The man’s eyes grew like saucers when he saw Righty begin charging him.
Righty almost got into punching range before the man suddenly stuck his sword straight forward, causing Righty to recoil in horror.
The man grinned evilly at Righty—a smug, arrogant grin.
Righty realized his normal strategy of chasing his prey down and beating it to smithereens was not going to work in this fight. He was going to have to do something he couldn’t even remember doing in a fight—react defensively.
The man continued looking at him with his nauseating sneer while holding the sword straight out towards Righty.
Suddenly, the man lurched forward, attempting to thrust his sword into Righty’s midsection. Righty quickly stepped to the side. He was about to send five brass knuckles into the man’s face, but the man quickly recoiled upon realizing his lunge had missed.
Although Righty’s fury was still in full swing, he felt his fear diminish some, as he realized that this man probably did not know how to use a sword very well. Dodging that lunge had seemed far easier than Righty would have imagined.
For a brief moment, he considered pulling out his dagger, but the thought of facing a full-length sword with that sharpened pencil somehow seemed more preposterous than his current use of brass knuckles, given he at least knew how to use them.
Both men circled each other as if in some bizarre dance, each waiting for the other to make the next move.
Righty had never been a big fan of trash talk, but instinctively the situation seemed to merit it.
“For a man with a sword, you’re awful shy about using it,” Righty taunted. “Would it help if I took these brass knuckles off and fought you fair and square with just my two bare hands?”
Righty heard one of the guy’s sidekicks howl with laughter, and Righty knew it was about to be show time.
The man charged forward at Righty and then swung the sword like it were a baseball bat in a wide swooping arc towards Righty’s ribs.
Righty reacted instinctively the same way he would have to a large haymaker punch. He scooted forward quickly, pushing off of his back leg. He landed a stiff brass jab to the man’s nose, crushing it instantly, and sending a shower of blood in all directions. This alone took a lot of the wind out of the sword swing, but even if it hadn’t, Righty had moved in so close that only the man’s forearms would hit him.
However, Righty instinctively realized that while that swing had been thwarted, there was nothing to stop the man from slicing anew, across Righty’s gut. But these thoughts were happening subconsciously at the microsecond level, not being debated in a senate. Righty threw one of the hardest overhand rights he had ever thrown in his life, directly into the man’s forehead. He felt bone give way, and the blood that spurted from it made the geyser from the man’s nose look like the proverbial blood from a turnip.
Righty grabbed the man’s sword hand and punched right down into it. He heard bones crunch like eggshells. The sword fell to the dirt. Righty grabbed the man by his right collarbone with his left hand because he could tell he was already unconscious and about to fall over, but Righty wasn’t aiming for unconscious. Not today.
Brass knuckles still in both hands, the loose fingers of his left hand spun the man around by the collarbone, and then he grabbed the man by the back of his neck. He felt armor there, and it made a nice handhold. Righty then delivered three powerful blows to the back of the man’s head. Bone, brains, and blood flew everywhere, and Righty helped the man to the ground with a good solid kick.
“Who’s next?” Righty roared.
Righty had half-expected the eleven men left standing to saunter off like whipped pups, but to his horror, he saw they all began closing in.
“Take this, Tats!” Righty screamed, tossing the now ownerless sword lying on the ground. “You need it more than I do!” he added, although in reality he felt he was the main target and thus needed it a great deal. The problem was that he felt about as confident picking up that thing and using it as a violin, neither of which he had ever touched before in his life.
He hoped perhaps Tats had some practice using a dagger or club that might translate into proficiency with this severe weapon. Tats quickly pocketed his blackjack and dagger and picked up the sword, which Righty’s toss had just deposited nearby.
Righty felt hugely relieved when he saw no more swords being wielded by the assailants, but he wasn’t exactly looking at the temple choir either. Clubs, switchblades, brass knuckles, and daggers were prevalent, and one of the men appeared to have some kind of bag with a large stone or other heavy object inside of it.
For a moment, Righty feared he would turn and find himself all alone while Tats and his gang hightailed it out of there with ten pounds of Smokeless Green, but to his immense satisfaction he saw them holding strong. Little did he know that behind their tough exteriors they had long since begun to admire him intensely, and his work with the swordsman had just tripled that.
“Let’s hit ‘em hard!” Righty urged.
He was leading no gang of pups. Though he could make quick work of any of their number and had proven that sufficiently to them, they were not to be underestimated in an all-out brawl.
Righty, however, only saw glimpses out of the corner of his eye because he was focused on what he had to do.
He went charging for who seemed to be the biggest guy still there. He was holding a club, and Righty had already decided in his mind that to win this fight he was going to have to be willing to take a few hits if that was necessary to stay on the offensive. He couldn’t afford to play defense when he was still almost double-teamed.
