Ensharia turned to Swick, eying him with a silent question and finding the man with no answer. Ensharia half expected him to translocate elsewhere, but he remained. She couldn’t think why. Perhaps his options were limited, and he couldn’t muster the distance to travel far enough to reach true safety. Perhaps he’d been covering up some additional limit in his power that she had no idea of. Either way, he readied his fists instead of his magic and readied himself for a fight. It appeared Ensharia, if nothing else, would have a Hero as an ally.

The first orc came on so fast Ensharia almost felt like she was fighting a Knight. No, faster, as fast as a Dullahan even. Its spear was like the lance thrust of a mounted rider. She slapped it aside, feeling the sensation of wood shivering against her knuckles, wincing even as the weapon went wide. She was unarmed, unprepared, vulnerable and lucky enough not to have met something harder than her bare hands already.

Obviously, the orc was not expecting to lose a contest of physical power, and she gave it something else to worry about by driving her fist out to smack into its chest. The wrought iron made a thick cushion against Ensharia’s strength, but it wasn’t steel, and she wasn’t the woman who’d once struggled in battle against magical enemies clad in plate. The material surrendered with a grating, shivering groan as its wearer was knocked flat, legs twitching in agony where it lay in the dirt.

Ensharia did not wait to consolidate her advantage, merely turned and ran, desperately running around the remaining orcs. A light pop beside her warned of Swick the Swift translocating in without her needing to actually look at him, and the two of them were heading towards the town’s edge faster than Ensharia had ever headed towards anything at all.

They were unarmed, which was never a good way to open a fight. Ensharia was glad she’d insisted on bringing her armour, if nothing else, but it would be poor protection against weapons and enemies as big as those orcs. Just a quarter-mile ahead of them was the city’s outskirts, beyond that it wouldn’t take them long to catch the sight of their teammates. They’d have a chance from there, but everything hinged on escaping.

Ensharia tried to find the confidence she so desperately wanted, settling on determination instead.

Three hundred yards to the outskirts, and more orcs closed from the sides. There must have been an entire army around them, Ensharia thought, to have men so far out as to reach her sidelong where she was already. And reach her they did, crushing in like the jaws of a bear trap.

Ensharia caught one orc across the jaw with a punch, and felt the bone snap. Another grabbed her from behind, but she merely forced its grip apart with a flex of her arms, slammed the back of her head into its face and moved on to strike another as the creature fell convulsing and groaning at her feet. Blades came, great big machetes and blunter cudgels aside them, those that actually hit left little etches in the impossibly hard material of her armour. None did true damage.

It didn’t matter. The danger here was losses of time, Ensharia knew an army of this size would have at least a few elite soldiers, she’d already fought one herself. If a handful more orcs like the one she’d knocked flat attacked simultaneously, there wasn’t a hope in hell she’d win. Not without her weapons.

And then there was the General.

Ensharia threw an orc down over her shoulder, snarling as something crunched into the joint between her arm and torso. The armour there was thinner, more vulnerable, and she actually felt it give before something sharp bit her skin. She rounded on the attacker instantly.

By the dent in its chest, the orc she’d laid flat at the altercation’s opening was the same one who’d just cut her. It didn’t hesitate to try drawing more blood, flailing its oversized weapon one way and the other like a leaf caught in the wind. Ensharia stumbled back, forcing herself not to rely on any of the old parrying reflexes she’d spent so long developing. They’d only fail her here.

Swick the Swift, however, did not. Ensharia actually blinked as the block of stone came down upon the orc, smashing its helmet in and sending the creature to drop face-down into the dirt. The pirate didn’t hesitate over it for an instant, simply dropped the makeshift weapon and seized the orc’s own. Ensharia took the chance to do likewise. Following after him, waiting for him to kill, then taking the hammer from his fallen enemy.

An orc went low, then fell as she cudgelled it. Three tried to attack at once from different sides, showing Ensharia how high she could jump as she found herself leaping into the air and clearing all of their heads, then laying waste to the confused enemies from their back. One after another, a score after a dozen, they fought and moved at once as they came closer and closer to freedom.

It was when they’d just come to within a hundred or so yards of the city’s limits that Ensharia heard a voice ring out, and felt the sudden pressure of orcish assault let up.

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“Back off, these two are far beyond the likes of you.”

She turned, panting, but barely needed to. Venka’s orcs did back off as they were ordered, and she knew there was only one man alive capable of commanding those soldiers. The General approached, strolling down the street as if he were in the parade ground, fingers resting on the handle of a sabre held at his side.

He did not wear much in the way of armour, but he walked like a man covered in it from head to toe. He didn’t seem armed with anything more than his sword and his body, but he moved as if the Dark Lord himself were standing behind him. General Venka’s face was like a hawk’s as his eyes fell upon Ensharia.

