"We are not here to surrender to the likes of you!" Rathine snarled.     The handsome daedra lord's face twisted in a sneer.  "Then you are fools, and will die like fools."  He began to trace an arcane pattern in the air, even as the Chosen spread out in a loose semicircle, their ranks organized to minimize clashes between disparate weapons styles. As for the group of heroes, Balefire immediately darted towards Zul's arrogant figure, first claiming Zul as his own battle, then his warcry breaking forth from his lips in a mighty roar as he broke ranks and charged. The rest of the company moved to whatever position suited them best, with Betrayal drawing Alyssa back a step, and assuming a defensive position between her and the encroaching Chosen. Kriella and Tenaka stayed side by side, facing a group of three of the Chosen, a pair of Nords, apparently twins, wielding twin broadswords, and a third man, short, and carrying a quarterstaff almost twice as tall as he was. Skudge had hid behind Betrayal's, and ducked out to stab at the two Elven chosen threatening Betrayal. Alyssa was busily stripping a serviceable staff out of the local vegetation, keeping Betrayal between the Chosen and she. Zerith, crafting a weave of Magicka about himself, hauled off and blasted one of the chosen into thin paste with a fireball, leaving four of the warriors, a female Nord, a High Elf, and two Wood Elves, oriented on him and Rathine, who had ended up next to him. After Balefire's initial charge knocked Zul back several meters, but failed to knock the arrogant Daedra from his feet, Balefire and Zul began trading blows, Zul's sword ringing as Balefire sucsessfully blocked each and every one of his attacks,  and ringing again as Zul neatly parried each of Balefire's return attacks. Zul laughed heartily, and Balefire took the opportunity to slam the end of the quarterstaff into his face, drawing a glare from the Daedra Lord. "Shut up and fight, you arrogant dog!" Balefire growled as the battle continued. His engagement with Zul had thus far failed to draw blood, so that particular honor went to none other than Skudge.      The little scamp stabbed his spear completely through the foot of one of the Chosen confronting Betrayal, allowing Betryal to use his pole axe to neatly behead the distracted warrior, with a long, two- handed swing that left him completely open. Alyssa jumped forward, her wooden staff landing smartly upside the head of the Chosen that had moved to exploit Betrayal's opening, and Skudge feinted at the other Chosen confronting the three. Kriella pounced forward, alongside one of the twin swordsmen that faced her and her beloved. Attempting to slide a long, wickedly sharp blade into the man's side, she was met with the sword of his brother, who neatly deflected her strike, only to be blasted backwards a good dozen meters before landing in the Lake, by a raw destruction spell cast by Tenaka. The remaining twin jumped backwards, and attacked Kriella in a blind rage, tears rolling down his face as he screamed wordlessly.  Tenaka yelled as he saw Kriella come under attack, but was too busy dodging the incredibly fast blows of the short man with the staff.     Tenaka turned back to the offensive, the Daerdra-forged sword he held in his hands serving double duty as an axe, carving great chunks of the wood sheath covering the iron core of the portly Chosen's staff. The man backpedaled, and Tenaka pressed the attack, unable for the moment to penetrate the man's expert guard. Kriella's scream echoed across the lake, and Tenaka turned, his foe forgotten, as he saw Kriella slump to the ground, clutching her side. As he saw the wet gleam of the blood on the still-weeping swordsman, Tenaka's visage turned bright red. Without looking, he warded off the attack the earlier- forgotten foe pressed against him, and opened a Window.      The gap in reality opened slowly, it's edges wavering, and crackling with green energy. Ignoring this effect, Tenaka dropped his sword on the ground, and reached through the Window, snapping the man's neck like a twig. As he withdrew his hands, the Window snapped shut, leaving a smell of burnt flesh behind. Tenaka reached towards his weapon, laying on the ground, and fell, joining his beloved in the midst of the battle. Seeing Kriella, and then Tenaka, fall, Zerith broke away from his hand-to-hand struggle with the person facing him. Glancing over to where Rathine was fencing with an arrogant ease with the remaining three opponents. Summoning several flows of Magicka, Zerith wove them into a disintegrate spell with a twist..  literally.  The spell caught the female warrior directly on the well-endowed chest, and she evaporated into a cyclone of displaced flesh, bits of gristle, bone, and blood flying outward into a cone, coating one of the Elves facing Rathine. The anointed wood elf promptly put hands to eyes, attempting to clear his vision, and Rathine aided him by sending him into the next world with the point of his rapier.      Zerith then sprang from where he had cast the spell, instantly repeating it in the direction of the portly Chosen who had already began the swing that would eliminate Tenaka from the battle, and this world. The spell hurtled across the clearing, and impacted on the staff-weilding Chosen, who had the discourtesy to merely slide backwards, and grunt. Looking from his target to Zerith, the man grinned, fingering a bracelet on his right wrist, and charged Zerith.     The mage scholar responded in the way he thought best. Drawing his blade, Zerith sidestepped the man's wild charge, removed the wrist with the apparently magical bracelet on it, and repeated his spell, this time with the desired results, and a thin mist of gore sprayed over the area Betrayal was fighting in.     Betrayal, for his part, was finding it very difficult to defend against two opponents. The occaisional, distracting attacks from either side by Skudge or Alyssa were another distraction, and Betrayal was becoming desperate. A quick sweep with the unfamiliar pole component of his Polearm, Betrayal backed off the pair facing him, giving him space to cast a spell. Drawing on the innate Magicka around him,    Betrayal wove fire into a thick disc, and hurled it into the face of the man on his right. The disc spun into the man's chest, charring his armor and pressing him back long enough for a strike to the arm from Alyssa's staff, and a blow to the throat from Skudge's spear to finish him.     The unorthodox movements of the people who had been hiding behind betrayal had thrown the remaining Chosen off, and he was easy prey for Betrayal's axe, especially when a tap in the back of the head from Alyssa's staff helped render him very much dead. His body crumpled to the ground at the same time Rathine finished his last target. The clanking and grunting of Balefire's battle with the daerdra Lord echoed through the now-silent clearing, and the group moved to tend to the wounded, watching to assist Balefire with his duel with Zul, if he needed it.