Mat and Arthur!
Mat took the stairs at a dead run, burst onto the top floor and burst into a scene out of nightmare.
People laid sprawled everywhere. Elayne was one, half on her back against the wall, eyes closed. The guide, the last woman on her feet (which had Mat's heart thumping painfully, where were Kennedy and Aravis?), fled toward him, eyes filled with terror. "Help me!" she screamed at him, and a man caught her from behind. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, maybe a little older than Mat, of the same height and slender in a plain gray coat. Smiling, he took her head between his hands and twisted sharply. The sound of her neck breaking was like a dry branch snapping. He let her drop in a boneless heap and gazed down at her. For a moment, his smile looked... rapturous.
Mat's eyes went from the corpse in front of him to Elayne. He had promised Rand he would keep her safe. He had promised. With a cry, he launched himself at the killer, ashandarei extended.
Behind the killer, a small knot of men were prying open a door with a shriek of rusty hinges. Mat ignored them, too focused on the man before him.
"Mat!"
Well, this was getting right buggered up now, wasn't it? Arthur bit down on curse dying to make it past his lips and gave his sword a flick as his eyes flicked towards the door. He'd have to trust Mat would be able to handle this man - he darted for the cluster of men at the door, sword at the ready.
The man were of a similar type--if slightly cleaner and with more body parts still attached--as the beggars they'd encountered in the streets the day before.
Three broke off from their attempts to open the door to face off against Arthur. One wielded a spiked club the length of his arm, while the other two held the same thin swords before them that Beslan had worn.
"Lads," Arthur greeted sardonically, taking as quick a stock of the situation as he possibly could.
The odds were against him, but it wasn't like his dense ass he cared. Right. Dispatch the club-wielder first to get him out of the fight-- clear out his focus.
He didn't pause his approach, but twisted, slashing his sword out at the side, then at the arm holding on to that blunt weapon. Disarm, then death afterwards, with any luck.
The club-wielder wasn't wielding a club any longer, and he stepped back, cursing, as the two with swords launched themselves at Arthur.
That at least took care of that problem temporarily.
He didn't stop to consider that either, and it was just as well: Arthur had to bring his sword up fast to meet the first one. He kicked out at the man, then spun, delivering a low blow at the second swordsman's leg.
He hoped Mat was handling his end back there. He didn't have time to check.
It probably wouldn't reassure him much as Mat went sailing past him to crash onto the floor, his ashandarei clattering to the ground and sending up a small cloud of dust.
Mat's curses as he pushed back to his feet were pithy and extensive. Pulling a knife from under his coat, he flung himself at the man again just as Nalesean made it to the top of the stairs.
Mat smiled. Now they had the man trapped between them, no matter how fast he was.
The gloham made Myrdraal seem stiff. He dodged around Nalesean's sword thrust like there wasn't a bone in his body, and then his right hand reached and ripped out Nalesean's throat.
Nalesean's sword fell with a clatter as he reached both hands up to cover his ruined throat. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Mat crashed into the man from behind, showing no qualms about knifing the man in the back. His blade stabbed three times--and then the man, impossibly, rolled beneath him and pulled the knife out of Mat's hand.
"He wants you dead as much as he wants her," the man told Mat softly, smiling. And as if Mat wasn't holding onto him at all, he grabbed onto Mat's head and began to squeeze
Where was his flaming luck? With the last of his strength, Mat shoved back--and his medallion fell against the man's cheek. There was a smell like sizzling bacon and the man shrieked, this time throwing Mat ten paces to crash at Arthur's feet.
Arthur ripped his sword out of the second swordsman's entrails and spun to face him-- or rather stare down at Mat for a few quick seconds before his attention was caught by Matt's opponent. "What are you?" he snapped. He shifted back into battle stance just as quickly.
The gholam just smiled, then pulled a knife out of his coat--Mat noted with a pang that it was one of Kennedy's--and threw it at Arthur's head.
Bloody hell!
It was that he had his much-prided speed to rely on, or Arthur may not have been able to react fast enough to avoid being struck by it. As it was, he barely managed to duck away, sending the knife soaring over his shoulder too close for comfort.
