Snippet #2575868

Ulysses' voice startled Iaira and she briefly glanced behind her. She had been to consumed into saving them, all of their hides, and had not even considered that possibility-the one of them turning against her. There was a man then, who hit her with the end of a halberd, knocking her off her horse and drawing the air out of her lungs, pointing at her diaphragm. She did not tumble, instead, she found her balance quickly, scrambling to her feet quickly. In time to watch her horse's head being separated from its body, blood spraying from the wound and splattering a few drops on her face. There was a metallic taste on her tongue, burning.
Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes in Iaira's mind, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. She recognised that taste. It was the one in her mouth. Seemingly, around her, they kept coming, crowding, now safe from the Whirlwind's wrath.
Not from mine, alas.
She was vastly outnumbered, she knew. But then again, that was the way all Blackmonts found their end, didn't they?
She unsheathed her long-knives in a blur. As the man who had struck her approached, she performed the basic moves of the Shadow Dance. Quick, measured steps. She darted in, low to the ground. Impossibly low. Her back leg thrust out of balance, not even touching the ground. Her knife arm licked out in front of her, her knee bent so deeply that her entire body would have been below the level of a man's head sitting cross-legged on the ground. Iaira unfurled all this csunuous motion as quickly you can snap your fingers. The tip of her knife came in low under Lestium's guard and angled up towards his knee. Heavy armoured as he was, there were places he was exposed and the joint of his knee, at the side, was one of them. She sliced, then tumbled backwards to rise again. The man turned, still, somehow making use of his legs. Her forearm hammered into the man's covered face, stunning him and she shoved into him, causing him to stagger onto his already unstable leg. Iaira, now on his left, pushed the thin blade into his flesh between his shoulder and chest. She made sure it was deep. And that it would not be a quick death.
Iaira made her way quickly along the road, tracked by half a dozen crossbow quarrels that struck the ground with snaps and sounds of splintering.
She swore under her breath as blades flickered in the air above her. She threw herself to the right and down, regaining her feet in time to meet the four men. A flurry of parries as Iaira worked her way further right, pulling herself beyond the range of two of the attackers. Long-knife lashed out, opening one man's face and as he reeled back, Iaira stepped close, impaling the man's left thigh on the exposed side, merely a slit, whilst blocking a frenzied attack from the other Elite. Pivoting on the first man's pinned thigh, she twisted behind the man and thrust with her free weapon over her victim's right shoulder, the point tearing into the attacker's neck.
Tugging free the blade impaling the thigh, Iaira brought that arm up to lock beneath the first man's chin, where she flexed hard and, with a single, savage wrenching motion, she snapped the man's neck.
God, I hate that armour.
The one stabbed in the throat had stumbled, his jugular severed and blood spraying through the fingers grasping futilely at the wound. The last two of the four Elites were coming up fast. Beyond them, Iaira saw, others were closing in on Ulysses and Neiu. Snarling her rage, Iaira launched herself past the two Elites, taking their attacks on her long-knives, slamming her foot into the nearer one's right leg, midway between knee and ankle, breaking bones- probably along with giving herself bruises. As the man shrieked his pain, the second attacker, seeking to move past him, collided with the falling man, then lost balance entirely as both feet slid out on spilled blood.