[Warning: Violence and gore]

 

The strangled sound that followed must have grabbed the attention from others, but Joe stood riveted to her spot, clutching the longsword to her bosom.

 

A scream tore from her opponent’s mouth akin to a dying animal. There was a yell of “Fucking BITCH – !” as the man doubled over in pain before her eyes. Joe stared down at him in fury, chest heaving and eyes wild. ‘Serves him right!’ the words rushed to her mind unbridled before she could even filter her thoughts, but it dawned upon her that she’d actually meant it.

 

One down, Joe thought hysterically. How many more to go?

 

So exhilarated she was with her momentary victory that she’d failed to notice a second man hiding behind the shadow of her opponent. He sprang up like a lightning bolt the moment she’d let her guard down. Joe let out a choked scream of desperation, her vision red and her mind whirling. There was a distant cry of “My lady!” which sounded like Nero’s voice, but Joe couldn’t hear anything beyond the scream of the man and her own thundering heart.

 

‘Survive!’ Her mind screamed. ‘Fight!’ her body commanded. But Joe was no veteran warrior. A muffled sob escaped as she pinched her eyes shut at the inevitable impact. The bandit tackled her to the ground in a rough tussle, and she could feel her bones hurting painfully at the impact.

 

‘Remember, no mercy.’, came Nero’s voice, like a wandering ghost near her ears. ‘No mercy.’

 

The voice pierced through the pain of her limbs, and roared from the deep recesses of her mind.

 

“Aargh!”

 

Joe snapped her eyes open as the bandit pinned her to the ground with a triumphant grin on his face.

 

She found herself moving on pure adrenaline and sheer willpower, as a mad, mad fury gripped her mind like a vice. It clawed through her reasoning and licked away at her fear. Joe wrestled away the man with a strength she never knew she’d possessed, and before he could even gather his bearings, Joe had heaved the longsword with all her might and brought it down on her opponent’s exposed torso.

 

"AUUGH!!"

 

The man screamed bloody murder and kicked her away, scrambling away from the weapon in haste. ‘No mercy.’ Nero’s advice was now pounding on her head like a wardrum. Joe heeded, and brought down the bloodstained sword in an unhesitating swing upon the man’s neck, brutal and resolute.

 

Blood gushed out like a fountain, and Joe could only stare at the head she’d just severed. Her body struggled to breathe as the stench of fresh blood filled the air. She clutched her chest, willing herself to calm down the furious heartbeat that still thundered against her ribs.

 

Two other bandits had turned their attention to the commotion, confusion writ on their faces. The tiny girl should have been an easy prey; it couldn’t have taken more than half a minute. Before they’d even registered the scene before them, Joe had jumped upon their necks with the sword and swung with a precision that sliced their heads clean off.

 

The blood that sprayed over should have made her gag, but in that heartbeat all she could feel was relief and joy. Relief that she was the one who was left standing, and joy that she’d finally, finally killed the fuckers looking down at her.

 

It lasted only a heartbeat, before the sounds of the battlefield rushed back to her ears, unforgiving and relentless.

 

‘Remember, no mercy.’, she muttered to herself hysterically, ‘It’s your life against theirs.’

 

Joe hefted the bloodied longsword just as more men surrounded her like bees buzzing around a honeycomb. They abandoned all pretences of strategy and hurled themselves upon her. The girl ducked and dodged, twirling her longsword like a baton and blindly swung at her surroundings-- cutting away anything and everything in her path. Most of the blows did not land, but the ones that did were slicing away their torsos in brutal halves, limbs torn and heads decapacitated like ravaged dolls. It could hardly be called a fight anymore, because Joe hacked and sliced and mangled away the men in a frenzied rush, brutally tearing down the bodies one after another-- not caring if her own skin got sliced in the process. The bandits swarmed upon her like monkeys, their killing intents barely concealed. Joe couldn’t hear them over her mutters, couldn’t see beyond the cleaving sword, and couldn’t feel a thing other than the adrenaline madly thrumming in her veins.

 

Joe didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. She needed to fight if she wanted to live. She needed to kill if she wanted to live. She needed to – ! 

 

Her body was controlling her mind like a marionette. 

 

The frenzied blood roared in her ears as Joe finally staggered to a halt, and took in the sight in front.

 

Blood and guts, severed limbs and a heap of mangled bodies marked the trail behind her. She was hyperventilating like an asthma patient. “You ended a life.” She could hear the angel sighing in her mind. “You ended several lives, you sinful, sinful girl.”

 

Joe winced at the voice. Her palms were sticky with blood and sweat. If it weren’t for the adrenaline, she might have doubled over and vomited on the spot. No! Not yet, her thoughts raced wildly. The fight’s not over yet! ‘Fight!’ The longsword glinted in the moonlight as if it was mocking her. ‘Fight some more!’

 

And then there came the voice of the devil, smooth and hypnotic, drowning the voices of the angel and the sword and the sound of battlefield around her.

 

“Kill.” It said. “You’ve already killed once. Kill again. Kill. Kill. Kill!”

 

It rang in her mind like a war drum. Joe heaved the stained sword over her shoulders, breathing furiously to calm her heartbeat. No mercy, she repeated Nero’s advice in her head like a mantra and trudged on ahead.

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

The bandits who had come to the conclusion that an ill-prepared little girl would make an easier opponent than a seasoned warrior like Nero, now looked at her with something akin to uncertainty and disbelief. Their stances were panicked and nervous, even as their faces held the same expression of arrogance. Joe vaguely recognized the look; it was just false bravado. Some of the shittier ones who had been eyeing her like a piece of meat, were now recoiling back in fear.

 

Joe realized with a horror that she actually relished that fear in their faces.

