Kaldalis wished he could have done a dramatic kip-up to get back to his feet, but instead all he managed was a panicked scramble. The Contender was on top of him again before he got his feet fully under him, and the swing of his scepter sent Kaldalis rolling out of the way to avoid taking the blow right to the temple.

When Kaldalis finally got to his feet, the Contender slowed his approach. With his War Weapon’s tip between them, the Contender couldn’t just charge him again. The Contender’s fear was gone, though. Even with the ominous red spear pointed directly at his heart, his confidence didn’t waver for even a second.

Their arrival on the street from above had scattered the guards that had been stationed protectively around the town hall. Now that they were parsing what was going on, some of them started to surge forward, though it was unclear which side of the fight they were going to support.

“Stay back,” Kaldalis yelled at the guards. “He’s gone mad with power; he’ll kill you if you get too close!”

“Don’t run away,” the Contender ordered. “My victory demands witnesses to tell the tale!”

Honestly, that worked for Kaldalis. He got the impression that he was going to need all the witnesses he could get when he had to explain that he really tried not to kill the Contender.

The heavy head of the scepter lashed out, not at Kaldalis, but at the head of his spear. It was an unexpected maneuver, and easily swept the weapon out of the Contender’s path, letting him close the distance. The Contender approached with a graceful spinning step, looking to use the momentum of his whole body into a skull-cracking backhand blow.

As cool as the move looked, it left him extremely vulnerable. Kaldalis lashed out not with his spear, but with his foot, kicking the Contender hard in the side of the knee, causing the joint to fold and foul the attack. He brought his knee up to catch the Contender’s face as he fell, but the priest was more spry than Kaldalis anticipated, turning the fall into a forward roll, coming up at Kaldalis’s side.

The spear’s reach and length were becoming a liability once the Contender closed the distance.

Fervently, the priest swept his scepter at Kaldalis again in a dramatic haymaker attack, forcing Kaldalis to duck under the sweeping strike. He tried to back away and get some distance, but the Contender didn’t let up. Heedless of any counterattack, he charged after Kaldalis and swept his makeshift weapon around in a heavy overhead blow.

Kaldalis blocked the attack with the haft of his spear, grunting at how much force was behind the strike. The Contender’s strength was immense in comparison to his own, and blocking the attack sent Kaldalis off-balance, nearly driving him to his knees.

“I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner,” the Contender said, his voice calm and confident. “This is why you’ve done so much. This is why you have been elevated. To make this moment more meaningful. It would have been nothing to outmaneuver a political novice, drive him to attack me, and then strike him down if he was also of no consequence in battle.” The scepter swept up and down again, not even trying to circumvent Kaldalis’s blocking spear. Just hammering against his guard with increasing power. “My victory is all the more glorious when it is against the Infernal Horde’s Bane. The Champion of the Ulun Islands. The Hero of Cotanaku. All your titles mean nothing before my righteousness!”

Kaldalis shifted his guard and let the scepter come down on one side of the spear. With his hands as a fulcrum, he used the Contender’s own momentum to lash out with the other end, slamming the butt of the weapon into his foe’s shoulder with crushing force.

The Contender grunted at the impact, stumbling back with a snarl. Kaldalis’s first instinct was to change weapons. His sword and shield would work better when the Contender closed the distance again. But that was just playing into the Contender’s strengths. The spear would be the superior choice so long as he used it properly. He just had to keep his foe at range instead of letting him bully his way into Kaldalis’s face.

There was another attempt to bat Kaldalis’s spear aside, but now that he’d seen that trick once, he didn’t fall for it again. Kaldalis bobbed and weaved with the weapon before jabbing forward, stabbing the Contender firmly in the forearm.

The blow seemed to shock the Contender. He flinched back quickly, minimizing the damage, but afterwards, he darted away and stopped. The priest stared at the shallow puncture wound for nearly a full second. Kaldalis’s instincts screamed at him again, telling him to charge in and finish the job, but he forced it down. He had to subdue the Contender, not execute him.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever bled like this before,” the Contender said calmly.

“If the experience isn’t to your liking, you’re free to surrender,” Kaldalis offered. He tried to keep his voice conversational, even though he felt tension thrumming through his limbs.

“No, I enjoy new experiences,” the Contender said, shaking his arm a little, as if testing its strength. “I don’t believe I’ve bashed out a Vathon’s brains before, so I think I’ll experience that next.”

