"Nothing!" he bit. "What CAN you do? See?" he growled, nostrils flaring. "Nothing." He knew she was useless, guilty and of course, a mage! He wouldn't want her help anyway and part of him would rather die down here than accept this help. It was embarrassing enough as it was.
But then a voice came up from the manhole above.
"Hello? Is somebody down there?"
Zannrick tensed and turned to try to peer up it.
"Yes! I've sustained an injury! Call for the city guard for help at once!"
"What? It's hard to hear you! Hold on." and the sunlight flickered to a close as the man's body began it's descent. It was a commoner no doubt, easily deduced by it's lack of fancy clothing. And by the time they were at the bottom he looked the pair over with a frown.
"What is going on here?"
But before he even allowed for an explanation, his eyes went wide as he saw just who was down there.
"L.. Lord Austengarde?"
Zannrick was seething.
"Yes, and I've come to sustain injuries. This woman was being taken to the jail for magical use when it all occurred and-"
The man was no fool, or perhaps he was, but silencing Zannrick in the way he had was not what the mordecai expected, because while he was only half wearing his armor, after having attempted to attend to his broken limbs, it left parts of him open and vulnerable. And the man, who was a desperate plebian, had so much hatred built up towards this exact mordecai that he couldn't miss up this opportunity. So what if the other had a sword? He had a knife, and the element of surprise-
And there it was, Zannrick's eyes going wide as he felt the blade pierce his belly as the man rammed it into him- overa nd over until finally the mordecai had enough sense to react.
He grabbed onto the man's shirt collar with a great fist and smashed their faces together, both men seeing stars, and with his good leg he hefted a well planted kick to his knife baring hand as the attacker doubled over in pain. But Zannrick held onto him tightly, his other, feebler arm trembling over the spilling, hot blood from his side.
"What have you done?" Zannrick hissed. "You have condemned yourself and all of your family to-"
But Zannricker's anger was silenced by a bloodied spit to his face.
"You're going to die, hound." And it was then Zannrick realized the man was fetching for another blade in his garb and in doing so, Zannrick did all he could to prevent it, using his pained shoulder to ram into the man as the two went tumbling down off the stone walk ways of the sewers and rolling until both pair were half in the filthy sewer waters and struggling now for their lives.
