Estella's borrowed horse shifted slightly underneath her, no doubt picking up on the expectant tension of the moment. It wasn't Nox—though it was unlikely that anyone would recognize her by her horse, it wasn't impossible, considering he'd been a gift from Lucien. And in general it was better that the Inquisition's steeds remained in the stables for the duration. If there was one thing that whole mess with the spy the other day had prove, it was that they really were being observed pretty much at all times.
Truthfully, it was the opposite of relaxing. This—the group round, conducted outside the city and under only the judging gaze of their blue-robed assessor and the few spectators willing to ride this far outside the city for their spectacle—was actually a bit of a relief in comparison. The air was nice and fresh, at least, the small castle ahead of them on the landscape rather picturesque. Or it would have been if the point hadn't been to breach its defenses.
Estella was not at all surprised to learn that Lucien had designed the scenario. It bore a striking resemblance to one of the major events in the Valmont-Drakon conflict in the Exalted Age. It was both ironic and quite on-the-nose, but more importantly, it wasn't anything that any of the competitors would have lived through. No unfair advantages from experience, and also no possibility of reopening fresh wounds.
Instead, their group of four was tasked with assaulting the east gate and seizing a flag that represented a capture point. The win conditions were asymmetric: Khari's team won if anyone laid hands on the flag. The other team, with the positioning advantage, only counted as victorious if the invaders were routed and the point safe. Considering that they had walls at their disposal, that seemed fair to Estella. This was supposed to be a simulation of something that had actually occurred in the battle it was based on: a small group had used the distraction of the main assault to sneak in through a side gate with a bit more vulnerability—and only a cursory guard.
Squinting at the horizon, she saw the red flag go up on the castle's battlements. The defenders were ready, then.
"So," she said, directing her attention to Khari. "What's the plan here?"
Khari glanced once at the examiner, who was quite stonefaced and non-reactive before she shrugged with a soft clank and nudged her horse forward. “We have to enter from the east, right?"
"Breach must occur along the southern half of the east wall, to account for where the other fighting is taking place in the scenario." The answer was immediate, clinical, and crisp, quite the feat on a trotting horse as he was.
A hum issued from underneath Khari's helmet. “Well... then let's take a better look at what we're working with here. Don't get too close, but they know we're coming, so I'm not too worried about them seeing us. Just, uh... stay out of arrow range, yeah?"
They wound around to the eastern side of the castle; though apparently unused, it was in fairly good shape. The masonry looked solid, though the top edges of the walls were starting to crumble in a few places, the crenelations scattered at the base where they'd fallen. Nothing that made too significant a difference in height. Maybe a foot and a half.
The gate itself looked to be a simple one: a stone arch with a squared-off top. The part that actually lifted was thick wrought iron in a grid pattern, no doubt one of those that rose up vertically and had pointed edges speared into the dirt at the bottom. Just about impossible to force open from the outside.
“Course they couldn't give us a nice set of barred double-doors. That'd be too easy."
At her side, Ves studied the wall and the gate through the visor of his helm. He'd brought the spear and shield for the exercise; it was not the best for assaulting, but in the event any of them needed a place to regroup and recover behind, the bulwark of his shield was as good as any castle crenelation. The rest of them were better suited for leading the attack.
Rom looked eager to get to it, if his posture on the horse was anything to go by. There wasn't much else to go on, as his face was entirely concealed behind his masked helm and the hood over that. But he was eyeing the wall, that much was obvious. No doubt already looking for a way up it that wouldn't lead them straight to the defenders' weapons.
"And easy's no fun, right?" Estella studied the walls herself, though she doubted there was much she could say about them that Khari couldn't figure out just from looking. She wasn't exactly a slouch in the strategy department, but she hadn't studied it in the same historical, wide-ranging way her friend had.
Squinting, she tried to get a sense for where the people were. "I think they've got at least one archer posted already," she observed, catching a glint that might have been the sun off a polished helm. "How should we get close?"
