Chapter 5

From the rooftops Udo could see everything. He could see the Militiamen moving towards the town center, some being intercepted by small squads of the Baron’s men and others moving on unimpeded. He spotted a knight that got separated from his men. An ideal target!

He ran over to the knight, tile crushing under his feet as he pushed his leg muscles to catch up to the knight before he could find his men. As soon as he was in range Udo jumped down from the roof and tried to impale the knight as he landed. At the last second the knight noticed Udo falling and threw himself to the side, avoiding being gored by a hair's breadth.

Udo’s sword sunk into the brick like it was butter, going in about five inches before coming to a stop. Any normal sword would have broken from the forces put upon it, but the Baron has deep pockets, and Udo has always wanted an enchanted sword. Udo tried to pull his sword out, but it wouldn't budge. Udo cursed under his breath as he pulled harder on the sword and stomped on the brick it was imbedded in.

The knight charged at Udo, sword held high. He slashed down at Udo, who rolled out from under his strike and backed up to a window. The knight stepped forward and stabbed at Udo, who ducked at the last second, allowing the sword to pierce the window behind him. Udo kicked the knight in the chest, using the ledge of the window as leverage to push him up and away, sending the knight flying into Udo’s embedded sword which bent at an odd angle and almost snapped in half.

Udo elbowed the window to clear off any remaining glass and jumped into the house, which thankfully was unoccupied, to look for anything to use in his defense. The only thing he could find that had any weight and was sturdy enough to defend against the knight’s bastard sword was a cast iron pan. He sighed and went to grab it.

“Gods, this feels dumb as hell, fighting off someone with a frying pan. Wasn't that in a novel or something?”

He jumped back out the window and swung at the knight, who was running towards the window and could not stop his momentum in time to dodge Udo’s strike, so he had to block it. The weight of the frying pan almost knocked the sword out of his hand, but he managed to keep his grip and stepped back to see what weapon Udo had found.

“Pffft. What is this? A Hans Brueckner novel?”

They both shared a small chuckle before charging at each other. Udo lashed out at his head, but at the last second switched the path of his pan to strike his opponent’s wrist. The knight lifted his arm up and Udo’s pan swung under it harmlessly, the momentum too much for Udo to do any more fancy maneuvers. The knight used his movement to strike Udo with the pommel of his sword, making him stumble backwards and, combined with the weight of the pan, almost made him fall flat on his ass.

The knight pressed his advantage and swung down at Udo’s shoulder. Udo desperately tried to regain his footing and block at the same time, dropping the pan and raising his arm quickly as he could without falling over, allowing the blade to slide down his forearm, scratching the yellow paint off his Vambraces. Udo launched up and grabbed behind the man’s head, pulling him in and kneeing him repeatedly. He could feel the armor denting under the force of his repeated strikes, the armor over Udo’s knees had a small half inch knob in the middle of it for this exact purpose.

The knight managed to push him off, but only after Udo had done a number on his armor and possibly broken a few ribs, turning his body and wrenching Udo to the side as hard as possible. Udo flew through the air for a few seconds before landing on his sword, knocking the brick free of the ground with the sword still stuck inside it, the ends of the brick aligning with the edge of the blade. Udo lifted it unsteadily, the brick added a surprising amount of weight at the tip of the blade, making it extremely unwieldy. Still better than a frying pan, thought Udo.

The knight rushed forward and slashed down at him, Udo parried the blade and allowed his sword to slide down the side of the blade, slamming into the brick and breaking some of it off. Udo tried to lift it and attack but the brick’s weight, while less than before, was now lopsided, making it even harder to wield properly. The knight chambered his sword back and aimed a thrust at Udo's neck, which he dodged as the last second, readying a kick in the same motion, releasing it with extreme force. The knight stepped back and winced, obviously his ribs had taken some damage and he didn’t fancy getting that close to Udo again, giving Udo exactly what he needed: space.

Udo quickly lifted his longsword and smashed down onto the brick road, breaking the brick stuck on his sword into powder. He gave his sword a few test swings and smiled, the sword felt right again. He leaped forward, aiming for the knights head with the point of his sword. The knight moved his sword to swipe away the point of his blade, but at the last second Udo angled the stab downwards, stabbing at the exposed place in which his breastplate met his leggings. The knight couldn’t react fast enough and Udo’s blade hit home, stabbing all the way through his thigh. He could feel the bone separate as the tip of his blade connected with it.

The knight screamed at the top of his lungs and fell to his knees. Udo pulled his sword out and swiftly grabbed it by the blade, slamming the guard of his blade into the knight’s neck armor like it was an ax, feeling the shockwave crack the knight’s spine, killing him instantly. Udo pulled his guard out and kicked the knight to the ground. He let out a small moan and lay on the ground, motionless. Udo looked around and sighed, deciding that getting back on the roof would be too much of a hassle. Udo started running down alleyways, looking for a pulley or some conveniently placed boxes, anything to help him clamber back up so that he may continue his hunt.

The Baron stalked around the rooftops looking for a patrol or squad small enough that he could take them alone. He had one flash bomb, three pistols, and a fragmentation grenade he found in a box near the gatehouse. The flash bomb had its own contained fuse, all you had to do was pull the tab and the fuse would light. The fragmentation grenade required a match or something similar to light it, the coarse black fuse sticking out the top. The Baron’s pistols were flintlocks, as long as there was powder in them when the hammer struck the flints would ignite the powder and fire the bullet, though with all the running around the Baron was doing it was likely some of the powder would flitter out at some point.

