That was when he realized that the human was no longer seventy-five feet away, and was almost on him, running extremely fast and closing the gap quickly. In an instant, Stilkap knew that he’d never had a real chance to kill him by drawing his pistol. This human was too fast for him, and too accurate. He needed to enter this fight with his weapons drawn, and trade shots. He could have let his Krall physique absorb damage that the human could not survive. Trading wounds could still be a winning strategy for a Krall, but it wasn’t one Stilkap would live to employ.
This human could put bullets into his brain at will. He obviously wanted to be up close and personal when he did that. Something the warrior in him could appreciate, having done that more times than he could count to other opponents. He hated this human with more passion than he knew he was capable of experiencing. Stilkap had obviously never lost a fight, or else he would already be dead. This opponent made the gunfight look too easy, it was humiliating. At least he was dying at the hands of a worthy enemy, and not from some random lucky shot on a battlefield, or a damned human artillery shell. Like the one that took his right leg and finger as it shredded his armor, over a year ago on Poldark.
Stilkap considered all of this in less than a second, and despite knowing he was beaten, was incapable of surrendering to his fate. He reached for both his knives at the same time, hoping he might be able to inflict a wound on his opponent if he foolishly came too close. The smart thing would have been for the human to kill him from a safe distance, but this incredibly fast animal did not appear to choose safe easy ways, when he selectively demolished three guns rather than kill his enemy.
It was impossible for Stilkap to avoid widening his eyes with hope, when the insane human did the least likely thing he expected. He looked past the warrior, then in a flash holstered both weapons, and reached for a knife strapped to his right leg. A blade was the most favored weapon for close quarters fighting for any Krall, and Stilkap was a master of this bloody and pleasurable killing method, where he could see his enemy’s fear, panic, and agony in intimate detail.
This would be the last brazen mistake made by this human vermin. Bullets were equalizers in some sense, because a weak enemy could score a lucky kill shot from a safe distance. A knife demanded placing yourself close to and at risk from your opponent. The human was incredibly fast, and Stilkap anticipated receiving wounds, but those he inflicted in return would soon disable his foe. He had dismantled too many humans in boredom and idle moments to forget which cuts severed tendons, or opened rapid bleed-out points their puny biology could not close down. He’d have this meat animal crawling on its gutted stomach, unable to use its arms and legs to flee from his killer. This would be a better ending than he had even hoped for when he first came out to pulp his challenger with explosive rounds.
Pulling both knives, Stilkap’s roar of satisfaction was clear to his clan mates, who knew of his unusual skill with a knife. They had watched in disbelief the methodical destruction of his three guns. A feat they had never seen another Krall accomplish, at any speed, and done by a human! That phase of the fight was over, abandoned by the human that could have won.
That initial success clearly had led it to foolish overconfidence. Despite the hand speed displayed, no human would be able to match the power of an experienced warrior’s knife thrusts and slashes. The initial wounds inflicted would gradually slow and tire the smaller weaker human, and the mastery of a Krall in the heat of glorious combat would lead to its utter domination. At this form of combat, no Krall in memory had lost to any but another Krall.
Carson knew his father and Uncle Thad would be tearing their hair out right now, because he had not taken a kill shot when he had the opportunity. However, from his vantage point, his glances at the other warriors revealed what his people couldn’t see. Not all of the four warriors behind the shuttle were as focused on this challenge match as those under the dome were. Krall confidence in each other’s ability, compared to a human, was so high that this did not qualify as high drama. One black suited warrior was watching the area around the shuttle as much as he was what was about to transpire. Another blue suited warrior, presumably the leader, was sometimes watching the gathered trucks under the dome overhang, probably watching for a sniper, sometimes glancing his way, and taking frequent quick looks at the low ground cover behind the shuttle.
A more dramatic and gripping fight to the death was needed to truly enthrall all of them. He hoped he could pull it off, but if not, the distraction still should draw all eyes to him. If the knife fight lasted long enough, his secret weapon might draw bulging eyed disbelief from his watchers.
Carson made sure to keep his feet close to the ground as he sped towards the Krall, he didn’t want to be caught in midair by some feint or thrust he’d find difficult or impossible to avoid. The Krall had a longer heavy knife much like his own, double edged with a hand guard, perhaps two inches longer than his own blade. The smaller blade looked more delicate, like a filet or skinning knife, thin shafted with no appreciable hand guard, a knife carried for torture or pleasure, depending which end you were on when used.
All he had was theoretical calculations and scientific estimates of a Krall’s strength compared to his own, so he played it safe on his approach, using his speed against its power. The wide taloned feet with claw tips that had better grip than his boots, and he nearly forgot that they qualified as an additional eight knives coming from a different direction. He slashed in as if going for a stomach cut, kicked himself back as the Krall slashed down where he expected the human’s arm would be with his large knife, and held his small knife ready for a slash or thrust if the human tried to parry the left hand.
