His enemy charged forward like a common brawler, seemingly without real finesse. Passing footwork had brought many a man to his doom in the past, it was reckless. Sigurd side-stepped again, this time rightward, maintaining distance and continuing to strafe the man by moving anti-clockwise. His move carried him a good three feet from the man’s eventual stopping point, and almost brought Sigurd into direct line with both Gigue and the stream behind him. Sigurd had looked at the terrain he was fighting in carefully, he knew how far he could back up before he ran into a tree and how much space he had to work with. Surprisingly he had found that thus far he could move with more agility than his foe, which suggested he did indeed rely upon brute strength, though he couldn’t keep avoiding him in this specific fashion forever. Eventually he might get smart and do something to cut off an obvious escape route such as the one he had seized.

Fortunately the man had approached on his left side, where the shield stood to protect him from attack, he turned slightly and regained his form, left foot forward, right back, the shield at an angle half a foot from his body. The man would no doubt charge again, Sigurd took another half step backwards perhaps simultaneous to the man’s own, though a slight bunching in his right leg would suggest he did not mean to stay there for long. He shook the axe with menace.