13 Ymiden 720
Balthazar was quick, and damn accurate; his elbow caught Prae right under the breastbone, and the ithecal was forced to stumble back as all the air was forced from his lungs. He’d have to remember that spot in the future; it felt like an excellent way to incapacitate someone. Still, Prae was not a shieldbearer for nothing—even as he retreated to catch his breath back, he twisted, his tail lashing out to try and cuff the side of Balthazar’s head.
Fortunately a tail was not all that different from a fist, though it was not as easy to predict… for most. Balthazar had sparred with Praetorum often enough to know that the Ithecal liked using his tail. He wasn’t expecting it, but when he saw the extra limb flying toward him, Balthazar brought his arm up to block it before attempting to grab the tail and pull Praetorum into another punch.
The downside of having an eight foot long tail, it turned out, was that there was eight feet of tail to grab. Even with the far half of it coiled tight, Balth was easily able to grab on, and pull the larger fighter to him. Praetorum, unused to having to brace against that pull—it was stunning how few people ever thought to do so in a fight—yelped in surprise as he stumbled directly into Balth’s fist.
“Oof.” He grunted.
”You know, most ithecal grow out of tail pulling by six arcs old.” But most ithecal did not have a tail like his; barely a moment after Balth’s punch connected, Prae’s tail curled, and wrapped itself around the arm the human had used to hold it, and pulled him upwards, trying to hoist the smaller man into the air.
