He lowered his sword to his left side, letting it trail behind him just above the floor, allowing his first target to become overconfident.
Leona and Meliss slowed their pace to be out of the way of the imminent strike, spacing themselves from the giant. One of the hooded figures tapped another who stood next to him, and a grin could be seen beneath their hoods. Thorsen's eyes were fixed between their centers of mass, using his peripheral vision to track their strikes when they came.
And they came swiftly.
The first figure tried to strike from above, hoping to hit the giant's chest and slash his jerkin, but Thorsen swung his sword in a flash of moonlit movement. The sword looked like a waning blood moon as blood arced through the air, severing the arm from its previous owner.
The second attacked from Thorsen's side, hoping to get in close enough to strike as his target recovered, but Thorsen was too smart. He quickly spun on his toes and hacked the second target in half. Blood sprayed from the severed body, landing on the women's faces standing a few meters away.
Two down; seven to go, he thought, already preparing for the next attack as his sword and face were coated in blood.
The other figures had been watching from a distance and realized that he was not to be toyed with. One of them ran off, and the giant knew he would be back with something to try to attack him from a distance.
I have about a minute before he comes back, he thought, planning his next attacks.
Thorsen charged the other six men, parrying attacks and severing limbs from bodies, and heads from shoulders, as blood soaked him and the ground around him. "There's still one left," he warned the other two as the last enemy fell. "Let's get out of here before he calls reinforcements," Leona reached for Meliss' hand without looking, but immediately felt a resistant tug on her arm.
Her eyes opened wide in surprise when she realized it was a hooded figure that had a knife to Meliss' throat, pulling her hair as he dragged her away. "Meliss!" she shouted, grasping at air as the thin forearm left her grip.
Thorsen immediately turned to try to kill the hooded figure, but it drew the knife closer to Meliss' throat, putting tension on the skin around her artery. "Make a move and she dies, big man!" the hooded figure grinned maliciously. Thorsen saw she still had the dagger in her hand, and that her attacker hadn't noticed it.
This bastard could end her life at any given moment. I can't close the distance quickly enough, even with my skills, he thought.
"Alright, calm down. There's no need to harm the girl," Thorsen raised his hands. "Shut up, giant," the figure said through gritted teeth as Meliss looked at him with a wide-eyed stare, fear clearly showing on her face.
"What do you want with the girl?" Thorsen asked, trying to buy some time. "The fuck does it matter to you? Maybe I just want to have some fun with her; maybe I just want to kill her. Who knows?" the figure said, smelling Meliss' hair. "You detestable pervert!" Leona called out.
The figure chuckled maliciously, putting his face closer to his prey. "I might have enjoyed this more if you two weren't here, but I guess this will have to do," the figure said, licking her temple.
Thorsen looked at Meliss, who could only close her eyes in disgust. "Meliss, it's going to be okay," he nodded calmly. "Oh-ho-ho, I don't think it will be; not for her, anyway," the figure said, eyeing the giant.
"Meliss, look at me," Thorsen gestured with two fingers to his eyes. She watched the giant as he nodded, briefly looking down at the dagger she still held, and subtly shook her head. He nodded again, and she took a deep breath, before her hair twisted in her attacker's hands. With a grunt of exertion, she stuck the blade deep into his upper gut, then cut downwards as she pulled the sodden blade out, spilling his entrails onto the floor.
"Ack, you bitch! You sly, dirty little whore!" he shouted, pressing a hand to his opened gut. Two other hooded figures nearby heard the scream and rushed to his aid. Meliss ran over to Thorsen and Leona, and they were out the door, running for their lives to the north. One of the figures opened the door and had a bow in his hand with an arrow nocked in place.
He drew the arrow to his cheek and loosed. The arrow whizzed through the air and struck Leona in the shoulder. She fell to the ground, screaming in pain. "Get up, Leona!" Thorsen urged, not bothering to use her title as he helped her to his feet.
He saw the bowman preparing another arrow, and placed himself between Leona and the arrow. Thorsen's eyes glowed with golden mana as the bowman drew back the second arrow. The arrow, now soaring through the air, was met by a concussive blast of air from the giant's fingertips, shattering the arrow mid-flight.
"What the hell? There aren't supposed to be any Synners here!" the hooded bowman shouted. "Too bad, because I'm here. I might know a rock with more intelligence than you, and I'll make sure you get to meet him two meters deep," Thorsen grinned, his eyes still glowing as he forced mana into his legs and dashed forward.
