A Fight with Sabre against a shorter sword:
Aug 29, 2009 7:03:38 GMT
Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2009 7:03:38 GMT
Hey y'all,
Here is a good description of how a sabre can outreach and outfight shorter swords, one of my favorite fight scenes from Robert E. Howard's story "Xuthal of the Dusk" (I hope I have not posted this before):
A score of figures faced him, yellow men in purple tunics, with short swords in their hands. As he turned they surged in on him with hostile cries. He made no attempt to conciliate them. Maddened at the disappearance of his sweetheart, barbarian reverted to type.
A snarl of bloodthirsty gratification hummed in his bull-throat as he leaped, and the first attacker, his short sword overreached by the whistling saber, went down with his brains gushing from his split skull.
Wheeling like a cat, Conan caught a descending wrist on his edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air scattering a shower of red drops.
But Conan had not paused or hesitated. A pantherish twist and shift of his body avoided the blundering rush of two yellow swordsmen, and the blade of one, missing its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other.
A yell of dismay went up at this mischance, and Conan allowed himself a short bark of laughter as he bounded aside from a whistling cut and slashed under the guard of yet another man of Xuthal. A long spurt of crimson followed his singing edge and the man crumpled screaming, his belly-muscles cut through. The warriors of Xuthal howled like mad wolves.
Unaccustomed to battle, they were ridiculously slow and clumsy compared to the tigerish barbarian whose motions were blurs of quickness possible only to steel thews knit to a perfect fighting-brain.
They floundered and stumbled, hindered by their own numbers; they struck too quick or too soon, and cut only empty air.
He was never motionless or in the same place an instant; springing, side-stepping, whirling, twisting, he offered a constantly shifting target for their swords, while his own curved blade sang death about their ears….
Conan, bleeding from a cut on the temple, cleared a space for an instant with a devastating sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a quick glance about for an avenue of escape. At that instant he saw the tapestry on one side of the walls drawn aside, disclosing a narrow stairway.
On this stood a man in rich robes, vague-eyed and blinking, as if he had just awakened and had not yet shaken the dusts of slumber from his brain.
Conan's sight and action were simultaneous. A tigerish leap carried him untouched through the hemming ring of swords, and he bounded toward the stair with the pack giving tongue behind him.
Three men confronted him at the foot of the marble steps, and he struck them with a deafening crash of steel.
There was a frenzied instant when the blades flamed like summer lightning; then the group fell apart and Conan sprang up the stair. The oncoming horde tripped over three writhing forms at its foot; one lay face-down in a sickening welter of blood and brains; another propped himself on his hands, blood spurting blackly from his severed throat and veins; the other howled like a dying dog as he clawed at the crimson stump that had been an arm.
As Conan rushed up the marble stairs, the man above shook himself from his stupor and drew a sword that sparkled frostily in the radium light.
He thrust downward as the barbarian surged upon him. But as the point sang downward toward his throat, Conan ducked deeply. The blade slit the skin of his back, and Conan straightened, driving his saber upward as a man might wield a butcher-knife, with all the power of his mighty shoulders.
So terrific was his headlong drive that the sinking of the saber to the hilt into the belly of his enemy did not check him. He caromed against the wretch's body, knocking it sidewise. The impact sent Conan crashing against the wall; the other, the saber torn through his belly, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine from groin to broken breastbone. In a ghastly mess of streaming entrails the body tumbled against the men rushing up the stairs, bearing them back with it.
Man, I can just hear Conan's sabre blade whistling in its arc of death!
Later,
Freebooter
Here is a good description of how a sabre can outreach and outfight shorter swords, one of my favorite fight scenes from Robert E. Howard's story "Xuthal of the Dusk" (I hope I have not posted this before):
A score of figures faced him, yellow men in purple tunics, with short swords in their hands. As he turned they surged in on him with hostile cries. He made no attempt to conciliate them. Maddened at the disappearance of his sweetheart, barbarian reverted to type.
A snarl of bloodthirsty gratification hummed in his bull-throat as he leaped, and the first attacker, his short sword overreached by the whistling saber, went down with his brains gushing from his split skull.
Wheeling like a cat, Conan caught a descending wrist on his edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air scattering a shower of red drops.
But Conan had not paused or hesitated. A pantherish twist and shift of his body avoided the blundering rush of two yellow swordsmen, and the blade of one, missing its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other.
A yell of dismay went up at this mischance, and Conan allowed himself a short bark of laughter as he bounded aside from a whistling cut and slashed under the guard of yet another man of Xuthal. A long spurt of crimson followed his singing edge and the man crumpled screaming, his belly-muscles cut through. The warriors of Xuthal howled like mad wolves.
Unaccustomed to battle, they were ridiculously slow and clumsy compared to the tigerish barbarian whose motions were blurs of quickness possible only to steel thews knit to a perfect fighting-brain.
They floundered and stumbled, hindered by their own numbers; they struck too quick or too soon, and cut only empty air.
He was never motionless or in the same place an instant; springing, side-stepping, whirling, twisting, he offered a constantly shifting target for their swords, while his own curved blade sang death about their ears….
Conan, bleeding from a cut on the temple, cleared a space for an instant with a devastating sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a quick glance about for an avenue of escape. At that instant he saw the tapestry on one side of the walls drawn aside, disclosing a narrow stairway.
On this stood a man in rich robes, vague-eyed and blinking, as if he had just awakened and had not yet shaken the dusts of slumber from his brain.
Conan's sight and action were simultaneous. A tigerish leap carried him untouched through the hemming ring of swords, and he bounded toward the stair with the pack giving tongue behind him.
Three men confronted him at the foot of the marble steps, and he struck them with a deafening crash of steel.
There was a frenzied instant when the blades flamed like summer lightning; then the group fell apart and Conan sprang up the stair. The oncoming horde tripped over three writhing forms at its foot; one lay face-down in a sickening welter of blood and brains; another propped himself on his hands, blood spurting blackly from his severed throat and veins; the other howled like a dying dog as he clawed at the crimson stump that had been an arm.
As Conan rushed up the marble stairs, the man above shook himself from his stupor and drew a sword that sparkled frostily in the radium light.
He thrust downward as the barbarian surged upon him. But as the point sang downward toward his throat, Conan ducked deeply. The blade slit the skin of his back, and Conan straightened, driving his saber upward as a man might wield a butcher-knife, with all the power of his mighty shoulders.
So terrific was his headlong drive that the sinking of the saber to the hilt into the belly of his enemy did not check him. He caromed against the wretch's body, knocking it sidewise. The impact sent Conan crashing against the wall; the other, the saber torn through his belly, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine from groin to broken breastbone. In a ghastly mess of streaming entrails the body tumbled against the men rushing up the stairs, bearing them back with it.
Man, I can just hear Conan's sabre blade whistling in its arc of death!
Later,
Freebooter