Triumph or Death (Part 2)

Jien saw the blade coming his way, the movement contained the shrewd elegance of an art that was refined on the battleground. The tip of her rapier struck out like lightning, and though time seemed to slow down drastically to Jien's eyes he knew that he wouldn't be able to dodge the blow. He also knew that he wouldn't be able to move mana in the proper way to use a spell. This left him with only the martial path to assist him and he didn't hesitate to use mana manipulation. 

Jien poured mana into his legs and with a sharp pivot of stance the force produced by that extra strength ran up from his legs to his hips. He pivoted his hips as well, forcing the momentum through his core and to his right arm. His rapier shot forward with surprising force, the strike haphazard at best, but for a knee jerk reaction the result was decent. His rapier struck the bandit leaders with enough force to knock it completely to the side. The parry was successful in sparing him from being hurt but was a failure in that he had overreached, his blade off course from any ability to strike at his opponent.

The bandit leader herself only had an amused glint in her eyes at the occurrence. She had thought for sure that she was going to take the youth out with that blow but low and behold he actually had some level of skill. That being said that paltry level was nothing for a veteran of the Endless Battlefield. She used the strength of Jien's blow to pivot on her feet, twisting around in a full circle and pulling her whip up with her in an upward spiral toward Earl.

Lord Losler after seeing the angle would miss Jien if nothing interfered, rolled forward, dodging the blow of the whip to close the distance between him and his opponent. As he ended his roll and was about to thrust his blade upward into her chest in what he hoped would be a killing blow she had finished her spin and stuck out with her rapier to parry the upward blow. As her rapier was descending to block, the whip in her other hand had completed its ascent and she didn't hesitate to flick her wrist and send the barbed leather toward Jien.

Once again Jien found himself unable to dodge as he had been training to, not in a conventional way at least. Still overextended from his previous strike he decided to fall unceremoniously at an odd angle to dodge the bulk of the whip's length. He found success as the whip crossed over him, or so he thought until the end of it lashed his leg.

Though the front of his leg was covered by a light leather guard the back of it was not. This allowed for the edge of the whip to dig through his pants leg and lash at his flesh. That, however, was only the start as the leader drew back on the whip, forcing its barbed surface to run along the length of the new wound, tearing it open further.

At that moment Jien's mind went blank as his senses were overwhelmed by white hot pain. He had never experienced such pain before. His training was done against dull weapons and with opponents that weren't out to kill him.

He didn't even have time to scream in pain before, yet another source of pain sprung up. The leader had successfully deflected Lord Losler's uppercut thrust and in doing so say an opportunity to follow through on her promise to kill Jien in front of his father. With Jien at an angle and just behind Lord Losler's back she followed her parry into a thrust just over Earl's shoulder, aiming for Jien.

Earl understood the situation immediately upon seeing that the bandit was not aiming to strike him. Though he couldn't see Jien he shifted his weight to the side to knock the rapier off course. Though he was successful in his attempt he wasn't successful enough as he heard whine of pain from behind his back. The rapier had missed Jien's chest but had stuck his left shoulder. The blade had pierced skin and muscle, though it lacked the strength to damage the bone that was still a success to the smiling bandit. "Looks like you can't protect him after all." she stated with a light chuckle before moving to use the whip to strike out at Jien once more.

Jien felt another pain in his shoulder and at that moment his mind went dark. He was only eight, still very new to the arcane arts and the martial path. He passed out without being able to help it, his body collapsing fully to the ground.

After a peek behind him Earl knew that Jien while injured and bleeding wasn't in immediate risk. He would have to fend off the bandit leader and ensure that his son was healed as quickly as possible. He stood up from his knees and began a fierce onslaught to end the fight as quickly as possible.

While his father and companions were still fighting fiercely Jien was bleeding from the two wounds he had received, though perhaps not as much as one would expect. Meanwhile his consciousness was dark and his mind blank, or perhaps fuzzy. When he opened his eyes, he knew immediately that he was not actually awake. Before him, in the darkness surrounding him was a shadow, deeper than the rest with two pure white eyes. A voice that was hard to described rang out in the space, though when it reached Jien's ears it sounded as if the words were muffled by several layers of cotton.

"You have improved but are still too weak." it spoke. "You are still young. I hope that you grow strong enough for us to actually have a proper talk. I guess for now I will lend a bit of help." With those words the figure seemed to vanish from the space and Jien would only find out what happened later on.

In the outside world while Lord Losler was busy attacking the bandit leader Jien's body seemed to shiver as if a chill had run through his body.