He caught the bowman by surprise at his speed, and decapitated him with a single blow. The strike was so clean that not even blood remained where it cut through the bowman's neck.
By the Graces, he's a Synner? Leona thought in absolute awe of his combat prowess as she watched him dash in to cut the other cleanly in half down the center of his body.
The two halves fell to the floor with a wet thud, spilling blood and other pungent smells on the ground and into the air. Thorsen quickly glanced around to make sure no others were present, and quickly swung his sword to get any remaining blood off.
"We're not going to make it far if I don't do this," he turned to face them with his eyes still glowing, as golden tendrils of mana licked his temples beneath the moonlight. "I apologize in advance," he nodded, confusing the two women profusely.
Within the time it took them to blink, he dashed forward, scooped the two of them into his arms, and carried them away. After another Exar blast, the door that marked their escape quickly became little more than shards, clearing the way for him to continue moving.
An hour passed, and the trio found themselves in the safety of the nearby forest, where Thorsen was sure that no normal man would dare follow them there. He set Meliss down first, then Leona with added care. "It's not so bad, Your Majesty," he said, observing the shaft in her upper right shoulder.
"I might puke," Leona replied with a groan. "Wouldn't be surprised if you did. Here, bite this," he replied with a half-hearted shrug as he handed her his leather glove. "Just get it over with," she said between grunts of pain. "Don't move," he said, pulling the shaft from her shoulder.
She screamed in pain, muffled by the glove, but he quickly put his hand over the bleeding wound, and his eyes glowed once more, drawing mana from the Ethereal. He condensed a small amount of it to his hand, searing the wound shut and only leaving a small scar behind.
"There, almost as though it never happened, Your Majesty," he said, trying to cheer her up, as Meliss watched the whole thing happen with wide eyes.
She had never seen a synner in action before.
"How does it look?" Leona asked her. "To be honest, it doesn't look too awful," Meliss said, looking at the new scar more closely. Leona nodded and tried to move her shoulder. The knot in her gut from the pain was still there, but the actual pain in her shoulder was dramatically lessened.
"Help me up," Leona said. Thorsen picked her up slowly and set her down on her feet, before she looked at the giant who had just saved her life. "You're a Synner," she said, finally understanding what had just occurred. "I am. Or at least I was until a few years ago, when I joined the Warriors' Guild, Your Majesty," he said with a frown.
"You must have had a really good reason to leave," Leona said, trying to better understand her savior. "I did, but it wasn't exactly my choice," he paused momentarily, remembering the course of events. "Grundvollr was attacked by a powerful mage, leaving little more than a tenth of us alive. We who survived knew we could never go back, and King Mads had refused to give us aid," he began, averting his gaze.
"By the Graces, that's horrible!" Leona said with her hands to her mouth. "It was. We were outcasts, even though we had all spent countless years defending Hjalfar. Mads had deemed us dishonored and useless by the fact that we were unable to take down the mage. As a result, we were banished from our own lands," Thorsen explained, but doing so took a visible toll on him and his usually cheerful demeanor.
"We never even so much as caught wind of such a terrible situation," Leona put a hand on his shoulder gently. "I'd be surprised if you had heard of it. No one outside of the surviving Synners and Mads knew about it," he chuckled weakly.
"He tried long and hard to keep our failure taboo for years. After having the rug pulled out from under our worlds, we knew we could no longer be Synners, and tried to live a normal life instead. Some of the others simply couldn't bear the fact that they took their own lives, or became bandits and outlaws. Myself and one other are the last living true Synners of Grundvollr, Your Majesty," he lowered his head with a shake.
"I am truly sorry such a fate befell you, my dear Thorsen. I can assure you that if I am ever in power again, be it in Coltend or anywhere else, I will ensure that you are given the highest quality of living possible," she said warmly.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," he bowed. "You needn't call me that any longer, for I am no one's queen anymore," Leona said with slight dejection. "You will always be my queen, Your Majesty," Thorsen said with a warm smile, which she returned as he looked up at the sky through the canopy.
Dawn was on the horizon.
"We must go," he said, quickly checking his gear. "Where can we go where they won't find us?" Leona asked. "North," he replied. "North?" Leona asked. "Yes, to Fangsdalr, just to the east of where Grundvollr once was," he replied with a grin. "What's over there?" Meliss asked.
"Do you recall how I said that there was one other true Synner who survived the attack? Well, he has done what Mads would not dare to dream of," Thorsen replied. "And that is…?" Leona asked.
"He built a hidden Synner school, Your Majesty," he said with a smile.