“I have heard it said that the beast is an outsider! A real live demon, like the superstitious rabble discuss in the street during the Dying Season!’ ‘No, no, it is not so. Certainly not an outsider, the cursed things are plainly imaginary! The beast is just some misfortunate barbarian gone mad from years of isolation,’ ‘Well I’ve heard it said that it tore through fifteen Auxiliary before they finally caged the monster. I do not exaggerate, they put it in a real cage. The very same as the kind they use for kenneling cave lions! Solid steel bars, the things cost more than you or me are worth combined! The beast chewed through the bonds it was first placed in and caught another six of their troop by surprise! And I mean what I say, it chewed through leather and bronze restraints with its teeth! Half the platoon were sent to their graves, much of them in never making it on account of being caught up in the monster’s gullet!’ ‘Is Kull not available? I simply cannot fathom the reason they are sending some woman out to fight a monster like that. What poor spectacle, and in even worse taste,’

‘This Some Woman of whom you speak is the Lady in Blue. With mine own two eyes I chance happened to witness her bring death to Astara’s Dawn on the killing field of Arles’Ton. Rare and rarer still a dance the caliber of their performance, and to think it was held outside of the capital on the pretext of her being a woman and poor sport. Astara’s Dawn had her pinned to the sand with his knees upon her shoulders after several minutes of bloody spectacle and display of skill with blade and polearm, and hadn’t yet had firm grasp of victory enough to chance to peer toward the dais for the signal before she in a stroke of wit and beauty at arms managed to put a dagger through his, erhm… Well, through his groin. This all being while she was held upon the sand to be sure, the spectators were certain that the fight would be finished within moments, and no doubt would see her the loser likely to lose her head upon the sands. None had realized the stroke until it was too late for Astara’s Dawn. Pressing her advantage she slipped from his mount and beat him to death with naught but her own two hands,’

‘That was five years ago. She’s all but certain to have aged to white hair by now, this entire spectacle is farce. It would have been best for her to send one of her students to accept the Emperor’s summons, poor form indeed to watch an old woman with a crutch face the most terrible monster to ever blaspheme with its presence the Arena of his Imperial Majesty,’ ‘Were I you I would not have it become known in polite company that you named an outsider in a box a more fearsome contestant than Kull. He may be otherwise preoccupied for the duration of this monster’s tenure upon the sands, but I don’t doubt a challenge proffered your way the moment he returns to form should he overhear those words. If your feelings towards the matter of the Lady in Blue have not changed however, I would be deligheted to direct you to the stables of the Master at Arms. I am absolutely assured that he would accept your petition to proffer thine own blade upon the sand. What say you, five shards to one in favor of the monster? I myself will venture a thousand upon the laurels of the Lady,’ ‘I will see that venture, and raise you five thousand shards upon the beast in the cage,”

Not in living memory had something so demonstrably detestable entered the arena of the Empire of the Crimson Throne to encourage the Emperor to send a demand to the operating fight camps to send their most decorated combatants to once more do battle in His name. The entirety of the camp had assumed it was a joke until the Emperor’s Legion delivered the message personally. She’d never fought in the capital, never intended on doing as such either. She had long since written this off as something the Empire and her misguided notions toward appearance and sex would deny her regardless of her laurels. Sixteen pairs of ears had been her trophies from blood spilt upon the sand in the name of the Emperor she had never seen. She would see him today, on his towering dais some thirty feet above the viewing stands. None but the fanciest of Imperials complete with their gaudy, wealth strewn figures would be in attendance for this event. The ten thousand wealthiest, most powerful people in the world were here to watch her die. It wasn’t the first time she had been expected to die for the amusement of those above her station. She had no plans towards allowing this to be the day she gave them what they were after.

No, today would end with her on her way back toward Australos. She had students she needed to return to, future champions to place in the staging ground she currently occupied. None at Australos had half the victories she had, and so the law demanded she attend to this beast at the command of her Emperor despite her having retired and accepted a paid position as Doctora of the camp. She had stuck to the law of blood and sand this far in her adult life, and though she had considered simply declining the invitation and sending another in her stead, an act the crowd and emperor would have preferred, she had known from the moment the Emperor’s Legion arrived that it would be her standing here this day. It wasn’t lost on her that she was standing where Hektor’s killer had stood before losing his life to an ally’s blade in the back. It was a good omen. This was the place where an enemy had met his untimely end all those years ago. Today would be the day that this foreign monster was freed from the shackles of its bondage at the hands of the Crimson Throne, and she would see it to as good a death as any a monster can expect to receive upon the sand. The gate was opening, and with a last glance at the bloodstain she had decided had belonged to Hektor’s killer she strode forth into the arena.

@Liliya

In the middle of the arena Zande sat cross-legged, covered in drying blood. He rose in a single easy motion, an axe large enough to chop a young sow in half hanging from each hand. He waved an axe merrily at Abby, yelling at the top of his voice as if he were greeting an old friend.

