tackled by ghoul

My timing had been solid. It was a one-on-one fight again. I felt a surge of triumph.
That lasted for maybe a quarter of a second, and then the leaping ghoul hit me like a professional linebacker. Who was also a hungry cannibal.
He slammed into me hard enough to break ribs, and I had to hope that the crackling sound I heard was shifting ice. We went down hard, with me on bottom, my duster now sliding over the hard surface, dispersing some of the energy of the hit.
The ghoul knew exactly what it was doing. I’d tangled with them a few times before, and in a fight, ghouls are mostly all unfocused ferocity and brute strength, ripping and tearing at whatever they can reach. This one didn’t do that. He got both hands on my staff, wrenching it aside with that hunched, fantastic strength, and ducked his head in close, going for my throat, for the immediate kill. I knew enough about hand-to-hand fighting to recognize technique and discipline when I saw it. It was the difference in fighting a furious drunken amateur and taking on a trained soldier or a champion mixed martial artist.
Over the years, I’d picked up some technique of my own, from Karrin and the others. I provided an instant’s resistance against the ghoul’s wrenching of my quarterstaff, then released it as I doubled up my body, pushing the ghoul up as hard as I could with my legs, trying to shove him to one side.


Skin Game Chapter 18, Page 130-131