Madison’s attention was pulled back to his own fight at that moment as the swordsman in front of him leapt forward with a two-handed, overhand attack. He was satisfied with the knowledge that Shayna was able to hold her own and that the young woman had survived the initial surge from all the attackers. Knowing that, he felt a lot better about their odds of making it out of the fight in one piece. Madison threw his sword up to block the man’s attack and noticed the attacker on his right coming forward out of the corner of his eye at the same time. Madison shifted to the side and stepped into the first man, turning his opponent’s sword toward the onrushing man as he blocked the attack. He quickly struck out with his left hand and shoved the man’s shoulder as hard as he could, spinning him around throwing him off balance by the combination and directly into the path of his comrade. The second man managed to pull up his attack in time so that neither was harmed, but the maneuver gave Madison just enough time to turn to a third who had focused his attention on Shayna.
Madison cleared the distance to his target in two quick steps, bringing his sword around in an overhanded attack aimed at the man’s back. The fellow was so focused on reaching Shayna that he never even realized that Madison was bearing down on him from behind. The tip of Madison’s blade dug into the man’s shoulder and then tore down across his back at a diagonal slant across his spine. The man threw his arms up and fell forward the moment the sword bit into him, but there was nothing he could do to stop Madison or save himself at that point. He dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, grasping over his head at his wounded back as if reaching it would somehow help him. Madison put him out of his misery a moment later as he slammed his sword down into the top of the guy’s head. There was a loud crunch and a splattering of blood as his skull was split open by Madison’s sword before he went limp and collapsed forward, allowing Madison to jerk his sword free.
He had just enough time to look up over the man’s corpse as it collapsed forward and catch sight of Shayna. The small girl had downed one of the previous two men and moved to engage a third in the amount of time it had taken Madison to finish one himself. He glanced to the right, searching out Warren as well as he turned back to his own fight. He caught a brief glimpse of the young ranger as he played what was apparently a game of cat and mouse. Warren was trying to put some distance between himself and the people chasing him, and he would stop only occasionally to fire off an erratic arrow aimed behind him. It was fairly amusing to watch since there was always someone moving around on the other side of the camp that would prevent Warren from fleeing the battle completely. He would notch an arrow while running and then turn and jump and fire it off behind him without taking any time to line up a shot. Madison knew that they would eventually catch him, however, and he made a mental note that he would have to keep an eye out for when that time came.
Madison brought his sword up just in time to parry a weak slash from one of the two men. He had to take a step back almost instantly in order to avoid another from the side, and he came close to stepping on top of the body he had just downed. Realizing that he wasn’t going to have any room to move around or for footwork where he was, Madison started trying to make some space. He could easily hop backward over the body, but that would put him a little too close to Shayna and her fight for his liking. Someone might just as easily attack him or her in the back as he just had, and he wasn’t confident enough in his own skills to believe that he could cover both of them at the same time.
Madison kicked up a pile of leaves and dirt with his right foot, scattering them up into the air. He was hoping to catch the second man there in the face and blind him, or at the least confuse him, and it seemed to work if only somewhat like he had hoped. The man threw up both his arms in order to shield his eyes, but Madison wasn’t able to completely take advantage of the opening he presented. The opponent on his left chose that moment strike toward him again with a quick waist-level thrust, and Madison barely managed to interpose his own sword between himself and his assailant. The clang of metal striking metal rang out as the two swords came in contact with one another, but Madison’s defense was weak and his block had been poorly timed. He felt a dull pressure in his side as his own blade rebounded back into his armor there, and he was instantly grateful for the fact that he was wearing some type of protection for the first time since coming to this world.
Madison instinctively took a step back then and away from the attack, which forced him to step into the man he had partially blinded. He bumped into him as much as anything else, but it was enough to push the distracted man back and send him staggering. Madison happily took another full step back into the space that had been opened up and slammed his elbow back into the man’s face, pushing him back even further. Sensing his opportunity, Madison twisted his body around and brought his sword up and thrust it toward the staggering bandit. Pinwheeling as he was, there was little he could do to stop the attack. The tip of Madison’s sword pierced into the man’s stomach just above his waist, and Madison stepped into the attack, driving his sword in as hard as he could. Without waiting to see his reaction, Madison stepped to the side and pulled his blade free, automatically bringing it up and turning back to his other opponent.
Madison grinned. He had only downed three men out of almost a dozen, but the battle was beginning to ebb in their favor. Warren had struck a killing blow with one of his arrows, finally finding his mark and sinking one directly into a man’s neck, and Shayna had downed a second man as well. He also noticed that the train following Warren was getting closer than he was comfortable with. Madison was down to a single opponent, Shayna had thinned out her stack to two, but there were still two following Warren with another running around from the opposite direction trying to hem him in. As amusing as it was to watch him dodge between the trees while trying to aim a shot and stay ahead of his pursuers, Madison knew that it was about time for him to do something to help.
