((No more UI dingies…  I couldn’t clear the screen completely, but I’m learning how to airbrush it all out))

                The Greatsword sang its familiar, decisive song as Zaraek whipped it from its sheath and set himself in battle stance as the huge beast charged him, shaking the ground under his black boots. 

                “Huuuunnnnhhhhh,” Zaraek grunted as he swung the blade, slicing across the throat of the Clefthoof bull, but it was too stupid to know it was dead.  He threw out his hand and hauled dark power out of some deep place in his being, casting ice crystals in its shaggy face.  He followed that in a nasty multiplying sequence with diseases too horrid to be named, still striking with the ebony blade like a butcher in a rage, yet his movements became a dance, flowing and spinning.  A kata.  The dance of death. 

                The final plunge, heart strike, solid, and the beast groaned as its front legs buckled.  He sprang away, but his boot slid in Light knew what (and the beast possibly).   It collapsed.  On top of him.

                “Mmmhnmm mmfm mfm,” he bitched from under the ton of dead weight. Translation from squashed Thalassian to exasperated Thalassian: “Damn this thing stinks.”

                Zaraek dragged himself out from under the huge beast, wishing he could hold his nose and crawl at the same time.  “Arrghh.  Disgusting…”  His armor was drenched in blood, the spikes on his shoulders newly decorated with tufts of brown fur, snagged as he hauled himself out.

                The elven death knight struggled to his feet and spun to glare at the dead creature.  “Hmph.  Got your last laugh, but I, at least, am still… not… you.  Hah.”