He went charging the guy with the club. He swung it like a baseball bat, having not learned a particularly large amount from the outcome of his associate’s efforts in the same venture. Righty delivered a stiff jab to the man’s chin with his left brass-covered fist. Although Righty knew from the strength of the impact that that was enough for a knockout blow, he wasn’t going to relent just yet. Less than a tenth of a second later, a friend joined the fun—the fist for which Righty had earned his nickname. The strong overhand right went right into the man’s jaw, pulverizing it, and spinning him around.
Without even grabbing him to slow his fall, Righty managed to crouch, spring up, and deliver a vicious left hook to the man’s temple while he was still on his way down.
CRACK!!!!
Righty felt something make the acquaintance of the back of his head rather rudely. Instinctively, he went rolling onto the ground. He was no gymnast, but while the boxing commission in Selegania had succeed in banning him from fighting in the ring, that hadn’t prevented him from continuing his boxing career unofficially in just about every bar in Ringsetter during his decade or so of binge drinking.
He had never had any formal training in anything other than boxing, but one vicious barroom fight after another had been a darn good teacher. He had learned, for example, that when one thing hits the back of your head it’s usually followed by company.
As he came up onto his feet he saw he had been struck by the mysterious bag weapon. He still didn’t know what was in that thing, but he knew one thing: It hurt like holy, righteous hell.
Warm blood trickled down the back of his neck, but he wasn’t seeing double, so he charged forward. Unlike the two batters he had just come across, this guy swung the bag around in many bizarre angles, all of which seemed pointed at Righty’s head.
Righty was no stranger to deceptive hand movements, and he was timing the man’s movements. As soon as one of the man’s wild strikes went towards Righty’s head in a downward motion, he slipped to the side and sent five brass knuckles straight into the man’s stomach. Air whooshed out, and a groan could be heard. Righty immediately delivered five body blows within less than two seconds. Ribs splintered, and the man began coughing up blood. Righty quickly crouched and shot up with an uppercut to the man’s chin, crunching bone into bits and knocking the man off his feet.
Righty saw th
at Tats was doing a pretty good job keeping two assailants in front of him at bay with his sword but was about to get hit over his head by a decent-size club. Righty sprinted towards this man and delivered one of his most vicious right hooks of all time right into the man’s ribs. He felt the brass knuckles not merely shatter the ribs but poke in a few inches behind them.
The man wheezed in pain and fell over, but at the same time, Righty suddenly heard a loud WHACKK!! on his right knee, and pain went searing through it like he had been burned with a hot poker. He stumbled to his left knee and felt something hard whack him over the head. As he hit the ground, he saw a club completing its swing through the air. Two men were in front of him. The man with the club and a man with a large steel chain with a solid ball on the end of it that appeared to perhaps be a smoothed stone.
He looked to his left and saw Tats was still doing somewhat of a good job keeping his own two problems at bay, but they were spreading out and moving to opposite sides of him, waiting to take him from behind. But he had his own two problems to worry about. He tried to stand but felt pain go shooting through his leg like a bolt of lightning and slamming him back to the ground.
He knew this was surely it. He didn’t know how in the hell he was supposed to defend himself when he couldn’t even pick himself up off of the ground.
“Take out his other knee!!” the man with the chain said, giggling, to his companion.
“Haaahahahaa!!” the demon grunted, and he lifted the club up over his head and prepared to send it crashing down into Righty’s left knee.
Then, all of a sudden, something he expected about as much as a choir of angels in this god-forsaken place transpired.
The two men went shooting up into the air, and he then felt a strong gust of wind pass over him. He wished for a better explanation than that, but it escaped him. Not wishing to miss the opportunity, he grabbed a club he saw lying vacant near his left side, used it as a crutch, and forced himself into a standing position but leaning towards his left.
He had scanned the scene. He had taken out three of the dozen attackers . . . permanently, and the guy he had just hit in the ribs was on the ground wheezing terribly. The other assailants’ bodies lay motionless on the ground, except for blood seeping from their wounds. He saw that two of his seven associates were lying motionless as well. Then he noticed an assailant on the ground that he had not fought with. They looked unconscious and possibly dead. Then, there were two assailants who had apparently either developed the best disappearing act he had ever seen or had learned how to fly. Thus, he calculated there should be five assailants left.
He noticed that although two of his associates were on the ground motionless, Tats and only one other remained. The other three must have turned tail and run. Thus, it was five versus three, and the horrifying realization dawned upon him that at this point he wasn’t sure he should even count himself as someone capable of offering resistance. Thus, a more accurate tally might be five to two.
Suddenly, his arithmetic was interrupted by the sound of faint screams becoming louder and louder and louder.
