Karl tucks, rolls, and is on his feet in one continuous, fluid motion. His eyes dart to the right, looking for the closest possible danger, just as Mayowen had taught him. Battleis about acting and reacting. It’s seeing everything without having to take the time to look. Karl hates these little nuggets of crazy-ass wizard wisdom, but he has to admit that Old Man Winter (for that was how Karl thought Mayowen looked and has been unable to get the thought out of his head, like it or not) was usually right. And if this particular lesson hadn’t stuck, Karl would never have been able to react to the monstrous war hammer now being swung at his head.
#
Hucus, the owner of said hammer, turns in time to see Karl gut Cooso, and he can tell that Dinmal’s clumsy, overhand chop was going to miss. So he stands, legs spread for balance and leverage, and waits for the nimble little hooman to come within range.
Dinmal swings his hammer along a path that should allow the flat end to meet up perfectly with the side of the hooman’s head. And hoomans, being such fragile creatures, often part with their heads easily enough. One swing, Dinmal thinks, should be all it takes.
#
Karl ducks even before he fully stands up. He feels the air inches above his head as it’s pushed aside by the force of the head of the hammer. He hears as it first connects with, and then quickly shatters, the hip of the axe wielding orc behind him. The newly hipless creature lets out a scream that a year ago would have been mistaken for a metal garbage can being dragged under a truck. As much as he wants to, Karl knows that he simply doesn’t have the time to turn around and see just how much damage that hammer did. He has to strike.
He swings the sword, which is pointing toward the ground, up in a big, looping arc. It picks up speed and power as it goes and comes down hard, embedding itself in the thick muscle between Hucus’ shoulder and his neck. The beast cries out, another crunching metal sound, and claws at the sword. Blood shoots out from either side of the blade in great, pulsing bursts.
Karl steps to the side as Hucus falls forward, tumbling onto Dinmal. Dinmal, his hip now in no less than 20 pieces, has no chance of withstanding the weight of his fallen comrade, and the two of them tumble to the ground in a heap of oversized gray flesh.
Once again Karl’s battle trained vision picks up an attack a split second before it will surely end his life. Meelan, the last of the Wal-Mart outpost Bludden, is three steps into a bull charge when Karl notices. He leaps to his right, but doesn’t quite make it. Meelan’s baseball glove sized hand clamps onto the back of Karl’s shirt, stopping him in mid-air.
“No more hopin-hop, hooman! Meelan got you!” The creature snarls, sounding dimly comedic, like something out of the later Dr. Seuss books. The ones that weren’t really written by the good Doctor himself. “Now you die!”
Karl’s mind races, but not with anything useful. No last second escape plan or funny little quip to go out on. Instead, he simply wonders if the Incredible Hulk’s retarded cousin here will smash him into the ground, snap his neck, or put his face through the back of his head with that mace he’s holding.
But before any of those grisly scenarios come to fruition, what appear to be a series of tiny fireworks start firing off less than an inch in front of Meelan’s face.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
The pint-size explosions burn into the soft tissue of the creature’s eyes, causing him to drop Karl and clutch at his face.
“Gyaaa!” he yells, wiping at his eyes.
A fresh round of the fireworks erupt.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Karl lands hard on his ass – hard enough to cause his own set of soundless black fireworks to appear in front of his eyes. Through them, he watches as a short, dark figure leaps from the shadows and onto the distracted orc’s back. In his hands the shadow-man has a pair of seven inch daggers, which he promptly buries in the sides of the orc’s neck. In a lightening fast twist and pull, the daggers are out again, and the area that once housed the front of Meelan’s neck bursts forth with a stream of blood. A gurgling half-choke, half-moan sputters from Meelan’s lips, his eyes roll back into his massive skull, and he falls, dead.
The shadow-man lithely hops from the falling creature’s body and lands next to Karl. He sheaths the twin daggers, gunslinger style, in holsters strapped to each thigh. He’d blended into the shadows almost to the point of invisibility. But now it’s clear that he has the hood of a black hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head. Tight around his shoulders are the straps to a backpack which also happened to be black. As he uses one hand to slide back the hood from his head, it becomes obvious that this shadow-man is, at best, a shadow boy.
13 year old Clayton Bell smiles at Karl. It is the kind of smile reserved for kids who have no idea the type of danger they’re involved in. His emerald green eyes blaze forth from his face, seemingly backlit by some deeply internal roaring fire. He holds his hand out to Karl, who takes it and stands.
“Thanks for the assist, kid.” Karl brushes at his pants, removing the patches of dirt that he picked up during his tumbles on the pavement.
Clay runs a hand through his thick, dirty blonde hair.
“Don’t thank me, Karl. I ain’t the one who saved ya.” The boy hikes a thumb over his shoulder. Karl’s eyes follow the kid’s gesture.
“Right.”
Standing behind them, about 30 yards away, is a woman. Her hands are on her hips, which are cocked to one side in that are you going to admit you fucked up way that woman can sometimes stand.
Karl looks at her and raises a hand as if to say I know, I know. The sounds of metal scraping pavement causes him to around. Clay, his face pulled down in a grimace of effort, is attempting to pick up the massive mace lying on the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Clay looks up at him, tongue now sticking out from within the grimace. “This one here… is all… messed up.” He gives up and lets the mace fall back to the ground. He sweeps his hand toward Dinmal, who is writhing on the ground. “I was gonna put it out of its misery.”
Karl walks over to Hucus’ body, places one booted foot on the side of the dead creature’s head for leverage, and pulls his sword free. There is a quick sucking sound as the open wound pulls in the cold, night air. “I’ll take care of it.”
Clay raises his hands. “Whatever, man.”
Karl walks over to the spot where Dinmal is rolling back and forth on the pavement, being careful to keep a few feet of distance between himelf and the orc. Busted hip or not, the damn thing could still be dangerous.
“Hey. Hey!”
Dinmal looks up at Karl. Tears, like newly created rivers, are streaming from the creatures eyes. His yellow, uneven teeth are clenched together and visible through his snarling lips.
“Fuuk ya, h-hooman dog!”
“Human dog?” Karl chuckles. “That’s a new one. Doesn’t make much sense, but it’s nice to know you ugly fuckers have at least a smidgen of imagination in those thick noggins of yours. You know that word? Smidgen?”
Karl brings his sword crashing down into the center of the Dinaml’s face, not bothering to give the orc a chance to respond. The blade connects with the wide, flat bridge of the creature’s nose and shatters it. The middle of its face sinks in from the force of the impact and a fountain of blood spews forth from its mouth.
Karl wrenches the sword back and forth, trying to free it from Dinaml’s face. Bone crunches with each tilt back and forth of the blade. After a half-dozen tries, it comes free.
“Whoa. That was frikkin’ nasty.” Clay looks at Karl, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his oversized gray cargo pants.