The Tales of a Swordsman: Surprises of the Unfortunate Kind

by Dustin R. Freezen

And three. For your information, Drake means male duck. You literally named your dragon, a duck. That is a little bit emasculating.”

  “His spirit will reincarnate and come to punish us, unless we kill you.” At the tall woman’s words, the large crowd behind her moved in closer, their eyes fixed and their demeanor ready for the swordsman to put up a fight.

  “What? Who told you that?”

  “There must be a sacrifice,” she announced, never taking her eyes off the hero.

  “You people are messed up!”

  “Now, come with us quietly—”

  “No, I think I’m good. Thanks, though.” He lifted his sword, pointing it at the woman’s chest. His back was to the dragon, and the crowd was closing in from all other directions. The swordsman knew he was going to have to get creative to get himself out of this mess.

  “I will not ask you again.” The shadows on the woman’s face grew as it contorted with anger.

  “Okay…don’t.” He turned, ducked back into the jaw of the dead god and sliced his way out the other side. “See ya!” he yelled and bolted off into the cement jungle. Goop flung from his feet as he ran.

  “Get him!” She shouted.

  The swordsman darted into the first open building he found. His heart was pounding and his mind perplexed. “This is not what I was planning for tonight’s events.” He sprinted down the halls, ending in a room with an exit door. He bounded over furniture, swung the door open, and came face-to-chest with the same woman, “leader of the crazies”.

  “Dang it! How did you?”

  “This is the only other door in the building.” She sneered as she grabbed the swordsman by the shoulder.

  “Sorry, toots. No touchy.” He sliced up with his sword; grazing her arm as she pulled away.

  A spear shot through the door and wisped past the swordsman’s ear. “Whoa, why do you have spears?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He tore back down the hall and leapt through a window on the other side of the building.

  He landed in a narrow alleyway. Men were already closing in from both sides. “Crap. Only way out is up.”

  In one practiced move, he stowed his sword and shield in their proper places on his hip and back; he began climbing from window to window. He frantically scrambled up the shorter of the two buildings he was caught between, the four-story one. When he hopped over the top, men started pouring out of the roof’s door.

  “Come on!” He huffed and puffed. “It was a misunderstanding. I didn’t kill the thing on purpose. It’s a god – it gets that.” The men kept charging.

  He swung his shield off his back. “Fine, here, take this instead of me.” He hurled the shield at the roof’s door. The first couple of men sidestepped it, but the next in line coming up the stairs were hit in the gut and soared back down the way they came. The swordsman sprinted for the opposite end of the building, hoping to find a fire escape.

  “Nope, not that lucky,” he thought. “And this is not up to code. Someone could get hurt.”

  Three of the men caught up. The swordsman dodged the first attack and gave the man a little push off the edge. The next man punched high. The swordsman swiftly blocked, grabbed the man’s wrist and spun him into the punch of the third man. He continued to spin the second man until he twirled him off the building; then pivoted and firmly planted his foot into the third man’s testicles, sending him to his knees.

  “If you weren’t trying to kill me, I wouldn’t have done that. That testicle kick is your fault,” he blamed and pointed.

  The swordsman looked up to see another twenty men running his way. He whirled around and peered down over the ledge. “Hey, why not. It’s two stories down to the next building. Only two. Can you die from that? Did those guys die from that? I think they fell into the alley. Oh well, here goes nothing.”

  He stepped back several feet then ran hard towards the side and leapt.

  “This is going to hurt!” he screamed as he plummeted.

  Upon hitting, he tucked and rolled twice before regaining his footing. “Hey, that didn’t hurt. I am awesome!” He rejoiced. “Did anyone see that?” he yelled back up at his pursuers on the other building, but they had missed it. The swordsman didn’t miss the men with guns stepping forward to the boundary of the roof above.

  “Oh sh--.” He zigzagged as they opened fire, and scampered for the other end of the building. “How do I get out of here?”

  Out of nowhere, off to this right, spotlights burst on, illuminating the sunless, purple and orange sky. “Who the…the military.” He realized with eagerness. “That’s my ticket out.”

  He could hear more men, and some women this time, ascending the stairs to his level. The swordsman charged the edge, not slowing down. “Come on. Please be a building below me,” he pleaded with the fates, but didn’t give himself any time to stop if there wasn’t.