He looked up at the sky and saw that these two men had had a short career in flying. He shuffled as quickly as he could to his left, and moments later they crashed into the ground. One of the men hit the ground headfirst and sprayed Righty with his blood. The other one landed flat on his back, and his head exploded upon impact.
Before he could give any analysis to what he had just seen he saw a brief blur of something go by him. He looked to his left, where Tats had been getting surrounded a moment ago. He saw Tats still standing, but he saw two heads go plopping to the ground, their headless corpses falling to the ground beside them.
The thought would have occurred to him that it was now three against three if he still counted, but he was in shock at what he had seen. The remaining assailants looked like they had been doing some arithmetic as well, and the looks on their faces suggested they weren’t happy about the change from twelve against eight to three against three.
“Let’s beat it!” one of them said.
The motion seemed approved because no sooner were the words out of his mouth than they began sprinting away.
Then, all of a sudden, Righty saw the blur again, although this time he had a slightly better glimpse of whatever this thing was. He was tempted to call it a bird but thought that such a monstrous creature surely stretched that category well past its proper limit.
This analysis was soon distracted when he saw two of the fleeing assailants go airborne. Even the sole remaining one seemed intrigued. Not that his rapidly pumping legs slowed down even one mile per hour, but he did look upwards. Nonetheless, the bright sun in the sky blocked the view from all.
All of a sudden, a screaming sound could be heard. It was faint, but getting louder and louder.
By this time, Righty felt he knew roughly what to expect.
He looked up as far as the fierce sun would permit, and he saw a man swinging his arms wildly through the ground as he came rushing towards earth.
SMACKK!!!!!!
He landed headfirst on the ground. It was a slightly softer area, and his head didn’t splatter open, but at least three dozen bones must have broken all at once, based upon the terrifying sound Righty heard. The man’s eyes looked lifelessly up at the sun, unblinking, blood oozing from his mouth.
Righty didn’t know whether to feel relieved. This monster had struck twice, and it had gone after his enemies twice. Perhaps the next time it was going to be him or Tats that it decided to play with.
Then, it dawned on him that one of the men hadn’t come back down yet. He looked up again and saw nothing. Then, he thought he heard a faint screaming sound. He looked up again, but he still saw nothing. Then, he realized the sound was behind him. He began to turn, but suddenly, he felt a gust of wind that knocked him down to his left side.
He looked down the road at the man sprinting away, and it looked like the monster was holding a man horizontally. Then he saw the horizontal flying man crash against the fleeing assailant like a human club. He heard a loud CRACK!!! sound, saw a mist of blood, and then saw a blur going up into the sky.
“Over this way, Tats!” Righty yelled.
He saw that Tats was about ready to disappear into his familiar haunts of the large junkyard, along with his sole remaining colleague.
“We’ll be safer underneath the wagon! That thing can pick you out of the junkyard no problem!” Righty said.
Tats and his friend looked uneasily at each other but seemed to be in agreement, as they turned towards Righty’s wagon and began sprinting.
Righty shuffled over that way to join them.
Soon, they were all underneath.
For a few minutes, awkward silence reigned, the three of them ready to see the wagon go flying up into the sky at any moment, removing their sole layer of defense between themselves and the terrible beast haunting the sky above.
However, there were no more terrifying gusts of wind. No more strange disappearances. No more faint screams turning into terrifying roars.
Just silence.
Righty could tell by the look on Tats’ face that he really wanted to just get the hell out of there.
“You still have your merchandise, Tats?” Righty asked.
“Spider, go check,” Tats said to his associate, who had a large spider tattoo on his forehead.
He went running off.
“We ditched it, when we saw those guys coming,” Tats explained. “There’s a large piece of metal with a hole in it near the bench, and we put stuff there if we see cops coming or other kinds of trouble.”
Ten bags were suddenly shoved under the wagon, followed by Spider.
“It’s all here, Tats.”
Awkward silence again.
Tats looked at Righty.
“How about you, Brass—you got your stuff?”
Righty nearly laughed when it occurred to him that he had completely forgotten about the $100,000 falons. He reached
inside his coat pocket and one by one pulled out the wads of cash. They were all there.
“You look like hell, Brass,” Tats said laughing.
“I’ve felt worse, but barely!” Righty responded laughing but found to his dissatisfaction that laughter caused the wounds in his head to feel like they were taking a new beating.
“You don’t exactly look like you’re ready to go out on a date yourself,” Righty added.
Tats’s left eye was swollen shut, he had a mouse underneath his right eye, and his lip was split wide open. Spider’s large tarantula tattoo on his forehead was almost completely covered in blood. Both cheeks were swollen and full of cuts.
Righty edged himself out from underneath the wagon, and Tats and Spider followed suit.
“Well, Brass, have you seen enough of this business?”
The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four Page 34
