He towers above her like a demon made of shadow, almost every inch of his body covered in black leather armor as thick as rhinoceros hide. His helm is molded to the features of his face, and two crooked horns rise at asymmetrical angles to complete the awful visage. The eyes beneath that helm smolder at her.

“I didn’t like you the moment I laid eyes on your worthless, skinny ass!” he spits at Evie.

“The feeling was mutual,” she assures him before rearing back and winging her dagger at the singularly exposed flesh of his neck.

Laython swings his mace with a growl and bats the blade away in midair, but Evie is already charging headlong into him. She lets loose a feral war cry and rams what’s left of her broken blade into his guts, aiming for the large portal vein she knows lies beneath.

Unfortunately for her, barely half an inch of steel penetrates his armor.

Laughing, Laython jams the butt of his mace against Evie’s forehead. The blow raises a giant knot there. Its impact causes a flash of light to fill Evie’s gaze. The next thing she’s aware of is lying on the ground.

Evie blinks the world back into focus just in time to see the end of Laython’s mace blot out the sun. She rolls to her right and is showered in the shredded earth the mace raises when it hits the patch of land she was occupying a sliver of a moment before. She springs to her feet, never before so agonizingly aware of how empty her hands are. Her entire head is reeling, and angry hornets seem to fill the space between her temples.

Laython swings his mace again, and Evie ducks underneath its arc, the wind current raised by the weapon and the power behind it enough to sting her ears. She sidesteps and ducks several more swings, backpedaling after each feint, not quite running away, yet at a loss as to how to engage the giant tasker. She finally runs out of road as half a dozen Skrain and Sicclunans clash inches from her back.

Evie has no choices left. Laython raises the mace high and brings it down in an overhead swing. She quickly steps forward and ducks under his arms, avoiding the mace and closing the distance between their bodies. Pressed against his armor, she reaches up and digs her fingers into his throat, clawing at his neck with the overgrown edges of her nails.