He watched Warren as he wound his way through the trees and took a wild guess at which way he was going to go next. He had been avoiding both Madison and Shayna so far, likely for the same reasons that Madison had, but that was going to have to change. Madison feinted an attack, lunging forward as if he were going to attack his opponent’s shins with the point of his blade. The warrior took the bait, dropping his own sword to parry the apparent attack, and Madison kicked up another cloud of dust and leaves just as he had before. This bandit didn’t react as the other man had, simply bringing his sword up and stepping back instead of trying to swat it away and protect himself, but it was all that Madison needed. He lunged to the left and then pivoted back to the right, breaking into a sprint and beelining directly toward Warren.
He ducked around trees as quickly as he could while doing his best to maintain a line of sight on Warren. His goal was to come out from behind the trees and connect with one of the men trailing behind him before they realized Madison had broken away from his own fight and come for them. There was a chance that he would collide with his friend if he timed it wrong and came out too early, and if he was too late, he would miss his mark completely. Every step carried him closer to his target and sent his heart racing faster. At last, he ducked around a tree and reached out with his left hand, grabbed a hold of one of the smaller trees, and used it to swing around just as Warren raced by. Madison pushed off at the last moment as well to propel himself forward, and he crashed directly in to lead the man shoulder first. His armor thankfully absorbed most of the blow that he normally would have taken, and it allowed him to get a little extra damage in on his own as the angular pauldrons drove directly into the man’s chest.
The two went down in a heap, crashing back into the second man as they tumbled to the ground, rolling over one another. Madison dropped his sword as soon as they came to a halt, knowing that he’d never be able to bring it around for an attack as entangled as he was, and started throwing punches instead. He ended up with one man on top of him and one to his side, and he swung at the one on top first just as
he started to rise up. Unfortunately, the bandit must have anticipated the blow, and he had already started trying to pull away. As a result, Madison’s first punch caught the man on the tip of his chin and did little other than snap his head back even faster. The man responded with a punch of his own that was aimed at Madison’s face, and Madison jerked his head to the side, allowing the man’s fist to pass by.
Madison knew that he was never going to get anywhere with the man on top as he was. It was only a matter of time until the other person got involved, and he was at a severe disadvantage by letting someone sit astride him—not only was he giving him leverage, he was giving the bandit the advantage of controlling his movement as well. Madison reached up and grabbed the bandit by his shirt as he pulled back for a second punch and jerked him down. The man was snapped forward as Madison punched up, and this time his blow connected much more solidly. The man’s head was rocked to the side by the blow, and Madison hauled off and socked him again before roughly shoving him off and to the side. The man slid part of the way off of Madison, his upper half crumbling into the dirt, but his lower legs remained on top of Madison’s own.
Madison shifted his focus to the second man then just as he felt a pair of hands start to wrap around his throat. He had been so caught up in getting the other one off of him that he hadn’t been able to do anything to defend himself from the inevitable attack. Fingers scratched and tore at his skin as they fought for purchase, and Madison felt a primal sense of fear well up inside him. He grabbed ahold of the man’s wrists and pulled them back away from his throat, and it quickly turned into a test of strength as he fought against the other man. The man struggled against him at first, but when he realized that Madison was winning the battle, he suddenly shifted tactics. The man scrambled up onto his knees and pushed forward at the same time, diving toward Madison’s throat. Unable to maintain his grip against the sudden surge of momentum and body weight, Madison lost the fight for dominance. Madison’s head snapped back as the man’s fist connected with a short but solid jab directly into his jaw, and he knew that his jaw was going to be sore after. He reflexively struck out with his free hand several times as the blow connected, but he only ever connected with the man’s shoulder and wasn’t able to do very much damage. The bandit scrambled up to straddle Madison’s lap, pinning him to the ground, and reached back for another punch.
Madison watched as the man’s arm reeled back and then as an arrow suddenly sprouted from his left eye. The man screamed out in pain and started spasming on top of him. His body jerked back and forth several times as his hands clenched open and closed, and it looked like he was involuntarily trying to curl up into a ball. It was an impossible feat the way he was seated astride Madison, and he simply ended up rocking back and forth as he twitched instead. Madison grabbed the man by the shirt, bucked his hips, and threw him off to the side and on top of the already-recovering bandit there.
Taking advantage of his freedom, Madison quickly reached down into his boot and withdrew the knife he kept tucked away there. He rolled to the side a moment later and plunged the dagger into the man’s back. He might have had an arrow lodged in his brain, but Madison wasn’t taking any changes. He rolled over on top of the two men, adding his weight to the stack and effectively pinning the last man to the ground. He had started to come back to life about the time Madison dumped his friend on top of him, but it was already too late. Madison ripped the dagger free from one man’s back, reached down and around to the side, and simply jabbed it into the side of the other man’s neck. He heard a gargled cry as the blade pierced into his flesh, but that was it. Madison pulled the knife free, dematerialized it into his equipment stash, and rolled off of the two dead men.
He grabbed his sword and pushed himself to his feet as he glanced around the clearing, immediately trying to figure out what had happened to the black-clad swordsman he had fought against from the start of the battle. He had expected the man to give chase as soon as he turned and went after the group trailing Warren, but he hadn’t shown up yet, and Madison couldn’t spy him now. He did, however, catch sight of Warren just as he sank an arrow into the last man who had been hemming him in.