Khari considered this, the green eyes just barely visible in the slit of her helmet shifting amongst her friends thoughtfully. “Considering how small these teams are, any flanking maneuver's gonna be an obvious trap. So I think that's what we'll do: Ves and I will charge the gate, like the shiny distractions we are, and then Stel—er, Stéphanie and Renaldo will approach from the side, far enough down that they don't see you right away." She cleared her throat, throwing a glance at the assessor, who was watching them intently but didn't show any demonstrable expression at her slip of the tongue.
“But, uh, like I said, they're probably expecting that, so one of you should let yourself get found. Draw the attention for a bit, let 'em think they're clever for discovering the ploy, while the other one gets the gate open. Trap within a trap." She seemed somewhat proud of the plan, actually, if the confident tone of her voice was anything to go by.
“Assuming you guys think you can make it up the walls at one of the crumbly parts. Looks like there's some ivy south of the gate. If you help each other over and then split up, I bet you could do it." There did indeed appear to be a few vines in places further down the wall from the gate; though they were fairly thin growths and probably not enough to support someone's entire body weight alone.
She hesitated. “Actually, I take that back. If it was me, I'd have someone guarding there. If you can get over the wall somewhere else, do that instead."
"Just don't break your ankles," Ves warned, half-jokingly. "Their weapons won't cut, but as far as I know you can't blunt the ground." If he had any objections to being target practice as his part of the plan, he kept them to himself. It didn't seem likely, though; he volunteered for those sorts of jobs when the stakes were much more deadly.
"Noted," Rom answered, without any of the accent a name like Renaldo might imply he would have. "We'll get it done." He tilted his masked helm sideways at Estella. "Think you can lead them on a chase? I can take the gate."
She nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me. I guess we should probably split up here, to make our approach less obvious when you two do the distracting thing?"
“That's the idea, yeah. If you can't make the gate, though, don't stick around too long. I dunno what supplies they have on that side, but even if you can only snag a rope or a ladder or something, prioritize staying, uh, alive." Not that they were at much risk here, but the point was obvious enough.
Turning to Ves, Khari gripped the hilt of her sword and freed it from her back. “So I'm thinking that shield of yours is big enough for us, but not so much the horses, so we'll be hitting the ground at the end of our charge. Should be fun."
Stel was out of earshot too soon to hear Ves's response, if there was one, but truthfully she wasn't too worried about them. They were both very good at what they did, and the real worry was going to be whether she and Rom could pull this flanking maneuver off quickly and smoothly enough.
They rode parallel to the wall for a while, urging their horses into rapid canters in the hopes of delaying only minimally for positioning. Once she judged that they were about in the right place, she pulled hers to a stop. There was a natural ridge in the landscape here that should help cover their approach a bit, but she couldn't see anyone on the walls, so that much caution might not even be necessary.
Better safe than sorry, though. They ran close to the ground, following the ridge as far as it would take them and sprinting over the short distance of completely open terrain until they reached the base of the wall. Per Khari's advice, Stel chose a spot with no obvious climbing aids, but the whole thing was old enough that the stones were far from smooth, many of the gaps between them missing the mortar that had once been there. Not much by way of hand and footholds, but better than nothing.
Stel grimaced slightly. "You're better at this than me. Think you could go first? I can boost you." If he could lend her a hand up from the top, she'd have a better shot at making the climb the first time, and they needed to be fast as well as quiet here.
Rom nodded, pointing out his preferred spot on the wall, one with enough weaknesses that they would both be able to make their way up. Estella's boost got him about halfway up, and before long they were both scaling their way to the top, careful as they needed to be and quick as they dared. Rom led the way to the top, cautiously grasping the edge of the wall with fingertips.
He'd barely pulled his head up over the crenelation when he sharply took in a breath and ducked. An arrow whistled right past his helm, sailing through the empty air behind him. "Shit," he hissed under his breath. "Archer's not covering the gate anymore." No doubt it was a waste of their time to loose arrows against Ves's shield until the quiver was empty.
