One of the basics of martial arts is the art of relaxed readiness. It’s a state of mind where, even after you’ve beaten your opponent, you remain aware of the fact that he might not actually be defeated. Always ready your next move.
I knew Tan-Claude had taken the full force of that punch, but deep inside I couldn’t believe the rugged bull-kin chieftain who was overflowing with combat instincts would be knocked out of a fight so easily.
When you do martial arts for a long time, there’s a technique you learn where you draw back slightly the instant an attack lands to avoid some of the impact or lessen the damage. In fact, I used this very method to get through the fight with those petty thugs working for the slave trader, ducking back when I got hit in order to lessen the damage I took.
Moreover, as a rule, karate practitioners fight with the assumption that anything they can do, their opponents can, too. And I fully expected the bullfighting minotaurs knew this very technique.
So when Tan-Claude Van Damme fell to his knees, I launched myself at him and tackled him to the ground before I had time to think. This was my chance to roll him over and get on top of his chest to land some worthwhile blows.
Tan-Claude put up almost no resistance when I tackled him, so I thought I’d be able to roll into a mount. The best possible outcome is to press down your opponent’s arms with your knees and prevent them from using their legs to fight back, but since I had tackled him so quickly, I didn’t manage to get one of his arms pinned quite right. Nothing I could do about that.
Instead, I clenched my fists and started pelting him with blows like an angry little child as he lay prone beneath me. I whacked him maybe four or five times around the face. But Tan-Claude was a bull-kin, so it wasn’t like smacking around a human. The end of his nose towered over the rest of his face, so I didn’t wind up hitting him the way I meant to.
“You got him now, Shooter! Finish him!”
“No! You can’t hit him straight on like that! You gotta punch him from the side!”
That was probably Wak’wakgoro.
Oh, I get it! Punch him from the side!
I was more or less blacked out on adrenaline so I did exactly what the crowd told me to. But now there was a problem.
Minotaurs had horns like a water buffalo’s, protruding menacingly from the sides of their head. If I didn’t want to slice my hand open on them, I had to punch methodically. One hit, another hit, careful.
“Brother! You haven’t lost yet! Don’t give up!”
“Keep goin’, Shooter!”
The cheers from the villagers intensified to the point that shouts for me to kill him were practically ringing around the clearing. Of course I wasn’t about to do anything like that, but I wanted to take this chance to land a decisive blow. I swiveled my hips back, raised a fist with all the power I could muster, when—
“Hrmph!”
I couldn’t keep Tan-Claude’s right arm pinned down with my knee. He worked it free, and the second I saw him reaching for me, he was swinging his muscled arm around my neck.
All my efforts to resist crumbled. The bull-kin chief slammed his face against my head.
“Hrrk!”
Ha. Just one shot and it was gonna be over, then.
He’d already landed a sleeper hit but he just kept going, restraining me with one arm and topping it off by pounding against my forehead over and over. My damage meter was filling up really fast.
Holy shit, I was gonna die. He was gonna kill me.
I flew between awareness and oblivion with each thump to the head until finally, with the last hit, I came back to my senses. Some instinct flared up from deep inside. It was as if my unconscious mind had decided that it was kill or be killed. My body pushed past the limits of pain and began to act.
Here’s what happened.
At some point, Tan-Claude broke the hold I’d put on him with my knees and started to lift me up in both arms. I slammed my knees into his cheeks, hoping to rip his face right the hell off.
(I don’t think I would ever do that in a regular sparring match. I mean, for one, the referee would put a stop to it if anyone ever did that in any competition ever.)
Then, from that vicious angle, I held my weight on his shoulders and returned the blows he’d given me hit. For. Hit. I remember swinging my knee into his jaw hard enough to break it once, twice, maybe three or four times. Crack. Crack. Crack.
One time I failed to connect and I lacerated my knee on his horns, but instead of worrying about the pain or broken bones, I chose to keep slamming my knee into his head.
“Enough, Shooter! That’s enough!”
“Shut up! Kill that oxman!”
“He’s already unconscious! Chill out!”
Before I realized what was going on, several people had rushed out of the crowd and grabbed my arms and legs. They were pulling me off Tan-Claude.
I was possessed. I have a horrible memory of knocking Wak’wakgoro out cold with one hit, not to mention swinging my arm back to hit Nishka in the face. I even landed one of my favorite pro wrestling moves—a shining wizard kick!—to handsome Camulla’s stomach. Gimul was the last one standing. He held on desperately from behind my back, restraining me as best he could. But even him I managed to toss off with a shoulder throw. And as soon as he stood back up, I dropped him with a high-kick.