Stomping the Pilgrims pt. 3

He turned as the spearhead of a halberd lunged from the tar smoke. He trapped the the shaft in the winged jaw of the spontone and twisted it aside. The halberd point crunched into the bow and he dropped the spontone and moved in, drawing his dagger. He stabbed the halberdier up beneath the left ribs, and agin through the neck and vented his throat. Warm gore sprayed Tannhauser's chest as the corpse fell and he squinted through the haze.

At least for more men advanced along the second lighter; more loomed behind them in the first and on the quay. Others waded out into the shallows, either side of the boom. though by the bow of the landward boat they were tigh-deep.
...
He saw the next Pilgrim stop, one foot on the stern, his face slack at the spectacle that confronted him. Tannhauser charged and speared him under the the sternum and followed him over the gunwales as he pitched him backward into his mates, which latter crowded each other and clucked the usual self-defeating advice. He tugged the spear free as he landed and rotated from the hips and twirled the shaft and cut sideways with the axe at the foremost Pilgrim. The blade cleaved the side of his skull to the nose through the socket of the eye and the eyeball popped. Tannhauser cranked his head apart like a half-split log. The Pilgrim following caught the brained man around the waist, as if afraid the fall might harm him. Tannhauser split his skill to the nostrils with an overhead swing.
-TTCoP, pg. 706