Rom took his own shield into hand, getting ready to vault up. It wasn't nearly as large a bulwark, but with any luck it would be enough. "This needs to be quick," he said, before immediately pulling himself up over the edge and onto the wall. The first arrow smacked against his shield, the magical dull causing it to bounce off rather than pierce. Blindly he reached a hand back to pull Estella up after him.
Well, that was bad news. If she came up right after him, any chance of the defenders thinking it was just one flanker were slim. Still, there wasn't much choice; Stel pushed up with her legs and latched onto his arm, walking herself up the wall to make the pull easier on him. Rolling over the crenelation, she landed behind him.
A quick glance informed her that they'd staged the place like an actual castle, meaning that there were the same kinds of supplies stacked against this side of the wall as they had in Skyhold, more or less. They might still be able to get the gate open, but if this became four on two, that wasn't the best chance.
"Going to try that distraction now," she said, breaking off from where Rom was, but not before calling a small ice dart to her fingers and hurling it at the archer. He strafed aside in enough time to avoid it; it smashed against the wall behind him instead. Estella headed for the stairs, hoping to draw most of the fire and attention.
If she was really lucky, she might find some kind of backup solution to the problem in the process, but for now she needed to keep moving.
Rom took the brief lull offered by the ice dart to charge for the archer, who at least appeared to be isolated on this section of the wall. Rather than try sneaking an arrow around his shield the archer dropped the bow in favor of dual short swords instead. They crashed into each other just as Estella lost sight of them.
An arrow whizzed by just over her shoulder; it was pretty clear at this point that things were not going according to plan. It seemed like the best thing to do would be to find some way to get Khari and Ves over the wall, but Estella wasn't sure how she was going to do that when she was working this hard just not to get hit.
Carefully, she funneled a little of her magic into making herself a bit faster—she was going to need every advantage she could get.
Another of the archers had abandoned that course, and was now charging for her position with a battleaxe in both hands. Grimacing, Estella adjusted her trajectory, calling a little fire to her hands and shooting it for the ground near his feet. It forced him to a stop, at least, losing his momentum and allowing her the opportunity to get further clear. Maybe...
The capture point wasn't far away—it looked like the chevalier himself was guarding it, shield in one hand and sword in the other. Reaching to her hip, Estella unsheathed her sword while still in motion, the familiar weight of the weapon in her hands slightly stranger due to the tingle of the blunting magic the tournament-appointed mages had applied to it.
He raised his shield to deflect her ice projectiles—unsurprising considering that elemental magic like this was not her strong suit and never would be. More surprising was that he had to dig in a bit to do it. Perhaps she'd been improving after all. The chevalier shouted something to his comrades; she had a feeling they were all going to be over here quite soon.
The temptation to use her mark was high; she'd be able to position herself right behind him before he could so much as track the motion. But ti would also obviously give them away, so she was going to have to try this the hard way instead.
At least it would give Rom a fighting chance at getting the gate open quickly.
An arrow struck her in the back of her right shoulder, bouncing off her armor and falling to the ground. One wasn't enough to take her out, and Estella dove to the side, avoiding the follow-up. It thudded into the dirt behind her at the same time as she regained her feet and lashed out aggressively at the chevalier. He turned the blow aside with the shield; she scraped a bit of frost off the metal face of it in the process.
His counter was fast, but Estella ducked under it, jabbing for his ribcage. The catch was less quick that time—she was turned aside only by the rim of the shield and it left him more off-balance than her. Thudding footsteps alerted her to the presence of his reinforcements, though, and she disengaged, jumping back and reorienting herself so that she could see all of them, even through the restricted peripheral vision of her mask.
Fortunately, it looked like she'd bought enough time. The gate was halfway open, allowing Khari and then Ves to duck through underneath it.