“Who are you?” He asked her.

Throat tight, she took a moment to think. He cut in before she could answer.

“The next question I ask, you will answer instantly, or I will attack and kill you where you stand. You’ll have no time to lie here.”

It was as stunning a verbal blow as any physical one she’d ever received, knocking the wind from her lungs and the thought from her mind. A simple, devastatingly effective tactic that seemed to leave no reason at all for the contrivances of counter-play or strategy. Which was, of course, the point.

Ensharia couldn’t even blink before he spoke again.

“What are you doing in this village?”

“Buying food.” She replied, instantly.

“For whom?”

“For myself.”

“Why did you attempt to flee without any after hearing my announcement?”

Her heart seized, and Ensharia almost delayed that single, precious moment that would have cost her life itself.

“I’ve heard of your reputation, of your infamous brutality and cruelty, and thought that you’d be likely to decide any foreigners were enemies of your Lord.”

“And are you?”

“No.” Ensharia replied, but he was speaking again before she could elaborate.

“What brings you foreigners to our lands?”

“Trade.” She replied, blurting out the first thought to enter her head.

“You have trade caravans, then? Goods?” The General challenged. Ensharia almost cursed. Every answer she gave locked out possible others, left her ever more tightly held within his voice of deduction. Her panic was mounting with every moment that passed.

“We were robbed.” She replied, hastily, “On the road.” Ensharia found herself elongating the lie without even realising what she was saying. “We, uh, we saw something fall from the sky, something absurdly huge. And when we went to investigate it there were…These people, moving away from the place we think it landed.”

“How many?” The General asked. “What did they look like?”

“Six.” Ensharia replied. “A tall man of brown skin and black hair, a giant hulking one with a sword so big it looked heavier than me, a woman with black skin- she was being carried by the largest of them- a man in magus robes with green eyes and a…” She couldn’t describe Swick accurately, he was standing right there. “A sky pirate, I think. It must have been, he talked about crashing his ship, and he had the sort of accent they usually do. All guttural and common. They…They robbed us, killed my friends, stole our goods.”

Ensharia could only hope her look of pained frustration was convincing enough.

“Interesting.” The General replied, and began to pace as he spoke, taking long, easy strides. The sword swayed by his side, hand still resting atop it. “Very interesting. Your story does seem consistent with other facts I have gathered, I know of the great falling object you speak of, of the people you claim you encountered. It all lines up rather well.”

The sword was out before Ensharia even saw it, thrusting through the gap between backplate and pauldron, digging in and leaving blood to fountain from her wound. Whatever its edge was made from, it wasn’t steel. Steel could not survive such forces being exerted through it. She staggered back.

Ensharia whirled, but the sword did not fly for her again. Only twisted where the General held it.

“Intriguing,” He breathed, studying its edge. “You’re oddly well armed for a merchant. But then, you’re actually the Paladin Ensharia Zeriqua, are you not?”

Her blood ran so cold, Ensharia thought it must have expanded to ice in her heart. The look of victory upon the General’s face almost thawed it instantly.

“If you’re wondering, King Galukar was with your group. I deduced that much myself before arriving here, that you failed to mention one of the most famous men alive by name rather than simply physically describing him betrayed your deception. It was, however, not a poorly made one beside that.”

The praise seemed genuine, bizarrely enough, and it was followed by another sword swing. Ensharia was watching General Venka this time, and saw clearly that he moved faster than any man she’d ever seen. Faster than her, Silenos, faster than Galukar himself. The man’s sword was like a streak of mercury as it came for her, biting into a pauldron before she could react. The force of it sent her fabric attire flying free, exposing the armour beneath as Ensharia slid backwards five, ten, then fifteen feet. She stopped only as she crashed into an orc, knocking the beast flat.

Swick the Swift was living up to his name, dancing back from Venka’s blade for almost three entire steps before it caught him. Cleaving the shoddy knife he wielded in half, sending its remnants to scatter away, then arching back around to cut an equatorial gash from his shoulder to hip. The pirate didn’t even make a sound as he fell, just gasped in shock and seized with muscular convulsion. Venka examined him for a few moments, and so did Ensharia. She found a flutter of relief as she saw the subtle rising and falling of the pirate’s chest. Venka only laxed his face a shade, clearly invested in taking him alive, but not by any great degree.

Not a great enough one to delay him any more than an instant before he was charging once more for Ensharia.

She tried. She really, truly tried. But a rat could try just as hard and just as long against a cat, some results were simply immutable. Ensharia’s hammer was cut in half, then the handle of Venka’s sword caught her between the eyes. The General was not as strong as King Galukar, not nearly, but he didn’t need to be. Not with a blow as cleanly delivered as that.

Before the flecks of light had even finished dancing in her vision, he brought the flat of his blade down hard.

That was when her memory cut off.