Rather than hack at the shield with her ax, Evie leaps up and hooks the top of it with the underside of the blade. Feeling it snag, she hurls her body full force into the shield, hoping to throw the bearer off-balance. With surprising strength for her size, she grips the haft of the ax with both hands and pulls down, letting the entire weight of her body add to the power of the motion.

The shield dips forward from the top. Evie manages to yank it down to just above her waist. She doesn’t wait for the armored figure on the other side to react. She hasn’t even fully taken them in when she reverses the momentum of her ax and thrusts its spiked crown up into the shield bearer. Evie feels metal strike metal, and then penetrate it. The spike stops when it hits something solid, as if she’s pierced the hide of a tree in winter.

Evie looks up to see that spike buried in the shoulder of the Sicclunan solider, just above his heart. She sees his other arm rise, spear shaft still held by his gauntleted hand. Frantic, Evie attempts to retrieve her ax only to find it firmly anchored in the soldier’s armor. Evie reverses her grip on her long knife and drives the blade up into his abdomen, under the plates of his armor. The blow freezes his spear arm and the soldier spits blood onto the top of her helm.

She feels his body begin to topple over her. Rather than allow herself to be trapped in the Sicclunan front line under a man twice her size clad in full armor, Evie steps back, and with a determined shriek pulls the soldier’s body with her, ripping him from the line. She feels them falling against and then through the bodies of the Savages gathered around her, and then there’s only the wet ground welcoming her spine.

There’s a brief panicked second in which Evie considers remaining like that, hiding beneath the Sicclunan soldier like a crustacean claiming the armored shell of its dead brethren. Then she hears a wet growl directly in her right ear and he begins wriggling atop her anew, still very much alive.

“Are you serious?” Evie spits in frustration.

Before she can react further, he’s somehow managed to free his arm from his shield and grab her by the hair, thrashing her head about in the mud. Evie growls right back at him, twisting the long knife in his guts until the soldier shrieks and his body seizes in agony. Even with the leverage of her weapons buried in his armor and flesh, it takes every ounce of strength she has to move him from atop her, turning him over onto his back with her astride his breastplate.