Fight, Fight, Fight Blogfest!

So I got carried away with the fairy tale :P This one is shorter. I promise. And It's a rewrite of a scene from Silver Mask! Still rough though >.< So whatever commentary you have is more than welcome. I want to thank JC Martin the Fighter Writer for hosting this one :D I love reading action scenes, but I always feel mine are forced :( So I posted on facebook "Help Me!" And Ariane Broome, got me in touch with Casey Michael Parcell, a martial artist kind enough to give me some ideas. Best yet, we worked out various sequences...so this is my first time doing "non-book" research (it feels like experimental archaeology, but for writing instead of "how did people do this?" :P)

So here you go:


First, Ethirin stopped by the kitchens. The cook listened to his whispered command and made the apple-bread. She held off from the sweets for so long, that those who knew nothing thought there was a celebration. Those who know ate their bread in tiny, somber bites.
After the bread found its way to their hands, the rebels moved. First they overran and defeated, the overseers. Next, they marched toward the factories.
By the time Ethirin reached the slave market, the battle began in earnest. At first, he stayed to the shadows, out of site. The Imperial soldiers appeared in the square. They wore gray leather sewn with black thread. A crown of ice embroidered at their breast. While Ethirin's men encouraged a pseudo-riot, the soldiers marched into square in formation. Then, the slaves, brought to Imperial Kordic from all over the globe, dropped sticks and rocks.
Silence. And from the barrels, strapped bellow benches, tucked away in tidy corners, each man and woman found a weapon. Then, they fell into their own sort of formation, with the Imperial Soldiers trapped in the center. So few compared to Ethirin's many.
He pulled two swords from the undercarriage of a hay wagon, and when he stood, he called: “Thea!” Home. What they fought for.
Ethirin moved forward. His steps in sync with his men. The imperial soldiers fell into a defensive circle, standing shoulder to shoulder. The first to engage Ethirin raised his sword a bit high. Ethirin dodged below swiping one blade across the man's wrist, severing the artery. Etherin's opponent dropped his sword, clamping his left hand around his right wrist to staunch the bleeding. But he still advanced. Ethirin rolled under the man's reach as the soldier tried to lift the heavy sword in his left hand. Ethirin jabbed his right sword through the man's left foot and pinned him to the ground. He swiped his second sword to the right and sliced the larger soldier's right thigh. The man crumpled, and two men fell on him as they squeezed in to prevent the slaves' advance.
Ethirin didn't try to block. He was short, and raised to fight monsters these soldiers had never seen. He raised his right sword to meet the blow, but moved with it. He carried the lunge into the second foe. The two soldiers stared at each other in surprise. But the soldiers' arm was still extended, his blade embedded in his fellow's lung. Ethirin pierced his left sword into the man's armpit, and heaved through. The tip nicked chain mail on the top of the shoulder. Both men fell over together.
Ethirin pulled his swords clean. He looked from side to side, but only his men stood. Fewer. So many fewer. But this was only one fight in the larger battle.
“To Castle Koarv,” he told Darrim when the man met his eye.
“To Castle Koarv.”