That was his answer, then.
He darted forward, sword in hand, striking at the man's thigh. He couldn't be accused of having too little stone-dumb courage.
The gholam dodged what should have been a direct hit like he was made of smoke, and then casually reached out to yank Arthur's sword arm from its socket.
Still smiling. It was getting to be very creepy, that smile.
It really was, and Arthur would've happily contemplated means to forcibly remove it from the man's face if it wasn't for the acute, burning pain that came with having one's arm dislocated. He didn't cry out nearly as hard as he could have - advantage of years of diligence of training - but for a moment his reflexes failed him and he couldn't keep the sword from escaping from his grasp.
The gholam followed up with a booted kick aimed at Arthur's stomach. He made a mental bet with himself if he could shoot this man as far as Mat had flown.
Considering that Arthur had a few pounds on Mat - all muscle, thank you - he didn't quite fly as far, but he did slide rather magnificently along the floor, stopping only a foot or so away from the man.
He grunted, but immediately sat up, reaching for his arm first. "Any brilliant ideas," he gritted out.
"One," Mat said, hoping desperately that his luck decided to kick in as he stood up and yanked his medallion from around his neck. There was no need to have people avenge the death of Mat Cauthon.
From the corner of the room, Elayne moaned and reached for her head. The gholam smiled and turned toward her.
Mat tucked his useless knife away and glared. "You can't bloody have her," he said, spinning the medallion between his fingers. The first step was the hardest--every self-preservation instinct in him was screaming to find a way out--but he had promises to keep.
The gholam, the foxhead burn livid on his face, stared at the medallion. And stepped back. Mat started herding the man toward the window at the back of the hallway. Maybe a six-story fall would do what sword thrusts and knife wounds couldn't.
Halfway across the floor, the gholam turned towards one of the closed doors and slid through the gap between the door and the wall.
Mat's jaw dropped as he turned back toward Arthur. "Burn me, what was that?"
Arthur had his hand firmly curled around his biceps, gritting his teeth - several seconds from trying to shove it back into the socket. As a result, you couldn't blame him for the look he shot Mat, or the accompanying, "God have mercy and bugger it if I know," that sounded somewhere between surprised and annoyed.
Mat wondered for a moment about knocking the door down like a man who thought with the hair on his chest (as Nynaeve so nicely put it) before looking back to survey the damage--turning slightly green as he saw an arm and a leg that were no longer attached to anyone--and moving over to Elayne. He shot Arthur a concerned look as he crouched down and helped Elayne sit up slowly. "Wait for the healers," he counseled.
Elayne, dust liberally covering her red-gold curls, stood up. "Where is Nynaeve?" she asked. "She should be here." She paled as her eyes were caught by the carnage. "This is beyond my skill to Heal." She went to the stairs and called down. "Nynaeve?"
"No need to shriek like a cat," Nynaeve snapped as she came up the last few steps, Karla and Merlin behind her.
She turned around and looked down the stairs. "You hold her tight, you hear me?" she shrieked like a cat. "If you let her escape, I'll box your ears so hard, they'll ring for a year!"
Karla, running up the stairs at Nynaeve's heels, winced and rubbed her ear. "You could just yell near them," she grumbled. "It would have the same effect."
And looked beyond the shrieking Aes Sedai into the room. "Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful."
"Arthur!" Let it never be said that Merlin didn't have priorities. Messed up ones, maybe. But that was all destiny's fault.
"What on earth did you all do?"
Arthur, and his presently useless arm, had pulled himself up against the wall, staying propped up where he was. "There was a creature," he said, glancing up, "Looked like a man, but it definitely wasn't."
"It slipped under the bloody door and got away," Mat said, looking around anxiously for Aravis and Kennedy as Nynaeve knelt down beside a body and made an annoyed noise.
She could Heal everything but death, and took it personally when she couldn't save them.
Karla hurried into the room and glanced around. "Hell's fire!" she said, spotting Aravis's unconscious body. "Aravis!"
