Novels2Search
Stranded at the Crossroads
17. Four Men Enter, One Man Leaves

17. Four Men Enter, One Man Leaves

Although I probably fail at it as many times as I succeed, I try to be the best me that I can be. From my point of view, that means treating other people the way they would like to be treated. Being kind. Not inflicting unnecessary misery on others. Smiling like you mean it. You know the drill. When I do fail, sometimes it is just thoughtlessness or carelessness, but other times, like many of us, my personality gets in the way. Today, I wasn’t even trying.

I was so angry, almost frothing at the mouth enraged. I had tried to make things right with Levan. When I had unknowingly destroyed his property, I had attempted to make restitution by overpaying for the animal. What did I get in return? Behind the veneer of false friendliness, Levan had schemed. He had poisoned me and bludgeoned me, robbed me and kidnapped me. He enlisted his sons to help him with the plan. What lessons was he teaching his children? How did he ever expect the world to be a better place? Sure, both of his kids were sprawled out on the side of the road, and one was quickly cooling to the ambient temperature, but what in the hell did he expect?

And then he attacked me with my own sword, the rapier I had fought for. The only way I could make this right is if he died. The only way he could make this right is if I died. Now, it was time to see which one of us would make things right.

When he lunged at me with the rapier, I could see that he had made a mistake. Sure, a high quality sword is a much better weapon that a heavy wooden staff, but only if the person wielding it is basically proficient with it. He had already demonstrated his skill with the staff. The sword though, not so much. My attempts to use the rapier had been laughable, but so were his. He used it like he had never held a sword before. When he lunged, he overbalanced and had a difficult time recovering, stumbling forward. His arm holding the sword extended straight out in front of him from the shoulder, almost like he was trying to fly like Superman. He stumbled past me but I had already dodged so far to the side that I was unable to counterattack. I am certain that if anyone from Earth was watching our engagement, they would reminisce about the time they saw two clowns fighting with inflatable weapons at the circus.

I continued to circle around to his left as he turned to face me, having recovered some semblance of balance. Our positions had essentially reversed from the start of the engagement. In a moment of clarity, I realized that I was about as good at knife fighting as Levan was wielding a sword. I needed to switch things up somehow because we were equally unskilled and he had the much better weapon. In a war of attrition, he would win.

Levan glared at me, and started stabbing at me with quick little jabs, none of which had much strength behind them. I continued to dodge, not always moving in the same direction. I couldn’t get close enough to harm him with my puny pocketknife. A couple of times, I wasn’t successful in dodging. Each time, my body was pierced by about an inch of the rapier’s tip, first in my left shoulder and then later my abdomen. I did not enjoy the experience. Even though the damage was not critical, the pain was not something I could ignore. Levan seemed to move with more confidence as the fight went on, learning what worked against me and what didn’t.

I needed to close the distance somehow to do some damage, but I wasn’t sure how to accomplish it. As time went on, I started to understand that I had fallen into the same trap that Levan had. I was grasping the hilt of my knife tightly, like it was the only solution for me to win this fight, but slowly it occurred to me that I was likely better off fighting him unarmed. At least I had some training doing that, and my recent enhancements from the essence crystal should help.

As our battle continued, Levan was starting to get winded and I wasn’t in much better shape. That’s the funny thing about that burst of anger-fueled adrenaline. It makes you feel mighty at the time, but that energy is not really sustainable. I needed to get in close and do some damage soon or I might never get the chance.

As we fought, I could feel my body healing. My foot barely bothered me anymore, and the places where the rapier had punctured my body quickly stopped bleeding. My thoughts wandered to Juma’s battle with the manticore. Sometimes, you have to take damage to do damage. So, I continued to shift around looking for an opening, trying to steer Levan into a favorable position for me. Eventually, he was shifted so the body of his dead son was just a few feet behind him. I could use that. This was my chance.

When he lunged at me again, instead of dodging to the side I quickly hopped backward, only getting nicked by the tip of the rapier. Then, when he was recovering from his thrust, I stepped forward and threw my knife at him. He instinctively flinched as the knife tumbled towards him only to grunt in derision as he glanced down to see the hilt of the knife plunking into his chest. But I was following quickly behind the knife, closing the distance between us as I charged.

I had not thought things through completely because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to him when I got there. Don’t get me wrong, I had a couple of fluid plans. As I closed the distance, I exulted because I thought the momentary distraction would be enough to allow me to do something technical to him. Perhaps I could disarm him. Unfortunately for me, he recovered more quickly than I thought possible. After all, if just takes tilting the wrist a few degrees to bring the tip of a sword back into line. I quickly realized that I was about to run myself through with my own sword, so I ducked lower and drove my shoulder into his shins.

I felt searing pain as the sword traced itself along the length of my back digging a bloody furrow, but frankly I was past the point of caring. One of my half baked plans when I charged was to knock him backwards over his son’s body, get on top of him and pummel him into submission. That likely would have worked had I targeted his waist, but my point of impact was too low. Instead, I found myself face down in the dirt, and Levan’s lower body was draped over me. My attack had folded him forward instead of backward. I really needed to get better at this whole fighting thing. My only solace was that I heard Levan cry out in pain when I hit him, so at least I did a little damage.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Quickly, we both attempted to scramble to our feet. After standing back upright, I spun to face Levan, finding that he was on his feet only an arms length away from me. Man, was his breath bad. Somehow, he had maintained his grip on the sword, as I saw him drawing his arm back to slash at me. Oh, hell no, I thought as I took a step forward and twisting from my hips delivered an elbow strike to the side of his head.