Carson kicked down with his right foot, and bounced away as he lifted the curved sharp tip of his knife to slash up at the wrist of the right hand, which he’d anticipated would be following through on the backside of the downward left-handed slash. He cut a deep grove transversely across the inside of the wrist, but the warrior did not lose the smaller knife as he’d hoped. He quickly forgot that disappointment, as two razor sharp talons of the Krall’s left foot raked along his right calf before he pulled it away.
The Krall displayed a sneer of pleasure at delivering a greater wound than it received, and instantly moved to take advantage.
The boy felt a painful burning along his calf, but didn’t betray any expression, and didn’t look down, as the Krall quickly proved it had obviously expected him to do just that. It brought the large knife up as it lunged towards him, in an effort to skewer or cut him while he glanced at a gaping leg wound.
Carson’s blade sliced backhanded to pass under the upstroke, and deeply gashed the bottom of the forearm, using the long reach of the Krall’s full arm extension to leave that area exposed. The warrior’s sneer vanished, as it now did what it had expected Carson to do. It looked not at its own fresh forearm cut, but at the unmarked trouser over the calf, which it had struck solidly.
It paid for that minimal distraction, somewhat differently than it had expected Carson to pay. The boy pivoted on the right leg that the Krall looked at in momentary disbelief, as the left boot flashed around and kicked the right hand holding the smaller knife. The slashed wrist, and possibly the regrown lighter gray digit on the right hand, proved too weak a combination to prevent the nine-inch blade from flying out of Stilkap’s grip.
Smart cloth or not, that slashing kick hurt like hell. Carson decided he’d pay more respect to those short bowed legs. He realized that without the single nine-inch knife to grip, the bastard now had four one-inch long razor sharp tips on its right hand to use instead.
He made a feint towards the warrior who, in typical Krall fashion, moved towards him instead of backwards. This was part of the training he’d received from Uncle Thad, who had watched the Krall practice with each other, and saw them kill humans on hunts through binoculars. They nearly always advanced, on the attack, anytime you went at them.
Carson, in anticipation, used his speed to dodge
aside and go around the Krall, who quickly pivoted to keep facing him. He hadn’t been trying to get behind him exactly, just around him. He used the toe of his boot to tap sharply down on the slightly raised tip of the shorter knife the Krall had just lost. It spun up from the pavement, spinning rapidly. Hardly taking his eyes off the warrior, Carson snatched what was to him a slowly pin wheeling object out of the air by its handle.
He made a mock salute, quickly bringing the point of the blade to his left eyebrow, and tipped back out. He added a toothy smile rather than a sneer, being of a happier disposition.
Stilkap was enraged, but cagey enough to recognize that he was facing an opponent that had almost Krall-like skill and even greater speed. Blindly charging in would be a poor tactic used against another skillful warrior. He had to bring his bulk and strength into play against this smaller faster foe. He was in survival mode now, no longer contemptuous of his opponent, and had banished the shame of the gunfight loss from his mind. Gunfight!
How had that crucial detail been pushed to the back of his mind? The human had both its pistols in their holsters. It could kill him anytime it chose, but continued to play with him, as if this were a game. A chill spread down his chest that he’d never experienced before. He’d never known fear, and knew only that he did not like what he felt. He wasn’t high leadership quality, he knew that, but he was better at avoiding human traps on Poldark than many warriors that he had outlasted. He didn’t see a trap this time, but he sensed one in the delaying action of this human.
He looked around quickly, but didn’t see anything out of place, but noticed that his field of vision centered mainly on where he was looking. His peripheral vision was somewhat hazy. His cuts did not hurt, nor bleed, but that was to be expected. No, that wasn’t quite right; he should be ignoring the pain, from the two cuts, and the bruise to his chest. Only he now noticed that he didn’t need to do that. He wasn’t feeling pain that needed to be ignored.
The human walked around him and he stayed facing his enemy, but didn’t understand what new game he was playing. Now the human wasn’t even looking at him, but at the shuttle behind him. He slowly stepped nearer, and Stilkap tensed, raising his own knife and advanced a step, moving his right leg forward, using his stronger left leg as support for a sudden lunge. He felt disconnected from his movements, as if he were watching them rather than feeling them.
The human rushed forward, his right arm and knife swinging sideways in a slash that had to be blocked, but was a useless attack because it was too easy to block. The left hand simultaneously flipped the short knife around and he gripped the blade, raising his arm. With a flick of his wrist, the human threw the blade directly at his right eye. The Krall raised his hand to snatch the knife out of the air, as the human had done, but found that his right arm moved too slowly and his vision had narrowed to see just the sweep of the larger blade towards his side. It was only a last moment twist of his head to the left that prevented the small blade’s tip from penetrating his eye, possibly reaching his brain. The knife buried itself nearly in his right ear, grating against the bone. He completed his block of the inbound slash from his left, and reached up to reclaim his second knife. He’d lost sight of the human’s feet. What was wrong with his vision? Suddenly there was a heavy thud and cracking sound and his forward extended right leg was no longer supporting him. He looked to his right as he started to fall, in what seemed slow motion, and saw his leg bent backwards, as if his knee were backwards. He didn’t feel any pain, but knew from decades of seeing combat injuries that his weak newly regrown knee had snapped backwards. How had that happened?
