Duffy admired the women for just long enough to give them an opening. Whilst he would have expected a sword to the gut, the sand and salt in his eyes hurt just as much. He dropped his swords into the ether and brought his hands up to cover his face. Unfortunately for the bard, his common sense only worked in bar fights or when drunk. Though he guarded his eyes and nose, his opponent’s fist connected neatly with his chin and span the arena through twenty rotations. He fell backwards and cracked his head on the sand with an unceremonious thud.

“Fu-” he mumbled, trying to swear through grit teeth and a swelling sensation running down the muscles in his neck.

He watched the sky blur, a tapestry of pristine clouds swirling into a maelstrom of grey and navy-blue regret. Memories of past shortcomings in his form flooded his mind, like a nagging school teacher chiding the class clown. The taste of blood focused his senses and he rolled onto his side, browbeat and confidence knocked.

“Perhaps I sphoke too soon,” he chuckled. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and bolted upright. His head span, he swooned, and he swore again. “If a dirty thight’s what you want, it’s what you’ll get.”

A sweating middle-aged man with red eyes and a sodden shirt wasn’t exactly a terrifying prospect in a duel. Fighting to correct that, Duffy slicked his hair to the left and wiped the sand trails from his cheeks. Two short blades were grand for fighting a single adversary, but two at once required a little more finesse, a little more style and edge. He pulled his katana from the ether and into the confidence of his right hand. He held it horizontally, bladed edge outwards and reflecting the coruscating heat of the desert along it’s blackened form.

“Let’s even the odds.”

He flicked his free hand into the air and three purple ravens, ablaze with hellfire shot out from his fingertips. They circled overhead, cawing in a deadly cacophony and then dived, full-force at the ice mage. As the bird’s descended, power stolen from his brother Leopold, the bard broke into a sprint towards the swordsman and brought the katana down in a two-handed slash aimed at her weapon arm.