324 Gambling
Lugging his lance up three flights of such tight and steep stairs was not an easy task in the best conditions. Weight aside, the shape and nature of the object meant he had to be careful not to let it bang against the surroundings lest it impale itself in the wood or scrape chunks out of it. To this end, Len was developing a new sense of appreciation for Donovan and his training regime.
He wasn't racing through the ship, but he was moving a lot faster than he would have a year ago. His practice utilizing the weapon without split combined with the strength and endurance training imposed upon him at the Sanctum resulted in a greater deal of control over the weapons extremities. In short, he was able to sustain something like a jog on his trek through the galley's bowels rather than a walk.
"Damn it." A curse escaped him between breaths, a drop of blood leaking through the deck boards and hitting his forehead. He'd love to pop up through a hatch at the rear where the combat was thickest, but he knew there was a good chance of being noticed and subsequently stabbed before he could get into a combat stance.
"AH!" One of Losiram's handmaids shouted in terror as he stomped past her hiding place, not that he would stop to console her.
thump
Something heavy hit the deck above him, probably a corpse. This was a cause for concern, his exit of choice was in the area . . . he would need to choose one further back.
- - - - -
Len pushed open the bow deck-hatch slightly, enough to see the immediate surroundings without exposing himself to danger. Nothing, not even a corpse. Pushing it up the rest of the way so he could get out revealed why. Len's plan with the chef had been a success, at least a partial one.
The pirate galley tasked with dropping their men in from above was now lagging far behind the formation, the deck sails in tatters being the cause. In all likelihood it managed to deposit a few men before the chef managed to rip up the big fabric targets, evidenced by a lack of combat on the front half of the ship.
There was still a raging melee though. Lady Losiram decided to split the defense evenly between decks, the keel deck receiving a greater proportion of sailors to guards, allowing her to mount a more effective front against the boarders from the rear while still having people to defend the rest of the deck should their gambit with the chef fail. Len didn't want to say that she still ended up devoting too many of her men to the keel deck given the time it took to get the situation under control, he recognized that one less man could have meant more casualties or even total defeat, but she clearly didn't have enough hands to keep the invaders at bay.
Wasting no further time after getting to his feet, Len ran towards the nearest duel. A familiar sight, one sailor beset by two pirates, but this man was defending his back with a mast. Both a blessing and a curse, this position protected his rear while sacrificing his ability to make space. If he could hold his ground there wasn't anything to worry about, but a two versus one wasn't that simple.
Len brought his lance down from above on the man preparing to lunge, barely missing the opportunity to crush his skull. The mass of his weapon cared little though. So long as he made a clean strike on the body towards the center of mass he could crumple any foe beneath its weight, this one was no different.
WHAMP
The first pirate was slammed into the deck without even the opportunity to scream in pain, clavicle shattered and upper ribcage crushed. He probably wouldn't be able to breathe even if he survived the blow. Stepping forward to reclaim leverage over his weapon, Len swung it in an upward arc towards the remaining foe, who stepped back to avoid it. If this opponent was someone more experienced he would have taken advantage of Len's moment of weakness to close in and take him out. Unfortunately for him, he appeared to lack both combat experience and practical training, and so permitted Len to take his step forward and get under his weapon.
The attempt at blocking Len's subsequent downswing was futile, sword bouncing into his head before the lance could render it concave.
Another two kills, another wave of fatigue. Len took his mind off of it by identifying his next target.
And the next one.
And then the next one.
It was eerily similar to practicing against dummies, the gap between those having both talent for Split and combat training and those with neither making them little better than stationary targets. They couldn't block him, they couldn't move faster than him, and they certainly weren't capable of overpowering him, but Len wasn't about to get overconfident with his abilities. He was gradually becoming slower with his swings, his attacks weaker with them. The death surrounding him made him well aware that one lapse of judgement, one slip-up, would leave him yet another corpse on the deck.
- - - - -
The great advantage of Len's weapon also conferred an immense drawback, one he was aware of but hadn't truly experienced in combat. All of his attacks carried with them a great deal of inertia, granting him a practically unblockable offense and defensive options well above his build. This inertia slowed him down, sure, but it also made movement on the whole drain a great deal of energy. Every swing and stab consumed far more of his stamina than he would have liked, especially when facing opponents who clearly didn't need this level of intensity to defeat.
