The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [71]
…When Tzerlag reached the dim weirdly shaped widening of the corridor at the end of which he could discern stairs going left, the premonition of danger returned with such force that he almost became dizzy: the unknown foe was somewhere very close. He watched and listened for minute – nothing; moved forward slowly, in small steps, noiselessly (damn, maybe to hell with their orders, get out the scimitar?) and froze: a large opening appeared on the right, with a spiral staircase through it, and there was definitely something behind those stairs. He glided by the left wall, his eyes on the opening – who the hell's there? – and stopped, almost laughing out loud. Whew! It's just a sword, leaned against the wall behind the stairs by one of the Whites. A strange place to keep a personal weapon, though. Maybe it's not leaned, actually – judging by the angle, it might've slipped down from upstairs. By the way, what's that there on the top step?..
Tzerlag's inner sentry yelled: behind you! only a split second before the foe's hands locked around his neck. The sergeant only had time to flex his neck muscles. Moving precisely, like in training, Cheetah grabbed his throat with the crook of the right arm, then the counterspy's right hand locked on his left bicep, while the left pushed against the back of his neck, crushing throat cartilage and pinching the arteries. Hadaka-jime – unbreakable stranglehold. Game over.
Chapter 28
Banal though it sounds, everything has its price. The price of a warrior is the amount of time and money (which are really the same thing) it takes to train, arm, and equip another one to replace him. In every epoch it is useless to increase the level of training beyond a certain threshold where a basic competency is achieved, since total imperviousness is anyway impossible. What good does it do to spend the effort to turn a regular infantryman into a first-class fencer when this will not save him from a crossbow bolt or, worse, a bout of wasting diarrhea?
For example, take hand-to-hand combat. It is a very useful skill, but perfection takes years of constant training, whereas a soldier, to put it mildly, has plenty of other responsibilities. There are several options here; the Mordorian army approach was to teach only about a dozen techniques, but to teach those twelve combinations of movements almost down to the level of the kneejerk reflex. Of course, it is impossible to foresee all eventualities, but the method for breaking a rear stranglehold is definitely among the said dozen techniques.
Step one! – a swift move back; stomp heel into the top of the foe's foot, crushing its birdthin bones encased in myriads of nerve endings. Step two! – bend the knees slightly, small turn of thighs, slide out of the grip suddenly weakened by horrible pain, down and slightly to the right, until there is room to drive the left elbow into his groin. Once the foe's hands drop to his hammered genitals, there are a few options available; for example, Tzerlag's stepthree training had been to smash open palms over the opponent's ears: burst eardrums and a guaranteed knock-out. This ain't no exquisite ballet of the far-eastern martial arts, where the hieroglyphs of each position are but notation marks for the music of the Higher Spheres; this is Mordorian hand-to-hand combat, where everything is simple and to the point.
First he kneeled and pulled up the eyelid of the spirited White Company sergeant (good, the pupil is reacting, Grager's order had not been violated), and only then allowed himself to lean against the wall in momentary exhaustion. Squeezing eyes shut, he forced himself to swallow against the pain: thank the One, the throat is intact. What if the guy had a garrote? It'd've been the end