Realising they were opponents, both men prepared for battle. The archer reached for his quiver, his hands were trained, by immense practice. The archer had already started to draw the arrow on the bowstring, to his regret, they met each other too close. Dima, quickly realising where the wind was blowing from, and in spite of the danger and fear, rushed towards the archer.
The blow of his foot in his hand lied preparation for the shot, ruining the archer's plans for a quick victory, but he was not confused, the man dropped the bow and with all his might charged with his foot into his opponent's stomach. The blow reached its target, knocking out a long groan from Dima's chest.
A stream of saliva mixed with blood came out of the guy's mouth, the guy lost sight of his opponent for just a moment, but he didn't waste time. He made a second blow to his knee, dropping him to the ground, a new wave of pain overwhelmed Dima's mind, generating animal rage.
Without noticing the pain and fear, Dima struck at his opponent's legs, he obviously did not expect such a manoeuvre from the already beaten opponent and lost his balance and collapsed right on Dima.
Dima was not going to miss the moment and grabbed the archer by the neck, squeezing it as hard as he could.
The archer hissed, and charged Dima in the face with his fist, the sound of the blow echoing through the forest. But Dima did not think to lower his neck, the boy clung to it like a baby in his mother's arms. The subsequent blows were quick, sharp and painful, but Dima held on like flint.
'Bitch... exactly a knife,' the archer remembered to himself, and on the last of his breaths he snatched a short blade from behind his sinus and with both hands plunged it into his opponent's head. Luckily Dima had time to move his head aside, the bandit swung again with a fierce shout, the shining blade cut the air with a whistling sound. It was coming towards the lad's head, he felt the cold breath of approaching death, gathered his will into a fist and unclenched one of his hands and elbowed the archer in the face.
Dima rushed towards him and tried to grab him by the throat again, but he cut his left arm with a blow.
A wave of sharp pain travelled through his body again, Dima looked at the wound for a moment, most of his arm was saved by the leather jacket, but the hand was slightly nicked.
"Bitch you're dead!" Shouted the archer, who was a little out of breath, both fighters quickly stood up to their full height, Dima took out his cleaver, showing his opponent his half rusty blade.
"Come on, damn it!" The bandit didn't need to be told twice, and swung at the enemy with his knife, easier said than done. Because of the greater length of Dima's weapon, he couldn't get close, so the archer carefully probed the defence.
At the right moment, the archer kicked the sand with his foot, thousands of small shiny grains of sand flew straight at his head, Dima managed to squeeze his eyes shut, but a small part of the sand got into his eyes, causing a sharp pain. All Dima managed to do was to take a step to the side. The guy swung the cleaver at any source of sound and tried to blink away.
Only a couple of seconds passed and the cleaver with a squelching sound, entered something soft, a couple of seconds later a hard blow knocked the guy off his feet, he finally managed to open his eyes.
"Bitch!" he shouted, the archer was wounded in the shoulder, and that made the archer even more embittered, he rushed into his last attack. Dima screamed like hell and rushed to meet him.
From the outside this fight was more like a battle between two invalids, Dima, of course, had fought before, but to the death only the second time, so he acted more instinctively than consciously. The archer was simply a poacher who had escaped from justice, and his close combat skills were roughly similar to Dima's.
The blades of the men clashed, knocking out a pillar of sparks, the metal in the weapons was of such low quality that at the moment of impact they simply flew apart, but only one hilt remained in the archer's hands, and in Dima's the cleaver, broken in half.
The brigand grabbed the handle of the cleaver and pulled it upwards straight to the enemy's throat, Dima pulled it back and he, absorbed by the battle rage and adrenaline, had one thought. Smiling to himself, he let go of the rest of the cleaver for a moment and moved his head to the side, the splinter of the blade passed within a millimetre of his face, grazing his cheek. Taking advantage of the good timing, the guy grabbed his opponent by his clothes and pulled him to him. And pointing his head forward, Dima's forehead hit right into the bridge of the archer's nose.
A loud crunching sound like a whistle shouted the end of this round. From the sharp blow the bandit dropped the cleaver and fell on his back, Dima, obeying the law of inertia flew after him, landing right on top of him.