Where a swordsman need only swipe at his opponent's unarmored body to inflict a lethal blow, letting the sharpness of the blade cut through flesh, Len needed to swing a pole a little heavier than his whole body fast enough to shatter bone. Where a lancer could make a rapid stab to the chest to kill their opponent, Len needed to utilize his entire body to plunge the tip into their bodies. Both were practically unstoppable by opponents of this caliber, but they weren't necessary. Donovan always tried to minimize the amount of effort spent on completing a task, didn't he? Maybe he would have some ideas on how to fix this problem of Len's
This was what Len thought as he panted his way towards the rear, drenched in sweat and aching from the strain. He wanted to collapse, to drop to his knees and let everyone else take care of it. He'd earned it at this point, hadn't he? How many had he saved? How many had he killed? Couldn't they handle the rest now?
His eyes drifted towards stern, heartbeat loud in his ears. The chef had collapsed against the outer wall, holding tight his staff. He had likely pushed himself to the limit to damage the sails of the pirate ship, and Len couldn't see any injuries on him. More concerning was the body next to him - the ship's captain. He was missing his right arm from the elbow down, an injury which had been dressed with a tourniquet of sorts. His life or death was a mystery to Len, but it wasn't looking good.
Several of Losiram's guards lay in similar states around the deck, some lifeless in a pool of blood, others clinging to consciousness while tending to their comrades, all of them surrounded by the bodies of many pirates. They had been just as busy as Len, if a bit less fortunate in their selection of opponent. Where Len got to pick off unprepared and unskilled opponents with overwhelming force, these men likely had to contend with multiple enemies at once, probably the elites of this pirate gang to boot.
No better proof of this existed than the whirlwind occurring between the pirate captain and two of Losiram's guards. Scratch that, two of Losiram's guards, plus Losiram herself. She wasn't as active in the dance of chaos as her guards were either due to her single eye or lesser degree of skill, but whenever she felt it safe to make a pass at the man she did so. Unfortunately her target was as vicious as an eel and twice as slippery, so even her safe, opportunistic attacks resulted in her having to parry or dodge a counterblow.
The only grace of the situation was that this was the only real melee remaining. There were a few pirates on the gangplanks waiting to come aboard, but they weren't as eager to board as their companions prior given the carnage. This situation was, in spite of the heavy sacrifices, neutral . . .
"BWAHAHAHA!!!"
. . . and they were slowly losing that neutral position.
"Yes, YES! This is a fight! This is what I wanted!" The pirate captain laughed as he deflected two incoming stabs from the guards, returning with slash of his own. The advantage of numbers had been on his side, and he clearly possessed a much greater level of skill than the guards and Losiram. "Come on! Keep it up! Fight me! Fight for your lives!"
Every statement of his was punctuated by some form of feint or slice, pushing back the guards until they had the space to counter.
"HEHEHAHAHA!!!" Len could feel it clearly, both from his demeanor and from his memory of watching duels in the Sanctum. This man vastly outclassed his opponents. Nobody of a comparable level took this long to kill in a three versus one.
Someone could conceivably defend against two swords, parrying one and evading the other. A victory would be difficult in this situation, but possible with careful positioning and a few risky moves. Three swords presented a fundamental shift in the paradigm. Parrying one and dodging another would likely leave you open to the third strike, and the extra body greatly increased the difficulty of maintaining a favorable position - it was hard to keep your opponents in front and in check if two could keep you busy while the third worked around to your rear.
Even if Len considered him to be fighting two and a half opponents thanks to Losiram's disability, the amount of leeway needed to make a mockery of the guards whilst dealing with her assaults suggested a prowess far outclassing their own.
Len allowed himself a few seconds to catch his breath, letting the lance carry some of his weight. As the last combat capable individual in the vicinity, he needed to help. However he couldn't just jump into the fray without a plan. Len was a worse match for this man than either guard, far too slow to handle the speed of that scimitar, so it was within reason that he would be killed in an instant if he fucked this up.
- - - - -
Losiram hissed at the sting in her hand, the impact of blocking this pirate's swing much greater than her tender hands were used to. She was, by and large, unaccustomed to sword fighting. She knew the forms and theory, and had practiced with Arrewiz and her guards on occasion, but she couldn't say that she was familiar with it. Even then, her natural affinity for Split meant she was faster than her subordinates - if only for a single strike. Her single eye didn't help the situation either, though it wasn't as debilitating as it might seem. So long as she prevented him from getting around to her back left, she need only turn her head.