“Bunch up!" Khari's shout carried across the distance; she lunged forward into a sprint as if to make good on her own suggestion.
The other chevalier called for his group to cluster as well, and they reformed around the flag. Generally better-armored than the Inquisition's group, two of the four had a shield. The dual swordsman and the man with the battle axe took flank positions.
Khari, in typical Khari fashion, threw herself at the center of the formation with an overhead slash, forcing the chevalier to raise his shield to block. It left a very small opening on his right side.
Rom was on it in an instant, fully prepared to follow up on Khari's aggressiveness. His blade slipped underneath the shield, the magical dulling of the blade providing enough force for the chevalier to know he'd been hit, and he backed off defensively from the pair of them. The battle axe came for Rom's side, but it met Ves's shield instead. He'd positioned himself on the flank, guarding against attempts to surround them as they pushed in. The battle axe slid off the face of the shield into the dirt, allowing Ves to kick back the wielder of it and follow up with a spear thrust that earned him a point against the enemy.
Estella took a swipe at the dual-wielder on her end, but the close-in positioning wasn't making life easy. Her blade was knocked aside, and the retaliatory blow from the second sword clipped her hip. It wouldn't have done much of anything in a real fight, but it counted as a hit against her. She probably couldn't take any more of them before the officiants declared her dead.
Grimacing, she flung another small ice spike from her free hand, mostly sideways. It clanged into the shoulder-guard of the chevalier's shield-carrying partner, giving him his first strike.
He clearly hadn't been expecting it; Khari seized the opportunity and slipped her blade in between him and the dual-wielder next to him. It clanged against the armor on his ribcage, signaling another point.
But then he did something rather unorthodox. The shield arm came down, clamping the sword between his elbow and his torso. Khari, meeting with unexpected resistance, stumbled slightly, and the chevalier took the opportunity to bodily check her with his shield, hitting her square in the chest and sending her to her back.
He would've taken the opportunity to attack Khari while she was at a disadvantage, but Rom was quick to interrupt any attempt. He threw himself somewhat recklessly at the chevalier, attacking downwards with his backwards-turned dagger. The blade didn't quite reach its target, and the chevalier wasn't caught off guard. His shield caught the bulk of Rom's chest as they collided, and with one smooth motion he was carried up and over the chevalier's back on the shield's face. Tipped end over end, Rom landed flat on his back in the dirt on the other side.
He did at least manage to grab hold of the shield as he went down, tugging the chevalier partly off balance. Rom earned a sword slash to the abdomen from the other sword and shield fighter for his trouble. Ves seemed to have taken the axe wielder out of the fight with another clean hit, but he wasn't going to be able to turn in time to reach Rom, or make a play for the flag.
Khari, though, capitalized on the break in the line, throwing herself forward from the ground. The chevalier was trying to correct his balance, recognizing the immediate danger of Rom being on the wrong side of the line, but before he could set his feet back underneath him, Khari was tangling up his legs with her own and driving an elbow into the back of his knee.
“Rom! Flag!" The chevalier went down, his shield clipping the other man with a shield, sending him into the dual-wielder trying to strike Estella. Those two kept their footing, but they also weren't in any shape to be stopping Rom, if he could make a move quickly.
He didn't need any extra encouragement to get off the ground. By the time he was on his feet the shield fighter was angling to strike at him, but Ves was able to cut across, their shields slamming together. Not surprisingly Ves came out the better of the pair, having applied much more force to the clash than their opponent had been prepared for. It was all the time Rom need to bolt for the flag and pull it free from the ground with his shield hand.
That was the match, and to their credit, the other team immediately disengaged. Sheathing weapons and stepping back in most cases, though it took a little longer for Khari and the chevalier to untangle themselves, but when she got to her feet first and offered a hand down to him, he accepted it, pulling himself to his feet with a slightly-muffled 'congratulations.'
