Even though Kaldalis knew that his impending death was unlikely to be permanent, it was hard to contain his fear. The sinister nature of the War Weapon made him wonder if perhaps death at the end of one of them might be different. But more than that, it was just plain scary to be pinned down by a half-dozen murderous guards while another of them raised an impractically giant sword up over his head.

“You don’t want to do this,” Kaldalis stammered quickly. He wasn’t sure if he really thought he could talk his way out of this, or if he was just stalling for time. “What you’re about to do can’t be taken back!”

To Kaldalis’s credit, the man with the greatsword hesitated. If this was one-on-one, it might have been enough to de-escalate this. But when the guard looked to the others, he was galvanized to action. He couldn’t be talked down so easily in front of all his allies.

The sword began to descend, lined up to cleave Kaldalis’s head in twain.

He tried to twist out of the way, but there was nowhere to go. The grip of the guards grappling him was like iron bands. No doubt they were DPS classes, giving each one of them strength surpassing his entire body, and he was so dramatically outnumbered he couldn’t possibly move more than a few inches.

His only real hope was to somehow absorb the impact with his Vathon horns, but the sensitivity of those appendages meant that even if they stopped the heavy blade from killing him, the pain would likely cause him to black out. The best resistance he could offer was indignity of having to double-tap him instead of taking him out cleanly in one stroke.

But before the first blow landed, fate made it known that it had other plans.

Or, at least, Myrin did.

A tiny figure crashed into the sword-wielding guard like a cannonball. She caught him flat-footed from his blind spot in a flying kick, planting her foot in his side right under his ribcage. There was a whooshing sound as the air left his lungs before the flying kick sent both him and Myrin to the ground in a heap.

The grass over the ground of the clearing wasn’t too high, but it was high enough that from his position flat on his back, Kaldalis could no longer see them.

Three of the guards holding Kaldalis let go of him and jumped to their feet, moving to help their ally from the sudden attack. The others loosened their grip just enough that when Kaldalis wrenched and rolled, he managed to break free. With a cackle of triumph, he scrambled away from his attackers and got to his feet.

A much louder and more alarming cackle sounded nearby, though.

Myrin stood up over her downed opponent, and now she was the one holding the War Weapon.

For a brief moment, Kaldalis was afraid he was about to witness a war crime. There were six guards within striking distance, and no doubt more on the way. He’d known Myrin long enough to recognize that if she chose to go wild with her new toy, the consequences would not be pretty.

“This doesn’t have to go like this,” Kaldalis snapped, addressing Myrin as much as the guards arrayed against her. “We can approach this like civilized people. We don’t have to resolve this with bloodshed.”

Despite her obvious glee at the power she now held, Myrin visibly calmed herself, shifting her stance from aggressive to defensive. Kaldalis was hopeful that he might be able to use her as a threat against the guards. She was tiny, but her skill for violence in this world was pretty terrifying. Perhaps-

The remaining guards drew War Weapons of their own, three of them arrayed against Myrin, while the other three turned on Kaldalis.

“Or we can keep escalating,” Kaldalis said, trying to pretend to be calm. “Shit, guys. Its your funerals.” He raised his voice, trying to catch Myrin’s eye. “Hopefully not literal funerals, though.”

Myrin gave him a nod, but not more than that before she lunged. The wide blade of her new sword gave the weapon tremendous weight, and while that weight was best-suited to reducing whole people into smaller parts of people, it also meant that if she struck with the flat of the blade, the weight would literally send a full-grown Human man flying at least five feet through the air before landing in a slightly-concussed heap.

The three guards nearest to Kaldalis encircled him cautiously. They didn’t know he was effectively unarmed here, but as soon as one of them moved in, he was going to get cut to ribbons. The one on his left had twin daggers, though their design was more akin to kukri, with front-heavy blades designed to hack off limbs, the blades rough-forged to make them look almost primitive.