In the background of the tunnel vision view of his broken knee, he saw the human’s feet come down. The devious creature had used the useless attack on his left side as a cover for leaping into the air and coming down with a vicious kick to his leg and snapped the joint. It didn’t explain why he had not seen the last attack coming, or been able to counter the last two. The lack of pain had to be a clue. He went to thrust the small knife at the human only to find it wasn’t in his hand after all. It must still be stuck in the side of his head and he had failed to pull it out. The human reached out and grasped his right hand, pulling him forward, finishing the collapse of his right leg. He tried to clutch at his enemy’s forearm, to hold him as he brought his left knife hand around to stab at him. He watched the human snap all four of his fingers backwards, and reached over and took his knife away from him.
He wanted desperately for the human to kill him, to end this unendurable shame and humiliation. He tried to force himself to die. That was something a captured Krall could do by stopping both hearts. It takes concentration, but he couldn’t do that. He was aware but had no sense of touch, yet his eyes would move and he could breathe and hear, but had no conscious muscle control.
The human drug his body around where he could see the shuttle, positioning his head sideways so he could see his clan mates looking at him, with what was a mixture of shock and disgust. Now he discovered he actually could experience pain, but it was nonphysical.
Carson turned his back on his paralyzed foe. The extract from the thorns of the Death Lime had done its quiet job. He wanted to smear more of the substance on his knife tip, but if his skin came into contact, he’d end up on the ground like the broken warrior behind him. The scientists had removed the terrible burning agent from the compound, which made you so keenly aware of the progress of the paralyzing component. Thad had given him the tube with a warning to be careful.
He had accomplished most of what his distraction intended to achieve. He had observed some of the progress as attention was riveted on his knife fight. It was unfortunate that the paralysis had spread as fast as it had. He’d hoped for another minute. Perhaps he could renew their focus for another minute.
“I challenge any other warrior to face me.”
Toltak’s focused her attention on him intensely, as did all four of the other warriors. They burned for an excuse to shoot him down, but they had met the honor challenge, and their representative lost. The odd but rigid Krall honor code forbade a vengeance murder. However, the human offered another challenge.
Toltak, like all of her clan mates, had observed the young human’s blistering speed and accuracy in the short gunfight. He had clearly won that easily. Why he chose to continue into a knife fight when he could have shot Stilkap at his leisure was too Krall-like to believe of a human. That part of the fight was not so one sided, and for a time Stilkap had seemed like he could win, despite some injuries. It had been impossible for the other Krall to tell if the shot that destroyed his chest pistol had penetrated to do some internal damage that caused his collapse at the end. The lack of blood wasn’t a good indicator, because bleeding from wounds always stopped quickly for the Krall.
The challenge already answered settled the original matter of honor, and there was no matter of honor involved for this new challenge. However, every single one of them wanted to accept, if Toltak permitted.
As leader, she had to consider the present circumstances, where they faced an undetermined number of humans. A claim of so many humans was ridiculous, since why would thousands of them not attack the six of them, regardless of losses.
The mindless and weak emissary had said one thing that struck true now, which had cost her a removed part when she said that. She had said criminal humans (whatever that meant) had birthed children that they had bred to be faster and stronger than the Krall. They supposedly did this in only one or two breeding cycles of the Krall, when humans normally took longer for their reproduction, hatching only one, sometimes two of their weak, slow growing cubs at a time. Toltak knew this was so, having opened some human females to see for herself, when conducting interrogations.
She looked over at the lump of the emissary, noting that it had shifted position while they were watching the fight. The breathing was more nervous now than when it had been in the human death sleep. It was awake now and pretending to sleep.
“Rudbit, rai
se the insane one here, I have questions.”
Cahill screamed again when lifted bodily, the strip of meat missing from her arm a blaze of agony. Only fear had kept her from moaning earlier.
Carson heard her, and despite his dislike for the woman, didn’t want her tortured. He’d actually assumed she was already dead. He called out again. “I demand honor to be satisfied. She is still our representative, sent to negotiate. Fight me, for your honor.”
He was desperate to get them focused on him again. “Bring her around where I can see her, to see what you have done. Have you no honor at all?” He was really trying to play the honor card, since that seemed to be the only lever that worked, sometimes.
Toltak answered with one of those bizarre twists of Krall honor and logic that left humans scratching their heads. “That is a stupid human way of thinking. The challenge satisfied the matter of honor. What I will do with this human was paid by Stilkap’s death. I will have more truth from her or I will have more pieces from her.”
“Your warrior is not dead! I will kill him if you do not return the emissary.” He didn’t want the so-called emissary, who was a traitor to the people here. He did want to make a scene that kept their attention.
Koban: The Mark of Koban Page 55