"Ey bandu! Ovah 'ere! Ey! Ey!"

She held her right arm out and upwards, bronze hafted halberd in hand with her left bent at the elbow and held crossed over her body. The axe head, the pick opposite and the spear point on the tip were of steel, but the haft was of a single cast and aglow in the dim light of the flaming braziers atop the viewing stands. They didn’t need to be lit, it was day and though no direct sunlight pierced the ashen sky overhead it didn’t require artificial light to see normally. The smell of the smoke produced by the fires was sweet, and was less dark and pungent than translucent and off white. It was all an elaborate depiction of the wealth and power of this place, the capital. Here no expense was spared and every luxury imaginable was indulged. Not only was the light unnecessary, but it was an expensive mixture of scented additives and animal fat boiled into an oil with which to bind the sweet smelling and incredibly expensive incense so that it might permeate the air of those lofty heights, all to the enjoyment of the powerful. They did all this even as they paid a small fortune to coax the champions of the arenas out of retirement to amuse the crowd.

She saluted the emperor nonetheless. She could make out his image in the gilded box that constituted his throne upon the dais, and though she couldn’t attest to his features she did note his hand make a slight waving gesture to the side. It was her que to get this over with and hurry to die and make way for a more impressive candidate. She did not intend on making this quick, nor did she intend on allowing another the chance at the trophy of the beast’s ears. She had kept an eye on her opponent since she entered the arena, but now gave him her full attention. He was sitting cross legged in the middle of the arena waving her over. He was well armed, two axes, claws on his boots, a blade closer to a short sword than a dagger, two additional daggers, all of which was likely of quality steel, and was even better armored. Hauberk of some foreign construct, breastplate, pauldrons, and rearbraces all of steel plate and in good working order. Must’ve cost a fortune. She knew because she was wearing a nearly identical suit which had been paid for in bronze and leather earned in blood upon the sand of arenas the Empire over.

The coat of plates she wore over her hauberk of steel lamellar was owned by her employer, though the rest of it had been purchased with the death of opponents just like this one, and she was looking to pay for the luxury with this, her seventeenth victory. Her duty to the emperor over she waved with the head of her halberd at her friendly opponent and slowly began walking toward him. “Good to see you here, friend! I wouldn’t ask for any other to meet me on the sand this day,” she was friendly, warm even in her speech. She’d known these types before. Some growled at you like animals before a fight, others were friendly, some emotionless and stoic. It didn’t take her by surprise anymore. If she was allowed to she would advance to within thirty feet of her opponent, cool and calculated the entire way. She could drop the halberd into a two handed grip in a flash and use the spear point to keep distance between them if he charged her at this distance, and though he could always throw one of the blades her way before leaping to his feet and following up with a ballistic hail of blows from one of the several side arms he carried in addition to his axes she wasn’t too concerned.

Her armor was sturdy and of good make, she wore a steel half helm and had enough time to be reasonably sure that a thrown axe would find little meaningful purchase. Beyond its value as a distraction and surprise technique meant to cause less well trained opponents to drop their guard and crouch or leap haphazardly about trying to avoid the axe, all the while ignoring the true threat moving towards them with the sharp, deadly precision of a lion, it was unlikely to be as meaningful as simply using it to try and wrest control of the halberd from her at the haft. Her right hand wouldn’t be moving far from her right hip this fight. If he wanted to play at disarming her or forcing her into acrobatics of polearm she would most likely give him the thing. She didn’t have enough fingers on her left hand to match him in a battle of axes versus longsword and dagger. She had, however, loosed her grip on her halberd with her right hand hovering close to her right hip, made contact with her punchblade and struck forward in a blisteringly fast motion made possible by the proximity of hand to blade and blade to opponent in drills ten thousand times over.

Doubtful she’d use the longsword this go around unless something changed. Things always changed in fights of course, and she was prepared for whatever she might be facing, but as of right now the plan was fairly clear. Use the halberd to keep distance, expect him to try and wrest it from her and, if the timing goes well and both of his axes find themselves on her weapon at the same time and at the right distance, drop the thing and put her punchblade through his belly before he has time to blink. Nothing fancy, nothing hard and nothing smart. Just the basics and a cool head. “You don’t much look like a monster, friend. Don’t personally care if you did kill a bunch of Auxiliaries. I’ll see you given a proper burial after you die,” she would stop talking and allow the halberd to find itself in both of her hands with her left leg and arm forward, her left hand a foot below the head of the axe at her own waist level and her right and rear hand at her own right hip along the length of the halberd spear point toward her opponent if he made any aggressive motion toward her at any point during or before the banter, and would remain with the halberd held high and in only her right hand at a distance of thirty feet should he remain seated.

@Liliya

(Zande had already stood when he saw her.)

