164 CLXIV. The Kicker

Dag did not say a word and walked away from the enemy lying on the ground, putting the weapons in their place.

Karl was standing with his tomahawk in one hand and the shield in the other.

The enemy rose from the ground, touching his chin.

"I don't even ask you to say your last words... you're doomed now" Karl said, walking hard, dragging himself on his legs and slowly advancing towards him, who was wounded only on his face.

The man grabbed the spiked mace that had fallen to the ground and ran towards Karl, hitting him on the shoulder.

The metal nails of the mace lodged in his flesh and he grimaced in pain.

"Karl! What the fuck are you doing?!" yelled Reidar, as Dag tried to study his partner's attitude, without saying a word.

The enemy continued to hit him repeatedly, back on the arm and then on the chest, striking relatively weak blows, but which still injured Karl, due to the sharp nails on the weapon.

He stood still, while the enemy hit his body hard as if it was a training dummy.

"Enough, I can't watch this scene anymore!" exclaimed Reidar, pulling out the bow and pointing an arrow at the goat-man.

Dag put his hand in front of the bow, blocking Reidar.

"But... Captain... he'll end up getting himself killed!"

"Wait, Reidar. Watch... he must have something in mind" Dag said, staring closely at Karl.

When the man was exhausted from firing shots, he stopped.

Karl was reduced to a sieve, his body was punctured almost everywhere, and blood dripped to the ground, creating a pool of blood.

Meanwhile, the enemy tried to catch his breath, having expended all his energies.

"You shouldn't have touched her... your... dirty hands shouldn't… *cough*!" said Karl in a hoarse, deep voice, coughing up blood.

The enemy approached him again, to deliver the coup de grace, while Dag, Reidar, and Agnes were behind them watching.

"Dag! He's going to kill him! Do something, please!" yelled Agnes, pulling Dag's jacket and begging him to help his comrade.

But Dag kept standing still.

"Karl is a fool. If he's been there, stopping to get hit, there's got to be a reason. There's something we don't know, but it's going to turn the tide of the fight, I feel it" he thought to himself.

Reidar detained Agnes, who would otherwise run for Karl, putting her life at risk.

"If you're done... now I'll start..." said Karl again, looking up at the goat-man, who was heading towards him.

The enemy paused, making an astonished expression, after listening to those words.

Karl hit down with the tomahawk, which remained stuck in the ground and then barely rose to his feet, leaning on the shield.

He placed his hand inside one of his trouser pockets and pulled out a small bottle containing a bright green liquid.

He uncapped the little glass ampoule and drank the contents all in one breath.

Soon after, he threw it to the ground, breaking it into a thousand pieces and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of the shirt.

"Aaah!" he exclaimed as if he had just quenched his freshness after a month in the desert.

His companions continued to look at him in amazement, without intervening, allowing him to solve the problem independently.

The enemy continued his charge, believing that Karl was only wasting his time, but just as he was about to hit him again, Karl dodged the blow and punched the goat-man in the face, knocking him to the ground.

Then he continued to stand still, rolling his shoulders, as if he wanted to stretch his bones after a long sleep.

Dag focused on looking at his friend's wounds: after drinking the contents of that bottle they were gone! Only blood remained, but the holes caused by the spiked mace had completely healed.

The enemy crept backwards, while Karl finally began to move normally, advancing towards him only with the shield in his hand, leaving the tomahawk fixed on the ground.

Without saying a word, he struck him again in the face, but this time with the shield.

The goat-man's jaw was shattered and hung from his chin.

His eyes were injected with blood and tears in pain.

Karl continued to hit him repeatedly and violently: not only had his wounds healed, but his body strength also seemed to have improved.

When the man stopped moving, Karl stopped hitting, shrugging the blood from his chrome shield.

He lowered himself towards the dying enemy, and grabbed his hair, dragging him towards Dag and the others as if he was a sack of potatoes.

When he arrived before Agnes, he raised his face so that he could look at her.

She stepped back, looking at the face of the enemy, utterly disfigured and bloodied.

They could barely distinguish his eyes.

"Apologize!" Karl said coolly, approaching his face with that of the goat-man, who couldn't move a single muscle.

"I said apologize, fucker!" yelled Karl again, hitting his dying enemy with the shield on his back, causing him to spit blood, which ended up in front of the girl's feet.

"I'm... I'm sorr..." the man tried to whisper when Karl dragged him back by the hair to drive him away from his woman.

He threw him to the ground and picked up his spiked mace, assessing its weight.

After making a satisfied expression, he turned the man belly-up and struck him with the mace in his stomach, several times at the same point, until he lost consciousness and the bowels began to come out of his body, in the enormous wound that had formed.

At that point, Karl stopped hitting him and turned the spiked weapon into his hands, sticking the tip of its handle into the hole in the enemy's belly.

Then he grabbed him by the arm, crawling him to the ground towards the pier, even though he was already practically dead.

He moved to the edge of the dock and kicked the mace down, which went even deeper into his flesh.