Estella breathed a heavy sigh of relief, sheathing her sword and letting her magic dissipate. Her muscles slackened, losing the fraught tension of a fight.
Well. That had been... something. If this was what it was like with only eight people on the field, she was rather glad Khari was the one who had to handle the grand melee.
Truthfully, it was the opposite of relaxing. This—the group round, conducted outside the city and under only the judging gaze of their blue-robed assessor and the few spectators willing to ride this far outside the city for their spectacle—was actually a bit of a relief in comparison. The air was nice and fresh, at least, the small castle ahead of them on the landscape rather picturesque. Or it would have been if the point hadn't been to breach its defenses.
Estella was not at all surprised to learn that Lucien had designed the scenario. It bore a striking resemblance to one of the major events in the Valmont-Drakon conflict in the Exalted Age. It was both ironic and quite on-the-nose, but more importantly, it wasn't anything that any of the competitors would have lived through. No unfair advantages from experience, and also no possibility of reopening fresh wounds.
Instead, their group of four was tasked with assaulting the east gate and seizing a flag that represented a capture point. The win conditions were asymmetric: Khari's team won if anyone laid hands on the flag. The other team, with the positioning advantage, only counted as victorious if the invaders were routed and the point safe. Considering that they had walls at their disposal, that seemed fair to Estella. This was supposed to be a simulation of something that had actually occurred in the battle it was based on: a small group had used the distraction of the main assault to sneak in through a side gate with a bit more vulnerability—and only a cursory guard.
Squinting at the horizon, she saw the red flag go up on the castle's battlements. The defenders were ready, then.
"So," she said, directing her attention to Khari. "What's the plan here?"
Khari glanced once at the examiner, who was quite stonefaced and non-reactive before she shrugged with a soft clank and nudged her horse forward. “We have to enter from the east, right?"
"Breach must occur along the southern half of the east wall, to account for where the other fighting is taking place in the scenario." The answer was immediate, clinical, and crisp, quite the feat on a trotting horse as he was.
A hum issued from underneath Khari's helmet. “Well... then let's take a better look at what we're working with here. Don't get too close, but they know we're coming, so I'm not too worried about them seeing us. Just, uh... stay out of arrow range, yeah?"
They wound around to the eastern side of the castle; though apparently unused, it was in fairly good shape. The masonry looked solid, though the top edges of the walls were starting to crumble in a few places, the crenelations scattered at the base where they'd fallen. Nothing that made too significant a difference in height. Maybe a foot and a half.
The gate itself looked to be a simple one: a stone arch with a squared-off top. The part that actually lifted was thick wrought iron in a grid pattern, no doubt one of those that rose up vertically and had pointed edges speared into the dirt at the bottom. Just about impossible to force open from the outside.
“Course they couldn't give us a nice set of barred double-doors. That'd be too easy."
At her side, Ves studied the wall and the gate through the visor of his helm. He'd brought the spear and shield for the exercise; it was not the best for assaulting, but in the event any of them needed a place to regroup and recover behind, the bulwark of his shield was as good as any castle crenelation. The rest of them were better suited for leading the attack.
Rom looked eager to get to it, if his posture on the horse was anything to go by. There wasn't much else to go on, as his face was entirely concealed behind his masked helm and the hood over that. But he was eyeing the wall, that much was obvious. No doubt already looking for a way up it that wouldn't lead them straight to the defenders' weapons.
"And easy's no fun, right?" Estella studied the walls herself, though she doubted there was much she could say about them that Khari couldn't figure out just from looking. She wasn't exactly a slouch in the strategy department, but she hadn't studied it in the same historical, wide-ranging way her friend had.
Squinting, she tried to get a sense for where the people were. "I think they've got at least one archer posted already," she observed, catching a glint that might have been the sun off a polished helm. "How should we get close?"
