On the way past, she snapped a kick to the face of the groaning man on the ground, putting him out and silencing him.
Separating the sword from the stick wasn't easy, as she quickly found out, but she managed it without only a little groaning and grimacing from the blazing pain that erupted within her. She gritted her teeth hard as she rose up, this time with the heavy sword in her hand, and began to stumble toward the fight.
Kaern was fighting one on one now, with a large man who seemed to be matching his moves with the sword. She wasn't certain, though it seemed that the man was on the defense, letting Kaern dictate the path of battle.
Her father had told her that a defensive battle was a lost battle, but if that was how an enemy wished to fight, the better for it. Kaern didn't seem to mind it either as he cut into the wild parries of his opponent, looking for that single opening that would end it all.
But it wasn't those two that caught Elan's eye.
It was the two brigands who were circling around behind Kaern as he fought against his single man.
*****
He's not bad, Kaern thought, trying to break through the defensive screen of his opponent.
So far the man had been able to match his every attack with an effective defense, but at the cost of not attacking himself. Eventually, Kaern knew that he would wear the man down unless something changed.
Like those two idiots getting back to their feet and circling around behind me, Kaern thought grimly as he redoubled his attempts to break through the defense of his opponent.
Steel clashed against steel, sending shrieks echoing through the wooded area, making the battle sound several times its size, like a pair of squads were warring it out rather than just two men.
Kaern's strikes grew harder, faster, and more daring as he tried to pierce the defensive screen while also trying to keep an eye behind his back now that his opponents were trying to fence him in more carefully, planning their attacks rather than coming in fat, dumb, and slow.
The bandits had to keep moving, as Kaern refused to stand still.
He knew that they were behind him now, but he couldn't turn away from the leader of their intrepid little band to deal with them. If he did, then he would be bleeding on the ground a moment later.
They knew it, and he knew it.
There was a bloodthirsty eagerness in their motions now. This man had cost them four of their friends already in this fight and they wanted revenge. They could taste the revenge even, and it tasted good to the two hard men who were circling eagerly with their swords, waiting for the moment to strike.
Then the moment came, only it wasn't their moment.
*****
Elan struck silently again, as was her wont. Her appropriated sword was heavier than she was used to, but against an unsuspecting target it hardly mattered. The pain from her injuries flared and screamed at her as she swung, but she bit her lip, distracting from it, and forced it away.
The sharp edge of the blade she wielded cut deep into the side of the closest man, and he yelled loud enough for them both in that moment of shock. His own sword clattered to the ground as he reached down to the source of pain and wrapped his hands around Elan's blade.
She grimaced and jerked it away, cutting up his hands and flesh even more as the bloodied weapon jerked free. She had blood spattered over her hands and feet and over almost every square inch of her exposed skin, making her a frightful sight as she turned to glare at the second man with teeth bared.
He hissed in shock and surprise, faltering as she laid an evil glare at him. Her face was splattered with blood, her hands covered in it from the arterial spray of his friend, but her teeth gleamed perfect white against the gruesome background of her face and lips, and that bizarre white shirt with the striking eagle on it looked perfectly clean and brilliantly white.
The man fell back from the incongruent mix of colors and gore, his guard dropping for a moment.
Elan saw the moment, as her father had taught her, and lunged to take advantage of it.
Now she screamed, letting the pain of her chest fuel the cry as she lifted the heavy sword high and hacked it downward.
The brigand saw it coming but started involuntarily when she screamed just the same and was barely able to get his sword up to block the blow.
Metal clashed on metal, screaming defiance as the two combatants were frozen in that moment in time. Then the moment ended, and Elan's heavy blade and wild hacking swing forced the defender down as the tip of her sword bit into his shoulder.
He yelled out in pain, his arm falling dead as the blade cut through muscle and tendon and continued down until it embedded itself in bone. He fell back, wrenching the sword from her hands, and fell to the ground with it sticking up out of him like a flag someone had planted there.
Elan stared down at the bloodied form on the ground ahead of her, then at the one behind her. Both men were groaning in pain now, their life's blood pooling around their wounds as she swayed in place. The first man she had struck was shivering as if he were cold, and she remembered how that felt.
How cold.
How...
The world spun around Elan then, a chill climbing her side, and she struggled to stay on her feet.
*****
Kaern saw the look in his opponent’s eyes, heard the screams from behind him, and knew what they had to mean.
He didn't know how she'd done it, but the look on his foe’s face and the sudden desperate attacks Kaern was forced to fend off filled in the story well enough. Kaern snarled, his lips pulling up into an ugly smile, and parried a sudden wild strike, then slid his blade smoothly into the man's guts.
It was quick and brutal, compared to the start of the fight, but Kaern knew that was how battle went.
The first to make an error would die, and would do so quickly and without mercy.
Kaern stood close to the man, looking into the shock in his eyes as he slumped forward, sliding up on the blade. Blood was flowing freely, out over the pommel of Kaern's sword, and onto his hands, but he ignored it as he reached up with his free hand and clamped his fingers around the head of the dying man.
"Via Venita, Mensara Victus," Kaern snarled, digging his fingers into the dying man's skull.
Gleaming light erupted around his fingertips, letting them slide through flesh and bone, and deep into the man's mind. The gleam lasted a few seconds, then the light went out in the man's eyes and Kaern shoved him back off his blade and let him fall to the ground on his back.
"Bandits," Kaern growled, shaking his head as he flicked the blood off his blade, letting it spatter on the ground. He turned around, "Are you alright, la—?"
Elan was still standing, and she looked alright, though covered in blood that may or may not have been her own. Alright until he saw her eyes, and that shut Kaern up. He rushed forward to her then, seeing the pain and disorientation in her eyes as she wobbled and wavered on her feet.
"K...Kaern?" She blinked, looking at him.
"Aye, lass, I'm here... Are you okay?" He looked her over for injury, but couldn't find any.
"I...cold," she said.
Cold? Kaern blinked. It was warm out and there was no reason...
Then he saw it.
From under her shirt, a steady trickle—no, a stream—of blood was running down and coating her skin where the material of the white shirt road up slightly.
Kaern lunged forward then as Elan toppled backward and caught her as she fell.
"Damn it, lass..." He shook his head. "You do get yerself in the injured way a mite too often fer my tastes."