[center][h1][color=ff5000][b]Renar Hagen[/b][/color][/h1][/center]

And there it was. Damnation and hellfire. Renar had just enough time to witness the flaming tree splitting the knights off from each other before he was accosted by a warhammer-wielder. Worse still, it was evident from the first stroke that his foe very much knew exactly what he was doing. Even as Renar stepped back from the attempted sweep at his legs and retaliated with a swipe of his poleaxe, his foe raised the haft of his hammer to parry the blow. 

Even as the pair exchanged practiced strikes and parries from various guards, the griffin's cry still had Renar's blood run cold for a moment. He recognized the sound, of course, but could take no opportunity to confirm it for himself as he shifted to the boar's tusk stance in response to his foe's guard of the lady. The enemy hammerer grinned, thinking he had the knight, and drew his warhammer back behind his shoulder, preparing to bash Renar's head in. Renar stepped forward, the veteran bandit brought his hammer down, and the bastard of Brias made his move. Renar shifted after he stepped, narrowly evading the bandit's downward smash with a sidestep, and thrust his poleaxe under the man's arms, straight into a thin joint of the man's armor. With one hand still keeping his poleaxe stuck in the bandit's side, Renar took the other and drew a dagger, plunging it into his enemy's throat and finally felling him. 

A breath. Two. Renar afforded himself but a moment to catch his breath as he made sure there were no foes approaching before he ripped his dagger out of the bandit's throat and sheathed it, kicking the man's fresh corpse over and onto the ground. Going by Dame Tyaethe's words back before the charge had begun, they were to deal with the primary threats with all due haste: those being the griffin and Jeremiah. The Bandit King was out of the question at the moment: he was simply too far away for Renar to reach in time. As for the griffin...

Renar's planning was interrupted as he saw one of his fellows struggling for an instant. Ah, right: Lucas Storm. He was losing to his foe. Unsurprising. For a moment, Renar was genuinely tempted to let the boy die. He'd never proven himself as an Iron Rose. Never accomplished any great feat for admission like every other member of the order had. Should Lucas fall, that simply meant he'd never been cut out for this life to begin with. But there was always a chance someone was watching, even in the midst of a pitched battle. So with a look of resignation beneath his helmet, Renar hefted his poleaxe up and started to charge forward to save the idiot boy's life. Only to find out that he didn't need to. In a stroke of blind luck, """Sir""" Lucas managed to save his own life...and immediately move to throw it away again by running full tilt towards the griffin. 

Lamplighters take him, this was absurd. Renar hadn't been the only one to notice Lucas's mad charge, either. Another pair of veteran bandits spotted the boy knight charging the griffin and brandished their weapons, preparing to take him from the side. With a heavy sigh, Renar dashed forward to intercept, his own charge taking one veteran completely off guard as they prepared to execute their rush. As Renar bashed that man's head in and began to duel the other in earnest, he bellowed out in Lucas's direction.

[color=ff5000][b]"Watch your damned flanks, boy! Next time, I'll let you die if the griffin doesn't have you first!"[/b][/color] He snarled even as he continued to exchange blows with the second veteran, all subtlety and tact gone in the heat of battle.