<span style="color: #FFBFFF"><span style="font-weight: bold">" - rin."</span></span><br/><br/>Though the ringing in her ears sounded like a cacophany of monestary bells, she thought she could make out the sound of someone speaking.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBFFF"><span style="font-weight: bold">" - rin! You ha - "</span></span><br/><br/>There it was again.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBFFF"><span style="font-weight: bold">"Suurin! Get up!"</span></span><br/><br/>Her eyes finally opened slightly, just enough to let in the light from the torches. They opened further as the disorienting ringing inside her skull started to subside, and the foggy outline of three - no, four - Elven half-breeds met her unfocused gaze. Behind him, she could see the side of a wall stretching far into the night sky, but it seemed like nothing more than a gaping hole of shadow that swallowed up the minute structures of the mortals.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBFFF"><span style="font-weight: bold">"Hey!"</span></span><br/><br/>That time, his voice seemed sharper, tinged with a mixture of apprehension and pressure, as though he were in a hurry and this was an unexpected set-back. All of the Elves slid into one, the long face hanging over her own as he leaned. Pale lavender eyes stared intently, his thin brow creased into a look of consternation and thin lips set into a faint frown of concern. The chunks of chiseled gemstone in his ears caught the torchlight and glistened a deep, dark red. It reminded her of something.... oh, right. She was in the middle of a battle.<br/><br/>The Surface Dwarf's eyes snapped open and she shot into an upright position, her legs still splayed out in front of her. A curtain of black rushed up to blanket her eyes as her equilibrium steadied, and as it receded she could see the faint relief that flickered in her comrade's expressive optics. The reassuring weight of her matte-black platemail pressed into her body, the comforting straps and lines holding tight to her curves and muscles in all of the right places, and as she hazarded a glance above the Elf's head she could see the weathered nickel of her axe handle. One of the crescents had bit deep into the wood of a nearby building, and the other steadily dripped a dark blood into the already-soaked ground. She turned back to the platinum-haired mage, a few wisps of free hair slipping into her line of sight.<span style="color: #80BFBF"><span style="font-weight: bold">"Helmet."</span></span><br/><br/>The simple word brought a blank look, and then a rush of realization, and finally an extension of her armet in the firm grip of his long fingers. She took it wordlessly and slipped it back over her cranium, the visor clicking down with the momentum as her classically Dwarven face was swallowed into the dead-black depths. Short-term memory flooded back into her head. Those Line-Breakers hadn't been a picnic; she should have stayed further toward the back, like the men had told her.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBFFF"><span style="font-weight: bold">"I hate to rush you, but if nothing is broken then I've got to get back up there,"</span></span>came his light tenor again, the rise and fall of his words seeming too aristocratic for the backdrop of clinking metal and injured groans. Suurin rose to her feet as well, noting with something like boredom that she had sustained a few injuries; the bones of her left ankle complained the loudest, but there was no small discomfort radiating from several more of the muscles on her left side. Not a picnic at all; one of the last ones must have flung her like a ragdoll against the nearby house. She nodded shortly to the Elf, was met with a nod from him, and then turned to face the broken gate as his footsteps disappeared behind her. No time to linger, then. Fine.<br/><br/>Without looking away from the front lines, one plated fist wrapped around the handle of her weapon and she gave a sharp yank, dislodging it from the wood as easily as if it had been buried in cloud. A horn wailed in the distance.<br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/>Ayrie stepped onto the porch of the building, no more than a few meters from Suurin's position, then gave a small leap and gripped the bottom of the balcony with both hands. With more effort than he would admit, he pulled his body upward and clambered over the railing, taking up his position between two archers. As his lavender gaze settled upon the foggy gate, he could see why they already had arrows resting against the flexible wood; the gleaming sea of shields moved with perfect symmetry, the long shafts of the identical spears delving high into the night sky like the harbingers of doom. A soft, cold breeze lifted the fringe of his bang and tousled the few locks of silver hair that had evaded his sloppy horsetail, kissing the length of his ears and shifting the cowlneck of his tight, black tunic.