Shock was writ large across the face of the crimson cloaked warrior as Ivkarha bore down upon him in her reckless assault, riding down desperate men who sought to impede her, but such was her fury that none could stand afore her, not and live.
He grabbed at men near him, gesturing, shoving them into position, to attempt to form a simple line of spears to halt her passage. Hastily they assembled, ragged and shaken, spears lowered, ready to met her.
Onwards she plunged, forcing her horse to do the impossible, to try and resist its instinct, to swerve and avoid the spears and it began to falter in it charge. A roar came from her, of frustration given voice, and as she did a shout boomed around her, deep and powerful, a shout that drove the dust before it as it cracked in the air above all other sounds.
Thence came Aedmorn, thundering passed her, axe raised, the shout of a cruaith channelling all desperation and far into it, and before him the waiting enemy flinched back as before a relentless, vengeful god, the air sizzling about him with the power of his gilded tongue.
He crashed into the enemy as their spears wavered and dipped, flinching back at the sight of him. The axe hewed down, once, twice, thrice, and a path of bloody ruin was cut through them.
Ivkarha charged forward, her horse leaping the fallen, to take the fight to the crimson cloaked man as the remaining Shanani slammed into the disoriented spearamen, riding them down into bloody ruin.
Upon the crimson cloaked one she came, slashing down with her sword, but he was not there, for he had rolled aside, swifter than she had expected, and coming back up to his feet, he swung mighty with his sword at her back. Only by wrenching her mouth about and hammering a desperate parrying blow down did she parry the strike aside.
The man danced about, seeking to stay out of range of her sword, to get around behind her again, while other enemy slowly closed in. With a cry of rage, she swung down from the saddle of her horse, letting t go free, and advanced on the man, focused on him alone; no more would he be able to avoid her, to dance away, not with her quick stepped advance.
A horse, empty of rider, went thundering on by, disrupting an enemy soldier who was seeking to charge at her, and the Aedmorn was upon him, axe sinking deep into his shoulder, almost cleaving his arm free, so that dark blood spurted from the dreadful wound. An agonised scream was torn from the man before bloodied specks began to foam at his mouth and his cries grew faint and feeble.
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Wrenching his axe free, Aedmorn turned to face the other foe coming at them, a snarl on his lips. He raised the axe and hurled it full at the closest, the ae singing through the air before burying itself into the man’s chest. A howl split the air as Aedmorn tossed back his head and warped, grinding and cracking noises coming from him as his body lengthened and changed shape, claws and fangs sprouting, a bestial cast to his face forming, thick white fur growing across his body. Like a great wolf or rampaging bear was he, one that in some manner ha a shape akin to a man.
He gathered himself, muscles coiled and tense and leaped, a prodigious leap that no man could have made, to fall upon a startled soldier. His maw closed around the man’s throat and tore it open, blood spraying across his once white fur. He held the man in his jaws, the body twitching, then tossed it aside, the body flailing through the air to land unmoving, head half severed from the body. The sound that came from Aedmorn’s throat was feral, animalistic, and his eyes held nothing but a beast within. He loped forward again, building up speed, to launch into the pack of enemies, talons describing great bloody streaks through the air. Men turned and fled or died as they were ripped asunder, greatly afeared of the best that had descended upon them, bloody handed and savage, such a thing as no man of the cities could account for.
Ivkarha could spare her companion no thoughts as she advanced on her foe; he had done what he could, to open the path for her, and now the fight was hers. Grim was her countenance, and dark flashed her eyes as she stalked forward, sword held to the fore, double handed her grip upon the hilt.
If her foe was concerned be the events unfolding, he showed no signs of it, but instead held his ground, balanced easily upon his feet, eyes watching her as he slashed at the air with his sword, shaking his limbs out to be ready.
“You think to stop us?” he asked of her as she neared, slowing her pace, settling into a fighting stance, balanced lightly upon her feet. “You can not win this.”
“Then we die trying,” she retorted. “It may be that we die, yet if we do it as free people and all shall see we have defied you.”
He laughed at that. “To what ends, for you shall be dead and we shall march on.” He pointed his sword to where Aedmorn rampaged, blood stained not just from foes but from cuts he had suffered as well, cuts that in his savage rage he noticed not. A trail of mangled bodies lay in his wake, ripped and shredded. “The old ways are passing, the wild and barbaric practices of the past, the ways of the cruaith, of the desert tribes and hill men that dwell in savage ignorance. We shall usher in a new age, of civilisation, to stamp out the old ways, the old gods.” His face shone fervour as he spoke, eyes gleaming with righteousness. He believed it, Ivkarha could see, would fight and kill for it, even die for it.
“It may be as you say,” she responded. “It may be that all that we hold dear shall end, but you shall not see that day,” she promised, and so saying she leapt forward, sword singing as she took the battle to him, a battle only one could survive.