  “Nope. Suck. Here goes another two stories.”

  He jumped, trying to clear the dumpsters and cars below, but fell short of his goal.

  “Crap.”

  With a thud, he slammed into a truck bed, rolled once, and ended upside-down with his legs hanging out over the truck’s side. “Ow!”

  “There he is!” A voice came from the alley behind him.

  “I’m going to kill every single one of you peoples,” he moaned in agony.

  He sat up as quickly as he could, ignoring the pain in his back as best he could, and kept sprinting as fast as he could. None of his efforts were that good. He was getting winded, stiff, and tired. The idea crossed his mind to steal a vehicle, but the crazed mob was always too close for him to pull off the theft.

  “And I thought you folks were nice.” He had stopped in this town because of its reputation for being accommodating to swordsmen and the high rate of street fights. The last couple of weeks had been rough; he needed to release some of his pent up aggression, but with the turn of events, he’d settled for killing a dragon and spreading the word about the town’s hidden crazy side. He only had to survive long enough to do so.

  He saw the military lights in the distance. “They’re so far away,” he pouted. “And why did they even turn the lights on? Oh, right, the dragon. A little slow on the response time, but I’ll take it.”

  A plan popped into his mind, and he liked it. He kept running, looking behind him each time he entered a new alley. Part of his plan was to stay a bit ahead of the mob so they could follow him, but not catch him. A few times, gunshots rang out; they were never close. “Amateurs.”

  Finally, the swordsman came to the outskirts of town. The buildings and metropolitan landscape drastically shifted into an open prairie with short grass and more short grass.

  “I hate short grass. You can never hide in it.”

  Motorcycle engines echoed from the city and were getting louder by the second. “They were serious about this killing me thing. Three bikes; old ones by the sounds of it. I’m going to have to take them out in the field. Five bucks says I get shot in the process.”

  He patted himself down. “I have to have something I can throw…” A swordsman never loses or discards his sword unless absolutely necessary. He found the pistol from his earlier exchange with the dragon. “Oh, sweet. I forgot I kept this.”

  He checked the clip. “Dang! One bullet. I got to remember to count how many shots I take.”

  He hightailed it into the field checking over his shoulder periodically. The bikers had semi-automatic guns and were almost in range. “Not good. Not good!” He raced through the weeds. “Please don't shoot!”

  They shot. He ducked and rolled, landed on a knee, pivoted, aimed, and squeezed.

  The closest biker fell limp off the bike. The motorcycle itself went into a ditch, flipped rear-over-head, and landed on the driver of the second bike, sending up a plume of smoke.

  “Ouch…And sweet! That was lucky.”

  The third biker opened fire. The swordsman dove forwards performing a summersault. He rolled to his feet out of l
ine of the gunfire and hurled his gun at the target. Bull’s eye. The black metal smacked the driver dead center in the face, snapping his nose, and sending him off his bike. He didn’t get up.

  The swordsman celebrated with his arms raised high. “I can’t believe that worked. Three bikes with one bullet.” As he danced, he saw the mob regrouping and decided to take his party on the road. He started running again, cheerfully praising himself. “I can’t believe that worked. Who the man? I’m the man! And I didn’t get shot!”

  The pain in his back was more noticeable the longer he ran, which shut him up. He was two hundred yards from the base. He checked over his shoulder again. A spear glistened in the fading light.

  He sidestepped as the spear dug into the dirt. As soon as it landed, he plucked it from the ground. “I could have used this earlier!” he yelled back at whoever threw it; then lobbed it at the mob. He knew he was good enough that it struck someone, somewhere, so he kept moving. He heard a cry of pain a second later, and it made him smile.

  He breathed in deep several times in preparation for his last ditch effort to make it out of this crazy town. He took off at a dead sprint. “I’m getting tired of running,” he groaned in pain and exhaustion. At a hundred yards, he started screaming and trying to put on a show. He had to sell this next part for his plan to work.

  “It’s an invasion! They’re attacking you. Get ready. They’re ATTACKING!!”

  He scurried up and hid behind the sandbags at the entrance to the military base. The duck and cover