Part the Two-Hundred Fifth
In which: Euro’s revenge.
Her spiked chain is spinning so fast it sings as it slices through the air. Before Anvil has time to react Lady Tempeste looses one end, sending it flying straight for Barnabus’ head… and misses.
The party does not intend to allow her the chance to try again.
Reyu shoots Lady Tempest, burying an arrow right in the center of the other woman’s gut. As she fires the arrow, she can feel Euro’s claws digging into her shoulder, and suspects it’s only the desire to keep his mistress’s body out of harm’s way that prevents the furious weasel from charging her killer right then and there.
Barnabus, not liking the idea of letting Lady Tempeste get another shot at him, makes a gesture, and seconds later the grasping hand appears before him. At a claw-like motion from the archmage the hand seizes Lady Tempeste and holds fast.
“Wait!” Eva calls to Barnabus as he is about to close his hand (and hand) into a fist. “Don’t kill her!”
“Ah! You want a hostage?”
“No,” she replies, approaching Lady Tempeste with a very dangerous look in her eye. “We want to do it ourselves.”
Lady Tempeste—struggling in the grasping hand’s iron grip—glowers back.
###
Meanwhile, as Thatch runs across the dirt yard to close with Lady Tempeste, he feels a strange sensation, as though all of his muscles are trying to freeze-up on him. He grits his teeth and shakes off the feeling, but spares a second to look around for the source.
There, right by the barracks door on the right side of the courtyard, he notices a man he hadn’t seen before. From his lack of armor or visible weapons—along with that strange muscle freeze-up—Thatch guesses the newcomer must be a mage of some kind. But he isn’t wearing a guard uniform like the warmages they’ve seen so far. And his attention is only on Lady Tempeste, as though the rest of the battle is barely worth his notice.
Thatch spots Kiara in hybrid form, swooping above the battle with her bow and arrow at the ready. He waves for her attention and points out the new player on the field. “Back there… spell-caster!”
Kiara barely takes the time to nod an acknowledgement before taking aim and firing at her new target. Woodsy spies what Kiara is doing and is soon moving in, just in case the wizard has any thoughts of escape.
Given that Kiara has just buried an arrow in his thigh, escape is not seeming like a terrible option, as far as the mage is concerned.
The mage, whose name is Etienne, looks around the battlefield. The keep remains sealed, by its own defenses and by Barnabus’ wall of stone. Good for the Count, he thinks to himself. The sleet storm has finally stopped, but the few survivors of it can only huddle together miserably in a corner. Among the remaining guards still on their feet, the sight of their commander held captive in a giant floating hand is not exactly doing wonders for morale. Come to think of it, the giant saw blades in his back aren’t doing wonders for Etienne’s own morale.
He comes to a decision, and looking over his enemy calls out, “Justicar!”
Anvil turns to find the source of the strange voice. There, back near the barracks to one side of the courtyard, a lone mage stands, bloodied between Kiara and Woodsy. Seeing that he has Anvil’s attention, the mage speaks again.
“A word?”
Anvil approaches with caution and a deliberate tread. “It depends on what the word is.”
“If you can guarantee my safety from the… enthusiasm… of your compatriots, I’d like to offer you my surrender.”
Anvil is not without his suspicions. “Why?”
The wizard gestures to the scene around them. “I don’t appear to be on the winning side. I’d like to rectify that.”
A pause as Anvil considers the other man’s words. “What is your name?”
“Etienne Biber.”
“Very well. Etienne Biber, I accept your surrender on the condition that you will not be summarily executed for your complicity in the unjust acts committed by your liege the Count Agramount.”
“You are a most honorable and reasonable man.”
Anvil pulls a bit of knotted string from his pocket, and ties it around Etienne’s neck. “This,” he informs the mage, “is a necklace that kills casters when they try to cast.”
Etienne doesn’t bat an eyelash. “I find your argument most convincing, Justicar.”
###
This activity does not go unobserved by those still surrounding Lady Tempeste, who is now bleeding rather freely.
“You might want to surrender yourself,” Barnabus observes. “These people seem very intent on killing you, and I must say I’m not unsympathetic.”
Lady’s Tempeste’s reply is not entirely distinct, but sounds suspiciously like, “Bite me.”
Barnabus makes a small shrug, and leaves the party to their work.
###
On the scale of such things, Lady Tempeste’s death is quick, but there is very little else merciful about it. At the end, the hand releases her to fall limply to the dirt.
Euro walks over to the corpse, and defecates on it.
A quiet falls over the courtyard. The battle is over. Inside the keep however, it has not yet begun.
I have to confess, I'm not crazy about having a combat take a month or more to post either, it can really kill the flow if the breaks don't go well. But it's what I can do at the moment, and so it's what gets done. 
