“I’ll need Vajra to take out the ships. He won’t be back for about two minutes, though.” I told her as her fox began to change. Interesting… a Kitsune? My momentary distraction came with a price; several chunks of ice, flung toward the group on the shore that had prepared themselves to fight. Several people were injured and even more ice was coming. “Behind me!” I shouted to the surrounding people. The ones that were capable obeyed my command as explosions rocked the area, signaling the arrival of more people. I didn’t have time to worry about them yet. As a wave of ice flung itself toward us from the center of the lake, I prepared myself by placing my hands together. A spark formed between my palms with a sound like a thunderclap and a torrent of flame rushed up my arms, where I directed it into a wall, scaling it wide enough to catch all of the chunks of ice, reducing them to vapor on impact. I compacted the wall into a ball and forced it out into the lake, where I willed it to expand again and maintain its position. “I can’t keep that up for long, there’s no fuel for it to consume.” I told Myra just before she cast her own attack. Fire and lightning… an interesting combination to say the least. 

While she fought that group of soldiers, I centered my attention on three others. “Hey!” I shouted, grabbing their attention as I dashed forward, unsheathing my rapier. The red tint glinted in the moderate light formed by make-shift lamps of glowing gems, and they advanced upon me. One man drew a sword of his own, a long sword, while I began calculating. Iron, approximately thirty five inch blade, probably standard issue. Move quickly, dodge while blocking. The other had a sword of similar size, longer by a couple inches. The final man wielded a massive claymore, though the speed with which he wielded it would present a problem. However, if he was fast he likely wasn’t very strong with it. Swift strikes, counter but don’t block. Dodge often. They were clearly used to fighting as a group. The two with the smaller swords came at me side by side as I stepped forward into action. I blocked a downward thrust from one, letting the blade slide down the length of my own as I twisted out of the way of the next sword. The man with the claymore moved then, swinging his blade in a horizontal sweep aimed at my midsection, that I managed to roll under. This would be difficult without magic. If I use another spell, the wall would vanish and my back would be vulnerable, so would the people in the crowd. If only Vajra were here. 

I slammed the hilt of my blade into the space between the first mans armor, forcing him forward in a kneeling position as his partner thrust forward at my head, whistling past my ear as I leaned to my left, then under as he swept toward where I had moved. As he made to recover, I swung my blade upward, catching him under his arm and cutting right through the leather and into his skin. I felt the blade stop as I caught his bone, and withdrew it quickly as he screamed in agony, using the backward momentum to twist away from the claymore’s strike, this time vertical. The blade clanged on the ground as I refocused my attacks on the larger man, who’d recovered almost instantly from his attempt. He swung at my legs, causing me to jump over the steel, landing deftly on one foot as he brought it around for a diagonal swing. I caught it with the flat of my blade just under the hilt and skidded to the right under the force. I’d underestimated him, he had speed and power. Definitely a problem. As he struggled with pushing me, his friend stood, reading his sword to thrust through my back, but I’d been quicker than that. I used the force of the claymore to throw my body downward, landing on my side as the badly timed thrust hit nothing but the space I had occupied before while I rolled out of the way of the next vertical cut of the claymore. “Hold still you little prick!” the larger man shouted. 

As I made to stand, I felt the wall behind me collapse, telling me two things; the first, I had no protection from the ice. The second; I could now use magic again. I made distance between myself and the three swordsman, the one still clutching his wounded arm on the ground as I spun my sword in the air, watching the edge blur as it left traces of fire that I sent into my enemies with one sweep of the blade. The small flame flew right into the hulking mans face, doing nothing to him as far as injuries go. It did serve as a distraction, a long enough one for me to close that distance again while he stumbled backward and bury my blade to the hilt in his chest, biting through the metal of his armor with the super heated metal of my sword. I kicked the corpse, bringing my sword out with it as the last man swung his blade at my head. I parried the swing, then thrust the sword into his neck in one swift riposte, effectively ending his life as well. I behedded the final wounded man and looked to see how Myra was doing in her own fight. As she combated the larger man, I ran forward, catching the two lackey’s off guard. With one strike, another block and a final strike the two of them fell as well. My blade shined with a different color of crimson now, and the thought made my stomach lurch. I’d killed men before, but never that easily. I had lived in peace for far too long, doing nothing but training to fight. It had softened me, but with the death of my master... that part of me that didn’t care seemed to have resurfaced. This could be a problem in the future, for now I had more important things to worry about. Another three groups were fast approaching as I moved to stand closer to Myra. I looked at the blood on my blade with disgust and flung it off. 

A soft clinking alerted me to the end of my worries for the outcome of this next fight as Vajra materialized beside me from my shadow, the blue flame almost purple now with his new form; a black wolf. Not his true form, but the one he would use when I was preventing his other personality from making an appearance. “They aren’t helping, and they ordered you to protect the city.” He said, his tone disgusted as I placed a hand on his back and the purplish blue flame began to move, hovering around me instead of him. “Vajra, stop the ice.” I told him before turning to face Myra. “After this fight, I’ll need your help driving the boats out. Any kind of magic you can use to move them while I’m on board. You don’t need to destroy them, Vajra will take care of that once they’re out of the lake. Can you do that?”