Curtain falls

The boar headed man barely evaded her blade, retaliating right away.
He was good, Alexis gave him that.
But she was no beginner either.

Learning from his first attack, instead of blocking with her shield, she turned sideways, making one axe strike miss while she parried the other with her blade.
She continued her movement, and managed to bash her shield into his back, making him stumble forward.

He managed to swing his axe backwards though, catching her in her hip and leaving a painful, but thankfully not debilitating cut.

She whirled around, reciprocating with a slash at his back, leaving a gash in return.

A heartbeat later, the two combatants were facing each other again, either searching for the decisive opening.

What Islana wouldn't give for a bow and some arrows right now but with none to be had, and the knife out of her reach. She looked around for the biggest rock she could throw and hurled it at the preacher's head.

Wim saw some of the people running, his lie worked. The cold breeze made the cloak snap and Wim scowled at the boar headed man. He pulled his remaining dagger and prepared to throw it at him. But he saw one of the Arbiter's opponents preparing a counter attack on her weak side. With a single step forward he dropped the ax and threw the knife as hard as he could aiming for the attacker's torso. Like most hard throws the blade went higher than he wanted catching the attacker in the side of the head. Wim guessed just below the ear behind the jaw. It was not were he was aiming but adrenalin got the best of him.

Despite not having a bow, Islana’s aim proved infallible.
With a crack the stone connected with the back of his head, most likely doing decent damage despite the boar head offering some protection.

A snarl was heard from beneath the mask as he turned to his intended sacrifice.

“You’ll regret this, little witch!”

‘Witch’. The word cut through the rush of adrenaline directing Alexis’ actions. Her eyes jumped to Islana’s face for the shortest of moments before her instincts took over and guided her blade to the final blow. Well… not only instinct.
She was better positioned to pierce his heart. But she went for his throat instead. No more final words for him.

As blood gushed out, the Preacher’s hands lost grip on his axes and he fell to his knees, feebly grabbing at his neck in a futile attempt to stem the flood.

Alexis rammed her sword into the ground, and with due caution her now freed hand ripped the boar mask off. She wanted to look into his eyes before he died.

Islana was better at throwing rocks than she thought she might be. To her surprise it hit where she was aiming.

The Preacher turned to her and used that word. Islana heard it but pretended to ignore it, hoping nothing in her gesture or eyes gave anything away as she could feel Alexis's eyes on her for a brief instant.

The man went down, his throat cut. Islana felt her legs give way and her head suddenly hurt again, as the adreline of the fight suddenly seemed to give out. Not to mention she hadn't been able to bring herself to eat anything all day. The young woman fell to her knees and watched as Alexis removed the boar's mask from the man's head.

Hunter killed of a few more cultists before he entered the area where the final fight scene unfolded. He stayed alert as he looked for stragglers looking for a cheap backstab. He then remained quiet as he watched the women deal with the aftermath of the fight. He saw the red headed huntress and wondered if she was the victim in this case. he had seen her around but never talked to her. Not that it mattered anymore since the enemy was dead......at least for now no thanks to the Duke, the knights or military. Hunter had little respect for people who were all talk with no results while bragging big and blinded by greed. It was only a matter of time before they dug their own graves. For now he helped Voah with her two missions and that had to count for something. Sadly now that he was done killing he shook the blood off his blades and turned to Gonyaul and spoke, "I envy you rabbit. You can care about everyone be they friend or foe........... Everything I get close to turns to ash."

Gonyaul was on the periphery, a front row seat to see every single one of the others taking out the remaining cultists. He felt like he was going to be sick.

When Hunter came nearer and spoke to him, Gonyaul made eye contact. Hunter would have noticed something wasn’t right with his awareness.

Gonyaul’s blood sugar was on empty. He hadn’t eaten in almost two days, was sleep deprived, spent the last day and a half intensely focused on tracking through the woods, the adrenaline spike from the nights events was wearing off now that things were brought to a close, and on top of all that there was the sickening sight of blood, guts, agony and death. The sanguine smells alone we’re making him nauseous.

Gonyaul smiled, he looked slightly drunk as he wobbled. He was trying to respond empathetically to Hunter’s words. Then he staggered. He was about to try and speak, but he felt like he was moving through molasses and melted marshmallows.

And down he went. Gonyaul had fainted.

