One thing was very certain now. He absolutely had to get that sword out of Jegojah's hand.
Defiantly putting his staff in the end-grip, he hissed menacingly at the Doomwalker. Jegojah accepted the invitation and advanced confidently forward, seeming to be assured by Tarrin's comprehension of the great danger the sword posed, or perhaps confident that the bleeding was already starting to weaken the larger foe. He began with a familar in-out combination of shallow slashes that he used often, something that Tarrin remembered from prior battles and easily countered. The Doomwalker attacked quickly and precisely, using the forms that Tarrin remembered, that same quick, efficient style that marked the Doomwalker's formidable fighting skills. Tarrin nearly fell into the trap of expecting certain moves to come next, when what should have been a wide slash became a tight upward thrust directed at his belly. Tarrin smacked the sword aside with his staff and moved with the momentum, bringing up a foot and plastering it right into the helmet of the left side of Jegojah's face. The Doomwalker spun in a complete circle from the blow, and its helmet was askew when it returned to facing him. It backed off quickly, shield-bearing hand adjusting the helmet the right way even as Tarrin pressed the sudden advantage, but the wicked sword in its hand stopped his advance when it tried to cut into his leg. But Tarrin's weapon was longer, so he stopped short to stay out of its range, then hit it squarely in the head with his staff, snapping the head unnaturally to the side. The skeletal being didn't show any hint of pain, but it did back off one more step and get its helmet on right, just in time to raise its shield to parry another swat from the staff directed at its head.
With a growling cry, Jegojah bulled forward, sword leading. Tarrin parried the weapon and pinned it to the side, and the pair of them were suddenly pushing against one another. Tarrin's claws dug into the loose sandy soil as he felt the strength of the Doomwalker, that unnatural strength that at one time had been a match for his own. But that was before. Tarrin turned the Doomwalker's sword further and further out, pushing it away from his body methodically, and the surprise at being outpowered showed clearly on the gray, taut, bony face of the Doomwalker. Tarrin grounded one end of his staff and used that grounding as a fulchrum, levering the sword out even more, then took a paw off the staff and drove his fingers right into the glowing eye sockets of the Doomwalker's face. Claws got a grip on those sockets, and Tarrin pinioned to the side and dragged the Doomwalker along with him. Jegojah's body left the ground as Tarrin whipped him around the side of his body, and sent him flying quite a distance to crash to the sandy ground.
The bone that had separated the Doomwalker's eye sockets was gone when he got up, as well as most of the gray, dead skin and flesh that had covered its skull. It hung down in tatters, like a drooping flag, and the missing bone exposed putrified bone fragments and the empty cavity behind those glowing eyes, a black pit where a brain had once rested, a black sea in which the glowing points of red light now floated. Tarrin threw the piece of bone aside contemptuously, then growled at Jegojah as it put a tentative hand to its face.
"Improved, ye have, yes," it grunted. "And stronger ye are now. A worthy opponent ye are now, not the lucky boy from before."
Tarrin's tail lashed back and forth behind him angrily, then thumped into the ground hard enough to raise a small cloud of dust. The Doomwalker reached up and clamped down the visor on its helm, something it had never used before, and then charged forward with a strong cry.
In moments, the ground around them was chewed up from padded foot and armored boot, as the two combatants assaulted each other with renewed ferocity. Heavy blows, blows that would have killed a human being, were traded between them liberally, causing the arena to echo with the strange sound of steel striking Ironwood, which was a nearly metallic sound. Tarrin kept that sword from cutting him again as he strove to smash the shield off the arm of his adversary, taking the arm with it if necessary. Jegojah was completely different now, Tarrin felt it, it had dropped all restraints and attacked Tarrin with the same intensity that Tarrin had always shown to it. He had to concentrate intensely to keep track of that sword, parrying it or dodging it, even blocking it with his manacles, as he continued to concentrate on relieving the Doomwalker of the advantage that its shield afforded it. Tarrin fell back into the forms of the Dance and the Ways, styles of fighting taught to him by the best, merging the two into a singular style that was all Tarrin's own, a style that took advantage of his height and strength. The Doomwalker began to get flustered in their furious exchange, unable to keep up with the faster opponent, and being physically outpowered when sword met staff, literally finding itself being thrashed about like a rag doll. Instead of backing out, however, the Doomwalker merely grinned that hideous grin and redoubled its efforts, fighting on despite its disadvantage, almost seeming to enjoy it.
Somewhere in that exchange, something happened to cause the two of them to separate, if only for a moment. Jegojah had battered dents all over its armor, and Tarrin just became aware of a furious pain in his belly. He glanced down to see a very long line from that sword, a superficial, skin-deep cut, pouring out blood at a frightening rate. Tarrin wove the appropriate counterspell quickly, but not before allowing the blood to cover his lower body, to hide the fact that the bleeding was subsiding. The Doomwalker was still pushing hard, still trying to tire him out, thinking that he was losing blood the entire time. If it thought to wear him down using the unnatural advantage of that blood-sucking sword, it was going to be in for quite a shock.
Tarrin rushed back into the fray immediatley, not giving the Doomwalker the chance to notice that Tarrin wasn't weakening, pressing it quickly and forcing it to devote its entire attention to the fight. He kept attacking Jegojah's shield, kept putting pressure on the Doomwalker's left side, and it was a tactic that seemed to continue to confound and fluster his undead opponent. The Doomwalker worked well at minimizing the damage to the shield, but had to use too much of its sword to help protect against Tarrin's relentless attack. Every time it tried to turn the tide of battle, it found itself again trying to defend its left, defending it with a shield that was beginning to show signs of heavy abuse. The thick staff, heavy and strong, pummelled the Doomwalker's flank with punishing blows. Jegojah dropped back a step and thrust at Tarrin when he moved to close the distance, but the Were-cat easily evaded the move. Only at the last second did he realize that it was a feint, that the Doomwalker was turning and slashing the sword's edge at him as he twisted aside, and he was forced to duck under that blow. Tarrin turned in that croch and whipped out his tail, slashing it across the backs of the ankles of Jegojah, and it was strong enough to sweep the feet out from under his lighter foe. Jegojah was spilled to the ground, which effectively ended that short attempt at offense from the Doomwalker.
The Doomwalker rolled frantically to the side as Tarrin was instantly on his feet, and trying to drive the butt of his staff through the visor of his foe. He grabbed the staff in one paw and whipped it down like a club, smashing the Doomwalker across the thighs, bending armor with a squealing clang. He reared the staff up for another blow, but the Doomwalker managed to roll to its feet, and was quickly all over Tarrin as he tried to readjust his grip on the staff. Tarrin dropped the weapon instead, falling back on the unarmed techniques to parry a vicious series of heavy thrusts at Tarrin's stomach. One in particular came in too deeply, and Tarrin lashed back as Jegojah tried to recover, grabbing the wrist in a crushing grip. He hauled the Doomwalker off the ground by that hold on its arm, then turned and whipped it over his head and slammed it into the ground. He picked it up, turned, and did it again, then agian, then yet again, pounding the Doomwalker mercilessly into the ground over and over again, trying to make it let go of that deadly sword. It finally managed to squirm free when one particularly heavy slam into the ground jarred its wrist loose from Tarrin's grip, and to its credit, it kept hold of its sword the entire time. It tried to take a piece out of him with the edge of that wicked blade as it recoiled away from him, but Tarrin managed to slither out of the way in time.