made to strike again, but a sudden movement caught his eye nearly at the last instant. Stenn had his eyes on Radovid and his axe was in motion, on a backswing, but it wasn’t simply a wide blow that had been aimed at Radovid.

It was for him.

He ducked and the axe swept overhead, and as Stenn turned to face Redmane he brought his cannon arm around for a point blank shot. The cannon boomed, the sound ear-splitting at close range, and Redmane dove flat to the stone to evade another shot. He could feel the gust of wind as it blew by.

Radovid leapt and brought his sword straight down on Stenn from above.

The giant raised his cannon arm to block it, and there was a deafening ring of iron on steel.

The Imbued pressed his attack, giving Redmane a moment to roll to his feet and circle around to the giant’s blind side again. Except he didn’t truly have one. Laszlo was more than a cannon loader. He called out to his giant partner when he was in danger, signaled when either Redmane or Radovid tried to outflank them. He was an extra pair of eyes.

And there was a loaded pistol holstered behind Stenn’s head, specifically for Laszlo to quick draw on anyone who came too close.

Redmane found out when he decided to leap onto Stenn’s shoulders to get the little beastman.

Laszlo drew it, cracked off the shot.

And, to even Redmane’s surprise, he caught it in his teeth.

Redmane growled, bit it in half and spat it out.

The little beastman’s eyes widened as Redmane loomed over him.

At the last instant he tried to leap away but Redmane caught him by the scruff of the neck, kicking and flailing.

For a runt, consumable in two bites, Laszlo was surprisingly nourishing.

Corpus: 3173

Stenn, meanwhile, was completely occupied by Radovid’s relentless offense. He surely knew something bad was happening up on his shoulders, but the Imbued Warrior in front of him didn’t give him time to think about it. Radovid came at him relentlessly, his sword striking high and low at speeds such a weapon should not be capable of. It was all the giant could do to simply stand his ground and defend himself.

Redmane thought of Castellan Caslav, for some reason.

Perhaps because he was about to give Stenn the same death.

He clambered around until he was crouched squarely on the giant’s shoulders, a foot one one, the other foot perched on the edge of his ammunition barrel. With Stenn moving around in the midst of a battle with Radovid, it felt like trying to keep one’s footing on a ship in the middle of a storm.

But once he felt secure in his stance, Redmane took hold of Stenn’s helmet and ripped it off.

Stenn’s eyes went wide with surprise as his head was suddenly exposed to the evening air. He blinked and twisted his neck to see what was happening, who was behind him.

When he saw Redmane, his pudgy face flushed with rage.

“Wh-where’s me brotha?” he said.

“Fear not. You’re about to join him,” said Redmane.

He bit into the top of Stenn’s head and the giant screamed.