Brandishing weapons, the five shapes closed on their victims, two next to the speaker at Cimozjen’s right, three from Four’s left.
Cimozjen planted the butt of his staff next to the outside edge of his left foot, and held his sword raised in his right hand as it if were also holding the haft of his staff. He trusted the darkness to make the juxtaposition of his weapons look like a heavy-bladed pole arm. He noted with no small relief that the attackers each carried different weapons, and that they moved as individuals, not as a unit. He doubted very much that Four and he would be able to withstand a concerted attack by veteran troopers, but a group of hooligans, even if they were seasoned fighters, could be defeated in detail.
“Get your body away from mine if you want both of them to stay in one piece,” Cimozjen growled to Minrah. He heard her whimper, but thankfully she did pull away from him.
He smiled when he saw that one of the thugs that accompanied the mysterious enemy swung a flail-back and forth, not in a gentle circle. Cimozjen stepped closer to him and again planted the butt of his staff against his foot. He turned his torso away slightly, angling the staff. “Do you think you know how to handle that thing, son?” he asked.
The man rattled the chains. “You watch as I tear you apart.”
“Are you sure you said that right?” asked Cimozjen. “Your face looks like you’ve hit yourself more often than your target.”
The flail-wielding man twitched, but held his composure.
Cimozjen added, “But maybe it’s just that you’ve been having trouble learning to eat with a fork.”
The other shadowy attacker snickered at the jibe, and the combination of insult and laughter proved too much for the affronted man. He yelled and charged, swinging his flail in a powerful two-handed blow.
Cimozjen steeled his resolve.
Four wondered how best to handle the situation. In all the times the world had broken open his home, he had never had more than one person attack him at once. This was a new experience.
He had, somewhere in the foundation of his consciousness, some basic predispositions and concepts, but he had never explored these-he’d spent his time in his home in a quiet contented emptiness of no-thought-let alone put them to use.
On the other hand, it was a pleasant change of pace to have an upcoming combat unleashed slowly, giving him time to identify the attackers and begin to formulate a plan. It was far better than being surrounded by a hundred screaming people and wondering where the threat was.
He faced three attackers. He had to assume that the one named Hellekanus would handle the other two. The one named Minrah was of no immediate tactical use, save possibly to throw in the path of an oncoming attacker.
As they closed on him, one of the three held back. Four could tell that it was because there was not enough space for all three to attack at once, and for that, he was grateful to Cimozjen and his tactical expertise. All of Four’s previous fights had been in the open, and he would not have thought of using a building as a defensive weapon.
Four decided the best approach would be to focus on the destruction of the attackers one at a time. That way, if they tried to use clever team tactics to divide his attacks and defenses, he would not be fooled. The danger that this focused approach required was a risk that he considered acceptable. He knew he would be repaired.
The one on the left was the size and shape of a human, and held a spear. He closed the gap, crouched low, spear at the ready. The one on the right was small like a halfling. He wielded a short sword, and he hung back a bit, perhaps fearful of the superior reach of Four’s weapon. The spearman would come first. The swordling would make the follow-through attack. That conclusion made Four’s priorities obvious.
Four held his weapon high, keeping his eye on the one with the spear. The human would likely try to get a quick jab in before the warforged’s powerful arms could bring his heavy axe-head to bear. Four knew that the spearman could jab quickly and either retreat or roll to one side. The inertia of Four’s heavier weapon meant that he would miss an overhand counterattack two thirds of the time.
Four primed himself to strike back.
The spearman lunged, pushing off with his rear leg and thrusting with his arms. Even as he closed, Four thrust with the haft of his battle-axe, a straight-on shot to the face. Inertia was much easier to overcome in a linear fashion than with an arcing swing. The spear plunged through the tightly-strung tendons of Four’s torso, severing many of those that helped manipulate his left hip, but Four’s counterstroke smote the man at the very top of his cheekbone, and Four heard the bone crack beneath the impact.
Staggered, the man lurched back, left hand rising to his face. He sensed the danger and kept himself low, slashing blindly about with his spear as he backpedaled.
Four cocked his arm and stepped forward, hoisting his battle-axe for a slower but much more powerful centrifugal overhand swing. The blade bit into the back of the man’s shoulder, breaking that bone as well. The man hit the ground on the seat of his pants, bent over almost double.
Four stepped to the side and swung the axe.
Minrah wanted to run, but pressed against the storefront there was no place to go. Only her two acquaintances stood between her and the six unknown attackers. She looked at Cimozjen through wincing eyes, her heart caving within her breast. She saw the first attacker take a swing at him, and she gasped, near to a scream-and Cimozjen managed to get his staff in the way of the strike, although the flail’s chains wrapped around its haft, and now the two weapons were sorely tangled.
She heard a heavy, meaty thunk. Unable to stop herself, she glanced at Four. One of the attackers sat at the feet of the warforged, head dangling grotesquely between his knees as blood pumped from the nearly severed neck.
She screamed. Her hands covered her face and her fingers obscured her eyes, but for a long, horrid moment she could not tear her gaze away from the decapitation.
She didn’t fully hide her face until the halfling stepped in behind Four and plunged a short sword into the soft, organic wrappings of his back.
Cimozjen glanced at his staff. Held high and braced against the outside of his foot, it had held against the attack. The flail’s spiked heads, whipping around the staff at the end of their chains, had entangled his makeshift shield entirely.
Just as he had hoped. Cimozjen knew a thing or two about fighting with flails.
He yanked his left arm to the outside, pulling the flail, complete with the attacker’s hands. The unfortunate man was surprised that his flail had tangled so badly, and as Cimozjen pulled it aside, the attacker instinctively-and foolishly-held his grip, leaving his startled expression with nothing to guard it. With a powerful punch, Cimozjen slammed the pommel of his sword into the man’s face. “Inept novice,” he mumbled as the man stumbled and fell to the ground.
The leader snapped his fingers again, the sound sharp and crisp against the hazy background of magical fog. “Take him down.”
Cimozjen looked over and saw the second of the thugs hesitate and pull back toward the leader. He held a rapier, judging by the silhouette of the weapon against the faintly lit fog.
The rapier waggled up and down. “But I-he’s a soldier, and I’ve just-”
The leader smacked the other across the back of the head. “Then smite him with your magic, dolt. Gods, how you managed to avoid frying what little brain you have is beyond me.”
Cimozjen charged.
Four staggered. The arcane currents that maintained his existence eddied and swirled within him. It felt as if his legs and hips were changing shape, and the chaos within him worsened as the halfling twisted the blade, shearing away more of the tendons that held his bone-and-metal frame together.