Heartstone

Undead Knight vs Goblin Chieftain

Yaz

Yaz absentmindedly twirled the knife in his bony fingers, his eye sockets roundly focused on the goblin chieftain.

The curved steel began wafting glowing orange vapours. Without warning, the chieftain went from an easy, standing position to lunging forward with his magical sword.

Yaz, waiting for such a move, leaned right and flicked the knife as hard as he could.

The chieftain flinched and the projectile dully thunked off his armoured collarbone to no effect. Worse, he was faster than Yaz had expected and the enchanted sword cut a line across the top of the skeleton's bare collarbone.

Yaz winced and dove to the side, rolling to his feet bones. A hand flew to the cut as if it had been flesh. He was astonished. "That actually hurt." He'd been cut by magic blades before but never experienced pain. "What kind of enchantment is that?"

The chieftain showed him a toothy grin. It was most unpleasant. Then he swung the blade.

Yaz scampered out of reach, doing everything he could to fake what direction he was going to move next, trying to trick his attacker's aim. It bought him enough time to pluck up a chipped dirk in one hand and a dilapidated mace in the other, one with all but one spike rusted away. The goblins obviously weren't interested in taking care of their weapons. But all Yaz needed was something sharp enough to bury in the chieftain's throat.

The chieftain had more power than Yaz, and a longer reach. But he was a few centuries away from having Yaz's level of skill. So he might be forgiven for underestimating the skeleton long enough to wave to his tribe and encourage their cheers, making a show of the battle.

Yaz baited him in.

The chieftain saw him closing and lunged again.

Yaz avoided the thrust and used his dirk to slap the blade wide. Then he stepped forward and brought the mace down on the goblin's arm, shattering the elbow.

The chieftain howled in pain. In a blind rage, he charged and kicked, sending Yaz flying backwards several meters.

Yaz got hit so hard that both weapons were knocked out of his hands. He saw something coming at him out of the corner of his eye and jerked to the side, narrowly missing a spear stabbing where his skull had been.

He'd landed near the edge of the circling goblins. They took the opportunity to kick, punch, stab, thrust, and one even bellyflopped at him.

Rolling to his feet, he evaded and bashed aside the blows, head-butted the bellyflopper, and—came to a halt when a hob stuck him through the ribs with a three-tined pitchfork. He looked down at it, then up at the hob. "Did you think that was going to work? I'm a skeleton."

The hob looked flustered, then grimaced and leaned forward to push Yaz backwards towards the chieftain.

But Yaz twisted sideways, tripped the hob, and stole the pitchfork for himself. Then he spun on the chieftain, ready to jam the fork into flesh.

The enchanted sword flicked out and lopped off the left tine of the pitchfork.

Yaz thrust.

The chieftain jumped back, surprisingly agile, and lopped off the right tine.

That left Yaz with a crude spear. He put it to good use, rapidly spearing the chieftain in the chest, driving the monster back as he ducked and weaved around the sword.

Then the chieftain cut the last tine off and sent it spinning into the crowd.

A goblin squealed in pain. Others laughed.