"Ooooh! Ya a bad girl, ain'cha bwana? But are ya as ready t'die as ya are t'kill? I don' keep da heads'a those that ain' prepared t'die when 'dey takin' lives. Drops da aesthetic value, ya?"

Zande hadn't taken a stance, and he seemed to be perfectly at ease. He had, after all, allowed himself to be captured just to find some nice heads for his collection. He'd had to make it look like he put up a fight, otherwise they'd have assumed him docile and not given him the cream of the crop. Could he escape any time he wanted? Of course. A hound surrounded by rabbits needn't fear restraint nor death. That is, unless another predator walks among them. This woman before him looked promising, her scars read well. A good warrior fights other good warriors, and if you fight someone good enough to be worth fighting, you got hurt. She'd been hurt plenty, and hence Zande could see her experience.

So far as experience, she had plenty. Not that Aibhilin could read the mind of her opponent, but she could see his eyes gravitate over the more battered aspects of her person. Not with the eyes of a casual onlooker, or else they’d have almost certainly have fixated on her more visually pleasing features. She wasn’t unattractive, had a large bust and shapely figure assuming you didn’t mind that she was more heavily muscles than your average male athlete. She even had a pretty face considering her occupation. The beast was looking at her hands, her arms, the long, biting scar poking out from her clavicle to her right shoulder visible despite the pauldron as she wore no sleeves. He might have figured from its angle that it likely protruded far down in a diagonal cut to her torso despite the pixane and coat of plates which obstructed a clear view of said area. He would have been correct to assume as much. She couldn’t get as firm a read on his experience, though she didn’t doubt that he had not gotten to this point by skill at arms alone. He had bled along the way and learned through example, probably in a pit deep beneath the earth and known for the brutality of its people in the unending quest for dominance over those that were not you.

They weren’t all that different, she and the man standing some handful of yards in front of her. Almost certainly had more in common than she and the emperor and gleaming throng of uppity heirs to the laurels of their ancestor’s conquests viewing the pair as they met to fight and kill or die. This was nothing new to her, nor did it bother her. All pit fighters dream of that one match in which they agree with the opponent across from them to turn their weapons together upon those in the stands who deigned to think themselves the betters of these all too similar champions of death through extended contest of blood and metal upon the sand, these well-tuned and completely optimized machines of the killing game who could pulverize their skulls bare handed without the slightest of resistance on the part of the lofty viewer. This was a dream that was never to be realized, not by her nor him, or likely by any alive today. In this world those people watching them dance what would be the final dance for one of them commanded legions, and there was no number of pit fighters who could withstand the destruction wrought by even one of those well-tuned and completely optimized machines of death in the other game, the game of mass slaughter through strategic warfare.

In this world what mattered was taking as much as the wealthy would allow you to take, and if that meant risking your neck it was accepted as a simple bargain. Far better to live and die this way than working in a mine for a bronze shard a week and too few rations to send you to your slumber without first experiencing grueling hunger pains, listening to the cries of your children as they took to their sleep even hungrier than you. The ones who gave their children enough to eat themselves starved and rotted away under their own greater demand in expenditure of energy to continue at your work and bring home the food and pay necessary for any to eat at all, and in the end left their family to starve without their employment to provide for them after being put at long last in a shallow grave or made in body to provide a few final meals at the expense of your own flesh. In this world it was better to kill than be killed, and it didn’t matter who the opponent you faced was, regardless of if their story and your own shared similarity greater than that of the ones making you do the killing for their amusement.

All that mattered was the law of blood and sand. She would be the executor of that law once more for the amusement of the crowd, and this opponent was as good as any to provide her next pair of ears. She raised her left hand and flicked the band of snakeskin that had been tied to her sword belt over her coat of plates, laced horizontally and parallel to the belt so as not to be used as any extra leverage as the belt already offered an opponent against her in a grapple. She had to have the sword belt here, it would be unbefitting a pit fighter to enter combat without her blade regardless of whether or not she intended on using the thing, but the necklace had no particular reason to be worn about her neck, not here. Upon the necklace were sixteen pairs of ears, right to the right side of her torso and left to their own, each shrunken and shriveled intentionally as to preserve them as best as possible without chemical agents. Many were clearly just barely held together, some even seemed to have taken damage in successive fights after having been removed and tanned only to be sewn back together after being severed or smashed, but they were plainly human.

Whether or not he understood that they were trophies from fights in an arena such as this one or not, and whether he assumed she wore the number she did because that was the total of her victories or because wearing any more on a belt would simply require a second belt to be worn, they were packed together as is and another belt would add an entirely new place to potentially use as leverage against her in an extended bout, it didn’t matter. The drums had begun sounding, and horns of bone and metal were crooning out their phantom wails. She would fall back with her right leg and extend her left, bending slightly at the knee and easing the halberd into a two handed grip with the spear point trained upon her opponent should he allow her to do as such. It was time, and no amount of thinking or fancy speech was going to change what was going to happen next. This was axe time, and she’d never known anyone to outthink an axe to the head. “Fight well, friend,” her lips extended outward across her face in a devilish smile which threatened to split her head in twain, teeth bared and eyes gleaming in the distant firelight. She lived for this.

