Snippet #2070159

The press of the Forsworn was growing greater, but Sinderion could not help the feeling that they would soon be coming in through that door as well, one way or another. Slinging his bow back over his shoulder, he drew his mismatched blades and leapt lightly into the fray in the wake of Adrienne's atronach. Trusting that and her bound battleaxe the take care of his back, he went about relieving the pressure on their sole defender as best he could. If he had his guess- and it seemed he did- Van would be quick to join him here. Nodding to the dunmer, the altmer indicated that he would go left.

Following the path of the fel axe, Sinder moved quickly and quietly, his longer sword finding purchase in the troublesome Briarheart's side. Sensing movement behind him, he spun his dagger so that it was in a reverse grip and plunged it backward. The give of furs followed by flesh informed him that he'd hit his target, but the pain that bloomed over his upper back indicated that she was not yet dead, and in possession of a rather heavy mace. Pulling both blades loose, Sinder pivoted lightly on the stair, distracting with a bit of showy dagger-work before his sword thrust up and back, entering beneath the woman's chin and severing her spinal cord.

He straightened with a wince. His shoulderblades were not broken, but the mace had dug several furrows into his light armor and then his skin. It was nothing he couldn't cope with, but he'd have to avoid repeat hits to the area until either he or preferably Drayk could see to it. At least the numbers were thinning on this side; between himself, Van, and Adrienne's conjurations, they's hopefully be dead before anyone could figure a way in through that iced-over door.

A look towards Sinder revealed that the two had similiar ideas in mind. While Van had issued his challenge, Sinder went ahead and threw himself into the thick of battle. Lagging behind, but pressing forward nonetheless, the dunmer took the right. Due to his belated advance, a couple of Forsworn found themselves trapped between Vanryth and Sinderion. He would have to rectify that for them.

He came down hard and heavy with the longsword, biting into the stout wood of an axe instead of the soft flesh of a Forsworn. Van grunted and struck with his shortsword, which was promptly blocked by the flat of the axe blade. Now thoroughly irritated, Van grunted and shoved with both blades, looking to put distance between him and the Forsworn, but the warrior wasn't having it. He shifted his axe out to the side, sending Van stumbling forward. Too close to be effective, the Forsworn followed up with next best thing. He jerked his axe back and the wood struck Van in the jaw.

He saw a sudden light, then a blur, before ending in a haze of red. The strike hurt, and he could taste the blood on the inside of his cheek. Van growled-- signalling that the Forsworn had invoked the troubled dunmer's wrath. Van's longsword reared back and the pommel slammed into the bridge of the foe's nose. That was it. The blow carried the Forsworn down a couple of stairs, giving Van the room to strike. His shortsword bit deep into his chest, and Van grinned. It felt good to kill again.

His companions having utilized their skills effectively, the pressure was taken off Drayk. Adrienne's frost atronach was wreaking havoc among the Forsworn on the level below, and Vanryth's magic was taking its toll, as well as Sinderion's impressive close quarters capabilities. Van looked about to join the fray. Drayk checked that the Forsworn he had dumped to the side was dead, before preparing to move in behind the two elves that had thrown themselves into the fight. He'd be able to effectively guard their blind sides, and heal them whenever necessary.

Drayk didn't get the chance, however, as the ice-secured door behind them exploded, along with a good part of the wall around it, sending chunks of ice and stone flying about the room. The ground shook slightly as another frost atronach entered the fray, this one not nearly so friendly towards the Sellswords. It was a good two feet bigger than Adrienne's, one of its arms molded into the shape of a massive club, the other a pointed spear of sorts. Shards of ice swirled around it in a miniature storm, and a light blue light seemed to glow within its chest.

It turned to attack the nearest enemy it could find, which happened to be Adrienne and Drayk. Springing into action, Drayk pushed Adrienne behind him just as the atronach stabbed out with its spear arm, the point of the arm shattering on Drayk's shield, blunting it somewhat. The ice storm surrounding it slashed at him, against which his shield was no defense, and he could quickly feel multiple stinging cuts opening up. It then smash horizontally at him with its club arm, this attack having much more brute force than the stab. The strength of the atronach's arm took Drayk off his feet and send him skidding across the floor to the other side of the room. He scrambled to his feet, getting his shield back into its place just in time to catch another arrow from the archers across the bridge, who had a window to fire through once again. Their warriors were not yet coming across the bridge, however, apparantly still wishing to pin them in, and whittle away at them with magic and arrows. Drayk had to admit, it was working, even if they'd suffered losses at the hands of Sinderion's arrows and blades, and Vanryth and Adrienne's magic.

"Van, light this thing up!" Drayk shouted. They needed to deal with this quickly, and fire was the best way to do that. He knew what he was asking, and how much this would bother him. A few years ago, he would have simply ignited the thing himself, but not anymore. He couldn't turn back to that.

A call from above revealed a frost atronach and Drayk yelling to light it. Van took his hand off of the blade still enbedded in the chest of the Forsworn and then ignited in a firebolt spell. A half a second's charge and he pushed his hand forward sending the ball of fire directly towards the atronach. Being thorough, Van lit up with another before he felt his magicka drained once more.