There was good news and bad news. The good news was that I had gotten close enough to avoid being cut up by the sword. The bad news is that the pommel and hand guard of a basket-hilted rapier hurt like hell when driven into the side of your ribs. I might as well add broken ribs to my tally of injuries.

I was committed now, though. I couldn’t call an injury time out. While my ribs might be broken, Levan’s bell was ringing. If you have ever been hit hard enough in the head, you know the sound that I am talking about. It’s somewhere between the warning tone from the Emergency Broadcast system in the United States and a smoke alarm. And when you hear that sound, you know that your hands and feet, your balance and coordination just don’t work as well as they typically do.

I reacted, using instincts that I am not sure I possessed until a couple of days ago. I stepped behind his right leg with my right leg, lowered my center of gravity, and torqued my body, throwing him and driving him into the ground. This time, landing with a grunt as his breath was forced out of his body, he lost his grip on the sword. I’ll give the man a compliment. There was no quit in him. He immediately tried to roll onto his side and scramble toward it as it had only landed a few feet away. I was on my feet, though, and he was on his hands and knees, so once again I drove myself forward with a sweeping front kick, trying to make the game winning fifty yard field goal. My foot scythed into his stomach and I once again hobbled around like a moron. Ouch. Same damn foot.

When I kicked him, he crumbled to the ground in a heap. I must have hit him close to his diaphragm because he was making the high pitched whale call sound of someone who has had the wind knocked out of him. Then, I did what any honorable combatant would do. I hobbled over to the rapier, picked it up, and started slashing and poking him with it. He didn’t last long. He was left lying on the ground, bleeding out not far from his dead son.

I made my way back over to the other boy, the one that I had kicked initially. He was still breathing and was starting to stir, so I killed him too. Maybe he was a nice kid. Maybe he had been intimidated into following his father’s orders. But that defense hadn’t worked for the Nazis at Nuremburg, and I couldn’t afford to leave an enemy at my back.

Quickly searching their bodies and packs, I was able to retrieve all of my gear as well as some extra food and a few coins in what I assumed was the local currency. Somewhere along the way they must have misplaced my rope, though. I couldn’t find it. Most of the coins were copper, but a couple looked like tarnished silver. At some point I had grabbed Levan’s staff and had been using it as a walking stick as my foot recovered. The rest of their gear was pretty gnarly. Their clothing looked lice-ridden, although I did find a nice pair of six-fingered work gloves on one of the boys. Taking those, I stuffed the smallest finger in each glove with some rolled up cloth torn from the cleanest looking parts of the boy’s jerkin, and pulled them on. Sure, the little fingers wouldn’t bend but at least on casual inspection my missing digits would not be so obvious. I ditched the gauntlets I had grabbed from the orcs. They were heavy and didn’t fit me anyway.

About that time, my adrenaline ran out. I suddenly felt weak in the knees, and collapsed to the ground. Then, tears started running down my face. I was not crying because I was sad, hurt or scared, but my emotions just needed a release. Then, the shakes began. I don’t know how long I sat there, my body quivering, but after a time the tears stopped flowing and my shaking subsided. Looking around, I could still see most of the herd milling around the area grazing. I am sure the animals were worth something, but I didn’t have the skill or energy to herd them anywhere and frankly as they wandered around the area, with their placid and trusting eyes, I didn’t have the heart to butcher any more of them. I had killed enough for one day, so I let them be.

Not knowing where I was, and lacking any better plan, I stood and started making my way down the trail in the same direction that we had been traveling. Some of the herd began following along with me when I started moving, but I just screamed at them and waved my arms and they ran off. As I walked, I could feel the pain of my wounds -- my shoulder, abdomen, back, ribs and foot – lessening. After walking for an hour or two, I reached a small creek. The water was clear and cold, obviously flowing down from the mountains that surrounded the valley. I stopped to drink and refill my waterskin, but was aghast when I saw my wavy reflection. I had blood all over me, both mine and others. Taking some time, I cleaned myself and my clothing up the best I could, which was not very well. Then, I forded the creek as there was no bridge, and continued trudging up the path.

I planned to continue to dark and then find a place to camp, but just before the sun was due to set, the trail intersected with a larger road. At the intersection, there was a crude sign with sloppy lettering done in some sort of dark paint. The sign said Sleetfield with an arrow pointing to the right. So, I turned right and began plodding up the road, heading towards one of the mountain ranges that framed the valley.

As I walked, I began to see more signs of civilization. There were well-tended farms with dogs that would bound out to the road and bark angrily at me until I made my way out of their territory. The road was rutted from thin-wheeled vehicles. A couple of times, I passed other groups of people, but I kept my head down and merely grunted out a greeting when our paths intersected. None of them seemed to eager to talk to me, as even with all of my attempts to clean myself and look presentable, I am certain that I looked like a hobo on a quest to find the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Finally, in the gloaming when I had almost reached the mountains, I came upon a small village surrounded by a wooden palisade. A pair of guards armored in chainmail and armed with spears flanked the gate, inspecting the people who were entering. Based upon their hulking builds, I assumed they were orcs but I couldn’t be certain from that distance in the fading light. The air carried the scent of wood fires and cooking food.

Initially, I wasn’t sure what to do. To date, my attempts at diplomacy had proven to be futile, but I was tired and hungry and if I was going to survive in this world I could use supplies and information. Certainly, I could use some new clothes since I had thoroughly ruined most of what I had with me. I was enticed by the idea of a large quantity of food and a safe place to rest to finish recovering from my injuries. I even had some money from the orcs and Levan’s crew. It was time to get the lay of the land and see what I was up against.

So, after shrugging internally, I began slowly making my way towards the gate and the guards.