She could see his back, his neck, and every fiber of her being told her to strike with the reckless abandon of a hungry wolf seeing her opportunity. Every instinct except for the small, lizard-brained but overwhelmingly potent understanding which had been bred into, stamped upon her subconscious from early childhood. A normal champion of the arena would not understand, would have charged into the ploy without a second thought or moment of hesitation. She had never been taught properly at a young enough age in the art of the dance of blood upon the sand, and for the first time in her career it might have been an advantage to her. Her first task was that of the oppression of the weak and the constant bickering of tribes over control of water, slaves, and the choicest bits of food that could be taken from those near slave foragers beneath her. Both the slaves and the tribes used ranged weapons, both in the form of your average projectile lobbed in an effort to disrupt your opponent and hopefully break a poorly disciplined line and in the form of bone darts spouted from old world pvc pipe and tipped with the venom of the most potent vipers and other venomous snakes which occupied the wastes.

This beast had no doubt been searched before being allowed to compete in the arena, would have had anything too large or too glaring taboo in this generally melee combat to have carried in a handbow let alone a windlass capable of tearing through her armor and turning her inside out. What could have made its way through, however, was something as small as a blowgun. She had looked him over without noticing one, but that didn’t mean anything. It could easily have fit into a hidden compartment within his armor or have been secreted in some other fashion less pleasurable to think about, and should he be intending on pivoting at the knee and putting the dart into her fleshy, exposed arms, shoulders, or face then she could have died right then and there, vainly attempting to wrest enough control over her deteriorating musculature and nervous system to ensure that he would join her in the grave whilst he ran circles about her hacking away at her polearm, then her arms, then her legs, and only finally at her neck if he was merciful enough not to allow her a few more hours of pained breath a stump of a torso too weak to move except to spit up her internal organs upon a stone bench in the cavernous fight den below the arena.

There didn’t appear to be anything attached to the axe itself, though she wouldn’t have considered the attachment of a thin enough wire as to allow it to be tugged back upon her or used as leverage to trip her as she advanced on him. That kind of technology didn’t exist here, and would have shocked all in attendance were it to be witnessed in use upon the sands. What she did understand was death by the venom of a viper posited beneath the skin vicariously through the use of a dart and a hollow tube. He could of course be planning something else, to lob a dagger in her direction or turn and leap toward her as she approached with his other axe and what could be a secondary weapon, but she doubted it. Wouldn’t be likely to be effective against her steel armor in the case of the former, and would be dangerous at best a strategy against the superior forward facing position of a wielder of a longer and more prolific killing tool in the latter. He could have something else entirely in mind, but these were the thoughts capable of her grasp within the fleeting moment she had to react, herself being from a world too largely regressed technologically to understand gunpowder or explosives.

She was about to introduce this heathen of the law of blood and sand as to why polearms were preferred to blowdarts by those with the funds to pick their choice of arms. She contorted at the hips, now facing nearly perpendicular to her opponent, her right hand, arm, and shoulder virtually obscured from her opponent’s view should he turn while remaining almost on top of the punch dagger carried on her hip, releasing hold of the polearm with her right hand entirely, and tucked her left elbow to her chest and turned the outside blade of her forearm to the haft of the polearm, placing the blade of the axe out in front of her face from the perspective of her opponent, only the top of her eyes and her steel half helm visible above the axe blade. All this was done while she broke into a sprint toward her opponent. She was no beginner, and never took the time to position her feet and hands before getting into movement. All of her actions were as one, with the mechanical and all too perfect precision of someone who had done this ten thousand times, who boasted a degree of spatial awareness and body control alien to the average untrained and inexperienced masses.

There wasn’t so much as a square inch of her flesh showing from the perspective of her opponent unless he managed to side step and get off the line. That wouldn’t matter. Her position was better, he would be forced to turn and fire as she gained on him giving him the least chance of success, or to wait until she was within striking distance with the axe blade of the halberd carried in her left hand to fire at the whites of her eyes, and it was far easier, far faster to react to his movement facing away from her and having to side step or pivot to face her then it was for him to turn or move, aim and fire at a wall of glistening steel and bronze. Should he turn and fire as she approached she would simply roll the dice that he wouldn’t get a good shot, his chances given her positioning and having every bit of herself either armored or hidden from view by either axe head, helmet, bronze polearm haft or simple angle of her body in relation to his, before getting into range and thrusting forward with the spear point at the tip of her halberd. She would also thrust at this point should he not turn, and run him through square in the back. At least that would be what she would attempt to do in that case.

