[center][h2][b][i][color=00aeef]Qar[/color][/i][/b][/h2][/center]

Everything was happening at once and Qar, for one, was glad he had only drunk two cups of wine and that it was relatively weak stuff in the first place.  His wits remained sharp and he was on his feet, staff in hand as Zamonth exacted immediate retribution upon the disguised attendant.  Seeing the blow, and the effect, Qar knew the man would be dead.  He had seen the way Zamonth's expression had changed; he bore the look of a man on the battlefield and in so in his element, mixed with anger at being attacked in the middle of enjoying himself.

What had drawn his attention, before the server had attacked them, were the sounds of shock and horror from the crowd a little way off.  Calling to Zamonth to let the man know where he was going, Qar dashed off through the crowd to find the guard lying on the floor, a deep stab wound on his back.  Vizier Satiah stood over him, apparently the man had been trying to find her, one final duty, before falling.  Kneeling down, Qar checked for breathing and felt the man's throat but his skin was quickly cooling and there was no discernible pulse of blood through his jugular. 

[color=00aeef]"He's gone."[/color] Qar closed the man's glazed eyes before standing, looking over the heads of the crowd to where multiple masked figures were emerging.  They were clearly not performers, the masks were too uniform for that and the knives they were carrying cleared up any confusion about their purpose; they were after the Viziers.  That meant Nebet and possibly Aperel were in danger, depending on who was directing the masked attackers.  Perhaps even the Pharaoh was a target.

[color=00aeef]"Do you know where the Priestess is?  And the Pharaoh?  They may well be targets themselves."[/color]  He didn't have time to speak further as a masked assailant, having merged into the crowd ahead of the rest of the group, darted out at him with knife at the read.  Qar blocked the attack, turning the blade aside and then twisting the bottom of the staff up to crack against the assailant's chin.  The attacker stepped back, letting the blow roll off of their mask with little force before closing in on Qar again.

[i]They aren't going to go down as easy as those slavers, are they?[/i]

Qar grimaced, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that he would need to exercise some magic on this particular battlefield.  With Zamonth and Satiah here he wouldn't need to reveal all of his spells, besides which [i]Star Fall[/i] would catch civilians in its blast radius so he would avoid using it all costs.  Resorting to the only option suitable, he lowered his staff slightly.

[color=00aeef]"Burden of Knowledge."[/color] The assailant wavered a moment, worried that Qar was casting some magical attack, but nothing discernible happened and so he approached with the blade singing through the air again.  Once again the physician turned the blade aside with the staff and then kicked the man's leg on its instep.  The blow, although relatively light, had the weight of his magic behind and snapped the bone clean in half.  Crying in surprise, the assailant fell forwards on his shattered leg and Qar's staff came down again, this time heavily landing on the man's head.  The reinforced wood shattered through the mask and then through the man's skull, ending his life instantly in a bloody mess.

Turning to the others, Qar raised his bloodied staff and stepped away from the corpse, its head cracked open like an eggshell and their face no longer recognisable as human.  The physician shrugged the upper half of his robe free, letting it fall down so that he could move his arms freely and without restraint; in this fight a mistake would cost him his life and he didn't want that to happen so early in the Pharaoh's reign.

[color=00aeef]"I better leave the bulk of the fighting to you two, I'm more useful as support.  That is, unless one of you thinks it better to head to the Pharaoh's location.  If that's the case then one of you should go and I'll remain with the other."[/color]