The first praetorian guard came at Mitzner, swinging his halberd wildly. She allowed the guard to drive her back with the first swing then, taking him off balance, she charged in to the second. Mitzner weaved around the blade and seized the halberd's handle with both hands. Mitzner twisted the weapon just as she elbowed its owner. The guard shouted, fell to the ground, and left Mitzner holding his halberd.
Mitzner had never fought with a halberd before but intended to be a quick study. She leapt onto the table, spilling plates of food, and spun the weapon around in a wide circle to keep the guards that were already surrounding her at bay. They backed away and kept their distance to avoid the swirling blade.
The high ground should give her an advantage with a weapon of this kind, she reasoned.
McAfree wanted to climb out from under the table and make a mad dash for a better hiding spot, but there was too much activity. Instead she continued to cower where she was.
The Emperor was running in the opposite direction of the guards, attempting to put them between himself and Mitzner.
Mitzner held her weapon in a low guard. She was very conscious of the fact that she was fighting wearing a ball gown. As soon as the opportunity presented itself she would split the seam of her skirt to give herself some mobility.
Too late, another guard got brave and decided to mount an attack. One of his buddies seized the opportunity to come at her from another angle. These polearms didn't strike Mitzner as particularly effective parrying weapons so she tried to dodge the first attack while forcing the second to disengage with a slash of her own.
She was able to avoid the first attack, but the second attacker wasn't skilled enough to read her moves and disengage. Instead both Mitzner and the guard struck each other with their halberds. Mitzner's pierced straight through her opponent's chest, while the guard's dug deep into Mitzner's shin. Her skirt was split to the knee.
Mitzner allowed the halberd to be pulled from her hands as the dead guard slumped over. She instinctively deactivated all pain signals in her leg. She reconsidered jumping off the table; too risky with a wounded leg and no pain input.
The first guard renewed his attack and Mitzner was forced to dodge several powerful swipes from his halberd. Finally she jumped from the table and tackled the guard, who helpfully broke her fall. The praetorian guard hit his head hard on the ground, chipping away at the gold on his helmet and knocking him out. Mitzner snatched the downed man's halberd.
Mitzner ran the math. That's 3 out of 9, with probably more on the way. She outclassed these men badly but with those kind of numbers it could get pointless fast.
She risked a glance over at the so-called Emperor. He was screaming for more guards but still in the room.
There was only one guard behind Mitzner, the rest were all between her and the Emperor. Without taking her eyes off the men in front until the last second, she spun around and impaled the guard behind her on her halberd with as much force as she could muster. He made a wet noise and died. Mitzner needed to use her foot to pull the weapon out of the corpse. Her white dress had become covered in blood stains.
Spinning around to face the others, Mitzner had now successfully put her back to a wall. Considering the unfamiliar weapon she definitely preferred this to the high ground. The remaining five guards surrounded her in a semicircle, all holding their halberds defensively.
She allowed herself to feel the pain in her leg for a split second, just as a data point. It was worse than she thought. She shouldn't be fighting on it. She turned the pain back off.
Positioned as she was Mitzner no longer had to protect her back, but neither did she have anywhere to run. Three of the five remaining guards pushed forward at once and attacked.
She tried to dodge the first two attacks by leaping forward with a counterattack against the third, but her leg didn't entirely cooperate. She fell short of her intended mark, evading the first attack but allowing the second attack to cut her left arm off right at the elbow.
The limb went flying. The wound closed immediately, like a flower blooming in reverse. Mitzner managed to retain hold of her weapon with her right hand.
Mitzner saw the attack coming in time to just deactivate pain across her entire body. This was a mess.
Mitzner slid the grip on her halberd down so that she was holding it just above the blade and then slammed it into the face of the man who had cut off her arm before kicking him away.
"What is she?" yelled the one of the guards who hadn't truly entered combat yet, as he ran from the dining hall.
"Traitor to the Empire!" yelled his fellow.
Screaming, one of the remaining three guards jumped at Mitzner and she quickly dodged inside his guard and slit his throat.
Mitzner risked another glance and noticed that the Emperor was gone.
"You Emperor has fled already," said Mitzner, holding her halberd like it was a sword in a low guard "There's no dishonor in running off to help protect him rather than dying here for no reason."
The guards seemed to see the wisdom in that, because as soon as Mitzner gave them the excuse they scrambled away with near-comic intensity.
"Oh good," said Mitzner, weakly "Because I think my leg is broken."
She had been trying to hide the fact that she had been supporting herself on one foot. Mitzner half fell half lowered herself to the ground.