<br/><br/>He could hear the murmured prayer of the archer to his left, but he decided not to glance over; he didn't need to see him to know the look in his eyes to be fear of his final hour, to know that his cheeks held a grey, pasty appearance. The cloud of arrows released on the Guardian's signal had been rebuffed with laughable ease, and though the uncomfortably similar figures only armor was their obscuring helmets, their reaction speed was... not something to which anyone was accustomed. The Elf's bright eyes flickered down to the rows of men beneath them, and as the two armies met in a tumultuous wave of writhing conflict, he heard the repeated twangs coming from either side of him as arrow after arrow sought a mark - any mark.<br/><br/>The Mûl took a single deep breath, then shifted his black boots so that his body angled to the side, shoulders falling into alignment and knees bending slightly. As his arms raised into an obviously offensive position, he felt a wave of heat start to encase his body, from the soles of the feet to the tips of his hair, as though he were being slowly submerged into an active volcano. Tendrils of white-hot licks, like lashes from a whip, began to flare from various strips of his nerve endings; his eyes swirled from a bright twilight-purple into a fierce sunrise-orange.<br/><br/>A thin bolt came flying to the balancony, so fast that it was more akin to a sound than a physical object.<br/><br/>His eyes widened and he wrapped his large hand around the forearm of the archer to his left, yanking the young man towards his own body; the spear buried its head into the wood of patio wall, taking a chuck of the bowman's sleeve with it. The young man, however, scarcely seemed to notice the thick shaft of wood and merely yanked himself away from Ayrie with a howl of anguish, his eyes wide with obvious pain and face pale: from where the mage had touched, a perfect hand-shaped burn lay blistering on his flesh, scorch marks clear on the fabric of his severed sleeve.<br/><br/>An apology rose from the half-breed's gut, but there was no time; hopefully the fellow could still nock his weapon. Abruptly, each one of his palms filled with roiling spheres of seething flames, approximately the size of his own fist, and without another thought he hurled them as far as he could into the lines of the enemy. They may have a weird, hive-mind about their shields, but their collective lack of any real armor could make them susceptible to the hungry, seeking heat of his fire. His palms refilled almost without his permission, the one his left hand flickering shades of daytime blue. Ayrie saw another lightning-fast spear impale the roof on the house of his balcony/battlestation, and though he had been cautious about burning soldiers from his own side, tendrils of uncertainty were slowly replacing it.<br/><br/>A note of panic edged into his melted-steel eyes as he flung both fireballs as deep as he could once more, almost positive that no men on their side should be closer than "first-degree burn" status. Almost. The smell of burning flesh hit his nose like a punch to the face and he grit his teeth against it. The opposing army was vast; from his vantage point, that much was obvious. Even if he had ten times his current power, there was no way he could take this many. He felt his heart rate rise, and the organ thudded against his sternum as he gulped, mouth dry. He had to try to conserve as much energy as possible. Simply tossing a few explosions or alighting a few of these beasts would not win the day, and it would not keep him alive.<br/><br/>His eyes narrowed as he scanned the ranks of the enemy, flickering rapidly for any sign of weakness or openings. Anything that might make a difference... or at least get him out of here alive. If Suurin had his view, she could have found something. Damn.<br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/>Suurin may have been positioned halfway between the center and far back of the ranks of soldiers (something about her "civilian" status; she hadn't payed attention), but even she could see the nature of the creature that was forcing its way through the formation and quickly approaching her own position. The strangled cry of the men whose clock had struck the final hour echoed in her ears and through her visor, she could see the profound speed of the enemy; it was like they knew of the blow before it had been launched, able to shield their bodies instantly and return the strike with a lethal accuracy.<br/><br/>Well. She had not been expecting this. Perhaps she should have insisted that Ayrie leave... Too late now.<br/><br/>A helmeted creature wielding a short, crooked blade came for her. She had only enough time to see a fanged maw dripping ropes of saliva before the beast was directly in front of her, having hacked and beaten a path through the unequal skills of the soldiers. She met the blow unflinchingly, catching it directly on her chestplate: the edge of the blade skirted off of the black metal, but the force of the blow pushed her backwards. Instinct leaned her body forward to counteract the momentum, but the red-cloacked attacker gave her no time to recover and shoved its shield against her moving body, forcing her to the side.<br/><br/>This time she almost fell over, only able to brace herself by pushing off from the approaching ground with her fingertips. Again, however, her opponent's unreal speed meant that she had no time; the blade raised and arced toward her again, aimed for her head.