Chapter 6

Seamus flew forward, his axe flying with the speed and force of a freight train. The Baron side stepped and tried to slash Seamus’s stomach, but Seamus stopped the momentum of his swing and twisted his axe, knocking the Baron’s slash away with the haft of his axe and using the momentum to bring the head down on the Baron’s shoulder. The Baron threw himself to the side, just barely getting out of the way as the axe bit into the ground, sending out chunks of brick and soil as it impacted with the force of a jackhammer.

The Baron rolled to recover and rushed at Seamus, raising his saber above his head as he charged. Seamus prepared to knock away the strike and counter attack. The Baron slashed down at Seamus’s thigh and Seamus’s axe flew downward, connecting with the Baron’s sword and almost driving it from his hand. The Baron looked down for a split second to check his footing, there were pebbles strewn around that were making it harder for him to recover. Seamus brought his axe up and swung at his head.

The Baron brought his sword up just in time to parry the strike, but before the axe connected Seamus feinted his strike and swung the haft, connecting with the Baron’s head and knocking him over. Seamus jumped at the Baron and swung his axe in a great arc, attempting to bury it in his chest. The Baron rolled to the side and jumped to his feet, barely bringing his guard up in time to deflect Seamus’s next attack.

Seamus and the Baron were a hair's breadth away from each other, their weapons moving faster than the eye could follow. There was no time for thinking, no time for clever tricks or cunning plans, they both simply reacted to each other as quickly as they could manage. The Baron was close enough that Seamus had to raise his grip on the axe, allowing him to move faster but making his strikes weaker. If one of his hits connected it could still be catastrophic, but his blows had less force than before, allowing the Baron to parry his strikes without his sword being flung out of his hands.

After a couple more seconds of frantic attacks and parries they locked weapons, pushing on each other. Seamus was obviously stronger than the Baron, If things continued the way they were, the Baron would lose handily. The Baron, desperate for a moment to catch his breath, lifted his leg up to Seamus’s chest and pushed as hard as he could, dislodging their weapons and pushing him back, giving them both time to breathe.

The Baron needed a moment to clear his head, sometimes he could tell exactly what someone was about to do before they did it and react to it as soon as they did it. But sometimes he couldn’t. He needs to figure out why this happens and how to make it more consistent.

Seamus was breathing hard, swinging that heavy axe as fast and hard as he was must have been extremely tiring. The Baron began inching forward, he lifted his saber, his saber arm behind him, angling the saber horizontally above his head pointed at his enemy, his arm was perpendicular to his saber, and his stance deepened.

Seamus lifted his axe and stuck it out towards the Baron, his stance suggesting he was just waiting to react to whatever the Baron was gonna do. Seamus was obviously tiring, but the Baron still needed to be careful. Seamus was an extremely competent duelist, he was fast and his reaction time was almost unreal, though, the Baron still felt a sense of disappointment in himself. He didn't have the memories to back it up, but he had a feeling that during his prime, The Baron would have wiped the floor with Seamus.

The Baron slowly creeped forwards, his body tilting ever so slightly forward as he walked. He saw a change in Seamus’s body language that suggested that he noticed this subtle change and was wondering what the Baron was planning. The Baron’s stance was also made for reactivity, and Seamus was obviously going to wait until the Baron made a move or until he caught his breath. The Baron sighed and tilted his head slightly, changing his stance to a more offensive stance, pulling his blade forward and putting his off hand at his hip. The Baron stepped forward and quickly slashed at his shoulder, Seamus knocking the strike away easily. The Baron did the same move again, and Seamus again knocked it away. The Baron tried it for a third time, and the same thing occurred.

“Ya tirin’ lad? Aye get that ya’re ald an’ all, boot ya seem ta be slowin’ down a bit.”

The Baron just smiled and began the same attack again. Seamus went to block it but at the last second the Baron flicked his wrist, twisting his blade to stab at the other shoulder. Seamus managed to flick the head of his axe over and swiped the point of the Baron’s saber away just enough for it to not sink into his shoulder, but it still slide down his bicep, painfully gouging out a thin trail of gore through his Celtic knot tattoos. Seamus used the momentum from his block to swing the axe head down at the Baron, who dodged it by a hair's breadth and managed to land a very shallow strike on his thigh mid dodge, cutting through his pants but barely scratching his skin.

Seamus lunged at the Baron, pushing his axe forward to strike with eye. The Baron bobbed his head to the side and Seamus brought his axe down onto his shoulder and pulled, ripping through his undershirt and drawing blood, as well as pulling him forward. Seamus reset and thrusted his axe into the Baron’s stomach, hitting him with the eye of the axe and making him bend forwards. He pulled back his axe and attempted to slam down onto the Baron’s back, but at the last second the Baron pulled back and shot up, the axe only cutting through the tip of his nose. The momentum of his missed strike pulled Seamus forward, making him stumble. The Baron stabbed at Seamus’s neck, but Seamus managed to dodge slightly to the right, avoiding a killing blow but still taking a severe injury, the saber impaling his shoulder. They both stared at each other for a moment, almost in shock that the Baron’s stab connected, and then with a roar Seamus pushed forward, impaling himself deeper into the saber and tackled the Baron, taking him to the ground.

