He heard Cimozjen mutter something as the sound of combat continued to his right, and he knew that Minrah was not created in such a manner that she might provide him aid. He was on his own, and his target was small and behind him, away from the functional threat area dominated by his arms and the blade of his battle-axe.
The sword twisted again, and Four twitched as the flow within him changed once more. After all this time, he thought, I shall fall to an attack from the rear, a strike to the back. His mind echoed the phrase-strike to the back. He wished he could do that. In that moment of clarity, he realized that the head of his weapon was double-bitted, front and rear, and it, too, could strike to the back. With a mighty heave, he swung the weapon high in the air, giving it as much momentum as he could. When it reached the apex of its arc, he yanked the hilt forward, snapping the heavy blade into a fast swing.
Four felt the blade of the short sword press deeper into his interior, but he was satisfied with the sensation. The long haft of his battle-axe trembled with the heavy chop as he hit his assailant squarely in the back. The warforged backpedaled, knocking the halfling down with his bulk. The short sword remained stuck in Four’s body.
Four turned and stomped on the halfling’s neck as hard as he could. He was rewarded with the sound of a wet, pained gag, and he trusted that the halfling would be out of the fight for a while at the minimum. Regrettably, the disruption within his flow caused the warforged to stagger as he tried to recover his feet.
That was when the third attacker’s mace hit him squarely on the temple.
Sensing that the mage was uncomfortable in martial situations, Cimozjen tossed his staff at him, spinning it through the air, and charged the leader. The leader gave ground quickly, raising his shield for protection while drawing his own weapon.
Cimozjen slashed his sword low, hoping to catch the leader’s knee beneath his shield, but the man was too fast, skipping his leg up as Cimozjen’s blade passed. Cimozjen lunged forward and thrust, but inexplicably hit nothing as the man raised his shield to block.
“Curse this mist,” growled Cimozjen. He thrust again, once more missing both the man and his dark shield.
The leader spun around, keeping his shield toward Cimozjen, and struck a backhand blow at Cimozjen’s unprotected right side.
Cimozjen felt the blade bite deep into his flesh, then slice as it was withdrawn from the wound it had just made. The edge of the sword felt hot as it cut into his muscle, and he felt the weave of his tunic being pulled along through the wound like little barbs.
The leader’s momentum carried him around to face Cimozjen again, but the veteran soldier charged in hopes of getting a strike in before his foe could raise the shield anew. With a roar he struck a heavy downward chop toward the man’s collarbone, but the enemy had anticipated such a move. He came around with his shield raised high, and in that brief moment before impact, Cimozjen saw his face.
Pomindras, the erstwhile commander of the Silver Cygnet.
Cimozjen’s sword bashed into the man’s shield, and at the same time he felt a bolt of electricity course through his body. The impact and jolt nearly caused his sword to drop from his enervated fingers. He cried out in surprise and nausea as the shock trembled in his joints and curdled his stomach.
He stepped back from the leader and lunged hard and fast toward the mage.
Deep within the folds of his criss-crossing tendons, Four felt his neck crack.
His head flopped to the side, resting on his shoulder.
But he didn’t fall.
He didn’t think he could fight effectively while viewing the world on its side, so Four stepped back from his attacker, who was startled into immobility over the warforged’s resilience. Once at a safe distance, Four reached over with his left arm and pulled his head back upright once more. It was unstable but serviceable, and it kept his perspective the way he was used to.
Thus satisfied, he again gripped his battle-axe with both hands and moved toward the mace-wielding foe.
The attacker promptly dropped his weapon and ran into the misty night.
Four turned to Minrah and gestured with one hand in the direction of his retreating foe. “Can they do that?” he asked. “I did not think that was allowed.”
Half-blinded by pain, Cimozjen surged forward. The mage stood, slightly hunched, his eyes and mouth forming nearly perfect O’s of surprise and fear. Cimozjen ran him through the gut without breaking stride, ramming his broadsword so deep that the hilt slammed into the unmoving wizard’s floating rib.
Simultaneously Cimozjen’s shoulder struck the man in the breastbone, and the double impact knocked the mage over. He fell, sliding off Cimozjen’s weapon. Years of training and practice kicked in, and Cimozjen drew his sword back out of the man as he stepped past him and spun to face the leader again. Turning his head, he saw that the leader was not charging him, so he took an extra vicious strike at the downed mage. The wounded man grunted, but said no more.
Cimozjen readied his sword.
A shadow in the mist, commander Pomindras turned his head back and forth between Cimozjen and Four, then fled into the night.
Cimozjen listened to his footsteps depart, but then the fading sound was suddenly overwhelmed by a gruesome crunch behind him. Cimozjen turned to see Four just pulling his axe out of the sundered body of a halfling. The warforged looked carefully around, turning his entire body instead of just his head. He spotted the first attacker Cimozjen had felled, the flail-wielder with the broken face, and walked over to him, raising his battle-axe.
“Four!” called Cimozjen. “Stop!”
“Why?” asked Four, stopping.
“Because we won,” said Cimozjen.
“We did?” came a quiet voice.
“Yes, we did, Minrah,” said Cimozjen. “You can get up now.”
Keeping his weapon out, he moved toward his companions, scanning the darkness for any new threats. In the nighttime mist, the blood-splashed cobbles looked colorless and rather ordinary. Even the bodies of the fallen were not particularly loathsome when stripped of detail by the haze. The mage lay splayed out on his back, while behind Four two other bodies, one large and one small, lay crumpled. In contrast to the sights, or perhaps because of it, the mist served to enhance the horrid odor of internal organs.
“Um, you have … a sword in your back,” said Cimozjen.
“Please remove it,” said Four. “It is causing me difficulties. My neck is damaged, too.”
“Your neck?” asked Cimozjen, withdrawing the blade from Four’s organic wrappings. “Do you need attention?”
“I am in functional condition,” said Four. “However, we should avoid further combat.”
Cimozjen leaned his staff against the wall and ran his fingers along the wound in his side. “I can agree with that,” he said. He walked over to the man he’d first struck and looked down at him. He was still alive, his pained breath hissing in and out through his teeth. Cimozjen nudged him with his boot. “Get up.”
The man slowly rose, weaving back and forth as he struggled to maintain his balance. He kept his hand held protectively over the left side of his face.
“Who sent you?” asked Cimozjen. “I know your commander, but were you also on the Silver Cygnet?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Who are you with? Whom does Pomindras serve?”
The man shook his head.
“Listen,” said Cimozjen, “I hold nothing against you. You did as you were told, or perhaps as you were hired to do.”
As he spoke, he pulled out his holy talisman from beneath his tunic and gripped it. He said a brief prayer, and it began to glow. The divine light starkly showed the massive bruising that marred the man’s face. Murmuring another prayer, Cimozjen reached out with his left hand and gently ran one finger along the edge of the bruising, and the unsettling sound of bone knitting whispered in the quiet of the night. The man gasped at the discomfiting sensation.