It appeared that Warren had turned the tables on him as soon as Madison took out the two following him, and there were several arrows embedded in the tree that the poor man had chosen to hide behind. Madison was able to catch the end of the fight as Warren finally landed a clean shot, his arrow sinking through the man’s calf at an awkward downward angle when he was too slow to duck back behind cover. The man faceplanted into the dirt behind the tree, exposing his upper half, and Warren had another arrow nocked and in the air before he could even begin to push himself up. The arrow sank into the man’s skull with a dull thud that reminded Madison of a melon being flattened, and the bandit stopped moving.
He turned and ran toward Shayna with the intention of helping her finish off her last two opponents. She had apparently been using the two combatants against one another the entire time while she waited for an opening to attack. Madison watched as she turned away one man’s blade with a dagger and then nimbly stepped to the side, dragging her weapon along his sword until she was safely away. It was like she was using it as a way to test his range and keep an eye on him at all times without having to actually look at him, constantly keeping an eye on his companion. The man thrust out with his sword once again, aiming at her stomach, and she neatly parried the attack with one dagger while stepping to the side and stabbing towards his midsection with her other. Her lack of range was hurting her as much as anything. The tip of her dagger barely nicked the man’s armor, and it wasn’t nearly enough to do any actual damage.
Madison arrived a second later, forcing her other opponent to turn and face him. Madison knew the fight wouldn’t last very long the minute he spied the man. He couldn’t make out the man’s facial features due to the mask he wore, but Madison would have sworn that his eyes were filled with terror as much as they were hatred or rage. The man was wielding a crude short sword and a small, round buckler affixed to his forearm, which he used to receive Madison’s first attack as he barreled into range. Madison’s sword bounced off the buckler, but it wasn’t without great effect. The shield was clearly designed for close, hand-to-hand combat, but it didn’t add a ton of defense or offer much protection. In fact, it was likely made to defend against daggers or short swords, not a massive great sword like the one Madison held. Even from the moment he first made contact, Madison knew that the shield was going to give way. Madison hauled back and hacked away with a second overhead attack, and the man threw his shield up in front of him protectively, once again turning away Madison’s attack, though with a great deal of effort and pain. Continuing his attacks unabated, Madison brought his sword up and around for the third time.
This time, Madison’s sword cut clean through the small shield, snapping it in half and slicing off the bottom half of the man’s arm. The bandit stared at the wound as if he couldn’t believe what had happened, and he had only just started to scream in pain and recognition when Madison stepped forward and thrust his sword into the man’s gut. The man doubled over, clutching at his abdominal wound with the bloody stump of his arm and his good hand, which still held the unused sword, and fell to the ground.
Madison turned to the last man, who was still engaged with Shayna and had only just seemed to realize that his companions were all either dead or dying. As if sensing that something had changed, Shayna suddenly danced to the side, pulling the man’s focus with her. The last remaining bandit was given a choice then: he could defend himself from Shayna, defend himself from Madison, or turn and flee. Unfortunately for everyone, he chose the latter. He swung out wildly with his sword, taking several wild slashes at Shayna’s head, and then turned and ran so fast he almost slipped and fell. He managed to make it almost five full steps before an arrow soared in between Shayna and Madison, striking him in the back and sending him into the dirt. Madison was on him a moment later, driving his swor
d down and through the man’s heart.
He turned and walked back to the others, scanning the woods around them for any sign of the would-be ninja who had seemingly disappeared. “Did anyone see where the one dressed in all black went?” Madison asked anxiously as he looked around. He hated knowing that someone had gotten away, especially someone who would likely be running back for reinforcements even as they spoke.
“No,” Shayna answered, shaking her head. Her hair had started to come loose from the ponytail she habitually wore, and her new armor was covered in dirt and blood, though very little of the latter actually showed up against the dark-black leather.
“That was really dumb,” Warren commented, staring him down. There was a bit of anger in his words and something akin to disappointment as well.
Madison shrugged. “What else was I going to do? It’s not like they were going to parlay.”
“Parlay?” Warren asked, clearly uncertain what Madison meant exactly.
“They weren’t going to sit down and talk to us like civilized people,” Madison explained. “They were here for blood, and they got what they came for.”
“And now, thanks to your kill-happy attitude, we don’t have anyone left alive,” Shayna said exasperatedly. “Couldn’t you leave one alive? Just once? You don’t have to charge in and kill them all on your own every time, you know.”
“Of course I do,” Madison said, a grin spreading across his face. “It’s a competition. Didn’t I tell you before we left?”
“What?” Warren asked. “You must be kidding me. You mean that’s why . . .”
“No,” Madison answered, quickly correcting himself. “That’s why.” He spun around and pointed at the man he had originally knocked unconscious by ramming him into a tree. He was sitting, sprawled out, exactly where Madison had left him.
“You mean . . .” Warren cocked an eyebrow. “You’re really going to go through with this?” he asked skeptically. “You think he’s just going to give you whatever information you want to know? Tell you who they have and where they’re being held? Who they’re working for? What their plans are?”
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