Hunter caught Gonyaul before he hit the ground and lay him gently on the ground as he kept watch over the area for any more enemies. He spoke softly as he said, "Sweet dreams rabbit."

The Arbiter took in a sharp inhalation of breath as all four of the cultists lunged at once with long daggers and hatchets. She was kicked from behind so she used the momentum to move with a rush of speed toward one of them, parrying his dagger as it came from her front left flank, then she immediately dipped right to block the hatchet that was coming down from her right flank.

The block was enough to stop the blow in time but, being surrounded, she didn’t exactly have the luxury of stopping and celebrating, nor steering into a defensive stance. Not until she could take down their numbers.

So she pushed the hatchet away, knocking the cultist off balance while slashing shallowly across the chest of a third on her right who tried to sneak in from behind.

She spun around to defend her back left from the cultist who kicked her and saw that the he already had a knife embedded in his jaw so she turned her attention back toward her front left. Blocking a downward cleave with her dagger, the long knife knocked it from her hand so she used a move out of Tarmen’s book and grabbed the cultist’s arm with her free hand, twisting it down and around with her sword as well, slicing deeply into the cultists leg.

The man went to his knees but she pulled and dragged him with her by his wrist as she blocked and parried the attack on her right again, following it up with a powerful kick to the chest.

Voah pivoted at the hips and hopped backward like Gonyaul while letting go of the man’s wrist and slicing through his neck and pressing back the third cultist as her sword swung in an arc from right to left in front of her.

The two remaining cultists nearly brought down their attacks on each other’s weapons as she swiftly stepped back out of the way allowing her to make an upward stroke to knock both of their weapons away as she went into a defensive stance.

She could hear the sounds of battle dying down and saw Alexis fell the preacher out of the corner of her eye.

The hatchet man swung, she parried and again pivoted to the knife cultist, blocking his blade and rushing him with a knee and knocking him back.

She herself was kicked again from behind and slashed across the back but the coat took the damage as her hat fell off and she used the blow to roll forward and get back into a crouched defensive stance. When the knife cultist rushed forward, Voah, in a single fluid motion, ducked down, pushed his arm up, moved under it and behind his back, then turned and brought the full force of the blade onto his back and sliced. As he fell to a knee in pain, she rose up slightly and met steel with the back of his neck, driving it swiftly through.

But she didn’t stop there, just as the man fell, she pushed out of the way of the last rushing cultist and did a slide with one hand in the mud, turning herself right back around and slashing at his back, passing him and slashing his midriff, then grabbing his weapon arm and finishing him off with an upward sweep through his torso and jugular. She pulled the arm down and the body rolled across the muddy clearing.

It was a graceful dance of blood and steel and when it was done, the Arbiter remained in a half squatted pose, catching her breath momentarily as she and stretched out her awareness, listening for more impeding attacks. When none came, she stood, her body quaking with energy in the moonlight.

Alexis looked down at the man bleeding out rapidly. She couldn’t even recall ever having seen him. A face in the crowd.
She bent down slightly to him as she grabbed her sword again.
“Your boar will have to do with your blood as sacrifice this year.”

She whispered, plunging her sword into his heart. Other than some, she took no joy in prolonging death.

Straightening up, she looked around for further threats. Most cultists had run away. The rest lay dead or were in the process of dying to a silvery blade that could only be wielded with such elegance by Voah herself, despite the unusual attire.
Pillars knew how the Arbiter had found her way here . Maybe Wim had actually managed the crazy scheme he came up with?

Her gaze caught onto the poor brave owl that had paid dearly for their attack.

‘… little witch!’

… maybe not so random after all.

Alexis looked to Islana, then back to Voah.

Not here. Not now. And especially not in the present company.

Alexis cleaned off her blade in sheathed it, slowly and cautiously approaching Islana like she would a frightened animal.
She kneeled down in front of the young woman and reached out to very lightly touch Islana’s shoulder, ready to pull her hand back at a moment’s notice should the girl react badly.

Islana was alive. Not as badly physically hurt as she could be. Mentally, that was a whole different story. Or two. Or three. But, she was still here to have the chance to overcome this.
And that, in the end, was all Alexis could ask for.

The mercenary finally allowed relief and gratitude to seep into her mind, clearly to be read in her eyes.