As the final step to his insane tactic, he reared his lone axe back, as if to throw, and with his other arm he pointed at Lewis as if calling his shot. The whooping and hollering were deafening, but the overall effect was not quite what Terync wanted.
Instead of becoming more fearful of the seemingly crazed whelp, Lewis heard the cheering crowd and started to stand up straighter, axes twirling slowly in each hand. The enthusiasm of the moment seemed to bolster him, which should certainly have worried Terync given the stark disadvantage he was fighting from.
Terync could have given in to the despair and panic, as he had before. He certainly had the reason to. However, the part of his mind where the fear would normally bubble up from seemed to be disconnected somehow. Even if he wanted to access it, to feel the fear crawl across the surface of his skin turning it cold and clammy, that emotional well just didn’t seem to exist.
In its place was a fount of a different side of the raw emotion. For fear, the flip side was raw, unadulterated confidence. The kind of confidence that causes someone to rush blindly into a burning building, without any concern for their own personal safety. The kind of confidence that makes someone stand up for what’s right, no matter the danger. The kind of confidence that seems to fuel the drunks of the world.
He drew from that fount. He drank deeply of it and it seemed endless. To say that Terync was drunk on bravado would have been an understatement.
The two combatants stalked each other in a slow circle, both grinning like idiots as if they knew something the other didn’t. The din of the crowd seemed to fade, as did anything in both of their visions except for the opponent.
Lewis made the first move, lunging forward two steps before stepping out into a spin. Terync, for all of his bolstered spirit and confidence, fell for it, flinging his last axe at the place Lewis once occupied before side-stepping from his feint.
Five axes to zero.
Instead of succumbing to the hopelessness of the situation, Terync slammed his fist against his chest and screamed in defiance. That only seemed to infuriate Lewis who stamped his foot angrily and clenched the newly replaced axe in his dominant hand a little tighter.
Something tickled the back of Terync’s mind. Something told him that Lewis was about to do something drastic to quickly end this bout that was already taking far too long. This was a finals match and for Lewis to spend this much time against a whelp, well, that was just embarrassing for him. Impatience mixed with a fair amount of shame is a dangerous combination, and it was just the turn of luck that Terync needed.