When the opposing Frost Atronach crashed through the iced-over door, Adrienne's eyes went wide, and she scrambled backwards, aided by Drayk's move to position himself in front of her. The intitial intrusion had sent her to the ground, perilously close to falling on her own sword, and the situation only seemed to grow worse by the minute. Time, time, they needed more time! There were still foes below, and with Van diverted to throw fire at the atronach, Sinder was the only one dealing with them. Drayk appeared to be attepmting to cover both the enemy atronach and the door, which was probably splitting him too many ways.

Thinking fast, Adrienne directed her own atronach to stand in the doorway, effectively making a large ice-shield against arrows and the like for the moment. The poor thing probably wouldn't last too long, though, and she couldn't cout on it to be enough. Her bound battleaxe was finally returned to Oblivion as well, but on the plus side, her magicka had had some time to recover, bolstered by the enchantment on her robes. What they needed right now were some large-area measures, something that would give Sinder a fair chance against what was below and Drayk and Van a shot at what was above.

Biting her lip, she decided now was as good a time as any to give something new a shot. Moving away from the pitched fight against the Atronach, she tried to gauge the distance from herself to each of her friends. Satisfied that it would probaly encompass all of them, Adrienne sheathed her sword. This would need both hands. Ihaling as steadily as she could, she called upon the spell the Mentor had been teaching her when he disappeared. Please let it work this time... The spell, named Call to Arms, was perhaps the single most difficult one in her repertoire, but if it worked, it would be worth the magicka drain.

Painstakingly slowly, the blue-white magic gathed, first at the girl's feet and then spiralling outwards, hopefully far enough to reach the others, scatterd as they were. If it hit them or not, she could not say, but she immediately elt the haracteristic surge of adrenaline under her skin that meant it had hit her successfully. Setting her jaw stubbornly, she drew her sword again and approached the artonach, fully intent on helping Drayk distract it until Van could summon another firebolt or something of a similar nature. She'd once had fire spells herself, but hadn't tried using them in years. With a quick shuffle forward, she struck at the Atronach's side, chipping away a piece of ice but otherwise apparently not affecting it much at all. As long as she could stay away from its massive arms, it didn't really matter.

And still there were more. With the majority of the group now trying to deal with the massive magical construct on the top floor, Sinderion was left to do what he could amongst the Forsworn in the lower sections of the tower. 'Lower' here being not by much, as he was still on the first decending staricase and not likely to make it further by himself. Still, the stairs wound a bit, and he kept himself around the closest thing to a blind corner he could, taking advantage of his superior hearing and ability to keep concealed, alowing the Forsworn to come to him and be surprised by whatever attack he would launch. It was no advantageous choke-point, but it would do.

Since Van had helped him clear the first group, he waited on the second wave, a few seconds of restorative magic reducing the wounds in his back to dully-throbbing bruises. He knew only enough of healing to keep himself from dying, really; he was not the kind who could make large wounds disappear as though they were never there.

The pinderous thudding of armored footfalls alerted him to incoming enemies, and he cut off the spell, drawing his long knife and crouching, at the ready. The first man to come around the curve was incrdibly unlucky, Sinder's blade traced in crimon across his throat before he could even notice the Altmer's presence. The fact that their ally's body fell into them did alter the other four, though, and Sinder wasted no time, moving while they were still tripping over it. The first person to get clear was a slight woman with a flame spell in one hand and a short dagger in the other. Pressing forward to prevent her from getting the appropriate distance, Sinderion placed his knife between his teeth and caught her spell-hand, wrenching it upwards even as the gout of fire started up. Her dagger-hand was the next to move, and he earned himself a cut to the abdomen in the time it took to bury his sword in hers. Deftly, he twisted them both so that her sputtering spell caught one of the other Forsworn before it- and she- died.

This body, too, was thrown as a means of delay, but the third was ready for it, jumping over the corpse and landing lightly on his feet. Sinder met his incoming swing with the steel of his bloody sword, taking hold of his second blade again with his free hand. His attempted stab met a solid metal shield and skittered sideways, twisting his wrist and bruising his knuckles on the unyielding surface. With a frustrated exhale, Sinder broke the stalemate of blades and danced to the side. When his back hit the wall of the stairwell, he braced himself and kicked out with both feet, again catching the man's shield, but this time with enough force to cause a stagger.

Just in time, for the last Forsworn had freed himself of the entanglements of dead limbs and swung his axe. Sinderion backpedaled frantically, tripping over the stair behind him, which ironically saved him, the ae whistling by just past the tip of his nose. He hit the stairs hard, knocking the wind out of him, but forced himself to roll, again lashing out at shield-man with his feet, hoping to trip him as well. Someone with that much armor would stay down a lot longer than Sinder did, and he'd be falling down the stairs, besides. Adrienne's spell hit just then, and he could have praised the Eight for the girl's timing.

Still, the one with the axe was proving difficult. Gritting his teeth, Sinder caught sight of one of his allies out of the corner of his eye. "Aria!" He called sharply. "Shoot the one with the axe!" If you don't, I might not have an arm in a few seconds. The thought, like just about everything else about him, was suffused with an almost unnatural calm, but that didn't mean he wanted to part with his limb.