"Aha!" She narrowly avoided a stab to her neck, sacrificing her footing and tumbling away with a rather unladylike grunt. She recovered her stance in safety thanks to the intervention of her guards, but she was shaken up. Briefly rubbing her free hands against her throat, a visual inspection of her palm revealed a tiny stripe of blood. Whatever wound had been made wasn't large, a mere pinprick at most, but the message was clear to her. A moment's delay in her evasion would have meant her death.
Her breathing quickened in spite of attempts to keep it under control. Losiram was afraid of dying, it would be stranger if she wasn't, and already she was having to gamble against it. She hadn't even married yet! Or had children! Had she not suffered enough to at least be granted those luxuries? The stress of the situation made her concentration wander, wanting to look at anything but the threat before her.
"Len?" Almost immediately she caught sight of the figure slinking around their battlefield. Well, slinking was a bit of an overstatement, it was damn near impossible to conceal such a large, shiny pole and his skin contrasted something hideous against the black of the void, but the boy was clearly trying his hardest to go unnoticed. Losiram's awareness of his position clearly wasn't noticed by Len though, his attention solely on the flamboyant fighter before him.
This concentration gave Losiram the impetus to return to the fight. They weren't able to defeat him with their power alone, but with Len's assistance . . . well, it would certainly give them a better chance than they had right now.
- - - - -
Try as he might, Len could not determine a sure method of taking out this foe. This wasn't unusual, his opponents in the Sanctum presented similar challenges, but not being unusual didn't mean it stopped being a problem. This wasn't the Sanctum. He wouldn't find himself outside of a ring if he missed and got his throat slit, there was no safety net here. If Len fucked up here, he was going to die. Without a certain path to victory, Len could only engage in one of his least favorite activities.
Len was going to gamble.
His bet was on surprise - always a healthy thing to have on your side - and the exaggerated nature of his opponent's fighting style. All he needed was something unnecessary, something that would normally be stupid. He'd done several of these moves in the time Len observed him: rotating his scimitar around in his hand, turning his back to an opponent for a flashy spin move, intentionally placing his weight on the wrong foot to flaunt his advantage in speed - generally foolish feats that impressed nobody but inexperienced onlookers. He was a vain man, someone who thought himself, knew himself better than his foes. This was what Len bet on.
Reaching his desired position, back to the gangplanks with the melee between him and the nearest mast, Len dropped himself into position. He balanced the lance on his shoulder, gripping the portion in front of him like some crudely fashioned great sword while squatting. He pushed off the ground with his first step, bumping up the lance into a position his numb arms could better swing it from, and pushed with all his might towards the pirate captain.
Len knew his steps, deafening from a weight twice his body and then some impacting a hollow body, would not go unnoticed. He didn't care. This was his one opportunity, and the set up wouldn't get better than this.
WOOSH
He swung the lance across his body once barely in range, hitting nothing but the empty space inhabited mere moments ago.
"A valiant effort!" The owner of the voice sailed above the guards, flipping and twisting whilst deflecting their hopeless attempts at ending the fight in a graceful manner. "But such sluggish attacks will never hit me!"
Len ignored him, or rather hadn't heard him. The blood was rushing too loudly in his ears as he strained to control his lance's swing, completing a full rotation while bringing it closer to his body. This was what he gambled on. This was the opportunity he risked his life for. All he needed to do now was finished the job.
Accelerating his rotation as much as possible in the final instant before completing his turn, Len adjusted his grip towards the middle and took one last step forward, releasing his grip once he could not longer contribute to its forwards momentum. This was the culmination of two great lessons he learned at the Sanctum.
The first was something absorbed from Sanna, who had at one point been defeated by a thrown weapon. It hadn't been the primary weapon of his opponent, but it was enough of a surprise that Sanna hadn't even considered its presence. Len too had practiced throwing his lance, however this was more a result of his inability to control the absurd momentum with his small frame. It wasn't something practical, merely a learned method of separating himself from the dangerous mass, but he had spent some time practicing it as a last resort for just this sort of desperate scenario - a secret option no sane person would consider.
The second was a lesson incessantly drilled into his head by Titanyana, one he thought he could never violate owing to the pile lance's weight - not to jump. Purposely removing both feet from the ground was only to be done in a desperate situation. Once you left the ground you couldn't do much to dodge or deflect, but more importantly for the current situation -
THOCK
- you can't adjust your landing point.