Tarrin extended the claws on his other paw and hunkered down into a wide-pawed stance, eyes blazing in his anger and a savage snarl twisting his expression. Ears back, tail straight out behind him, fangs bared, he dared them to come within his reach by growling deep in his throat.
"What are ye waitin' fer!" a man near the back called. "Ye got the swords, an' he knows it! Kill 'im!"
The two in the front rushed forward as Miranda quickly crawled behind Tarrin, swords leading. They slashed at him and stabbed at him at the same time, but Tarrin's paws whipped out to intercept them. The manacles on his wrists suddenly became more than decorations, as he used them to parry the deadly silvered swords, letting their killing edges strike the black steel of the heavy manacles and using his strength to push them out of danger. The two men were good, very good, using their weapons in a complementary fashion that didn't give Tarrin the time to strike back with his paws, and kept both his feet solidly on the ground to keep his balance. The chiming sound of steel on steel rang through the alley as the Were-cat feverishly kept those killing swords at bay, blocking them with the manacles, smacking at the flats of blades with open paws, and evading whenever he could. The two men worked in conjunction to keep him off balance, prevent him from using his power, forcing him to rely on his speed to keep himself out of harm's way. But the two men began to show clear frustration that they couldn't reach the unarmed adversary, that no matter how clever or intricate they were with their feints and stabs, he could always intercept the blades before they reached his skin. They didn't understand that Tarrin had been specifically trained for unarmed combat by Allia, Binter, and Sisska, that he had a keen understanding of how to use his Were gifts to be the equal of an armed opponent. Humans that were well trained to fight were dangerous, as these two men admittedly were, but their fatal flaw against him was that they could not match his speed. Tarrin fell back on the training he received, keeping their weapons away from him, making them get impatient or angry and make that fatal mistake that would let him turn the tables on them.
And it came. The man on the left stabbed at him as the man on the right raised his sword over his head in preparation of a vicious overhanded blow that Tarrin could not hope to parry with only one arm. But Tarrin had one more limb, a limb longer than all his others. As he parried a savage overhanded chop from the man on his left with both paws crossed to catch its edge in a V formed by the manacles, Tarrin's tail lashed out from between his own legs and swept up between the legs of the man on his left, who was pulling his sword back to stab at him again. His tail slammed into the crotch of the man on the right, who immediately winced, cried out, and sagged towards the ground with his knees locked together and both hands cupping his injured groin. Tarrin used that space to wrest the sword caught between his wrists to the right, then brought up his left foot and planted it in the man's belly with enough force to rupture internal organs, sending him flying back into the men behind him and giving Tarrin a precious few seconds to prepare for the next wave. The sword dropped, but Tarrin caught it by the hilt even as his tail wrapped around the hilt of the sword the other man dropped, pulling it up into his paw. The swords' hilts were almost too small for his oversized paws to hold, but he had enough space with which to work.
These were not opponents he could fight hand to paw without taking a wound. They were very well trained, very good fighters, and he afforded them the respect they deserved. He needed the cushion of space a weapon would provide.
An armed Tarrin advanced slightly, so that anyone trying to step over the bodies of the men in front would have to dodge his swords while they did it.
"Who's next?" he asked in a cold voice.
They rushed forward immediately, coming over the two bodies by stepping on them, and Tarrin met them. They found out, to their shock and dismay, that Tarrin was more than competent with swords, even wielding two at once, and his inhuman power made trying to fence with him a deadly proposition. Single parries and killing blows felled the first two to come over the bodies, as the power in the parry knocked each man out of position and set him up for the killing stroke. Allia was a master of two-weapon combat, and she had taught some of that technique to her brother. He now used that, falling back on forms she had taught him on how to move with and use the two swords to maximize the confusion and uncertainty of his opponents. They never knew which would strike first, or how or when the second sword would strike like a viper at them while they were still engaged with the first.
Tarrin cut down four more men in a fast, furious flurry of striking swords, cutting flesh, and agonized screams, until a knee-high knot of bloody bodies separated him from them. The two men in front suddenly lunged towards the walls, opening a space between them right in the middle of the alley. That was when he saw the crossbow. He desperately slashed across his body even as the weapon discharged at him, hitting the heavy quarrel in midair as it buzzed angrily right for his heart and deflecting it to the side. The edged head of the quarrel sliced across his upper left arm, leaving a bloodly line across it and creating a burning, stinging wound that he could feel was quite different from anything he had ever had before. He reared back and threw the sword in his right paw back down that line, between the front men that had moved aside to let the crossbowman get a clear shot. It hit the man pommel first, but it struck him right between the eyes, caving in the skull and making both of his eyes pop out of their sockets.
The man to the right, that had moved out of the way, suddenly sprouted a dagger in his neck. It was a little thing with a handle designed for throwing, but it was good enough. The man gurgled once before sagging to the ground, trying to hold in his lifeblood with his hands. Tarrin glanced back to see Miranda, back on her feet and with two more of those little daggers in her left hand, and a third coiled back in her right, ready to be thrown.
"He'll kill any man who comes over the bodies, and I'll kill anyone who stands around," Miranda warned in a loud voice.
"She's only got three daggers!" one of the men bolstered the others.
"Yes, but which three of you want to die?" she challenged in a calm voice, rearing the dagger back just a little more.
It hung there for a moment. The alley was too narrow for them to rush in all at once, and the bodies piled up between them and the Were-cat made trying to get close enough to use their swords suicidal. They were a little taken aback that the Were-cat had deflected a quarrel shot at point blank range from a heavy crossbow, one of the most powerful missle weapons made. And they couldn't just stand there, or the Wikuni would kill three more of them with her daggers.
That made the men in front turn and flee, but the men behind, shielded from the daggers and hungry for the reward, refused to give ground. They pushed at each other until one man screamed and went down with a sword in his belly, and that started a short, nasty fight between the former allies as the men in danger actually attacked the men keeping them from retreating. Tarrin and Miranda wisely ducked around the corner of the alley and peeked around it, watching the short melee from the safety of cover. Five more men died at the hands of their own, until they finally managed to move their brawl to the mouth of the alley, where they simply scattered.
Tarrin blew out his breath, then winced when Miranda placed a torn piece of her dress over the bleeding cut in his arm. "That was nervous," she said calmly, putting pressure on the wound to control the bleeding.
"That was fast thinking," he complemented.
"I'm paid to think fast, Tarrin," she replied calmly. "It's something of a job requirement. Is this alright?"
"It burns like fury, but it's not deep," he replied, putting his paw over the cloth.