A splatter of black arterial blood flecked through her visor as Suurin turned her face toward her assailant, the front half of an arrow protruding from the center of its throat. As her eyes switched focus from fore to background, she thought she could see a faint figure behind the thick smoke clouding the battlefield; perched on a rooftop, a bow held confidently and recently-released. There was no time to inspect further, however. The Dwarven woman quickly gained a solid footing and cast her gaze to the human forces that yet held the area between the main horde and Ayrie’s balcony: they were dwindling, and more so with every passing second.<br/><br/>The thick sound of a man being run through his middle met her ears, too close for comfort. She estimated the position of the killer and immediately dropped her stance, bending one knee into a “limp” and wrapping her arm around her midsection, the curve of her axe resting lightly in the dirt. Incensed by the obviously easy prey, the creature snarled and made for her, raising its short blade for a quick kill. Suurin timed herself with discipline, waiting only a beat: her axe blade swung up and across, taking momentum from the exaggerated distance and striking home with the element of surprise. It bit deeply into the beast’s clavicle, burrowing almost to the top of the handle, but she had no time to revel in the spray of blood. With a well-practiced heave she freed the weapon and, unwilling to waste the momentum gained from the removal, swung it around her body and low to the ground. The same creature caught the wicked curve on the upper thigh, slicing so deeply that Suurin could feel the drag of metal against bone. It shrieked with a gut-wrenching sound beneath the helmet, but the Dwarf merely let her weapon’s own weight carry it vertically around her plated fist, fingers whirling, before placing it solidly into the creature’s sternum. The shriek cut off instantly, and she set her boot on the thing’s chest for a brace as she yanked the metal curve free, sending yet another spray of shadowy blood over her own armor. The glistening, sickly black of the enemy’s blood gave the dull matte of her plate a sort of two-toned darkness, an odd glitter from splashes of Ayrie’s fire catching in the random reflections.<br/><br/>She started moving toward his balcony as quickly as she could, staying alert for more targets. She was far enough behind the front lines that she shouldn’t be facing so many so rapidly, unless things were going so poorly up front that her current location was little different. If the human forces could not stem this tide, she wanted to be close to the fire mage: she was well aware of his “Plan B”, and the closer one was to the eye of the storm, the better. A thick spearhead thudded fiercely into her plate, just beneath her axillary region, sending a resounding clang through her very skeleton. She felt it more than she should have. The damn Linebreaker must have cracked more than a couple of her ribs.<br/><br/>There were not many human soldiers near the front of Ayrie’s platform, she noticed by the time she came close enough. The Dwarven woman hoped that would change, if any other humans saw the threat to their very literal firepower. A chunk of the horde had made a decided alteration of route and headed directly to them, obviously deciding that an extinguishing was in order. Suurin positioned herself in a place that was near human forces but closer to the mage’s stronghold. One of them moved ahead of his fellows, letting three or four spears cleave the way for him; one of them buried downward into a man’s shoulder, but the only one that hit Suurin glinted off of her helm, something she barely noticed as she stepped in front of another man to take his blow. The slice from the spear that may have bisected him screeched over her plate just in time, but there were no other forces available to take advantage of the recoil. She swung her axe, but the beast dodged under it and shot forward, obviously intending to simply tear her.<br/><br/>Heat rushed over her armor like a volcanic eruption as the creature burst into blue flames, forcing the Dwarf to shield her eyes with one forearm. Her armor heated quickly, but fortunately the enemy was incinerated within seconds and without fuel, the hungry flames died. Without giving another thought, she stepped over the blackened husk and swung her axe again, catching another: her blade scratched the surface of the creature’s shield, but the momentum of her swing carried it in a neat sideways-and-upward curve of a rebound to cleave through one of its arms. She swore to herself, cursing the speed of the things; she had been aiming for a more lethal midline blow.<br/><br/>She was dimly aware, via peripheral vision, that another man had taken a spear through the middle; he honorably deprived the assailant of the weapon, and his fellows mobbed the black-blooded thing with a bestial ferocity. These humans, she decided in the split-second of time that she barely had, were more tenacious than she had given them credit for. It would be a shame if they all fell here.<br/><br/>The weighted base of her handle slid and shot through her fingers, punching into the beast’s ribcage; as it turned, she moved forward unthinkingly and pushed a sharp edge up into the midsection, warm black washing over her armored hands. She was not fast enough to fight these things alone, not without a lot of luck and more than a lot of tricks, but with these desperate forces of men and Ayrie’s fire, maybe she wouldn’t die without taking down her fair share.<br/><br/><br/>----------------<br/><br/><br/>The tip of the spear sheared easily through the unarmored mageflesh, opening a quarter-inch gash through the meat of his shoulder. The pain sent a rush of heat through his fingertips, unbidden by his brain, and four random streaks of white flame appeared in a half-curvature several yards in front of the balcony, like a tribal depiction of the sun’s rays. Blood immediately ran down his bare arm in a narrow, if dark river.<br/><br/>The archer than he hadn’t burned alerted him to the approaching enemy, and a dry gulp formed in the Mûl’s throat. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Rarely did spontaneous appearances of fire go unnoticed or unattended. In a perfect world, a few of the human forces would have been able to gather in front of his stronghold, but he could tell even at a quick glance that they were quite pinned and dealing with more trouble than they could handle. Ayrie made a gauge of his energy levels: he had what he needed for life, and what he needed for “Plan B” should he decide that all hope was lost and it was time to abandon ship. There was maybe a smoldering ember or two left beyond that, perhaps a bit more if something pissed him off. Not that he was exactly happy at the moment; the approach of a fair amount of creatures and the sting of a lacerated shoulder had created a nauseous mixture of panic and frustration in his gut.<br/><br/>He sent another geyser of yellow-white upward from the earth to engulf an enemy that had been approaching Suurin from the back. She wasn’t fast enough for this, and it would be far more obvious once the human forces sunk to a further-depleted level. He would soon be into the range of energy where dramatic decisions would need to be made, particularly if he continued to cover for her.<br/><br/>The bows of both archers still twanged with what the half-breed hoped was both speed and accuracy. Another spear lanced through the air, a blur before his eyes before it buried its head into the banister of the balcony; it sheared clean through the wood, the tip of it just barely touching the gut of the burned archer. The man paled visibly, but the skin was barely broken and discipline bade him continue firing, so he barely even paused. Ayrie’s gaze narrowed at the field, and as each archer released their arrows, they blossomed with white fire down the entire length of the shaft. Given a half-second, they would have turned to ash before reaching their marks; fortunately for the distance-fighters, the few of the horde that had given their attention were now close enough. The mage was as careful as he could be that the fire was minimal-power (for him, though it would still burn as least as fiercely as anything natural), as it both helped him to conserve and would do no good if it ate its fuel before hitting a mark. Hopefully, the archers had each brought a hearty quiver.<br/><br/>He was thirsty, so thirsty. The heat that writhed in the pit of his stomach was steadily changing from a rollicking boil to an empty, crusty burn. He winced visibly, knowing that it would not take long before it started to hurt.