Re: Cleaning up
Barmak awaits the sign to engage their vile foe, holding his finely-smithed falchion tight in his grip and closing his eyes to say a silent prayer. Though his allies be pagans and infidels, he prays that Allah will grant them victory so that the naked evil of the Pechenegs may be smited from the face of the earth.
Then Dyanna magically appears and sends the Pechenegs in the front ranks scurrying from the shimmer of her sorceries. Miroslav's battle cry rouses Barmak and he, likewise, cries out, "Allahu akbar!" His voice is only one amid the howl of the battle-ready Rus, but together they ring in his ears louder than the roars of a pride of lions. He jabs his heels into his steed, riding for the enemy ranks head-on, his falchion flashing as he whirls it overhead, teeth bared and dark hair blowing in the wind.
Then they clash. He feels the shudder of the blade as it cuts through flesh and tendon and bone, the hot spray of brackish blood up his arm and against the side of his face. Terror mingles with rage, and adrenaline courses through him as he hacks again and again at the Pecheneg warriors. Fearing he will be unhorsed by the hordes and dragged to the ground for a quick and brutal end, he leaps from his horse's back, seeming to hang in mid-air over the spears for a moment before time catches up with him. He brings his blade down in a glittering arc and cleaving deep into the shoulder of a Pecheneg warrior. He is amidst the fray.
Like a whirling dervish, he slices and dodges between the mercenaries, moving from one opponent to the next. He cleaves a warrior, slicing him open from belly to throat, and using his momentum spins while drawing his dagger, Eagle's Talon, to drive it into the exposed flesh of another Pecheneg's neck. He weaves between his opponents, rolling between their legs as they hack at the air where he once stood and cutting their tendons. When faced with a giant of the Pechenegs, a massive, heavily-armored brute with a two-handed axe, the Persian charges him. He leaps up to dodge the warrior's axe as it cuts the air, stepping up his chest and using his weight and speed to bowl him over onto the ground with a crunch. As the other Pechenegs howl about him, he pounces upon their champion's neck, stabbing his dagger underneath his chin.
But his fortune does not spare him from injury. Gradually the small cuts and scrapes and bruises accumulate, and his enemies begin to bleed him more egregiously as his energy wears away. Soon he is bleeding freely from his arms and his forehead, his graceful cuts and spins being slowed to ruthless hacking and stabbing, punching and shoving, howling and groaning. When adrenaline fades, he relies upon his rage to sustain him. When that passes, it is only desperation and a will to survive that avail his flagging strength. As he looks at his own blood running in rivulets down his forearms and slicking his grip on his blades, he realizes that his death is close at hand.
So be it. It is a good death.
And then, groggily surveying the charnel that surrounds him, he dimly realizes that the shades who surround him are his allies. The Pechenegs lay dead or dying beneath their heels, and their cries of victory stun him for a moment. Finally, he drops to his knees, gasping for air as he looks heavenward, desiring to thank Fate for sparing him but unable to do more than breathe.
Somehow, it is enough.