As Sabine, Janius, and Lorag started to move up, Ahnasha and Fendros tried to keep the archers pinned. Since the Dunmer mage was able to use a ward to protect himself, however, he saw the plan unfold and readied himself to retaliate. Meesei ran in front of Ahnasha and Fendros, holding up a ward to protect them from spellfire. Unfortunately, the Dunmer was repeating the same tactic, so neither of them could affect the other. This was a stalemate that needed to be broken, quickly. In a bit of a risky maneuver, Meesei abandoned the ward and quickly fired an explosive fireball, not at the mage or the archers, but at the ceiling above them. The force of the blast damaged a stalactite enough to cause it to fall down to the ground below. The Dunmer was able to back up in time to avoid getting hit, but dropped his ward in the process. Meesei, Ahnasha, and Fendros followed through immediately with a barrage of arrows and fireballs. The trio on the ledge ducked down behind rocks and burning crates, unable to return fire. For Meesei, it was a magically draining assault, and Fendros only had so many arrows, but they needed to only keep them pinned for a short time. 

Since Janius had the shield, it made the most sense for him to attack the middle of the hunters' formation, while Lorag moved to the left. The hunters were having to split their attention in three directions, but that did not mean it was going to be easy. Lorag stared down the hunter in front of him, keeping himself just out of range of the spear. The hunter was a pretty strong looking Redguard man, but both of them knew that Lorag had the raw strength advantage. The Redguard stabbed his spear forward periodically to keep Lorag back, but never did anything more aggressive than that. It was clear they were purely focusing on defense. After a few lunges, Lorag managed to break the stalemate by using the haft of his warhammer to deflect the spear to the side, then grabbed onto it and tried to pull it from the man's grasp. The Redguard was outmatched in terms of strength, so thinking quickly, he grabbed a knife from his belt with his other hand and stabbed towards Lorag. It was a rather awkward motion with his shield attached to that arm, but it was successful enough. Lorag's armor, while it did protect well, was not a [i]complete[/i] full body suit. There were small gaps in unimportant areas, one of which the Redguard managed to exploit. He stabbed his silver dagger into Lorag's hip, just above his left leg. The stab wound, coupled with the burning sensation of the metal, caused Lorag to stumble back slightly and lose his grip on the spear. The Redguard attempted to capitalize on the opportunity by lunging his spear toward Lorag's head. Fortunately, not only was Lorag able to bring his arm up and deflect the attack with his iron gauntlet, but the Redguard was now perfectly open to a strike from Janius, as long as he could pull himself away from the two in the middle safely.