Khari considered this, the green eyes just barely visible in the slit of her helmet shifting amongst her friends thoughtfully. “Considering how small these teams are, any flanking maneuver's gonna be an obvious trap. So I think that's what we'll do: Ves and I will charge the gate, like the shiny distractions we are, and then Stel—er, Stéphanie and Renaldo will approach from the side, far enough down that they don't see you right away." She cleared her throat, throwing a glance at the assessor, who was watching them intently but didn't show any demonstrable expression at her slip of the tongue.
“But, uh, like I said, they're probably expecting that, so one of you should let yourself get found. Draw the attention for a bit, let 'em think they're clever for discovering the ploy, while the other one gets the gate open. Trap within a trap." She seemed somewhat proud of the plan, actually, if the confident tone of her voice was anything to go by.
“Assuming you guys think you can make it up the walls at one of the crumbly parts. Looks like there's some ivy south of the gate. If you help each other over and then split up, I bet you could do it." There did indeed appear to be a few vines in places further down the wall from the gate; though they were fairly thin growths and probably not enough to support someone's entire body weight alone.
She hesitated. “Actually, I take that back. If it was me, I'd have someone guarding there. If you can get over the wall somewhere else, do that instead."
"Just don't break your ankles," Ves warned, half-jokingly. "Their weapons won't cut, but as far as I know you can't blunt the ground." If he had any objections to being target practice as his part of the plan, he kept them to himself. It didn't seem likely, though; he volunteered for those sorts of jobs when the stakes were much more deadly.
"Noted," Rom answered, without any of the accent a name like Renaldo might imply he would have. "We'll get it done." He tilted his masked helm sideways at Estella. "Think you can lead them on a chase? I can take the gate."
She nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me. I guess we should probably split up here, to make our approach less obvious when you two do the distracting thing?"
“That's the idea, yeah. If you can't make the gate, though, don't stick around too long. I dunno what supplies they have on that side, but even if you can only snag a rope or a ladder or something, prioritize staying, uh, alive." Not that they were at much risk here, but the point was obvious enough.
Turning to Ves, Khari gripped the hilt of her sword and freed it from her back. “So I'm thinking that shield of yours is big enough for us, but not so much the horses, so we'll be hitting the ground at the end of our charge. Should be fun."
Stel was out of earshot too soon to hear Ves's response, if there was one, but truthfully she wasn't too worried about them. They were both very good at what they did, and the real worry was going to be whether she and Rom could pull this flanking maneuver off quickly and smoothly enough.
They rode parallel to the wall for a while, urging their horses into rapid canters in the hopes of delaying only minimally for positioning. Once she judged that they were about in the right place, she pulled hers to a stop. There was a natural ridge in the landscape here that should help cover their approach a bit, but she couldn't see anyone on the walls, so that much caution might not even be necessary.
Better safe than sorry, though. They ran close to the ground, following the ridge as far as it would take them and sprinting over the short distance of completely open terrain until they reached the base of the wall. Per Khari's advice, Stel chose a spot with no obvious climbing aids, but the whole thing was old enough that the stones were far from smooth, many of the gaps between them missing the mortar that had once been there. Not much by way of hand and footholds, but better than nothing.
Stel grimaced slightly. "You're better at this than me. Think you could go first? I can boost you." If he could lend her a hand up from the top, she'd have a better shot at making the climb the first time, and they needed to be fast as well as quiet here.
Rom nodded, pointing out his preferred spot on the wall, one with enough weaknesses that they would both be able to make their way up. Estella's boost got him about halfway up, and before long they were both scaling their way to the top, careful as they needed to be and quick as they dared. Rom led the way to the top, cautiously grasping the edge of the wall with fingertips.
He'd barely pulled his head up over the crenelation when he sharply took in a breath and ducked. An arrow whistled right past his helm, sailing through the empty air behind him. "Shit," he hissed under his breath. "Archer's not covering the gate anymore." No doubt it was a waste of their time to loose arrows against Ves's shield until the quiver was empty.
