Within an alert, sharp mind processing information at high speed - priority targets, ally positions, strength of wind, sights, sounds, the ground underfoot, not to mention a few fears and doubts that were way over on the sidelines, relegated to mere whispers...
I'm running low on ammo, was a single calm thought trailing, in the background, along the seam where her conscious and subconscious met.
It was hard to see the bright side of any of this mayhem, but there was one unmistakeable fact of the matter... The heart of the French heiress had been frozen solid by the overhwhelming number of casualties the Rabbits had endured. So many men and women that she naively hoped she could get through this ordeal - gone forever. Taken from their families. Just like that plane crash had taken her from everything she loved. It was simply too much emotion for MacKensie to deal with and had short-circuited her empathy. Her emotions had dampened to muted blips. She could still feel, but she was now unshakeable, cold and reading everything her senses fed her so very clearly.
She was, for now, not MacKensie Trydant. She was MacKensie the Ranger.
In the skirmish for the Bazaar, she was still improving her handling of the repeater crossbow. Her quick hands were even quicker when she fired from the hip, shaving a few tenths of a second from her reload time and working the lever-action like a spaghetti western cowboy working a six-shooter. This kind of shooting would help her gun down the extremely resilient, magically powered knights who broke through to the back lines. She would sacrifice accuracy for speed against those close range targets.
Another new trick she'd learned was to fight with her dagger to fend off enemies when she had to, while still being able to empty her magazine at will. She would do this by working the lever-action with a single hand, managed with an elegant and snappy twirl of the crossbow around her trigger finger. The motion would, by the laws of physics, force the lever down and up again to load another bolt from the magazine. It was not just effective, but it looked pretty cool as well.
MacKensie ducked an orc heavy's blade and spun into a side-kick. Not to hurt the orc - she was not nearly strong enough to do any damage this way - but use the kick to push herself away as she leapt out of range. Bouncing on her toes like a boxer, dagger in her jab hand, crossbow held up near her eye, she shot the orc in the face. Misfortune. It merely knocked the beast's tooth out but did not stop it charging. MacKensie executed a snappy twirl of her crossbow to reload, dodged to her left and spun to back-fist stab the orc under the arm. The weight and momentum of the orc pulled her close into it's grasp... and her crossbow under it's chin.
J'ai vous!Her blue eyes - usually warm like the view from a tropical beach - were cold like a stormy sea, as she yanked her dagger free from the collapsing corpse and moved on to other priorities.
Where is weak? was the loudest thought in the calculating mind of the Ranger - one that repeated many times throughout the fight.
Evermere were still dealing with an ogre and had been pushed back a step or two, as a party, so she moved along the back line, sheathing her dagger so that she could fire and reload at full speed, providing support for Evermere's front line so they could focus the ogre.
Where is Adam? was another thought among the priorities - also on repeat in her mind. The young Druid had not yet come back from his solo charge across the bridge. Even in his bear form, MacKensie had managed to lose sight of him and the fear for his life was a concern that was not so easy to push aside as the others.
Her cover fire gave Evermere enough space to concentrate their might and one of the last ogres fell. MacKensie was quick to duck under a mage's line of fire, skip behind the back of Fenna and move along the line, back to her wing. She saw Vaella and the gnome of The Silver Arrow move further forward than even their front line, her blonde eyebrows knitting together in hard-eyed confusion until she sighted Adam returning from the enemy side of the bridge and into Vaella's grasp. A sharp intake of breath was her alarm, surprise, joy and gratitude all in one and she began firing with zeal to cover their retreat, a smirk on her face. She would have to thank Vaella if they managed to make it through this.
The ground shook and MacKensie's head snapped left, then right to scout the threat, but what she saw was Fenna suddenly explode with white-blue light. MacKensie reflexively covered her eyes with an arm, but she would squint and peek under it to see Fenna, blindingly luminescent - a visible aura pulsating around her form. Her eyes were gone, in their place, her sockets were smoking, glowing with this outpouring of light of the same colour. And her spear was as if it was made of pure light.
"Sacre bleu."What was this? Not an ability Fenna had mentioned before, that was for sure, although MacKensie did recall a moment between them when Fenna hinted that she had some kind of magic that she was unsure of what exactly it was. But surely this was not what she was talking about?
MacKensie gasped as Fenna fired a powerful beam beyond all on the bridge and right at Citadel Mountain...
Meanwhile, in the Bazaar
Corporal Maviel Dima had never seen battle before today. He'd earned his promotion through hard work and purposeful study, but he was almost as young in age as some of the teenage conscripts. And just as green, in many ways.
But now, he wore the look of a grizzled veteran. Stone faced. A long scar that ran burrowed deep through his right horn and travelled all the way down the side of his face - A constant reminder that life and death could be a matter of millimetres.
When the Bone Legion made a breakthrough that forced the defense to completely shift and swap around, Maviel did not panic. "Hold!"
His eyes darted around suspiciously as he scanned the bustling Bazaar, until he spotted a new weakness where too many soldiers had gone to plug the breach. "Rabbits!" he called long and deep to capture his soldiers, pointing at the unattended defensive position. The first Skeletons climbed up at this point, just in time to be greeted by a wave of arrows.
Maviel took half of The Rabbits with him, jumping down from the trellis roofs and charging the gap. In his mind, he wished for the luck of Iskara to bless all of the defenders, as The Rabbits’ arrows sailed over his head to shower the foes he ran to engage. "For Valhiem!"