The guy managed to climb on the enemy, blocking his hands with his knees, then it was a matter of technique, the guy methodically hammered his fists into the archer's head.
The guy lost track of time, all the surrounding space distorted into a dark black blot. And Dima kept hitting and hitting, his blows merged into one continuous crunching cacophony.
"Dima!" Someone's hand was on his shoulder, and the boy, thinking it was a new adversary, swung his fist at him, turning round and round on the fly.
His fist was intercepted by a familiar aged hand, and Aason stood before him. The man was covered in blood and gingerly looked directly into the guy's eyes.
"It was over." Realising that Dima was beginning to come to his senses, he let go of his hand. For a moment Dima caught a glimpse of his fist, there was no life on it. Looking round, the lad saw a simply horrifying picture. There was almost nothing left of the bandit's head, only scraps of hair and fragments of bones were lying around its remains.
Under the 'head' there was a big puddle of blood, and Dima turned away. A lump had already come to his throat and wanted to jump out at any moment.
Suddenly, a powerful hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him upwards, unable to resist, he rose to his feet.
Ason threw a squeamish glance at Dima's opponent, then at him, the man let the boy cool down a bit and digging behind his back handed him a small flask.
Dima, with the greed of a beggar who had not eaten for several days, snatched the cherished bottle, he did not know what was in it, but it did not matter to him. He opened the bottle with his teeth, his hands just did not obey, he shakily took the neck of the bottle to his mouth, expecting the life-giving flagon.
The tart taste of alcohol burned his mucous membranes, the alcohol penetrated like fire, dissolving deeper and deeper into a fiery mist in the stomach area. Dima drained the half-litre flask in one sitting.
"Ha, what happened?" Dima looked at Ason with incomprehension in his eyes, he stood silent, which was unusual for him. In his heart he blamed himself for leaving the boy alone, for the fact that the thought had not even entered his head that not everyone was in the camp of the bandit.
Only one thing warmed his grey head, and the name of it was pride. Yes, that wonderful feeling, akin to a parent watching the first steps of his child. He was proud of the lad, of the fact that he had not chickened out, had not run away with his tail between his legs, had not begged for mercy. He took the fight in spite of his fear.
Grabbing the lad by the shoulder, Ason led him to the bandit camp, his men had already cleaned up the mess and he could safely put the half-dead lad near the fire, without fear that he would see the corpses and fall into another stupor.
Dima just floated, everything around him was absorbed by a strange translucent black fog, the tincture he drank brought him to his senses a little, but only partially.
"Are you okay?" Ason asked, opening another bottle of murky sludge. Dima intercepted it without a shadow of doubt and took a couple of big gulps and answered.
"What's the fucking norm here?" Dima shifted his gaze to Ason, and raised his eyebrows in surprise at such a stupid question.
"The main thing is that you got through it, and the rest is nasty, those bastards were a lot more frisky than I expected, but whatever." Ason paused, Dima was eating fish from nowhere, drinking moonshine.
One of the warriors handed Dima the dagga of the bandit leader, the guy took the blade out of the sheath, the shining metal reflected the playful flames, in the reflection of the blade Dima saw the owl's face, but there was something different in it.
No, it wasn't the dirt and wounds that were the cause for concern, it was something else, but Dima couldn't understand what, what had changed in him after the fight. In front of him were still the same ears, face, mouth, eyes... eyes exactly eyes.
The lustre of civilisation, of that well-fed life he had lived back on earth, that lustre was gone, vanished and evaporated in the bloody blight of the bloody fight. Now in its place was another even brighter lustre that burned with the brightness of welding, enveloping his whole soul.
'Today I was lucky, but it won't always be like this, whether I want it or not, I will have to become stronger, if I want to achieve something or at least survive, I will have to change my opinion about many things and take my fate in my own hands'.
Dima thought about all this, looking at his reflection in the blade, he looked at it for quite a long time, the others had already lost interest in his person and were discussing the past fight with interest. Not Aason, he sat still and looked at his new ward calmly. He could not read minds, but being an experienced man and first of all a warrior.
Dima suddenly came to life and having put his sword in the scabbard, wrapped himself in a twist and lay down on the nearest sleeping bag, in a couple of minutes he fell asleep under the mute gaze of Ason.