Rom took his own shield into hand, getting ready to vault up. It wasn't nearly as large a bulwark, but with any luck it would be enough. "This needs to be quick," he said, before immediately pulling himself up over the edge and onto the wall. The first arrow smacked against his shield, the magical dull causing it to bounce off rather than pierce. Blindly he reached a hand back to pull Estella up after him.
Well, that was bad news. If she came up right after him, any chance of the defenders thinking it was just one flanker were slim. Still, there wasn't much choice; Stel pushed up with her legs and latched onto his arm, walking herself up the wall to make the pull easier on him. Rolling over the crenelation, she landed behind him.
A quick glance informed her that they'd staged the place like an actual castle, meaning that there were the same kinds of supplies stacked against this side of the wall as they had in Skyhold, more or less. They might still be able to get the gate open, but if this became four on two, that wasn't the best chance.
"Going to try that distraction now," she said, breaking off from where Rom was, but not before calling a small ice dart to her fingers and hurling it at the archer. He strafed aside in enough time to avoid it; it smashed against the wall behind him instead. Estella headed for the stairs, hoping to draw most of the fire and attention.
If she was really lucky, she might find some kind of backup solution to the problem in the process, but for now she needed to keep moving.
Rom took the brief lull offered by the ice dart to charge for the archer, who at least appeared to be isolated on this section of the wall. Rather than try sneaking an arrow around his shield the archer dropped the bow in favor of dual short swords instead. They crashed into each other just as Estella lost sight of them.
An arrow whizzed by just over her shoulder; it was pretty clear at this point that things were not going according to plan. It seemed like the best thing to do would be to find some way to get Khari and Ves over the wall, but Estella wasn't sure how she was going to do that when she was working this hard just not to get hit.
Carefully, she funneled a little of her magic into making herself a bit faster—she was going to need every advantage she could get.
Another of the archers had abandoned that course, and was now charging for her position with a battleaxe in both hands. Grimacing, Estella adjusted her trajectory, calling a little fire to her hands and shooting it for the ground near his feet. It forced him to a stop, at least, losing his momentum and allowing her the opportunity to get further clear. Maybe...
The capture point wasn't far away—it looked like the chevalier himself was guarding it, shield in one hand and sword in the other. Reaching to her hip, Estella unsheathed her sword while still in motion, the familiar weight of the weapon in her hands slightly stranger due to the tingle of the blunting magic the tournament-appointed mages had applied to it.
He raised his shield to deflect her ice projectiles—unsurprising considering that elemental magic like this was not her strong suit and never would be. More surprising was that he had to dig in a bit to do it. Perhaps she'd been improving after all. The chevalier shouted something to his comrades; she had a feeling they were all going to be over here quite soon.
The temptation to use her mark was high; she'd be able to position herself right behind him before he could so much as track the motion. But ti would also obviously give them away, so she was going to have to try this the hard way instead.
At least it would give Rom a fighting chance at getting the gate open quickly.
An arrow struck her in the back of her right shoulder, bouncing off her armor and falling to the ground. One wasn't enough to take her out, and Estella dove to the side, avoiding the follow-up. It thudded into the dirt behind her at the same time as she regained her feet and lashed out aggressively at the chevalier. He turned the blow aside with the shield; she scraped a bit of frost off the metal face of it in the process.
His counter was fast, but Estella ducked under it, jabbing for his ribcage. The catch was less quick that time—she was turned aside only by the rim of the shield and it left him more off-balance than her. Thudding footsteps alerted her to the presence of his reinforcements, though, and she disengaged, jumping back and reorienting herself so that she could see all of them, even through the restricted peripheral vision of her mask.
Fortunately, it looked like she'd bought enough time. The gate was halfway open, allowing Khari and then Ves to duck through underneath it.
“Bunch up!" Khari's shout carried across the distance; she lunged forward into a sprint as if to make good on her own suggestion.