If he turned as she gained on him and tried to fire full in her face she would watch his shoulders to determine the direction he would pivot to face her, and step diagonally to the opposite side whether his left or his right, keeping her right arm out of his view and launching a blow from her axe blade down and toward his head and neck. This wouldn’t kill him given she would only be striking with a tucked elbow and only traveling from her own midsection a couple of feet to his head before striking steel to steel, but the axe was heavy and she was moving, and would be pivoting at the hip in time with her slash. It would be enough ballistic energy to knock his teeth out if he caught it square in the face, and should he fire it would still leave her as shielded as she was going to get. Should he turn and launch a strike with his axe she wouldn’t particularly mind. Her halberd was longer, and had a spear point. His only options would be to go low, and she was confident that despite his reach and the axe he wasn’t going to outrange the top quarter of her halberd along with her own arm length, or to strike at her weapon itself.

Should he use two weapons, or an axe and a hand to accomplish striking at her halberd he could likely wrest it from her, but she would still be moving and could close the distance, let him have the halberd and before it hit the ground have drawn and struck in a straight line from her hip with the punch dagger on her right hip into his open belly, flank, underarm, or even his neck were he still crouched, a possibility if he was to attempt to strike low. This is what she would attempt in response to these stimuli of course. For all she knew he might throw a glass vial filled with bees square at her axe blade and the barely visible eyes just above it as she ran, blinding her momentarily and sending her into a wildly rolling spiral of collapse and violent spasms on the sand as she waved desperately at the swarm, attempting to rid herself of the pests and regain her feet weapon in hand just in time to have her head taken neatly off at the shoulder by the meeting of his twin axes and her spine. Whatever game he was playing at, she wasn’t satisfied by his initial gambit. Hopefully he had more fight than this.

A single quarter of a single second can be all it takes to mean the difference between life and death upon the sands. As she had suspected the man had a blowgun and was making to fire it toward her face, a futile effort that died upon the steel of her axe blade before it could so much as even create enough difference in pressure or momentum to even catch her attention. She had spun away from the direction, his left, that he had turned, and launched a left-to-right slash toward his head as he fired with the blowgun, and short of his having superhuman reflexes there would be no chance that his right arm, having just spun left, was going to get to her halberd blade in time to stop it, or with enough force to actually stop her slash. She was three quarters of his size, but had the massive advantage of having been moving dead on toward him and stepping into her slash, while he would be depending on the upper body strength of a single arm alone to try and stop her blow. He didn’t look three quarters the size he would need to be to outweigh her advantage in speed with his sheer mass alone, and she was entirely sure that within a quarter of a second she’d have knocked his teeth in at the least.

Firing across her body the long way around and as she was tucking to the right, and considering the arm and the polearm in between his blowgun and her face the chances of making a meaningful contact with her face with a solid projectile had been almost zero. What she couldn’t have seen coming, didn’t see coming and wouldn’t even have had the time to react to if she had was an actual liquid strike against her, still of dubious efficacy considering he was firing past a solid obstacle across his body and toward a moving opponent, but the single action of her having thrust forward, downward and to the right with a tucked elbow and the precision of a master combatant would give him the opening he would need. Had she continued charging, had she struck at a different angle or even moved past him before striking he would have had absolutely no chance from this angle, but she had not. She wasted exactly no moments with her actions, and struck with as absolute a precision as any normal human could have. This placed her half helm’s top left quarter, and the tip of a visible eye ball just in sight from Zande’s perspective.

There was no precedent for an actual liquid attack from a mouth operated weapon system in the wastes. Liquid weapons in the form of acid in vials did exist, and were used frequently as lobbing projectiles much in the same manner as burning pitch in other cultures, but that could neither be held in the mouth nor spit through a blowgun. Only a quarter of a second had passed, her strike would either land or somehow be deflected by the clearly inferior positioned opponent with his right arm alone and from a standstill which would prompt her to immediately draw and thrust forward with her punch dagger into his then open neck or, should he lean backwards and swing around with his axe to connect with her weapon from his own right side into his flank. He had almost certainly worked himself into an unworkable position, but his gambit would find itself proven effective, if only barely. The chances of hitting her right side of her face from his position were near zero, but her arm, her polearm, and her angle coupled with the manner of her strike put the smallest amount of an eye visible and open to her own left. Her mind wouldn’t have time to react before her strike would land.

That did not change the fact that a single globule, as though itself propelled forward in a time and place slower and clear as crystal in quality of picture, moved past its fellows who landed harmlessly upon her polearm, the arm behind it, her half helm and her pauldron and landed true, mostly caught in her eyelash and the slightest corner of the smallest of particles visible by humans landing directly in the white of the top left portion of her left eye. It wouldn’t register or have any effect in the time it would take her to hit him, or even to draw and strike with her punch dagger should he somehow manage to block her strike, but it had landed and would register. An attack like this could not have been predicted, would not have been understood by those in attendance least of all Aibhilin. There were no spitting cobras in the wastes. No one here knew of anything that was venomous but could be held in the mouth before spitting it into a person’s eyes without harming oneself. It was not going to cause the damage a full strike in the face would have, but it was toxic and would be painful. Within a second she would understand.

