The Lance-Corporal spat as arterial  blood went into all of his facial orifices from mouth, to noise, to his eyes and ears. Ioannis quickly recovered his blade and raised it into the air for comrades and enemies alike to see its ichor shine, and to prepare to bring it down once more. 

However developing events forced his hand quite quickly once more. His endangered allies had fired a volley and went off on a supporting counter charge at the enemy, but not before they sent a volley of their own. Ioannis ducked as bullets whistled around him, glad of the apparent reprieve until one ball went into his shoulder. The officer gave a pained cry that turned into an angry roar as he realized it wouldn't do well for the men to be demoralized now of all times. He glanced down to see the deformed thing intact and relatively far out of him to even pull out with his fingers if he so wanted. But not now. "Return fire, now!" He yelled, sword under armpit as he cracked off one of his own pistols. He made the obvious inflection of urgency for aiming was less important than just getting the shots off right now. They had to soften the enemy for the counter charge of the Byzantines upon the bridge so that it would slam into a disorganized enemy rather than one that managed to draw blades, shoot, or affix bayonets. 

Depending on the man, the soldiers under his command would have from zero to three loaded pistols left at the moment, averaging to a pessimistic one. Thus he had to keep those as a reserve to either fire at the routing enemy, or to once more quickly disorganize them if things turned in their tide again. For now, sharpened steel would have to do the trick. 

"Get the closest one to you, but look for the officers!" He screamed, as he himself looked for distinctive markings. He briefly considered himself at the same risk for even though he was not ornamented as a leader, his shouting of what were obviously words of command most likely gave him away at least to some of the enemy. As he raced forward he put on a grim expression as he prepared himself for the next cuts with his sword. He leaned slightly to his right and stared at the closest enemy to him on that side, as though he were about to try and cut them down. In fact it would be feint, for he would quickly make use of the fact he was actually going forth straight and not leaning [i]too[/i] much, so that he could quickly turn to the left and cut down the unprepared enemy further along his left side. His first kill was based on sheer surprise, now he had to use a measure of skill hoping the enemy wasn't experienced enough to catch his feint for what it was. If they did, Ioannis would be between two enemies who could cut him up at their leisure if he didn't act fast. Through gritted teeth, the NCO glanced around again hoping to catch a glimpse of an enemy officer before turning back for the moment of truth, blade swinging for his coming trick. 
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