[center] [h3] Lilith and Sanguin [/h3] [/center]
	Though up until this point two swordswomen had advanced behind buildings and low to the ground, they were forced into a dead-on sprint at the axemen when the panicked warning of the sentry attended to by Hugh, Jakobe, and Taene alerted them to incoming danger.  Taking to her heels, Sanguin rushed out from behind an outlying cottage.  As she barreled forward, scimitar drawn, she took quick stock of the situation.  

	Five bandits lounged around a campfire they'd made out of a shredded merchant's cart, in the process of gorging themselves on ill-gotten food pilfered from the townsfolk.  Under normal circumstances she expected that her mercenary companion and herself could have cut the odds down to three against two before their adversaries prepare themselves, but with the watchman's alarm sounded, that ship had sailed.  Her footsteps on the packed dirt road telegraphed her approach, and before she could deliver a deadly horizontal slash to one man's neck, two others jumped at her.  One of them, a woman judging by her shorter stature, screamed out a savage battlecry and hefted her axe at Sanguin's head.  The myrmidon raised her shield to block it and sent a horizontal cut around it, slicing open the barbarian's shoulder.  Unfortunately, the ankle shot of another axe-wielding man made her back up to evade it, keeping her from finishing the first one off. Though Sanguin only growled, it was plain that she could use a hand. 

	Lilith had been in the chaos of battle before, she knew what she was doing. She let out a battle cry of her own as the charged the five axmen. As soon as the pair reached them, Lilith managed to catch one of the two axmen that had pressured the myrmidon in the throat with the tip of her sword on a long thrust. [i]One.[/i] But that was where her luck ran out. The rest of the axmen ganged up on her, forcing her to step back and preventing her from landing a killing blow on any of them. She set her back to her masked partner, trusting her to watch her back. [i] Wait, did she just actually growl?![/i] Lilith thought as she dodged a swipe of an axe. [i]No, do not get distracted mind on the battle, Lilith.[/i]

	Freed from assault on her left side for the moment at least, Sanguin pressed her advantage against the axe-toting woman she'd earlier wounded.  She aimed her slash at the arm whose shoulder had been cut, instinctively pursuing the new weakness. The barbarian, apparently without the sense to flee, flinched away from her blade and swung wide. All it took from Sanguin was a step and thrust to move in past the brigand's lackluster guard and pierce her torso, near the lung.  As the woman collapsed, coughing blood, Sanguin turned her attention to her put-upon ally.  The axmen, seeing that the mercenary fought without a shield, were on a brutal offense.  Sanguin dodged in and took one of the blows with her shield at close range.  Unable to pull back his axe to block the wolflike woman's own slash, he tried to block with his arm, and lost half of it the next instant.  He stumbled away and the last axman took his place, making the fight a two-on-two.  Beneath her mask she was smiling.  "They're afraid," she laughed.  "They thought themselves the wolves, but it looks like they're the sheep."  Sanguin leaped forward in an overhead swing, one that an axman could easily block, and therefore leave himself open.

	Lilith saw what Sanguin intented. "How deep shall I bury you?" She taunted. She ran forward with several dance-like steps, and crouched low. She let loose with a powerful, lighning quick slash then she held that position. [i]Two.[/i] The axman fell, first one half, then the other. The second axmen had been killed by Habeen. She cleared the blood from her blade with a flurish and a flick of her wrist. She turned and grinned at her companion, the blood on her face turning her grin from sarcastic to feral "Well, that was quite refreshing." She said. Lilith look around, "All right! Whos next!? She yelled to the whole battlefield."

	Sanguin shook herself, though curiously not her blade.  Her gazes scanned hungrily for more targets.  She had next expected Kuur and Habeen to appear and interfere...hadn't Hugh said something about swordsmen?  Hearing the tramp of feet, the masked woman charged forward again, leaving Lilith behind as she sprinted around a building. She found an entire group of swordsmen -at least five strong- piling along the earthen street, pulling with them sacks of loot and even a few villagers. Upon spotting Sanguin, three of them hefted their bronze and iron blades and spread out to surround her, while the remaining two hustled faster. As much as she wanted to be aggressive, Sanguin managed to restrain herself with the knowledge that if she attacked one, at least one of the others would gank her in an undefended place. Snarling, she banged her scimitar on her shield , hopefully drawing the attention of not only Lilith, but Kuur and Habeen as well.

	"Dammit, wait!" Lilith spat as the myrmidon recklessly rushed off. She ran after Sanguin, not even pausing to behead a not-quite dead axmen. She found Sanguin beset by three swordsmen, thieves this time while two ran hauling some loot. Sanguin was making a lot of noise, making her a perfect stalking horse. Lilith was on them and killed two with as many perfectly timed slashes. [i]Three, and four.[/i] An instant later, Sanguin's obsidian scimitar was driven down into the remaining thief's shoulder, splitting several inches into his torso. The masked woman cackled and kicked the screaming body off her blade.  Once the swordsman was finished Lilith swore and said "They got away!" She dashed after them.  Sanguin looked around--surely the dark mage and the archer had heard her noise, and were coming to help?