That seemed to be the best course of action. There were too many to fight, even for him. He may have his Were-cat speed and power, but those were silvered weapons, and he could take no chances that a lucky stroke would put him down. He had to protect Miranda. Stepping back from her, he closed his eyes and changed form, feeling the ache vanish as his body returned to its natural state. Staying behind the crates, as Miranda looked on, Tarrin reached out for the Weave-

– -and was suddenly assaulted by it! Power flooded into him at a rate that shocked him to the core, a rate that defied the magical balance of the area. There just weren't enough strands to support the amount of power he was drawing. He didn't have time to think about where it was coming from, because he was almost immediately struggling against it. It was too much, too fast! Control was out the window in a heartbeat, and Tarrin's mind floated within a realm of pure magical energy. But the Cat reacted where Tarrin's mind was incapable of doing so, beating back the magical onslaught to the point where his rational mind could respond to the crisis. He had to sever himself, and he had to do it now, or he was going to die.

It was the hardest thing he ever did in his life. It was like trying to chop down a tree with a butter knife. But he managed to turn the power flooding him against itself, using the power to choke off the rampaging inundation trying to fill him, until he cut the connection. The backlash defied description, a blasting wave of pain that started in his soul and lashed out through his body, extending past his body to generate a short blast wind that stirred up the dust around him, knocked Miranda from her feet, and toppled the stack of crates behind which they were crouching.

Panting, disoriented, Tarrin sagged towards the ground, trying to clear the cobwebs. What had just happened?

He recovered his wits just in time to see the point of a sword trying to stab him through the eye.

Moving with a speed that startled his attackers, Tarrin smacked the sword aside by hitting the flat of the blade with his paw. He felt the burning sting in that touch. The weapon was silvered. He was on his feet in an instant, hulking over the men filling the alley, eyes radiating that greenish aura that so clearly marked his anger. He struck again at the man that tried to kill him before he could recover, slashing his paw down with all five claws out. The savage blow hit the man in the forehead, claws shearing into bone as his inhuman power slammed down through the man's skull. Tarrin's claws literally ripped the man's face off as they travelled down through the face, then ripped huge lines in the man's chest before his claws came free of flesh just below the breastbone. The man went down, smashed down to the place where he had been standing. Tarrin shook the tatters of flesh, hair, and bits of bone out of the hooks of his claws and gave the remaining men an evil look, and that made the others hesitate a moment.

Tarrin extended the claws on his other paw and hunkered down into a wide-pawed stance, eyes blazing in his anger and a savage snarl twisting his expression. Ears back, tail straight out behind him, fangs bared, he dared them to come within his reach by growling deep in his throat.

"What are ye waitin' fer!" a man near the back called. "Ye got the swords, an' he knows it! Kill 'im!"

The two in the front rushed forward as Miranda quickly crawled behind Tarrin, swords leading. They slashed at him and stabbed at him at the same time, but Tarrin's paws whipped out to intercept them. The manacles on his wrists suddenly became more than decorations, as he used them to parry the deadly silvered swords, letting their killing edges strike the black steel of the heavy manacles and using his strength to push them out of danger. The two men were good, very good, using their weapons in a complementary fashion that didn't give Tarrin the time to strike back with his paws, and kept both his feet solidly on the ground to keep his balance. The chiming sound of steel on steel rang through the alley as the Were-cat feverishly kept those killing swords at bay, blocking them with the manacles, smacking at the flats of blades with open paws, and evading whenever he could. The two men worked in conjunction to keep him off balance, prevent him from using his power, forcing him to rely on his speed to keep himself out of harm's way. But the two men began to show clear frustration that they couldn't reach the unarmed adversary, that no matter how clever or intricate they were with their feints and stabs, he could always intercept the blades before they reached his skin. They didn't understand that Tarrin had been specifically trained for unarmed combat by Allia, Binter, and Sisska, that he had a keen understanding of how to use his Were gifts to be the equal of an armed opponent. Humans that were well trained to fight were dangerous, as these two men admittedly were, but their fatal flaw against him was that they could not match his speed. Tarrin fell back on the training he received, keeping their weapons away from him, making them get impatient or angry and make that fatal mistake that would let him turn the tables on them.

And it came. The man on the left stabbed at him as the man on the right raised his sword over his head in preparation of a vicious overhanded blow that Tarrin could not hope to parry with only one arm. But Tarrin had one more limb, a limb longer than all his others. As he parried a savage overhanded chop from the man on his left with both paws crossed to catch its edge in a V formed by the manacles, Tarrin's tail lashed out from between his own legs and swept up between the legs of the man on his left, who was pulling his sword back to stab at him again. His tail slammed into the crotch of the man on the right, who immediately winced, cried out, and sagged towards the ground with his knees locked together and both hands cupping his injured groin. Tarrin used that space to wrest the sword caught between his wrists to the right, then brought up his left foot and planted it in the man's belly with enough force to rupture internal organs, sending him flying back into the men behind him and giving Tarrin a precious few seconds to prepare for the next wave. The sword dropped, but Tarrin caught it by the hilt even as his tail wrapped around the hilt of the sword the other man dropped, pulling it up into his paw. The swords' hilts were almost too small for his oversized paws to hold, but he had enough space with which to work.

These were not opponents he could fight hand to paw without taking a wound. They were very well trained, very good fighters, and he afforded them the respect they deserved. He needed the cushion of space a weapon would provide.

An armed Tarrin advanced slightly, so that anyone trying to step over the bodies of the men in front would have to dodge his swords while they did it.

"Who's next?" he asked in a cold voice.

They rushed forward immediately, coming over the two bodies by stepping on them, and Tarrin met them. They found out, to their shock and dismay, that Tarrin was more than competent with swords, even wielding two at once, and his inhuman power made trying to fence with him a deadly proposition. Single parries and killing blows felled the first two to come over the bodies, as the power in the parry knocked each man out of position and set him up for the killing stroke. Allia was a master of two-weapon combat, and she had taught some of that technique to her brother. He now used that, falling back on forms she had taught him on how to move with and use the two swords to maximize the confusion and uncertainty of his opponents. They never knew which would strike first, or how or when the second sword would strike like a viper at them while they were still engaged with the first.

Tarrin cut down four more men in a fast, furious flurry of striking swords, cutting flesh, and agonized screams, until a knee-high knot of bloody bodies separated him from them. The two men in front suddenly lunged towards the walls, opening a space between them right in the middle of the alley. That was when he saw the crossbow. He desperately slashed across his body even as the weapon discharged at him, hitting the heavy quarrel in midair as it buzzed angrily right for his heart and deflecting it to the side. The edged head of the quarrel sliced across his upper left arm, leaving a bloodly line across it and creating a burning, stinging wound that he could feel was quite different from anything he had ever had before. He reared back and threw the sword in his right paw back down that line, between the front men that had moved aside to let the crossbowman get a clear shot. It hit the man pommel first, but it struck him right between the eyes, caving in the skull and making both of his eyes pop out of their sockets.