The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 21

ALEX DIDN'T WAIT for the men to get into their final positioning, but instead threw their circle out of balance by charging at what Ixillius hoped were more weak fighters. Chlodochar leapt up and onto the nearest man from behind, snapping the man's neck and taking his sword before the body even hit the floor.

        Ixillius and Brasus surged to their feet, surprising their watchers with a sudden attack. Instinctively, Ixillius blocked a sword swung at his neck with the sheath, the jarring of metal on metal surprising him almost as much as the man swinging at him. Ixillius felt the familiar battle heat rise up as he shoved the man's sword wide and drove the end of the sheath into his gut, doubling the man over. Ixillius dropped his hands so his arms were straight and swung them up the full extension of the chain tying his ankles and wrists together. He almost pulled his own feet out from under himself, but that was enough to drive the iron wrist cuffs up and shatter the man's face. Ixillius threw his weight atop the sheath and drove the ornate scabbard onto his fallen opponent's throat. The moans instantly turned to choking. Brasus had already dispatched his first foe, using only his shackle chains as weapons, and they rose from their crouches shoulder to shoulder to face the third man together, holding the swords they'd just taken.

        Even shackled, they fought better than the third man and quickly killed him. Ixillius scanned the room and saw Alex and Chlodochar back to back at the center of a formed circle. Unfortunately, the warriors there were better trained than their dead comrades, and the fighting looked to be getting to a stalemate. Lothar had dropped his ropes, just like Alex, and was in the process of winning over the knife that had been at his throat. Two of the men who'd been undecided joined the fighting between Hludwolf and Poldi, one turned to where Lothar struggled, and three others charged the short distance to engage the Legionnaires.

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        Alex felt more than she saw of the fighting. She knew her gigno's friend was fighting behind her, felt the touches of his shoulders and elbows and the scraping of his boots, heard the men he was locked in battle with, and she could see all the men that were trying to get inside her defenses. It seemed to be hitting all her senses at once, though, like her brain had shut down the thinking parts and left her with just action and reaction. When she thought about the fight later, the only word that fit was glorious.

        She felt the alignment with the jian as her swings and blocks became smoother, the sword becoming as familiar as her own hands. Suddenly another man joined the circle around her and she was moving faster, she could see the actions of the men she was fighting clearer. In her head, she knew it was another adrenaline dump from her natural fight or flight response due to another warrior arriving when she was already at her limit. In her heart, she swore this was the jian attuning with her and making her better.

        A man to her left, closest to the middle of the room, fell without anything striking him. In her peripheral vision, she saw Brasus lift a sword from another dead warrior as Ixillius lined up to rescue the boy. Alex dodged into the gap left by the man Brasus had thrown a sword into and slashed open the thighs of the next man, the blade of her jian cutting cleanly through his wrist as he tried to raise his sword to her while he was falling. She spun back to the center to rejoin with her gigno's friend and the two of them finally started reducing the numbers of attackers encircling them.

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        The final man in front of him fell, and Ixillius surveyed the rest of the room. He was mildly surprised – and very relieved – that there were yet to be further warriors bursting in on the battle. Alex and Chlodochar still fought back to back in the center of a ring of warriors. Hludwolf and Poldi were locked in combat, oblivious to the rest of the room, their swords flashing in a patch of afternoon sun.