Fight:Eboric v Fadje

Fadje crosses the door jamb with the wary gait of a predator, skulking across the hardwood floor with a thudding cadence. The Vampire's features are at this time completely masked, a thick, cloth veil covering her face to the bridge of her nose and the shadow of her cowl casting shadows down over her hair and forehead. The vague sheen of a small blade being palmed could perhaps be registered by those keen of eye and attending to her movements, the knife being weighed, briefly, before it is sent spiraling in a heinously quick blur toward Eboric. "Over proud, Wretch. I will show you a true warrior." With a preternatural celerity the Vampire follows in the dagger's wake, one step then two and she takes to the air. The leap takes the female in air-decimating horizontal path toward the chest of Eboric, the spiked heels of her footwear glinting with a venomous malignance as they seek to puncture and perforate the armour of her target.

Eboric's inebriation seems to slide out with the flow of bright blood that suddenly washes down from a gash across his cheek, sliced by the knife blade he had seen, but had not had time to react to. The flying orc, however, is a far different story. Alerted to the danger, the born-and-bred warrior sidesteps, allowing the orc's foot to strike only air. Even as he dodges, the barbarian's fist lashes out, powered by all the strength of his bulky arm, in an attempt to catch Fadje in the mail-clad ribs, the blunt force enough to send her to the ground in a heap, perhaps even to snap the ribs like kindling. Axe and seaxe fly from Eboric's belt shortly thereafter, glittering in the tavern's flickering light. Poised and ready, the big man roars out his war cry, his huge voice deafening in the crowded room.

Fadje looses a guttural cry from the deep reaches of her bowels and throat as the gargantuan's clothesline hits home, the rudimentary but more than able links of her mailed chest absorbing the majority of the barbaric strike. The Vampire remains entirely focused, however, concentrating entirely on her landing which comes with the sudden out thrust of her left arm and hand and the clever positioning of the ankle of her boot. Wasting neither time nor words the merciless predator gains momentum and leverage from her current position to come at her opponent in a vicious leg sweep; the strong sinews of her attacking right foot coiled like a serpent waiting to strike. Should her footing-usurping attack hold true or nae, she will return to her own, a readied stance with the massive double-bladed axe moving to cleave Eboric, should he be downed, or to parry whatever onslaught he intends to bring should her previous strike not hold true.

Eboric drops to one knee on reflex alone, allowing the impact of Fadje's foot to smack solidly into his meaty, armored thigh. He is not idle while she kicks, either, as the seaxe lashes down in a short, vicious chop meant to catch the orc's knee just as the blow lands, the sharp, heavy blade easily capable of severing the limb. Ignoring the throb of pain lancing through his leg, the barbarian follows up with a lunge, the seaxe now flicking out to catch the orc's weapon beneath the leading blade, keeping it away while his own axe, single-bladed, but big enough to match the huge warrior's size, hacks down in a wicked arc, meant to bury itself in the orc's neck, to sever her head from her body.

Fadje moves with an alacrity to match the goliath's intended strikes, the knee for which he sought amputation flashing forward to meet the flat-front of the seaxe and send it, instead, running down the inside of her thigh to leave a long, crimson gash trailing before she frees herself of the tangle with a dexterous series of footsteps. Likewise she moves in time with the trundling Barbarian, allowing him to sashay her weapon away from the fray and for her to use the leverage granted to perform a stunningly-expedient pirouette - the result leaving the Vampiric Orc facing her foe's back. Down of heel and born to kill the Orc takes one step forward and, twisting at the torso, like a coiling spring, unleashes an explosive chorus of axe strikes, intended to decimate hamstrings, rip asunder the vertebrae of the top of Eboric's spine and finally cleave the great man in twain with a tumultuous and ravaging strike weighed with all the preternatural strength her race, vampirism and training have gifted her.

Eboric's leg armor lets loose a screech as the orc's axe bounces from it, sliding as he twists about as fast as he can manage. Her second blow lands on his side, smashing the metal rings of his hauberk into his flesh with a deep, bruising crunch, illiciting a roar of anger. Once again facing his foe full on, the barbarian again swings his seaxe up, using minimal movements to shift the course of the axe, sending it down and away. Again he lashes out with his own axe, bringing the hooked blade around behind his foe's head and hauling back on it, meaning to collar the orc neatly and drag her forward, off-balance, directly into the thrusting seaxe, whose sharp point, whether the axe draws Fadje in or not, is sent on a collision course for the female's gut, quite capable of splitting apart the iron rings to drive the cold steel into the soft entrails beneath.

Fadje 's shadowed features remain an unerring mask of collected fury as events unfold: her strikes finding residence or not, she is continues an oncoming flurry of methodic violence. Once more the constant annoyance that is the seaxe foils her unrelenting torrent, dispatching her weapon from her hands as the other collars her neck and sends her on course to be skewered by the Barbaric Eboric. The tell-tale flash of another palmed dagger alights as she uses the momentum brought by the axe to jump once more, both of her hands placed around the hilt of the knife to drive it up between the weak spot between jowl and shoulder and deliver a throat perforating and mortal blow with all her might - just as she herself lands on vicious point of the seaxe, a high-pitched gasp escaping her lips as the mail bends under the duress of the impact and fresh crimson blossoms from the contact point, which is due to her aerial stab, thankfully lacking in vital organs.

