Snippet #1546333

Their progress was slower than she would have wished, but at the very least they kept going. Whatever had happened while she wasn't looking was slowing Kisikoni, though with the number of undead left to hack through- where did they all come from, anyway?- it wasn't going to make much of a difference. She ignored the leaden heaviness in her arms and continued to slash away, hamstringing one there, slamming the pommel of her sword into the next available forehead. It became something of a ghastly rhythm: hack, slice, block, maim, dodge, slay, straighten and look around until she found her partner, then begin the process all over again.

It was not one that she always escaped without injury. Though the burn wound on her back was gone, she was accumulating other injuries to compensate. Not a surprise, considering the sheer volume of opponents to be dealt with. She passed Caine fighting what appeared to be a minotaur, which was unusual enough that she simply blinked once and chose to ignore it for now. Neira seemed to have a competent handle on the more mundane undead in the area, so Talae pressed onward towards Sarish and the holy magic, inwardly lamenting that it never really did seem to be getting any closer. Was it perhaps actually moving, or was she just imagining that? It was hard to say with any degree of certainty.

Her limbs protested painfully as she lifted her blade to block an incoming mace, but she was too slow and pain blossomed on her side. If that wet crunch was anything to go by, she'd just broken a rib or two on her left side. Or, more accurately, the undead carrying the cudgel had. With a hiss, she ducked under his next swing and lunged, using her momentum as leverage instead of her arms and running him solidly through. It wouldn't be enough, though, and so she shifted her grip to one hand, and pulled one of her longer knives from a boot, shoving that with little finesse into the lamia's throat.

Withdrawing both weapons from their flesh sheaths, she decided the sword was too heavy to manage with her ribcage in the condition it was, and replaced it with the knife's twin instead. Red haze clouded her peripheral vision, and she blinked it away rapidly. Fortunately, by that time, they had reached the others at last, and she decided that they had been moving, apparently following in the General's wake. "Just a bit more..." she muttered, though whether it was to Kisikoni or just herself was anyone's guess. She sure as hell didn't know.

---

Alistair's bright blue eyes went comically wide when the Silenced pulled up alongside him, and he narrowly avoided the slash by veering sharply upward. Harpies of the falcon variety were not known for being terribly strong, but damned if he didn't take what little pride he had from speed and maneuverability in the sky. Since his opponent could apparently teleport, he was going to need every iota of that skill, he was sure.

Banking suddenly, he let the swordsman run past him and twisted left, regaining some of his momentum by climbing in altitude a bit and then diving again and leveling out just above the ground. As he expected the trick did not work for long, and it was a frightfully short amount of time before he was once again faced with the swing of magic-backed sword. Magic once again made his life (or rather, keeping it) much more complicated than it really should be. He'd have to rely exclusively on dodging, since blocking the blade itself did not imply blocking the magical arcs of energy that issued from it. There was always the chance that he'd get hit with more arcane methods alone, of course, so he'd have to be mindful of his surroundings and keep himself from getting backed into any corners.

That said, he wasn't about to sit back and play glorified target, either. With a deft swing, Alistair attempted to catch the blade between the tines of his three-pointed spear and twist, disarming the silenced. Unfortunately, he missed on the first go, and after that, he was mostly focused on avoiding red arcs of light, so the precious few subsequent opportunities he had to attack were not wasted on anything less than attempts at utter fatality. His opponent might be fond of the idea of a duel, but Alistair, as much as he would have been inclined to agree were there not lives on the line, was ultimately a pragmatist, and thus would not fault Sid for helping. Quite the opposite actually.