After skulking around for a bit he found a small squad wandering around, only six men total, all militiamen. The Baron moved to a roof closest to the ground so he wouldn’t break his legs when he jumped and waited for them to move underneath him. They were marching in a diamond shape, one at the front and back with four men in-between them. The Baron jumped down and landed on the man in the back, the blade of his saber piecing the man's throat, and his body breaking the Baron's fall. The Baron stood up and pulled out the pistol holstered at his waist, settling into his pistol fighting stance, saber arm forward, gun arm behind with the pistol pointed in the air.

“Well?”

The alley they were in was only wide enough for two of them to come at him at once. The two men in the back charged him at the same time. They both slashed at him, one from the horizontal and the other vertical. The Baron stepped to the side and blocked simultaneously, dodging the vertical strike and stopping the horizontal strike. He used the momentum of the vertical strike against the militiaman, pulling his arm so that he fell into the wall. The second man was about to strike again and the Baron prepared for it. The militiaman pulled back for a strike to his chest and as soon as he let it loose the Baron ducked under it, allowing the blade to pass comfortably over his head and slicing the man’s thigh as the Baron rolled forward, coming up behind him and stabbing him through the back into his heart.

Another man with a small handaxe came at the Baron, who wheeled the man he stabbed around to block the ax. The ax sunk snuggly into his chest, and the Baron pushed the body forward onto his attacker, causing him to fall over. The Baron stepped forward and flicked the tip of his saber into the bottom of the man's chin, feeling the tip of the saber clonk against the inside of the man’s skull.

The man he had thrown into the wall earlier had gotten up and was moving towards him, sword held high. The man in front of him was about to slash at his head, so he rolled backwards, tripping the man running behind him and dodging the swipe at his head. The tripped man had his fall softened by the corpses of his friends, but got up very awkwardly after falling, the clothing and flesh of the bodies shifting under him as he clambered back to his feet.

The Baron decided to try something he heard from a show he watched about fighting outnumbered in a town. He lifted his pistol and shot, nailing one of the three men remaining in the head. As soon as he fired the shot he returned the gun to his holster and spun around and started jogging away. From behind him he heard one of them yell “DAMN IT! AFTER HIM!” It was exactly what he wanted. He ran for a bit, just fast enough to look like he was trying to get away but slow enough to keep the militiamen in sight. One of them was faster than others, and he pulled ahead of his comrades. Perfect! Thought the Baron. It’s working perfectly, all I have to do is isolate the fastest runners and kill them one at a time.

The Baron turned a corner and hid in a deep doorway. The fastest runner ran into the alleyway ahead of everyone else and as soon as he passed the Baron slashed at his neck as hard as he could, severing his head in one clean motion. His face got sprayed with blood and he turned the corner to finish off the last man. He was greeted by a very small dot in the distance, the last man remaining running for his life.

“Fair enough.” The Baron muttered to himself.

He found a roof close enough to the ground for him to jump to, and from there made his way to the square after reloading his pistol. There he found that 50 men had formed up, there were no knights there but he could recognize the garb of someone from the Orkney Isles, with their plaid skirts and leather armor with chainmail underneath, as well as the right side of his head shaved and the left side braided, marking him as a Berserkeri. I still don’t really know what that term means, but it keeps entering my mind when I look at Fergus.

Being a Berserkeri, he would be armed with either a handaxe and another short one handed weapon, or a two handed ax.

“Maybe I’ll challenge him to a duel, if I remember right Orkney men tend to go for that kind of thing.” He said out loud to no one in particular. “‘Suppose I could spare just one round.”

The Baron drew his pistol and shot near Seamus’s feet, which got the attention of the whole square. Seamus didn’t seem all that startled by the sudden noise, sauntering over to pick up a dane ax leaning against a well and looking up at the source of the shot.

“‘s that a challenge?” His voice was deep and scratchy.

“Ya gonna keep firin’ lik’ a babay or ya gonna fight meh lik’ a man?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make my way down there, so long as none of your men get too big for their britches so to speak.”

“Aye, ther’ll be no worries fer that! Laddies! No fightin’ tha’ kindly auldjin, yah? Aye’ll a’ve tha ‘ead a’ whoevar butts in on our wee lil’ scrap ‘ere!”

The Baron nodded and clambered down from the roof top and sauntered over to the square like he owned the place.

“Braeve man, aye? Ya ken aye’m a Berserkeri ya? No many a’ ya Empire dogs be itchin fer a fight wit tha men a’ Orkney.”

“Well, I like to think I’m a bit special.”

“Aye’ll be tha judge o’ that.”

He hoisted his axe above his head in a fighting stance. The Baron lifted his sword so the blade would rest on his opposite shoulder and began to inch forward. Now that he was a bit closer he could see that Seamus was a giant, probably around 6ft 8, maybe even 7 feet tall. His muscles were rock hard, the man looked like a greek statue, though maybe it was more poignant to call him a Celtic statue. This fight would not be as easy as he had hoped.

Is this a mistake? The Baron thought to himself and he squared up against the massive Berzerkeri.