The Contender rushed forward, and Kaldalis set his spear against the charge, dropping to one knee and bracing the base of the weapon against the dirt for leverage. The Contender juked left and tried to dart to the right, but Kaldalis wasn’t fooled, and spun with the weapon, keeping the tip trained on his opponent, forcing him to abandon the charge.

“What’s the rush?” Kaldalis asked. “You’ve got plenty of other limbs you haven’t been stabbed in.”

Darting forward, Kaldalis’s spear stabbed out at the man’s face. The Contender ducked back and away, but Kaldalis followed, menacing him with the spear and forcing him to take a defensive stance.

It only took a moment for Kaldalis to take the upper hand. With the Contender at the proper range for the spear, the stubby scepter was ill-suited to the task of striking back. He focused his attacks up high, at the Contender’s head and shoulders, though he pulled his jabs back from full-strength every time. He couldn’t afford to land a lethal blow to the throat.

As a result, the Contender’s defense held strong. The priest’s heavy-headed scepter was perfect for parrying the lighter thrusts of the spear, and the movement of his head and upper body was adequate whenever a parry failed or was too slow.

The fighting style was in stark opposition to what Kaldalis had learned from the assassin in Baimer. It was all work and no play.

If the fight went on like this, the Contender would tire himself out in a few minutes and collapse.

The priest seemed to realize that just as Kaldalis did. The tempo of the defense became more frantic. Frenzied. The parries became more forceful, putting more pressure on Kaldalis to keep the weapon between the two of them.

After a second, the Contender’s next parry reversed directions with a flourish at the last moment. Kaldalis’s spear jerked left when he had braced for it to be batted to the right. In an instant, the Contender closed the gap.

The scepter’s arc was another overly-dramatic overhand blow, and Kaldalis easily slipped under it, but the Contender’s free hand jammed into Kaldalis’s midsection in a sucker punch. It sent him reeling back as he flailed his spear, trying to get distance again. The Contender didn’t intend on losing his momentary advantage, and pressed in, even as Kaldalis’s back hit the wall of the town hall.

His scepter swept up and down in another hammering motion. Ducking left and right, the heavy head of the weapon cracked chunks out of the stacked stones of the lower parts of the structure. Even as he avoided those attacks, the Contender’s other hand slammed again and again into Kaldalis’s breastplate. Left-handed, the priest lacked the force to do real damage through the armor, but the repeated strikes kept Kaldalis rattled and unable to force his way out of the precarious situation.

“Hold still for just a second,” the Contender grunted as the scepter smashed into the wall over and over, sending a hail of chipped stones rattling down into Kaldalis’s armor. “And this will all be over.”

Kaldalis slammed the butt of his spear down on the Contender’s foot. Despite the man’s clear comfort with violence, his boots were not up to the task of protecting him from the impact. It was just the opening he needed for Kaldalis to drive his shoulder into the Contender to knock him away.

“You first,” Kaldalis said.

The next thrust of Kaldalis’s spear went right for the Contender’s midsection. The priest twisted and spun away from the attack, but it still ripped away a big chunk of the man’s robe, causing the heavy cloth to droop low. It would impede his movement greatly like that.

It was now Kaldalis’s turn to capitalize on an opening. He swept the butt of his spear up, and while it was a clumsy blow, when the Contender tried to dodge the cut part of his robe tripped him, fouling the dodge.

The butt of Kaldalis’s spear struck the same knee he’d kicked earlier, and the Contender cried out and fell to the dirt.

“Yield!” Kaldalis demanded, pointing the tip of his spear at the Contender’s chest. “I will stab you before I ask a second time. And I will kill you before I ask a third!”

Heedless of the danger, the Contender lunged at Kaldalis. The adventurer had to jump back and abandon his attack before the priest impaled himself on Kaldalis’s weapon.

“Don’t make pointless threats,” the Contender said as he got to his feet. As soon as he was up, he ripped away the lower part of his robe to step out of it, giving him back his freedom of movement. “We both know how this ends. I am the only one who can win this fight. Don’t pretend that you’re a threat here.”

Kaldalis grimaced. The priest was delusional. If Kaldalis was a little slower - or a little crueler - the Contender would be bleeding out on the ground right now. Instead, he was intent on continuing the fight.

How was he going to put the man down without putting the man down for good?