Vendril: A Gift from the Clan, Part Two

Vendril had his rapier out and was lunging at Valaar. In the same motion, his free hand sent a dagger spinning through the air towards Talyra. He'd expected them both to come at him at once, but Talyra dodged his knife by lunging at Valaar as well. Valaar came up with a pair of shortswords, parrying madly, and managed to cut Talyra once before she got inside his guard and traced a line of blood up his arm with her dagger. 

Then Vendril's rapier connected, and Valaar staggered back, shaking out his shoulder. "That--" He twisted around Talyra, trying to put her between himself and Vendril, but she moved with him, reflexively denying Vendril a shot at her back. She attacked him again, and for a moment they merged into a blur of motion, weapons sliding against and around each other so quickly that Vendril couldn't focus on a target. 

He lunged again anyway, stabbing with the rapier and drawing a fresh dagger. 

Valaar took the blow and collapsed, and Talyra stepped away from him, wariness in every line of her body. "Now how did you manage that?"

Her familiar appeared behind him, becoming suddenly visible as it reached out to attempt an attack. Vendril ducked aside, and it missed, cursed, and flapped away again. He'd been expecting that; he hadn't forgotten that for all that Talyra trained in stealth, she was also quite adept as a wizard. He also remembered that Talyra could work her magics without speaking or gesturing, and had doubtless used that skill to prepare in advance for this encounter. 

She didn't attack immediately, though, and Vendril circled warily. "I was right," she said. "It should be me, but if it isn't me it should be you." 

Vendril glanced around, but her familiar -- an imp -- was invisible again. He wished he was wearing his mask; he could have given the little demon quite a surprise. "For the clan," he said simply, and stepped in. 

She turned his rapier with the blade of her dagger, holding it close against her forearm in a reverse grip, then stepped in closer to try to stab him. He blocked her second dagger with his own, rolled the rapier blade around her forearm, and stabbed down at her gut; she raised her arm beneath it, forcing the point away, and he rocked back to make room for his longer blade, then tried a light stab of the sort known as pointing. 

Talyra hopped up and back to keep her knees out of the way; the blades of her daggers weren't long enough to block a low-line attack. She came in again immediately, blades shifting and stabbing, and Vendril felt one of them open a line of fire across the back of his forearm. He flinched away immediately, and managed to slip loose from magic that the blade released. Lucky, lucky... That magic would have pinned him in place, left him open for Talyra to finish. 

She must have put everything she had into preparing for this, all of it done without words or movements. Talyra was more mage than rogue, and might have done better to stand back and take him with spells; but perhaps she wanted to prove that she could hold her own in this sort of close combat. 

Then Valaar came up from the ground and slammed into Talyra's side, just as her familiar appeared again and touched Vendril's shoulder with the force of a small thunderbolt. He staggered, twisted, and cut with his rapier; the imp fell to the ground, stunned. Talyra, wholly surprised by Valaar's deception and the fall of her familiar, looked down at the shortsword in her gut, and crumpled to the ground as well. 

"Of course you'd both be afraid of me," snarled Valaar, and came at Vendril. He seemed surprised when Vendril flicked his blade aside and extended, just in time to let Valaar run onto the tip of his rapier. Valaar staggered back, shaking his head, looking down at his chest and not seeing any blood. 

In that brief moment of distraction, Vendril leaned in with his other hand-- not attacking with his dagger, but touching the back of Valaar's right hand with his silver ring.

Valaar snarled again and shook his hand as if bee-stung. "What was that?" he demanded. 

"A battle-kiss," Vendril told him. "Come and see what it does."

Valaar attacked, but now his blows were rough and imprecise; his blades wanted to jerk back, to turn aside. His body no longer seemed willing to attack, however much he demanded it. And when Vendril leaned in and lined up his rapier, his hands were slow to bring his swords across to defend. That dull-gray metal blade poked him in the chest: once, twice, a third time. Darkness closed in around the edges of his vision, and Valaar went down. 

Vendril sighed, sheathed his rapier, then bent down and sliced Valaar's cheek with his dagger. It wasn't much of a wound, just enough to draw blood and perhaps leave an interesting scar. Then he stepped back quickly, looked at his uncle Aviril, and said: "Blood has been shed. The terms are met."

Aviril clapped his hands. "The terms are met. The Choosing is finished."

Vendril's rapier is magic, and is imbued with the Merciful enchantment: it deals non-lethal damage unless he commands otherwise. When Vendril is out for blood, he uses daggers instead.