It's funny how that worked out. As Karth's robe escaped her fist, she let it fall to the stony beach and watched him go. She turned away, let her head fall back to rest against the dinghy and breathed slow and calm, trying to regain herself. She opened her eyes to the gray sky above and rubbed her face, feeling the familiar notch in her lip and dent in her jaw, the dried blood coming off like dirt from her forehead and her nose. She took it in her hands and readied herself, or tried to, but in the end she knew she had to do it or it wouldn't heal correctly and she'd be stuck with a bent jaw and a crooked nose. She was never vane, but that simply would not do. She took a quick breath in and she could feel the grinding of her nose as she forced it back into place. She let go a girlish whimper and in few short breaths, she growled. She cupped some water from the cold sea and splashed her face with it, slapping her cheek to wake herself up as if it was a hangover and not a mast to the face that had her out. She'd survived a Kamal's fist, she could fucking survive this.

In the fray, she caught sight of Do'Karth moving quick and familiar in the fight. She heard running footsteps and threw herself to the side just before a spearhead buried itself where her neck had been. She picked up a good size rock and hurled it at the Armiger's helmet. It struck his chitin helmet hard enough to give him pause. There wasn't fear anymore. Just anger. This man was trying to kill her. [i]How dare he.[/i] She grasped hold of an oar and when it wouldn't budge, she planted a foot on the gunwale and with a roar, she tore it from its fitting on the dinghy, the pain of her muscles tensing shocked some resolve and some anger in her. Another spear thrust came her way, but she let it pass her, stepped forward into the Armiger's guard. She butted the handle-end into the Armiger's helmet with all her strength and the man took a few stumbling steps back. She followed and reared back with the oar with a vicious smile on her lips. She swung it and it connected hard enough with his helmet to where the shock of it almost rattled it from her hands. She threw the oar aside and picked up a large rock, bringing it up, “Die!”, down, up, “Die!”, down, up, “Die, you fucker!”

The last one cracked his helmet in around his visor and he lay motionless. She hefted the rock one last time and brought it down with a throaty roar, a lesson taught. She grasped up his chitin spear and looked for the next unlucky soul she'd make a corpse of. She felt her heart thump in her chest like the distant call of war-drums, she felt her grip tighten like roots of an old oak around the familiar feel of a spear, and she felt a yearning to instill in these foolish knife-ears the foolishness it was to come against her. She caught sight of two Armigers looking to kill Do'Karth. The nimble Khajiit put the swordsman on his back and rushed the spearman. While the other was getting to his feet, she waited for him to get on all fours with his back open for the whole world, much less her. She purposely aimed her thrust high and sliced open the back of his unprotected neck. She heard him yelp in pain behind his helmet, he began to crawl away, dripping crimson from his wound. “Wait!” He said in accented Cyrodiilic, “Wait!”

“For what?” Solveig asked, her teeth bared in a smile of almost-glee and she didn't wait for an answer. She gave another throaty roar, spittle flying, as she shoved the spearhead into the man's neck, deeper and deeper. She rested a boot on his head and took her spear back with a sickening wet sound, the mer's eyes shiny and lifeless like wine staring up at the sky. The only sound from him was choking and she took his shield for herself, eyes flitting around the field for the next lesson. Lo, it would never come. Black shapes moved quick around the field, making quick work of what was her flock to butcher. There were two fleeing, one's helmet split open by a bolt and he dropped like a felled oak. The other was alive, a coward fleeing, and one of the black shapes was running after him.

Solveig set her crooked jaw and dashed after the last armiger. She was slowly gaining on this black-and-crimson fool, she was close enough to pick out the details of his silly leathers, then ever so slightly ahead of him. He looked at her and his eyes widened, surprise, perhaps. She gave him a frown, “Mine.”

She jumped forward and caught the armiger's knees. They rolled on the floor, grunting, punching. In the end, though, Solveig's strength prevailed. She'd rested a knee on one of his arms, spear's shaft across the other and the rest of it pressing into his throat, cries for help being choked off in gurgling spittle. She watched him panic, spit in his helmeted face. Before she could see the life in him go, she was knocked aside and then folded in what felt like roots of great trees. She was helpless in the thing's grasp and while it could very well smother the life from her, it held her like iron. She spent the last bit of her strength straining against it but was dumped at the feet of the others by what she saw was the big black-and-crimson wearing shit. She squirmed onto her back, chest rising and falling. Her blood-rush had left her with nothing but pain and a swimming head.