This however was a quarter of a second. By waiting until she struck he had ensured his secondary gambit would have the maximum chance of success. It would also give him the least chance of stopping her from clobbering him to death in the next moment of his life, she was upon him now and it was far too late to roll away without her running him through with the spear point upon her halberd. Should he somehow survive the second to see her overcome with the pain her mind would rack her with in an attempt to convince her to wash her eye out in time to save it, however, her advantage would naturally wain. It wasn’t effective like a sword through the gut or an axe cleaving off a limb was effective. Those stopped people based upon the instantaneous drop in blood pressure, something no grasp over your own mental fortitude would grant you the strength to overcome. She would fight through the pain if he wasn’t dead yet, but she would soon be half blind and dealing with the erratic screaming of a mind whose prerogative to save its own left eye takes precedence over allowing the woman whose skin the brain wore peace of mind in her continued life and death struggle upon the sands.

This, “beast,” as it turned out, was truly deserving of the title. If she was a less well-trained combatant she would have hesitated, given him the moment he would need to take the advantage and get her on the defensive. It shouldn’t have been possible, aiming and blocking a strike from an unforeseen angle while firing with the opposite hand into her face with a blowgun. How he had even managed to get the long way around her axe head and make meaningful contact she couldn’t have said. She was fast, and moving in a straight line to his head. He was faster. So much so that he precisely calculated the angle of her strike, the dimensions of her weapon, and managed to get around the axe head in a blow that even without the slightest bit of thought should have taken longer to reach from his angle than it would take from her angle, and he was reacting! Should he manage to become the proactive opponent she would invariably lose, die here on these sands, and never return to her school, her students, never even manage to spend the small fortune she had been paid for accepting this bout in the first place.

This was something she would not, could not allow. As contact to her weapon came from the wrong side and at the wrong angle her hand was already off of the blade, less so because she thought it through and more so because she was missing a pinky and much of a ring finger on that hand. This didn’t matter with a two handed grip, nor did it matter for the blow she had attempted even one handed. It was the kinetic reverberation that challenged grip, not the forward momentum of a swing, and it was the signal she had been waiting for to go with plan B. The halberd had thudded, hard, into the beast’s pauldron, but not only was he faster than she, he was a veritable outsider. His arm was gripping the halberd she had just loosed from her grip in time with her own right arm going for her punch dagger, her left leg moving forward and toward the enemy. He wouldn’t have time to reposition the awkward halberd or his axe, not meaningfully enough to matter. In the moment it would take to grip the blade her left leg was moving toward him, punch blade gripped in her right hand and her left arm extended to contest any weapon that made it’s way into her threat zone by accident or otherwise.

She had him. Flanks exposed, belly exposed, arms occupied and too high to react. His blood was her’s, and none too soon. An extended bout with this monster couldn’t be won. But as she took the two feet necessary to extend and thrust, he was another foot, another half-step away. If she took that step she could no longer guarantee success. It wasn’t possible! What kind of monster was this, that could float across the sand as though an Outsider possessed, the mocking face carved into its mask of steel and death the only emotion it gave, breath hot enough that she could feel the phantom traces of it in the ground she had just covered should she have had the time to think. She didn’t. A quarter of a second was all it took to make the difference between life and death on these sands, and the law of blood and sand demanded the death of her opponent or, in her defeat at the hands of this flesh and blood monster, her own life extinguished and forever cast into the void nothingness of the end. Aibhilin was ready neither to meet that fate nor to allow the Imperials the satisfaction of watching their pet monster, so fast it moved beyond anything she had ever witnessed and mocked her at every turn, of delivering her to it.

She didn’t consciously understand what was to happen, but the lizard-brain tempered by years of blood, sweat and tears in the brutal training endured by those who bring death upon the sand told her all she needed to know. He could reposition now, if only with the eighth of a second and half-step the monster had somehow snuck into the equation of the blood game in defiance of convention and expectation, but it would be enough to counter her punch dagger. It would be what he would naturally understand to be coming. She had seen his eyes pass over her hidden right hand with the other eyes, the ones of reptilian wings and mocking silence which told you that someone was watching you though you could not say how you knew, and were usually proven correct. A strike to the likely places would be met either with the flat of a blade or the point of a spear, though there wasn’t time for even this beast to make a meaningful thrust or bring down a meaningful blow, or so the lizard-brain told her. There was time now for one, and only one course of action should she intend on returning home after today, and she did intend on returning home.

