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And just when he thought it was quieting - it got worse.

Mengyao ground his teeth together in a particularly irritated manner and lifted the bow and arrow again, his fingers curling so tightly around the wire's edge that his knuckles were white.

"Ah, thank you kindly ... I do not believe we have met?? ... but I will remember that," Kiwi nodded, unconsciously stepping just a hair farther from the unfamiliar horseman. It felt odd to be here, among so many of his clansmen. Among so many enemies ... The expansive, homely caverns seemed somehow suffocating with black and blue shapes, and a very real part of him simply wished to turn tail and run.

But then his golden eyes caught sight of a familiar shadowy face, and the kind, warning words she had once given him. He forced his bare feet into the sand. "I could say the same of you, priestess." The smallest smile crept along his lips, a moment before he turned and swung his weapon into the fray. Sickle and chain whistled through sweet darkness, pulling with it the inky remains of several blue and black forms.

Tseng just sort of grinned at Lan at her comment that they tried to eat him.

"Perhaps they have! But it matters not. I shall remain victorious over their slain bodies!"

Or body. As the rest of the shadowlings retreated and only left behind one larger one.

"A new challenger approaches! HAVE AT THEE. SHINING ARROW!"

The arrow didn't do anything.

Tseng let out a heavy sigh at that.

"Very well, Ying," he said, sounding sad.

And so he indeed, did carefully notch one arrow.

The last time Shaheen had made an attempt to attack, she had been driven back before she could do anything effective. It was like the shadowlings moved with a strange fluidity that she could not master, and all of her slashes with her dagger landed on empty air. It was all she could to keep herself from getting chomped on as well, but she was losing ground, and with every swing she took, every missed stroke of her dagger, the whispers in her head grew in intensity.

And so she retreated further, trying to find open ground where she could compose herself and be of some use. She had told Senga to protect those that needed it, though had done little by way of helping anyone herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, on finding on calm center, on telling herself that the voices were false.

When her eyes opened again, it was to the sight of new arrivals. Lan and Kiwi, who both received a wan smile from the war woman, though when she lifted her hand in a gesture of 'hello', she was glad to see that it did not tremble.

When she stole a glance towards Shik, it was to see him busy with others, with Ying and Tseng, and the young conquest woman was apparently intent on doing exactly what Shaheen had planned to do herself. Protect the others as best as her abilities would allow. Take the hits meant for them. Seeing Shik get that kind of attention from elsewhere...it made something inside of Shaheen wrench, and an almost overwhelming sense of self doubt flooded her, though it was not without it's undertone of anger.

A sudden familiar voice broke her gaze away from Shik and the others, and she forced her feelings to the side with a brutal shove. This was not the time or place for such things, even if the voices might insist that it was. She turned towards the newest arrivals, two from death though only one of them that she knew.

Thrain received no smile, wan or otherwise. He got a stern, hard look that hopefully masked her emotional turmoil. "You mean to tell me that you were too busy saving a little bit of furniture to join us here in the battle that actually matters?" She shook her head at him, though the fact that he was willing to try and keep her from harm in this tidal wave of black...and now blue....was actually almost touching, considering they barely knew one another.

"Well it is of no matter now." She reached out to give him a firm clap on the shoulder. "Together we will be a force to be reckoned with." She shot another glance towards Shik, the one she had thought she was going to fight beside, and felt a small pang of disappointment that was quickly and firmly quashed.

And of course, that was when the battlefield began to change once more, a new threat arriving from a void in the ground. The war woman felt a dark smile curl her lips upwards. "Let's go."

This time the Fear that she used to imbue her dagger came much more easily, though perhaps that had to do with the sound of a battle cry that had stirred the air, invigorating the war woman as she let out her own cry, running forward with a dagger that glowed yellow in her hand.

Tearing her eyes from the familiar guardian, Nergui returned her attention to the fight only to find the multitude of shadowlings gone. In their place now rested a huge, dark crater, and the mare watched with ill-content as something monstrous and enormous rose from within. It shared the same shape as it's much smaller brethren, but what the multitudes had lacked in raw viciousness, this new foe made up for.

It slashed out at not just the gathered horsemen, but the lair itself.

The shape of their enemy didn't matter though, not to the death priestess, and now with her strength returned she fell back into battle.

A limb came sweeping near her, and Nergui stroke, dark blade coming to her hand to slash at the black claws that moved too close.

Suddenly there was a whole lot going on and though he made sure to keep his face set in that same hard look of flat mouth and drawn down eyebrows, on the inside Thrain was having the tiniest of panic attacks. He'd just got here and already things were getting attacked?! What was even?!!
Still, he was distracted by the Famine boy he'd pulled the creature off of and directed his gaze down for a moment.
"No, we have not met but we shall after this battle." He told him before he remembered, oh wait! He totally had a weapon that he could fight with instead of his bare hands. Bare hands were just really manly ok...
With a snap of fingers Thrain summoned his dual sickles and gritted his teeth before he charged the latest monster that deemed their worthy for attack. And just as he was about to summon the horribly helpful shadows that would make his attack all the stronger, a noise caught him and he turned to see--
"Errrrrrrrr--" By the blade, he'd forgotten her name! But she was there and he knew her and and and!
And then Shaheen was yelling at him and Thrain felt terribly overwhelmed at the moment. Nearly ready to flail his sickles in dismay, he instead gave Shaheen an awkward salute.
"I was unaware of battle and thought that saving the furniture was the battle." He tried with a frown, absolutely distracted from fighting and doing a horribly poor job of... Everything, actually.