Elder Blood Witcher - 793 Ciaran the merciful...

Just as one of the soldiers grab Tildanird a shadow collides with them, Ciaran delivering a hard kick to their helmeted head, knocking them unconscious.

Ciaran glances at the group behind her, “I apologise, but I can’t allow myself to be captured.” she states, her loyalty to Ichor, Reima, and Solaire above whatever gratitude and companionship she felt towards her rescuers.

Dythi shakes his head and retrieves his weapons, “Don’t worry about it… I’d probably be executed as well… Kovir’s neutrality isn’t looked on well by Nilfgaard.” he states.

Margarita sighs, her injury was still burning with pain, but now she was almost forced to act with them. If not she’d probably be cut down. She raises her hand to the sky and acts as if she’s grabbing something, whispering a chant and dropping her hand, causing a purple lightning bolt to strike a Nilfgaardian soldier in the chest.

The soldier hit drops to the floor and immediately start having a seizure, the electricity running through his muscles stopping his heart and all brain activity.

With their sudden hostile actions the commander raises his hand and gestures towards them, shouting, “ATTACK THEM, KILL THE MAGE!”

Tildanird runs to the back and rests Etredi on a rock, her legs still too injured for her to move without help. “Stay here, I’ll help the others.” he says, grabbing his silver stakes and running into battle.

Only a few soldiers actually head towards Dythi, Tildanird, and Zudite… The larger group was hell-bent on immediately getting rid of Margarita, as per their commander’s commands.

If this were any ordinary scenario, Margarita would have easily been killed here, unfortunately for the Nilfgaardians, Ciaran wasn’t an ordinary person.

Her ragged clothing only allowed her movement to go unpeded, she leapt high, dodging a sword thrust and grabbing a man’s helmet, twisting their head with a sickening *CRACK!*, afterwards taking their sword and moving onto the next.

Margarita was amazed by Ciaran’s movements, her speed, ferocity, and brutality singlehandedly keeping the sixty soldiers away, allowing her to concentrate on her magic.

*CRACK!*

*SIZZLE!*

*POP!*

Her spells would kill one, if not two soldiers at a time… She would have used the more powerful ones at her disposal, but the pain still wracking her body impeded her from doing anything other than simple incantations.

Ciaran was like a tornado of steel, having “acquired” two long swords from the soldiers and using them in tandem to decimate the enemy.

The commander of the soldiers got a first-hand account of this when her blade disabled his ability to procreate with a quick stab. The man gave a “THE LAW!” before he passed out from shock.

Zudite was having difficulties trying to deal with the soldiers approaching him, he hadn’t even fully completed his education, and was only well versed in non-combat magics… He summons stone spikes from the earth to pierce his foes, but they break on the enemies armour, leaving him defenceless.

Luckily Dythi was nearby, blocking a sword thrust with his shield and piercing the enemies throat with his spear, “Target their necks and faces!” he commands, blocking two more attacks from the advancing soldiers.

Tildanird wasn’t doing all that bad in comparison to Zudite, his stakes were more than able to pierce thin pieces of armour due to the ice-pick grip he held them in and his sheer strength. He wasn’t all that skillful and received numerous cuts for his troubles, but he was more than able to defeat a few of these soldiers.

Ciaran continued to cut swathes through the enemy ranks, even a simple kick of her managing to dent the thickest parts of their breastplates, liquifying their internal organs and easily crushing bone. “You’re commander is dead! Retreat or die with him!” she shouts, hoping to save the trouble of killing them.

Unfortunately, the soldiers don’t listen, the number disparity seems to only invigourate them and charge in recklessly, even despite how many had been cut down already.

“THEY’RE TIRING!”

“AVENGE SIR OGLIVIAN!”

“I WANT A RAISE!”

A few shouts could be heard from the remaining soldiers as Ciaran stepped forth to deal with them. One tries to stab her, but she easily deflects it, slamming her other blade into the man’s neck, the sword hits a vertebrae and snaps due to how much force she’d been putting through it, luckily there were numerous weapons littering the ground… She ducks under a spear thrust, picks up another sword, and backflips away.

“Er, I think someone said something about retreating?” one soldier asks.

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND FIGHT ROOKIE!” another screams from behind them, pushing them into battle with Ciaran, only for her to jam her blade into the unfortunate new soldier’s eye. The blade continuing and exiting the back of his skull, *ding*’ing against the back of the helmet.

Ciaran “You waste your lives.” she states, spinning and throwing the sword at the soldier who’d pushed this one into battle. It doesn’t spin like you’d expect, instead heading straight on like an arrow…

*SHEEEK!*

It hits the man’s stomach just under the breastplate, grinding as it passes through the chainmail and piercing his entrails. “HHUUURRGHHH!” they shout in pain, dropping to the ground she Ciaran finishes them off.

Soon enough, there isn’t a single Nilfgaardian left standing… A blood soaked Ciaran digs through the corpses to find the best-maintained blades as if she’d not just murdered almost a hundred men. She combs over the commander and finds that the man had a relatively well-kept blade, even if she disliked the Nilfgaardian sun on the pommel.