The bar fight was rudely interrupted by the appearance of seven armored town guards. They looked ridiculous, Maulakanth decided, and he strongly considered bullrushing them, crossbows be damned. While he was weighing his options, his savage bloodthirst locked in a contest of willpower with his intellect, the situation was already changing. Apparently the town was under siege by centaurs. [i]Centaurs? What the fuck?[/i] Maulakanth thought to himself, and the red mist cleared a little. The news was such an unexpected surprise that it pulled him out of his primal rage. The orc looked around the tavern, surveying the carnage. Cedric and Brynn were nearby, and mostly unharmed, but the orc didn't see any of his other companions. They must have gone outside already. Even the gigantic frost atronach had barely registered in the orc's mind during his rampage. 

Considering there were just three of them now and it seemed like there was a way out of this for them yet, Maulakanth hesitantly lowered his swords. He briefly locked eyes with the captain, Renault, and nodded. He could kill centaurs. No problem. His beef wasn't with the guards anyway. Or at least... not yet. Most of the guards left, charging out onto the street, but three of them stayed behind. Among them was an Imperial whose crossbow didn't budge. "I don't care what the Captain says, you aren't going anywhere, orc. Murderous beasts like you don't deserve to live..." the Imperial said, his raspy voice clearly full of hatred. Maulakanth's subdued anger resurfaced and he exhaled sharply, his fingers gripping the knuckle-bowed hilts of his swords tightly. Before he could do anything, Cedric threw a tankard at the Imperial and the crossbow fired itself. 

By all measures, Maulakanth was fast and possessed excellent reflexes, but he definitely wasn't fast enough to deflect or evade a high-speed projectile coming at him from less than fifteen feet away. The Imperial's aim had been thrown off by Cedric's tankard and the bolt fortunately didn't lodge itself in his eyesocket; instead, it was buried in Maulakanth's abdomen with a soft [i]thud[/i]. Maulakanth grunted and dropped to one knee, keeping himself upright on the points of his swords. Intense pain flared in his gut and was almost immediately drowned out by the inhumanly powerful rush of adrenaline that flooded his body in response. 

Maulakanth could hear Cedric call to him from miles away. [color=gold]"Don't fookin' kill them!"[/color] He had been prepared to forgive the Imperial for his words and be on his way to kill some centaurs, but there was no force in all of the realms, neither Mundus, Oblivion, nor Aetherius, that could stop Maulakanth's fury now. He was beyond reason. The Imperial's life was forfeit. 

The scream that tore itself from Maulakanth's throat was monstrous. The Imperial guard barely had time to react; to his credit, he dropped his crossbow and reached for his sword-and-board quickly, but he wasn't fast enough. Propelled forward by every muscle in his body, Maulakanth raised his blades skyward and brought them down on -- and through -- the Imperial. An impressive spray of blood splattered across the ceiling. The two remaining guards bellowed, cursed and wasted no time in trying to avenge their fallen comrade. Maulakanth brandished his swords in response, greeting the guard's strikes with crimson orichalcum. These were trained warriors, though, wielding proper equipment, and Maulakanth was halfway drunk, wounded and beside himself with wrath. He was fast enough to keep up with the guards' initial assault -- sparks flew as the blades clashed, Maulakanth's braided hair whipped through the air, teeth were gritted -- but for how long?