War God for Hire- Gladiator David Burke (bookreader TXT) 📖

Kyle didn’t hesitate though. He moved forward to capitalize on his advantage. He snapped out with a kick at the troll’s extended forearm. He caught it just above the elbow with a jarring force that knocked the defensive member out of his way.

As his kick ended, Kyle planted the foot between the legs of the troll that was still struggling to get back up. He rotated his hips and drove a punch up and under the chin that was exposed after he had kicked the arm out of the way. Kyle felt his knuckles connect under the chin of his foe.

Soft, flabby flesh first, then he felt the bone beneath as the force of his uppercut continued onward. The bone was firm and didn’t break, but he felt and even heard the grinding crunch of vertebras in the neck as Skrug’s head whipped backwards from the force. The half-troll’s body collapsed limp as wet laundry on the ground.

Competing emotions ran through him. The thrill of victory. It was his to claim. The reward for being the better warrior. He felt the need to exult. But he also stared down at the inert body on the ground. He had never killed anyone before. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Likely some of the soldiers at the quarry had died by his hand, and even some of the workers the day before that.

This was different though. To look your foe in the eyes, to see the light fade from their eyes, and to feel their body go limp was not something he had been prepared for. It was made worse by the fact that it hadn’t been his intent to kill. He had acted on instinct; a deadly instinct, he now realized. But he had seen Skrug be stabbed with spears, beaten by war hammers, and slashed by swords. Every time, the brute of a man had risen up and the wounds healed until barely even scars were visible on his leathery skin.

The audience burst out cheering.

Kyle had trouble accepting it. He didn’t know what the consequences for him would be for having killed Skrug. Beyond worrying about what would happen, he felt the conflict within him. There was a bloodlust that he didn’t know existed inside him or which perhaps hadn’t until this messed up reincarnation thing.

He was torn between guilt over having killed another man, one that he didn’t even intend to kill, and an exultation that he couldn’t seem to push aside. Then just as he started to look for a way to get down from the raised platform they were fighting on, he heard a sound behind him. It was barely above a whisper but that heightened state of awareness he had been in hadn’t faded completely.

He just barely managed to react before a thick arm swept out, trying to knock his legs out from underneath him. Kyle hopped right over it and landed ten feet away, propelled by the simple leap. Skrug was rising up and, before his eyes, the half-troll put his hands on each side of his head and then straightened out the clearly broken neck. It was morbidly fascinating and clear evidence of just how powerful the man’s regenerative properties were.

The audience which had been cheering before now erupted. The excitement of seeing Skrug rise from the dead and the fight they had all been hoping to see continue had them riled up. Kyle also realized that the thirty-foot diameter of the ring was likely a bigger detriment to him than to his foe.

He was much faster than Skrug, and even that simple hop had just carried him a third of the way across the ring. Arguably, he was stronger than the troll too, and he had other tools, so as he settled back into his calm, a crooked smile took up residence on Kyle’s face. This was what he lived for, a challenge, a chance to prove himself.

The troll charged and Kyle ducked beneath outstretched hands. The audience clearly wanted a show and while it would have been dramatic to end the fight so quickly, that wasn’t in the cards. So, Kyle would entertain them. He dodged and then pushed on his heels so that he moved forward, while driving a rapid fire of punches into exposed ribs. The bones clearly cracked under the onslaught, but if Skrug could heal from a broken neck then cracked ribs weren’t going to be anything more than an inconvenience.

For the next minute, Kyle danced around the warrior’s punches, open handed attempts to claw him with those rock-hard nails, and failed hugs. Each time he spun and made the troll pay for it. He delivered punches and kicks which would crack or break bones, even snapping his leg at one point. As much as anything, Kyle was just trying to get a measure of the man.

He was clearly faster, but if he couldn’t put the man down, then his speed didn’t matter. Kyle was also learning how much damage Skrug could take before it affected him. For his part, he was glad for the armor on his forearms and shins. While it might restrict his movement a bit, his strength was great enough to compensate for that and it made his blows all the more effective.

The smart play was to drive Skrug to the edge and then hope to knock him off, but something within Kyle rebelled at the idea. He didn’t want to win through a technicality. He wanted to prove that he was stronger. So, another idea came to him.

The next time that Skrug punched out, Kyle allowed the fist to fly right by his head and moved only the least amount required to not be struck. As before, Skrug over-extended himself, and Kyle slid up and under him. He hooked his arm around the larger man’s shoulder and then flung himself up and onto his back.

Close observation had paid off, for while Skrug’s arms were inhumanly long even for his own size, they also didn’t