Her hands showed all the signs that he would have expected to inform him that she would strike with her punch dagger toward his mid-section despite the sudden change in distance, and she knew that if she did it would be her final mistake, not in her conscious mind but deeper, in the dark, dripping cavernous places of the before-mind passed down to her by thousands of generations of no-women, the pre-humanity of the primordial ooze of the world before the old world. She instead of taking the half step with her right leg and thrusting with her punch blade in time for the opponent to have repositioned and prepared for her now obvious strike pushed off of her planted leg and shot down, low and with the confidence of an experienced grappler, extending her arms and tucking her legs to her chest in the air, intending on taking the monster’s legs simultaneously and moving through them to the opposite side of his body, sliding on the sand after contact and all the while as she dragged him and slowed. She knew somewhere in the background that there were claws on his boots, but she also knew that they would be seeking the confidence of firm ground at the moment, positioning themselves to allow the monster upon whom they stood the capability to block her thrust, turn it away from himself, or simply put the tip of her own halberd in his left hand in the path of her charge.

If they somehow perked up and caught her in the shoulders or neck it would be through, but she subconsciously knew the opponent wouldn’t likely have predicted this course of action. His concern was the punch dagger, his step backwards to offset her footing and purchase the half of a quarter of a second needed to reposition his hands, and the weapons held within them. He was moving backwards, seeking firm footing. She would take this from him. He was eying her right hand, and focusing on his own hands, weapons carried in each. She would strike where he was unconcerned, momentarily unaware of lost in other concerns. It was the best chance of success she would get against this foe, this Outsider who defied the bounds of anything she had ever witnessed in the arena in just a fleeting moment, defying her at every turn. If she succeeded in taking his legs she expected it would send him falling, face first toward the ground. He would attempt to spin in the air and land on his back. This too she would attempt to take from him. She wouldn’t release her grip on his ankles as she pulled forward, instead wrapping her arms tight around his ankles unless her opponent had managed to avoid the strike entirely.

No doubt he would try and turn in the air, though if she had her way he would find that his hips, bound to the whims of his ankles, would not spin in Aibhilin’s grasp, turned just to the sides away from her head and shoulders and held with the absolute confidence of a grappler. As she slid, assuming she had struck and managed to keep control of the opponent’s ankles, he too would slide, and if held at the ankles would be unable to turn in the air and would find himself in danger of running himself through on his own weapons. She had tucked her legs to her chest after lunging forward and down for just this purpose. Not only would he be unable to fall with the sharp of his axe upon one or both of her legs, but if this course of action had occurred to this point whatsoever he would either have to cast them away or turn his wrists to turn the sharps of the blades flat side to himself, easier said than done with a locked Halberd with both an axe and a pick held in a single hand. More importantly this would mean he would have to be using his hands to control the direction of his weapons in his own grasp as he fell, and if he caught himself it would be on his elbows rather than his hands, with said hands likely below his forward falling weight or awkwardly held away from his body at diagonal angles to the rest of his body, right to the right diagonal and left to the left diagonal. The hafts of each would be below him, and though there was a chance he could recover the Sparth after falling the Halberd, should this course of action have occurred at all, would be denied him for the rest of his time on the ground.

Its haft was eight feet long, and should be below him if she had her way. Recovering such a long handled weapon one handed from below your body while trying to turn onto your back would be absolutely impossible. As she was lunging he would be concerned with the expected strike from her punch dagger, his own retaliation against her or whatever preemptive measure he might prefer, as well as finding firm purchase on the sand below with his own feet, hopefully to concerned and preoccupied to react intelligently to her probably unexpected takedown with his clawed boots or a simple sprawl. Should she take his legs as he was adjusting to falling his mind would be preoccupied with his blades potentially running himself through, looking for her legs below him to run them into and finding none within striking distance, and trying to turn in air or find purchase with his clawed boots, all of which should deliver him no purchase if her precision was correct. Can’t turn at the hips in opposition to your ankles, can’t cut with clawed boots that are held firmly by the opponent, or so Aibhilin’s life would depend upon. This all would take a half of a second, from the quarter second spent finding only an axe that nearly took her fingers and would have should her grip not have been already compromised by missing fingers from previous encounters and a pauldron covering an undaunted shoulder beneath with her slash, to her step which found her a half step and a half of a quarter of a second behind her opponent, to her lunge, attempted takedown, and the associated grips, tucks and movements.

In the next quarter of a second, should this all have come to pass Aibhilin, still gripping the ankles of her opponent, would work her left arm around her right, Zande’s left ankle tucked into the inside of her right elbow and locked by her crossed right arm, his own right ankle still tucked into the inside of her left elbow and pulled tight to her ribs after having been attempted to be pointed with the blades away from her during the fall, at which point she would make a last cross at the wrists, and using her tucked legs and whatever purchase and upwards momentum they offered her, would violently and methodically jerk to the right, in the opposite direction from his body and pivoting at the shoulders and outward with both of her own elbows. This would not be the kind of jerk given to inform an opponent that you have them in a lock during sparring, but the controlled, calculated motion of a fighter who knew how much force would be necessary to break an opponent’s bones, and delivered if successful with an easily sufficient amount of force to shatter the right ankle entirely. The beast may have floated across the sands before, but should this all be successful it would no longer.

