"Emma!" He cried out, as loud as he dared. All subterfuge was likely out the window, but even so, it was best to take out a few people at a time rather than have the whole barge converge on them. He holstered his pistol, strafing to the left as the sorcerer reared back up, bloodied but alive. Scores of cuts had bloomed across his body, and even his left eye was cut in a way that made Neil want to retch. Eyeballs don't bleed, but they got something in them, apparently. Instead of shooting the sorcerer as was his want, Neil decided to crouch in a readied position. 

He was never the killing type. Neil was quick to pick your pocket or leap into the bed of a girl, but when it came to killing, he never got used to it unless he felt it was deserved. But he had to learn all the same if he had wanted to survive Marienburg, and so his crouch was practiced, taught. His left hand out, his right hand gripping the sword, blade ready to strike like a snake. His feet were slightly past shoulder width apart, able to spring in any direction if need be. The sorcerer was likely more dangerous than three of him, but he was overconfident and angry. It made his movements, eldritch though they were, predictable. 

Had he begun chanting, Neil would have darted at him like a wolf on the hunt. Instead, he snarled and waved his hand in an arc meant to hit the largest area it could across the room. Neil saw it, and though the purplish darkness of raw chaos coalesced in his hand and expanded out like the chaos wastes themselves, Neil kept his cool and leaped, pulling his leg up and over to send his body in a 'butterfly kick' as the Cathayans say (or so he heard) and landed just in front of the sorcerer, out of juice and options. He blinked, his scraggly hair and dead eyes dropped from confusion over Neil not being obliterated. The thief slid his sword point into his neck so deeply and cleanly, the thrust nearly decapitated him.  

He would examine his work, but the girl he was quickly realizing was the love of his life was screaming topside, so he stepped over the corpse, ignoring the crablike legs that had protruded from his neck. The body didn't get up, like as not it had some strange tzeentchian [i]thing[/i] within him. Either way, Neil clambered up the stairs just in time to see the guard that [i]was[/i] just about to get up. Neil kicked him in the head, but he missed and hit him with the lower part of his leg. 

"Fuck!" Neil cried, stumbling and reeling, catching himself on the wall as the blunt pain cascaded through him. Either way, as much as it hurt the younger man, the guard was hit and fell back. Neil hopped twice on his opposite foot, catching sight of Emmaline as she dropped the axe. They both brightened when they saw one another. Neil hopped over to her, but another man came running, a cudgel with nails in it clutched in his meaty hand. 

"I'd kiss you, but I need to fight him first." He told her reluctantly.