Seamus straddled him and began punching him in the face wildly, foam was forming in his mouth and he roared. He was entering a berserker state, probably induced by the pain of being stabbed through the shoulder. The Baron put his arms in front of his face and shook back and forth trying to make it harder to hit him in the face. Seamus's wild strikes were slow and easy to block, at least compared to his attacks earlier, but blocking them could easily break the Baron's arms ,and he didn’t want to try anything unless he was absolutely sure he could do something to stop Seamus's onslaught. After blocking his strikes for a few moments, the Baron

simultaneously parried his punch and punched Seamus squarely in the jaw, knocking him back a bit. The Baron sat up slightly and grabbed Seamus by the shoulder, pulling him into his elbow, breaking his nose and knocking out a few teeth. Seamus fell back just enough for the Baron to push him off and get to his feet. Seamus also rolled to his feet and dashed at the Baron, wildly swinging his arms, each strike carrying with it enough force to crush bone into dust.

The Baron dodged and weaved around his blows, attempting to dislodge his sword from Seamus’s shoulder. The Baron moved back as he dodged a wild haymaker and ran into a lamppost. Seamus interlaced his fingers and lifted his arms above his head, intending to crack the Baron’s skull. The Baron tucked into a ball and rolled under his legs, grabbing his ankle on the way through and pulling as hard as he could, making him faceplant. This got Seamus on the ground, but grappling was not the Baron’s forte, and it did nothing to dislodge the Baron’s sword, it was stuck in the front of his shoulder, and the pommel was currently digging into the ground under his weight.

The Baron noticed a light glimmer out of the corner of his eye and looked over at it. Seamus’s axe! The Baron began to run over to it but Seamus caught him in a bear hug and lifted him up. Seamus turned his body and threw the Baron over his shoulder, but as he was being thrown the Baron managed to catch his foot on his sword’s guard, pulling it out as he flew away. The sword clanged loudly as it landed next to him, and he rolled to recover from his fall. He looked over at Seamus and he was rushing to grab his axe.

Good idea, thought the Baron.

He rushed over and picked up his saber, turning around just in time to see Seamus’s axe flashing at him and duck under the wild swing, slashing his thigh in the same motion, cutting deeper than before. The injury didn’t slow Seamus down at all, he recovered from his whiffed attack almost instantly and swung again, shaving off some of the Baron’s hair as it passed by, barely half an inch away from shaving off the top of his skull. Some of the blood from the Baron’s split nose was trickling down into his mouth, it tasted metallic, and the Baron didn’t like it very much.

He pulled back to dodge another of Seamus’s slashes and had suddenly an idea appeared in his head. Seamus thrusted the eye of the axe at him and the Baron stepped in and grabbed the haft, getting in his face and spitting the blood into his eyes, blinding him. Seamus screamed in rage and the Baron swung his sword at him, but Seamus grabbed the Baron’s wrist and intensified his grip, attempting to crush the Baron’s bones using just his brute strength. The Baron screamed and started punching him as hard as he could, trying to get him to let go, but he would not. The Baron grabbed his head and stuck his thumb into Seamus’s eye, digging in with his nail to try and do as much damage as possible. Even in his berserker state Seamus couldn’t ignore the pain of having his eye gouged, dropping the Baron and his axe to both wipe the blood from his one good eye and grab his newly destroyed eye.

The Baron’s sword clambered away as he was released, just out of reach, he needed to do something fast or Seamus would regain his bearings, and he wasn’t sure he could actually beat him if the fight went on any longer. The Baron grabbed Seamus’s axe, it was the closest thing he could find, and went for a wild swing, spinning on his heel and abandoning any semblance of technique. He was rusty on axe forms anyways and he doubted he could wield this beast with any amount of skill. The axe connected and ripped right through the tough sinew of Seamus's neck, parting his head from it’s shoulders. The weight of the axe almost took the Baron with it, forcing him to let go and allow it to fly into the crowd of men behind him.

The Baron was glad it was over. He was drained, and his ribs hurt a lot. The Baron began to move over to his fallen sword when he felt something move behind him. Suddenly, like some unstoppable monster, Seamus’s headless body stumbled forwards and swung at the Baron with a fist the size of a dinner roast. The Baron was not expecting anything else from Seamus and barely had time to dodge the strike when he noticed it. He moved just enough to avoid getting his head caved in, the fist just grazing his head. It felt almost like he had been grazed by a cannonball. The force of the strike sent the Baron flying, and as he landed his head hit the pavement with an audible CRACK.