Had she planned things to work out this way? Of course not. It had been a hell of a last second, these moments were always tense and this had been no exception. She knew that he could simply keep bending away, at the ankle, the hip, at the shoulders, even if it brought him to a full tilt at his hip in a position of lying on his side on top of her, the point at which she could bend no more. What his bend at the knee and movement of his hips and groin toward her had brought, however, was opportunity. She wouldn’t have reacted in this way if he had remained outstretched above her, but whether she had misjudged her opponent or whether she knew this would invariably happen would be left to the historians of bouts in the arena to discuss. What it did cause was her to turn at her side lifting with her right shoulder to a half lying position herself, her left arm still locked around his right ankle and attempting to put her body weight upon it with her left side directly onto and downwards into his left leg, while she allowed Zande to bring her upper body, along with her arms currently locked around his ankles, towards his center of mass.

No doubt this would slow his movement, but it wouldn’t stop him. He was larger, stronger, and in no clear position where his leverage would be taken away. She couldn’t stop him from doing this. Beyond keeping him from turning away from the direction his ankles were pointed, in this case to each side and far enough to largely force him to not be able to turn around and get onto his back rather than remain face first in the sand, she would be largely incapable of making him do anything. It wasn’t what she needed, not now. What she needed now was to impress upon this foe the true nature of the law of blood and sand, and with each passing inch as he dragged her closer to himself while his body was planted facing down to the earth below he would approach his eventual doom. It hadn’t taken him a second to reposition his knee and bring his hips and groin toward her, and at the whiff of something decaying and foul she almost stopped in her tracks. Should she be a lesser trained foe she might have hesitated. Aibhilin did not. The monster had forgotten a key point in this equation, one he was aware of but had lost in the confusion.

She had manipulated his limbs and muscle and tendon groups with her arms, her underarms, elbows, wrists, and had done so for a reason. Now moving toward her with his own body bringing itself closer each moment to her own and, if successful, having crossed his legs below herself atop one another in the movement, at the ankles of course as that was where she had had her own leverage though the shins, knees and thighs attached, so well as the hips and shoulders beyond would still not turn opposite the direction of the ankles upon whom rested the body weight of a large adult woman well-muscled and experienced in grappling, he would be reminded the importance of this seemingly obscure bit of information. Had he moved away from her at the groin he might have escaped the peril now awaiting him entirely. Had he been wearing different footwear he would have noticed this a moment before. In the end this was the path which the sand had set before the two combatants, and the one that would be tread upon by them unto at least one of their deaths. This was the path where the opponent, distracted or perhaps unaware, had forgotten all about the danger of the small piece of metal held in her right hand.

Thrusting with as much power as could be mustered from a straight shot lying on one’s side, which even though she could and would attempt to put her right hip into the blow by bending at the right shoulder and kicking the hip out as well as using her body weight and leverage over his legs to put a counterbalance and driving point into his legs and the ground below with her opposite side was still not much even for such an intimidating opponent, but which had been boosted exponentially by the fact that her opponent’s momentum and mass were traveling in the opposite, conflicting and antagonistic direction relative to her strike, which made this a plausible course of action even if she was met by steel. She was aiming for the groin of the monster which had farted in her general direction, straight, under and past his skirts which from her angle was easy enough for the maximum chance at avoiding entanglement and potential metal plates sewn into the material. Should the blow meet with flesh or with mail or plate through which it, meant clearly as a stabbing weapon shaped for armor penetration managed to penetrate, she would then drag along and down his thigh, aiming to complicate his femoral artery and potentially leave him a stuck, bleeding, neutered eunuch of a pig on the sand.

She could and would have attempted to simply thrust through or slash across his Achilles tendon after taking him to the ground, but it was no great secret that he wore significant boots and, before he had moved, her arm would have been close enough to lean over and thrust toward his groin, but at an extreme angle contrary to her own. With this movement he had managed to give her what she needed, an opposite force with which to be dragged into better position and a clearly presented target which could cause the kind of damage she needed to inflict to have a reasonable chance of escape. He would still need to turn and swing or attempt to reverse her position or take his own before being able to get his own blades into her in return and, if successful, Aibhilin would have just inflicted a humiliating and deeply effective blow, likely significant enough to buy her time to reposition and move into the next phase of the combat. At worst he would manage to somehow, without having much of a clear line of sight on her especially from that angle, back, over, and behind his own ass to the opposite side and under his skirts, deflect the blow entirely, but she doubted it would be disarmed entirely.