Tristain had waited a few minutes as he watched his opponent. The other individual was a tall, lithe male, and had apparently been thinking to himself, staring into the fire that he had started. This individual was either poorly trained in combat, so sure of himself that he didn't care about giving himself away - or, just didn't care about giving himself away. He wasn't openly announcing himself either though - if that had been the case, they would have met upon an open field, bare but for the clash of combat. Whatever the case might be, Tristain wasn't going to question it, because it did give him time to observe his foe. Aside from the light armor that the man wore, he also bore a pair of daggers, decent enough weapons, but Tristain didn't know what tricks the other had up his sleeve.

From what the mercenary saw, the other man didn't have many weapons that could deal heavy damage in a single strike. Still, he wasn't going to let his guard down because of overconfidence - he was an elf, and for all Tristain knew, the reason he only had daggers was because he preferred casting spells. No, approaching the battle with a wary eye would be the way to go here. His grip tightened on the rough wooden spear he had hewn out, and Tristain began circling the makeshift encampment. He passed by a bush, and froze when the shrubbery rustled louder than the ambient noise of the night. Too late - the elf's eyes had swung in his direction, peering into the darkness. Tristain hoped that staring at the fire had made the elf's night vision utterly atrocious, but he was no fool.

Even as the elf stared towards him, Tristain was acting. He had come here to vent off some pent up anger, to work out stress. Dealing with thought quandaries had no place here. His arm reared back, and the wooden javelin shot forward through the air, bursting from the dark foliage and shadows with little warning. The mercenary was already moving though, unslinging his warhammer from its hooks on his hip and spinning it into his grip. He rang it once against his shield as he charged out of the brush, following close on the heels of the javelin - trying to take advantage of the elf reacting to the thrown weapon, trying to catch him off guard from a dodge, or from deflecting the opening attack.

(Apologies for the delay, became mildly ill over the last few days and have been dealing with that.)