 

A loud clang momentarily snatched her attention, and she whipped back to the find the source of the sound. Rookie mistake, because the men pounced at her with a renewed vigour. Joe felt the first signs of exhaustion as a familiar desperation shot through her body. Now that the adrenaline had left her system, she was frozen in fear once again.

 

Joe was a lot of things, but an experienced fighter she was not. She stepped back in shock and let out a strangled cry. Fight, her body commanded. Dodge, the angel pleaded.

 

KILL, sang the devil and whispered it in her ears like a lullaby.

 

Joe gripped the sword and buried it in the first neck she could find.

 

The body went rigid and limped against her arm, but the others did not relent. The blows were as vicious as they were fast, and it took all her efforts to just keep herself from being cut in half. A kick landed painfully in her gut, and Joe was sent crashing into the ground.

 

She rolled over and gasped, scraping on the sand to reach the sword. A second too late, a moment too slow, and before she knew it, the men had zeroed in on her without hesitation, face stretched into triumphant grins.

 

There was a tearing sound through the air. Joe should have averted her eyes in normal circumstances, but hardly anything was normal today. She stared unblinking as several broken blades and arrow heads whistled through the air and ripped the bandits’ torsos apart with what could only be described as an artful precision. The men dropped down on the grass, riddled with holes and deep cuts, dead at last.

 

Their blood splayed upon her face like fresh paint, but Joe could only stare back in disbelief.

 

It was Nero.

 

Nero, the man who was unbothered by pretty much everything under the sun. Joe propped herself up against the longsword and peered up at her companion. He stood with a broken dagger in his palm, his face uncharacteristically serious.

 

The shadows around his feet shifted to reveal several bodies lying in a bloody heap.

 

He’s completely unarmed, Joe paled as she realized it. The opponent behind him must have realized it too, because he sprang up like a jack-in-the-box and swung down his battleaxe on an unsuspecting Nero.

 

“Look out!” Joe yelled hoarsely, willing her feet to move.

 

The warning was unneeded, apparently, because Nero merely ducked the swing and stepped aside. The man fell forward with his momentum, and Nero cleanly buried the broken dagger into his exposed neck, all the way to the hilt.

 

The man staggered back and coughed blood, before crumbling down on the ground.

 

“Hmph, this was getting old anyway.” Nero muttered as he tossed the broken blade to the side, almost as an afterthought.

 

Before Joe could even heave a sigh of relief, another man had sneaked up behind her. The bandits were swarming around them like cockroaches, even if their numbers had thinned considerably. Before Joe could even lift her sword, the man had snaked his muscular arms around her in a death grip, rendering her immobile and helpless.

 

This shitty body is too weak for combat, Joe thought hysterically. I’m dead. Dead. Dead. Dea –

 

“Don’t get cocky, bitch!” the man rambled in her ears, “Just because you took down a few with sheer dumb luck – ”

 

He couldn’t finish his words, because Nero had materialized behind him with an impossible speed and grabbed him into a headlock.

 

“Wh – How – ?!” was all he could utter before Nero had snapped his head with bare hands.

 

The man’s eyes rolled over into white and he dropped down limply at her feet.

 

“Nero!” Joe could have cried at his appearance, if she wasn’t busy clutching the sword like a lifeline. The ex-soldier stood tall and confident, his breathing hardly changed at all. It suddenly dawned upon her that he was leagues above practically everybody in this battlefield. The only reason that he hadn’t wiped the floor with the bandits was because she was his vulnerability, his foolish charge that he needed to babysit, instead of fighting like the warrior he was.

 

As if sensing her wayward thoughts, he turned slowly and gave her a smile. It was his usual Nero-ish smile, harmless and reassuring, and Joe couldn’t help but send a shaky grin back.

 

Nero turned back to look at the rest of the bandits. Some reinforcements had arrived, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. On the other hand, Lady Joanna was looking haggard and exhausted; and it was simply inexcusable to drag her through another fight with the bandits. She seemed like she’d collapse like a house of cards from the slightest punch to the gut.

 

He sighed in resignation. The time was slipping by, and the more he’d deliberate, the harder it would be return to the Winsten manor by morning.

 

The reinforcements milled around the cliffs in pairs and trios, undoubtedly intimidated by their blatant display of violence. Nero risked a glance at the lady. He hadn’t, even in his wildest dreams, imagined that he’d see a tiny pre-pubescent girl hurling around his prized longsword in a bloodbath. But then again, even a cornered human can be as dangerous as a wild beast.

 

However, this was the girl’s limit, and Nero would have to be a colossal fool to risk another chance with these barbaric morons.

 

“What are you idiots waiting around for?!” barked the now ill-tempered leader, veins protruding out of his temples in fury, “They’re just two shitty people with dumb luck! Move out, you morons!”

 

Clearly, he had yet to learn his lesson.

 

Joe suppressed a shiver even as the remaining bandits ran down the jagged cliffs, weapons ready at hand for the kill. That was fucking it. Her dumb luck, as the man had put it, was truly over. Hell, she didn’t have the energy to turn around and make a make a run for it. Not like she could outrun their numbers anyway.

 

“I didn’t want to use this one, but oh well.” Nero’s murmur broke her out of the self-pity. Joe squinted up at him with in bewilderment. Whoa! Whoa, no way did he have another trick up his sleeve. Nope. Nuh-uh.

 

Wait! Did he?!

 

Nero looked up just in time to see the first bandit jump in front of them with a rusty spear, teeth bared and eyes blazing. The monstrous smile was back in his face. “Well then,” Nero’s voice was soft, almost kind. “Goodbye. And goodnight.”

 

The bandit halted in his tracks and went splat before their eyes.