She didn't know the other girl at all. That didn't matter. She was from Fandom and that meant she was one of them. The first step was finding out how extensive the injuries were. With a hum and a flare of power, Karla began the Healing process, shutting everything else out.
Within moments, Aravis' eyes opened blearily. "Karla?" she asked softly, wincing a bit at the wave of pain but already wanting to get back up, to find the man. "Where's -- where did he go?"
"He escaped," Karla soothed, ignoring the momentary blurring of her own eyes. The cause was obvious--too much Craft with too little rest or food in between--but also impossible to take care of right now. "Don't worry about him. You just relax and let me finish Healing you, all right?"
The Healing itself wasn't as lengthy or as complicated as the one that she'd performed just two days ago, but Karla's head was spinning a bit after making sure Aravis was Healed. Said spinning was also resolutely ignored in favor of looking for the next patient in need of her Craft.
With an incoherent grunt Kennedy stirred, and-- not exactly being a fan of lying facedown on a gross floor-- made a move to push herself upright again. That... did not work as advertised when her arms weren't functioning the way they should be (funny thing about dislocation that way).
Regaining consciousness might be overrated.
"Tell me," she said without attempting to move again, "someone took care of that ass?"
Nynaeve swung her long braid over her shoulder as she crouched down and appraised Kennedy's injuries. "He's gone now, at least," she said, "and that will have to be enough. Now don't move. This will feel a bit strange." Her fingers moved like a person weaving an invisible carpet.
"Because moving was so in my plans?" It so wasn't, although Kennedy did go a bit rigid; magical healing still wigged her, and she was kind of glad she couldn't really see what Nynaeve was doing since this was a completely unfamiliar kind of magic. Tara she trusted using this stuff on her-- everyone else, not so much.
More casually than she really felt, she muttered, "God, that's kind of tripped out."
"That might be the concussion talking," Nynaeve said, reaching out to hold Kennedy's head between her hands and Heal her. "You're going to be hungry when this is finished," she warned, "but the injuries will be fixed."
Kennedy was hardly in a position to argue, was she?
"So, about back to normal then," she cracked weakly. "Awesome."
Not so awesome, although amusing in a weird sort of way: the sensation of getting a jumbo-sized bucket of ice water thrown on her, without the actual water.
"...hey, I wasn't thinking anything dirty that time."
Nynaeve sniffed at her and yanked on her braid. "I'm sure I wouldn't know," she replied and then moved on to the next victim, muttering not quite under her breath about how of course Mat's friends would be like him.
"And you attacked it?" Merlin asked, closing the distance between him and Arthur to prod at the limp arm. Which was clearly deserved when people run off to do stupid things like injure their shoulders. Again.
Arthur's eyes rolled a bit as Merlin's prodding began, but he endured it with the patience of any man when confronted with an ornery physician. Or physician's apprentice, in this case. "It was slaughtering every person to enter this room," he said, nodding at the carnage around them. "What else was I going to do, throw a pillow at it?"
Elayne bit back a laugh. "Even the Power had no effect," she said, brushing her skirts off. "The flows just disappeared like they do around--" her eyes shifted to Mat's medallion and she took a deep breath before shaking her head. "Let me find the Bowl," she said, heading into one of the nearby rooms.
The sound of her sneezes soon echoed into the hallway, and she returned in a few minutes covered in dust and with a large clothed-wrapped package in her arms. "The room is a cache of artifacts that use the One Power," she said. "We're taking them with us."
Mat looked around at the soldiers he'd brought with him, now covered in white sheeting. His eyes lingered on the body of Nalesean, the first soldier who'd ever followed him, then to his friends from Fandom. "And then we're bloody well getting out of here," he said in a tone that didn't allow for arguments. He doubted if the Rahad had ever seen as odd a procession as made its way to the river, or one that moved more quickly.
[OOC: Adapted from A Crown of Swords, and with many, many thanks to bitch_prince, bigdamndestiny, notyetqueen, glacial_witch and brat_intraining. NFB, NFI, offer void in Connecticut.]