Matt charged him, ignoring the blade as it plunged into his side. The pain was a distant thing, an echo. He grabbed the man's head in both hands, and with a final, explosive surge of will, he twisted. There was a sound, a sharp pop, like a green branch snapping, and the man went limp, his body collapsing in a heap.
For a moment, there was a pause. The remaining Vipers stared, their scared faces pale under the weak streetlights. They saw a man who should have been dead minutes ago, bleeding from a dozen wounds, his breath a ragged saw in his chest, yet still standing. He was a statue of vengeance, carved from pain and willpower.
He took a staggering step forward, and they took a step back.
Then, a jagged piece of glass, thrown from the back, caught him high on the cheek, opening a deep gash. Blood poured down his face, a crimson curtain over one eye. He didn't even flinch. He just stood there, his chest heaving, that psychopathic smile still etched on his lips, now a ghastly red grimace.
He took one more swing, a wild, powerful haymaker that caught a jackal on the temple, dropping him like a stone. The man's body hit the tar with a final, sickening thud.
But the motion left Matt open. A knife meant for his kidney scraped across his ribs, peeling back a strip of skin. Another blade, this one short and thick, stabbed into the muscle of his thigh. He roared, not in pain, but in raw fury, and grabbed the wrist of the man who had stabbed his leg. He pulled the man forward, off-balance, and sank his teeth into the gangster's ear, tearing until he felt cartilage give way and the metallic taste of blood flood his mouth. The man shrieked, a high-pitched sound of terror, and scrambled back, clutching his ruined face.
Matt spat the flesh onto the ground. He was a cornered animal now, a bear with a dozen spears in him, but still with enough life to crush his hunters. He used the knife still embedded in his thigh as a gruesome guide, grabbing the hilt and yanking it out with a wet sound. Now he was armed.
His movements were slower, each one costing him dearly. But they were no less deadly. A Viper charged him, and Matt met him with the stolen knife, driving it up under the man's chin. The man's eyes went wide with shock, his scream choked off before it began.
They overwhelmed him then, piling on. Fists and boots rained down on his back, his legs, his head. He felt something crack in his side. A tooth came loose in his mouth. But his will was a furnace, burning on the last of its fuel. From the bottom of the pile, his arm, the one holding the knife, found space. He stabbed upwards, blindly, feeling the blade sink into soft stomachs and thighs. He twisted and turned, a bloody cyclone in the heart of a human storm.
He killed one by shoving the knife into his neck. He killed another by hammering his forehead repeatedly into the man's face until the struggles against his chest went limp. He rose from the pile, not standing tall, but rising like a ghoul from a grave, pushing off the bodies of the men he had just slain.
He was a horrifying sight. One eye was swollen shut. His face was a mask of crimson. His clothes were shredded and dark with blood, both his and theirs. He bled from a dozen deep wounds, each one enough to drop a lesser man. He stood, swaying, on a leg that was more ruin than limb.
The remaining Vipers, those who were still standing, didn't see a man. They saw a myth made flesh, a vengeful spirit that refused to be laid to rest. Their scared faces were etched with a primal horror. They had brought him to the edge of death, but he had dragged six of their brothers over the edge with him.
They backed away, their weapons hanging uselessly at their sides. They had broken themselves against the stone of his will. The fight was not over because they had won, but because they no longer had the heart to land the final blow. They simply watched, paralyzed, as the legend of Matt bled out onto the cold tar, undefeated to the very last, having taken a small army with him.
The circle of Vipers tightened, but their feet were rooted to the tar by fear. They had seen a demon in the shape of a man, and he was still breathing.
Matt collapsed to one knee, the impact jarring up his broken body. He sucked in a ragged, wet breath that whistled through a damaged lung. The pause was a mistake on their part, a window into their terror.
"He's weak! We just need to press on and pressure him. No man should survive this," one of the attackers shouted, his voice cracking with a forced bravado that didn't reach his eyes.
"Pah!" Matt spat a thick, crimson glob onto the ground between them. It wasn't just saliva; it was a clot of blood and defiance. His body was a ruined map of cuts and bruises, but his will was ironclad, unbroken. That psychopathic smile returned, a grimace of pure madness that showed his teeth stained pink and red. "Let's end him before he recovers strength!" another Viper urged, and this time, the logic pierced their fear. They saw the blood pooling around his knee. They saw the deep gash on his cheek, white bone flickering under the streetlight. He could bleed. So he could die.
"Hahaha! Hahaha! Cowards!" Matt's laughter was a raw, hacking sound, like glass in his throat. It was the laugh of a man who had already accepted his grave and was now just digging one for everyone else.
With a groan that tore from the depths of his soul, he pushed the limits of his battered body once more. He surged back to his feet, his legs trembling but holding. From the belts of the slain at his feet, he retrieved his final instruments. In his right hand, a stiletto switchblade, thin and deadly for piercing. In his left, a hefty combat knife, its serrated back edge meant for tearing.
"I, Matt Marino...will...not....go...down...without...a...fight... Aaarrggghhh!!!" His declaration was short, each word a battle for air, culminating in a roar that seemed to shake the very air around them.
He didn't wait for them. He became the avalanche.
He lunged, a broken but deadly bull. The first Viper raised his arms; the stiletto blade slipped between the bones of his forearm like a needle through cloth. The man screamed, but the sound was cut short as Matt slammed the combat knife up under his ribcage, twisting it with a sickening crunch. He used the body as a shield, feeling the thud-thud-thud of their blows and stabs into the dead man's back.
Shoving the corpse forward, he created an opening. A jackal swung a piece of rebar at his head. Matt ducked under it, the metal whipping through the air where his skull had been. He came up inside the man's guard and drove the stiletto into his throat, not once, but three times in a blinding, bloody flurry,
Punch! Punch! Punch!
A fine mist of blood sprayed into the cold night.
A blow he couldn't avoid caught him in the side. He felt a rib snap, a white-hot lightning bolt of pain that made his vision blur. He staggered, and a knife sliced deep across his already wounded thigh, opening a flap of muscle. He grunted, stumbling, but used the momentum to fall forward, tackling another enemy to the ground. On top of the man, he ignored the fists pounding his back and brought the combat knife down, not with precision, but with brutal, primal force. The first strike hit the collarbone with a wet crack. The second found the neck.
He rose from the body, drenched in a fresh coat of gore. He was a phantom, the stuff of nightmares made real. His left arm hung a little looser, a deep stab wound in the shoulder now robbing it of strength. He was standing in a small canyon of the dead, his breath coming in ragged, bubbling gasps.
But he was still standing. The few Vipers who remained untouched simply backed away, their weapons slipping from numb fingers. They had pressed him, they had pressured him, and in return, he had shown them the true, bloody cost of a legend's last stand.