Eboric, by this point well used to the orc's supply of weaponry, is on the alert, eyes drawn at once to the light reflecting from the small dagger. With both hands occupied, unable to defend, the barbarian has no choice but to duck his head, twisting and tilting it away and to the side to actually meat the dagger so that, instead of slamming into his throat point-first, it slices along his jawbone, bone glinting white in the dagger's path briefly, before the flow of blood obscures it in a red waterfall. A muffled grunt escapes the big man as he tries his hardest to ignore the searing flash of pain, focusing instead on the advantage he holds over his foe; that is, his long seaxe thrust clean through her body. Bunching all of his considerable strength, he twists the blade, ripping up and in, toward the orc's chest, meaning to slice through mail, flesh, and bone to reach the heart, all the while keeping pressure on his axe in hopes of keeping her trapped on his sawing, ripping blade. As well, he attempts to stun his prey with a violent headbutt, spraying his own blood toward Fadje's face as he aims his hard, helmeted forehead at her nose and mouth.

Fadje is lost now, her thoughts, adrenaline and wanton pheromones subdued entirely by the treacherous lust for the precious vitae of the living. Eboric was no fool and by the methodical rule in which he exacted his riposte and rebuttal it was clear he was of special ilk, a tincture unlike others - a delectable treat for the insatiable vampire. The Barbarian's blade writhes through both mail and flesh, drawing eddying divets of jaded crimson from betwixt the knotted links of the Orc's mail. The pain, agony and attrition of nerves, sinew and organs are lost, all lost to the intoxicating ecstasy of blood; the macabre dance in which the instincts, features and predatory nature of Fadje fall, begin to shift and morph the feral Marauder into a creature, nae, beast of a physiology and mindset unlike most others. Through vital organs long dead and bones forever broken the behemoth male sweeps, deadening the resolve of the ill-fated Orc's physical resolve but never the hunger. Hunger. The hunger that consumes the creature is both a boon and curse, causing a sudden and abrupt askew of her head in search of the bloodied jowl of Eboric, the sweet crimson line of his jaw the target as newly elongated fangs peek above the hedonistic cloth of her veil and seek to find purchase on the warm flesh of the once-human. Strong arms, quickly fading, draw tight, their honed sinew evoking a stringy disposition to already lean muscle, pull hard on the shoulders or her target as he tears asunder her unread form, granting the assailant little option but a cursed immortality, or so it seems.

Eboric, having had little experience with vampires (and indeed, having no need to fear them, as his lycanthropy protects him from the virus), cares little when the orc, cut near in half, latches on to his wounded jaw. No major veins or arteries flow there, and perhaps her teeth might snap on his iron-like bone, or ever stick there, trapping her head even as her body is trapped by the massive seaxe. The barbarian continues heaving away at the blade, now turning it in an attempt to rip it out of the vampire's side, severing her almost completely in half, leaving her legs and lower torso hanging only by a thread of skin and muscle. But suddenly, something within the warrior stirs, something primal, animalistic, responding to the ancient enemy that confronts it. The human form begins to change, ripping apart armor and clothing, the rings of the hauberk stretching and popping as through the steel is naught but soft gold, as the body beneath begins to expand, shaggy silver-brown fur sprouting to cover the toughening hide. The arm holding the seaxe spasms, giving a last, shuddering jerk of the blade before the hand, looking more and more like a massive bear's paw, looses its grasp upon the seaxe, while the axe falls from the other, like-shaped appendage. The creature, now appearing to be across between a man and a bear, aims a powerful swipe at the body of its attacker, easily capable of tearing the vampire in two, had the seaxe not already done so. At the same time, the massive jaws snap open (the transformation having left Fadje latched onto an oozing wound located at the base of the bear skull below the ear) while the head twists, the maw closing with tremendous force, an attempt to catch the orc around the neck and shoulder, a move that, if successful, is followed by a jerk of the thick neck, meant to rip Fadje's head (and one shoulder) free of her already brutally gored body.

Fadje was wrong, wreckless in her inebriated abandon to feed the Marauding Orc was left consuming the ruddied crimson of the lycanthrope for the merest of moments; a malicious hiss following in the wake of a blood-and-congealed-phlegm discharge from between her stained fangs. Eboric is granted no time to rend what remained of her flesh, the behemoth of a male left morphing still as the Vampire kicks off of his thighs and relinquishes her battered form from the infernal seaxe - a hazy mist of her vital fluids alighting in the air in a drenching wave, covering all in the near vicinity; her blood, pure and wholly vampiric containing a viscous element, one which is caustic at first then searing in the end as its deadly properties combine with the skin cells and DNA of the vampirii's most ancient nemisis: Lycans. Broken, beaten and blind to the possible dangers of celeritious flight the warrior flees the tavern in a blur of weakened movements and bitter curses at her foolhardiness. She would return, of course, for him. The premeditation next time to end the Werebear's existence rather than the expansion of her Nest, yes, the brutal Barbarian would know a different end when next they met. For now though, rest, rest and the soothing dark iniquities of her Nest and the sweet ichors of the fledglings who awaited her return.