A Rough Business

Kalena slashed, thrust and parried, wildly fighting to simply stay alive. What in Diwa's name did I get myself into? she wondered. She was surrounded by a swarm of forest bandits and could feel Enyo quickly tiring beneath her. The aging war horse was not yet recovered from giving birth and without the protection of armour she ought never have ridden the mare into a battle like this. She had to get out of here before they were overwhelmed by the filthy peasant scum! She didn't like abandoning these wine merchants to the bandits, but she didn't really owe them anything. She'd done what she could and--

Kalena saw the huge bandit leader swing his axe, nearly decapitating the spearman's handsome steed, its head flinging back in agony, attached only by the spine, and the blood spraying through the air in a gruesome arch. Anger and bile rose in her throat at the sight. The tall rider fell clear with an arrow through the leg, but what Kalena most cared about was that poor horse, which had appeared to be quite a fine one too. A burst of fury exploded in her at its horrible killing, and she spurred Enyo into a charge toward the bandit leader. The big man saw her coming and swung his axe, and she swerved to avoid it.

Within a few feet of him, Kalena leapt from her saddle, aiming a killing blow at his throat. She missed, and instead on impact her elbow connected with his jaw, which served to only knock him back a bit. She fell and rolled to her feet. An arrow shot out of the forest at her, but she flicked out her sabre in a blur and most impressively cut the shaft in two, then stepped to the side to place the bandit leader between her and the hidden archer. The man rushed her, and she dodged his axe again and levelled a disembowelling slash at his belly, but the big fellow evaded backwards just in time.

Showing himself to be a skilled and rather crafty foe, he feinted right and then moved left, the axe sweeping out at her dangerously close. Brunette hair swirling, Kalena narrowly weaved out of the way of the rusted axehead and expertly counter-attacked, thrusting her sabre into the meat of man's burly shoulder. Blood soaked through his dirty cloth tunic. He roared with wild rage and pain, swinging his axe this time in a fast, wide arc. She brought her sword up to block the blow at the same time she attempted to dodge it, and the power of the axe tore the sabre right out of her hands.

Shaking off her surprise at being disarmed, and needing to keep him off-balance so he did not next take her head off, Kalena aggressively moved in and drove the heel of her palm up into his nose, then swivelling lithely, brought her knee up hard into his groin. He dropped the axe with a croaking moan, and she grabbed the man about the neck and yanked his broad, ugly face down into her oncoming knee with a satisfying crunch, knocking out several of his rotten teeth. He staggered, eyes glazed now with more pain than madness, and she spun on her foot and snap-kicked him in the head.

A smile of triumph lit Kalena's face as the large bandit leader toppled heavily to the ground in front of her. Unfortunately she had fallen prey to the notorious danger of tunnel vision —if you failed to see the enemy coming at you from the side, you were good as dead. Before she could move to retrieve her lost sabre, another bandit had brought his cudgel down on her skull.

Stars burst in front of her green eyes. Stunned, her long legs gave out beneath her, and she fell backwards, her body tumbling over the dead horse and landing with a smack on the road where she lay on her side, her long hair falling across her unconscious face.

The gangly man with the cudgel looked around unhappily. In a matter of moments a score and a half of his fellows lay either dead or wounded. Banditry was a rough business, but usually they waylaid those that appeared weak and lost interest when strong resistance was encountered, but after merging with two other bandit bands their numbers had swelled, along with their confidence. Their leader had also gone a bit insane.

He grit his teeth, bleeding from a deep cut across his chest where Kline had slashed him with the spear. He tucked the cudgel under his arm and knelt down over the fallen leader.

"Grigol, Grigol," he said, trying to rouse the big man.

"Haidar, is he dead?" asked another bandit. "Should we call in the reserve or get outta here before the army comes?"

Haidar ignored the questions. He stood and turned to Kline, slapping the cudgel in his palm menacingly. "Listen. Give us one of your wagons, and we'll let you keep the other one. That sound fair t'you?" His cruel mouth twisted, and he inwardly laughed in amusement at his own words. He knew they made him sound weak, but the bloke looked like he could barely stand. Just maybe he would go for it. "We're gonna kill you. You know that. But we can end this right here and now if you'd just only hand over that one wagon, see. 'Cos we ain't gonna leave empty-handed. No, sir. So d'ya really wanna die for your lord, boy? Die protectin' a few barrels of vino?"

(OOC- Jaxx, interesting plot! I was not expecting that lol. I'm not sure how successful this wicked plan will be at framing Kalena for crimes she did not commit, but for fun, I'm going to try to make it a bit harder for her to account for her whereabouts, starting with this post.)