On his right, that guard wielded a sword and shield. The blade was a single-edged cutlass, the metal blade black as night emerging from a glittering silver basket hilt. The shield was a simple round shield made of pitch-black wood, studded with steel knobs evocative of stars in the night sky.

The guard who circled behind him bore a staff, the weapon gnarled and twisted as if it was just a natural branch of wood, though it was dark brown-orange on either end, as if coated in long-dried blood.

“Come on, you guys,” Kaldalis said, looking over at the one on the right. “How about you toss me that sword and we can have a fair fight. You wouldn’t be so dishonorable as to attack a-”

Instinct screamed and Kaldalis ducked. There was a low whoosh - almost like that of a pained moan - as the end of the staff flew through the air right where Kaldalis’s head had been.

“Alright,” Kaldalis said, putting up his fists. “You asked for it.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what his plan was. Besides getting cut up, there wasn’t another obvious outcome here. Myrin was near at hand, but she had her hands full. The unspoken signal to draw War Weapons also seemed to be complicating the fight elsewhere. Reno had Kaldalis’s spear out now and was holding her ground. On the other sides of the clearing, his friends were facing worse odds now that their foes were drawing weapons as soon as they saw how the fight was going.

Fortunately, he’d done his planning beforehand.

There was a wet thunk and a cry of anguish from the guard on his left. An arrow sprouted from the man’s calf and the impact of it sent him straight to the ground. There was a shattering sound to his right of another arrow, this time breaking against the surface of the shield that guard carried. On instinct, the man had raised it to protect himself, and now that he saw the source, he didn’t lower it.

Balrim had Kaldalis’s back.

He couldn’t waste this opening. Kaldalis flung himself at the man with the staff. The sinister weapon lashed out in response, but Kaldalis caught the attack on his armored forearm. The impact made his arm go ringingly numb from elbow to fingertip, but his opponent had been caught off-guard.

Kaldalis tackled the man to the ground, ripping his helmet off before clapping his one useful hand to the man’s ear as hard as he could.

The ringing blow left the guard stunned enough that Kaldalis ripped the staff from his grip.

With one smooth motion, Kaldalis stood and turned with the weapon. The guard with the sword and shield was charging at Balrim, shield raised to guard against further arrows as he made his approach. Balrim was visibly panicking, but just kept pelting the man. Arrows shattered against the shield, or deflected near-harmlessly off of the armor on the front side of the man’s legs.

But it wasn’t slowing him down enough. Dalgaard was near at hand, but still unarmed. They wouldn’t be able to slow down the guard by much. Without anyone available to protect him, both healers would be dead in seconds.

Kaldalis hurled the staff.

The weapon spun end-over-end with that same sound as before - something between a wail and a moan - before striking the guard in the legs. The impact to his knee made a much louder and more painful-sounding crunch than Kaldalis expected. Even without that joint-destroying impact, the weapon tangled in his legs, fouling his charge and sending him to the ground with a shriek.

Kaldalis rushed to return to Balrim’s side, but he had two stops to make first. The man with the arrow in his calf had dropped his daggers, and while he writhed in pain, clutching his leg, Kaldalis scooped them up. Then, instead of running right back to Balrim, he ran at the man with the sword and shield, pointing the daggers at the man as soon as he stood over him.

“You’re gonna want to hand over those weapons,” Kaldalis said. “Unless you want to lose those same hands.”

“Glorious One’s Mercy, man,” the downed guard stammered, his face gone ghostly pale as he struggled not to move his broken leg. “Just take them. I didn’t join the church to shed my life’s blood on some Eagle-and-Hare-forsaken rock out in the ocean.”

“You should be more careful about who you follow, then,” Kaldalis said, taking the sword and shield - and retrieving the staff as well. “I’m sure being chosen by the Contender was a great honor when it happened, but he’s the one who put you here.” He leaned down with a grin that he hoped was appropriately menacing. “If you like taking orders so much, then take this one: get the fuck off of my rock. I don’t want you getting your blood on it, either.”