The other chevalier called for his group to cluster as well, and they reformed around the flag. Generally better-armored than the Inquisition's group, two of the four had a shield. The dual swordsman and the man with the battle axe took flank positions.
Khari, in typical Khari fashion, threw herself at the center of the formation with an overhead slash, forcing the chevalier to raise his shield to block. It left a very small opening on his right side.
Rom was on it in an instant, fully prepared to follow up on Khari's aggressiveness. His blade slipped underneath the shield, the magical dulling of the blade providing enough force for the chevalier to know he'd been hit, and he backed off defensively from the pair of them. The battle axe came for Rom's side, but it met Ves's shield instead. He'd positioned himself on the flank, guarding against attempts to surround them as they pushed in. The battle axe slid off the face of the shield into the dirt, allowing Ves to kick back the wielder of it and follow up with a spear thrust that earned him a point against the enemy.
Estella took a swipe at the dual-wielder on her end, but the close-in positioning wasn't making life easy. Her blade was knocked aside, and the retaliatory blow from the second sword clipped her hip. It wouldn't have done much of anything in a real fight, but it counted as a hit against her. She probably couldn't take any more of them before the officiants declared her dead.
Grimacing, she flung another small ice spike from her free hand, mostly sideways. It clanged into the shoulder-guard of the chevalier's shield-carrying partner, giving him his first strike.
He clearly hadn't been expecting it; Khari seized the opportunity and slipped her blade in between him and the dual-wielder next to him. It clanged against the armor on his ribcage, signaling another point.
But then he did something rather unorthodox. The shield arm came down, clamping the sword between his elbow and his torso. Khari, meeting with unexpected resistance, stumbled slightly, and the chevalier took the opportunity to bodily check her with his shield, hitting her square in the chest and sending her to her back.
He would've taken the opportunity to attack Khari while she was at a disadvantage, but Rom was quick to interrupt any attempt. He threw himself somewhat recklessly at the chevalier, attacking downwards with his backwards-turned dagger. The blade didn't quite reach its target, and the chevalier wasn't caught off guard. His shield caught the bulk of Rom's chest as they collided, and with one smooth motion he was carried up and over the chevalier's back on the shield's face. Tipped end over end, Rom landed flat on his back in the dirt on the other side.
He did at least manage to grab hold of the shield as he went down, tugging the chevalier partly off balance. Rom earned a sword slash to the abdomen from the other sword and shield fighter for his trouble. Ves seemed to have taken the axe wielder out of the fight with another clean hit, but he wasn't going to be able to turn in time to reach Rom, or make a play for the flag.
Khari, though, capitalized on the break in the line, throwing herself forward from the ground. The chevalier was trying to correct his balance, recognizing the immediate danger of Rom being on the wrong side of the line, but before he could set his feet back underneath him, Khari was tangling up his legs with her own and driving an elbow into the back of his knee.
“Rom! Flag!" The chevalier went down, his shield clipping the other man with a shield, sending him into the dual-wielder trying to strike Estella. Those two kept their footing, but they also weren't in any shape to be stopping Rom, if he could make a move quickly.
He didn't need any extra encouragement to get off the ground. By the time he was on his feet the shield fighter was angling to strike at him, but Ves was able to cut across, their shields slamming together. Not surprisingly Ves came out the better of the pair, having applied much more force to the clash than their opponent had been prepared for. It was all the time Rom need to bolt for the flag and pull it free from the ground with his shield hand.
That was the match, and to their credit, the other team immediately disengaged. Sheathing weapons and stepping back in most cases, though it took a little longer for Khari and the chevalier to untangle themselves, but when she got to her feet first and offered a hand down to him, he accepted it, pulling himself to his feet with a slightly-muffled 'congratulations.'
Estella breathed a heavy sigh of relief, sheathing her sword and letting her magic dissipate. Her muscles slackened, losing the fraught tension of a fight.
Well. That had been... something. If this was what it was like with only eight people on the field, she was rather glad Khari was the one who had to handle the grand melee.