Flay and Swelter, pitched in a life and death struggle, are at physically opposite extremes – Flay, wiry, knobbly, skinny, and Swelter, the all-tasting chef, round as a demijohn.  Their battle is desperate and all out. 

‘… he brings his sharp, splintery knee up suddenly beneath the balloon-like overhang of the chef’s abdomen.’ 

Source: Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, introduction by Anthony Burgess (London: Vintage Books, 1998), p. 343