A hair's-breadth difference and I would have been skewered through the heart!
As it was, the first spear struck wide - slamming home in the support beam with a delicious thwack and a prolonged trembling. The second spear sailed overhead as I ducked, and pierced the drywall making a mushy, crumbling hole. The spear settled, wobbling and listing for a moment before sliding out to clatter onto the parquet floor of the conference room. Its shaft bore the unmistakable corporate logo of our competitors - guests here, at a supposedly friendly summit.
"Infidels!" I cried. "A fatwah be upon you!" I often spontaneously convert to Islam in moments of high stress. Crouching, I drew my ringing rapier from its jewel-encrusted scabbard and leapt forward howling articulately: "PARRY!!" "Thrust!" "Thrust!" "DODGE!" "Feint!" "En garde!" (always stab them in the neck in between the "En" and the "garde" - they will be totally paused, waiting for that "...garde!!") I dove, pirouetted and lunged in a prancing ballet of mayhem as my foes listed to all sides, heavily wounded, or else collapsed making disorganized heaps 3, 4 people high.
The battle raged for all of about twelve minutes. At the end, I hit the stop-watch button on my iWatch, considered the variables and concluded: "Not bad."
It was lunch time. I turned imperiously on my heel and left, before the moans of the casualties could spoil my appetite.
As it was, the first spear struck wide - slamming home in the support beam with a delicious thwack and a prolonged trembling. The second spear sailed overhead as I ducked, and pierced the drywall making a mushy, crumbling hole. The spear settled, wobbling and listing for a moment before sliding out to clatter onto the parquet floor of the conference room. Its shaft bore the unmistakable corporate logo of our competitors - guests here, at a supposedly friendly summit.
"Infidels!" I cried. "A fatwah be upon you!" I often spontaneously convert to Islam in moments of high stress. Crouching, I drew my ringing rapier from its jewel-encrusted scabbard and leapt forward howling articulately: "PARRY!!" "Thrust!" "Thrust!" "DODGE!" "Feint!" "En garde!" (always stab them in the neck in between the "En" and the "garde" - they will be totally paused, waiting for that "...garde!!") I dove, pirouetted and lunged in a prancing ballet of mayhem as my foes listed to all sides, heavily wounded, or else collapsed making disorganized heaps 3, 4 people high.
The battle raged for all of about twelve minutes. At the end, I hit the stop-watch button on my iWatch, considered the variables and concluded: "Not bad."
It was lunch time. I turned imperiously on my heel and left, before the moans of the casualties could spoil my appetite.
Comments
But if you think the above is bad, you should see some of the other high-pitched fight scenes and breathless prose, bruised and purpled, that I've littered all around the place. High-stakes action violence a speciality! Or a reasonably absurd facsimile thereof.
In terms of that particular style, here's perhaps my personal favorite.