The Doomwalker gave Tarrin a long, searching look, then he stood up straight and drew its sword from its scabbard. "Jegojah thinks the Were-cat would have done it already, if he could, yes. Clever ye be to try to limit Jegojah to equal the battlefield." It regarded him with those eerie red eyes. "Clever ploy, Were-cat, clever indeed, but Jegojah does not fear defeat. Jegojah will simply come back again and again." It pointed its sword at Tarrin, and the Were-cat hunched down and held out his staff, preparing to dodge. He remembed the last time Jegojah pointed his sword at him like that. But this time, nothing happened. "Jegojah respects ye, yes, ye be a worthy opponent, and no easy victory will be won over ye. With pride will Jegojah remember this victory."

"Fine," Tarrin hissed, laying his ears back. There wasn't time to be disappointed. It just meant that if Jegojah used magic, Tarrin would have to risk using his own in return. "But you have to beat me first."

Jegojah saluted Tarrin with his sword as the Were-cat hunched down, feeling the Cat rise up in his mind. He accepted it, allowed it to merge with his human half to form a unified whole against such a dangerous threat. Fangs bared, Tarrin hissed menacingly as his eyes lighted from within with the greenish radiance that marked his anger. He lunged forward with inhuman speed, staff leading, but the Doomwalker moved with equal inhuman speed to intercept it. The sound of wood on steel, a hollow thuk, rang loudly in Tarrin's ears as a furious battle rage welled up in him. Holding his staff at one end and wielding it like a two-handed sword, Tarrin assaulted Jegojah furiously, mindlessly, smashing at it with all the strength he could muster. Tarrin attacked it like an unthinking animal, and that was exactly what he wanted Jegojah to believe. The last time they fought, Tarrin had lost control, and he had paid for it. He was hoping that the Doomwalker would take the bait and think that he'd snapped almost immediately. Sword and shield kept the staff away from its body, but the effort to maintain its defense against such savage power was clear in its movements. With viper-like speed it retaliated, stabbing at Tarrin's belly after a broad stroke with the staff, but the Were-cat twisted aside easily, spun into the turn as he brought up his foot, and smashed it into the rotting face of the undead creature with claws leading.

Jegojah staggered back, touching its face with the gauntleted back of its sword hand, then gave a raspy cackle. "Clever, clever Were-cat. Ye be full of surprises."

"I'm just a surprise a minute," Tarrin hissed, hunkering down with his staff in the middle-grip. "I'm not the half-trained boy you fought before. I've been taught by the best."

"Jegojah will enjoy the challenge, then," it cackled, then it waded back in.

There was no feeling out this battle. They had faced one another before, and Tarrin already knew the Doomwalker's strengths and weaknesses. The fact that he had no weaknesses was the problem. He was fast, agile, powerful, and impeccably trained in fighting. He came in with a complicated series of slashes and thrusts that Tarrin remembered from the first battle, parrying or evading each one as it came in, but the Doomwalker turned and smashed Tarrin with his shield when he was expecting a high shallow slash in from the weak side. Tarrin was pushed back a few paces, then snapped his head back just out of range as Jegojah's sword came for his nose in a powerful swipe. He felt the very tip of it ghost against the tip of his nose as it whizzed by. Tarrin pivoted from his off-balance position to the side, letting the momentum balance him as he brought up a foot to kick Jegojah's shield. The move drove the Doomwalker back out and out of position for a backswing, but Tarrin's tail came around behind his leg and went low, the tip of it just hitting the undead creature in the ankle. It was enough to take the foot out from under it, spilling the Doomwalker to the side, making it stagger to recover its balance. Tarrin had his staff in an end-grip to take advantage of the distance between them, pointing the tip at Jegojah as it regained itself.

It was unfazed by the strike, coming right at him with no fear of the weapon. Tarrin blocked a series of powerful strokes, coming at him from every angle and with so much speed that he couldn't organize himself to strike back. He lunged aside as it tried to stab him in the chest, then he hissed in pain when the Doomalker stopped the thrust and slashed him across the torso. The slash wasn't deep, but it went from his ribs on the right all the way to his left hip, over the white lines left by Triana's claws. The cut burned angrily, telling him that as before, it would not heal immediately.

The last fight came back to him, and he realized that Jegojah was going to fight the same strategy. Wear him down with a multitude of weak hits and nicks, whittle away his endurance bit by bit until he was either weak enough to finish off, or he snapped and lost control, which would make him easier to kill. The sword. It was everything in this fight. He absolutely had to get that sword out of the Doomwalker's hands, because without it, it was at a serious disadvantage. Unarmed, Tarrin could easily overwhelm the undead monster.

Tarrin bided his time, defending and blocking, keeping himself out of harm's way with training and speed. He fell back on Allia's training, becoming a reed in the wind, supple and flexible. Jegojah's sword couldn't find him, for he was always just outside of its range, just to the side of it, always very close but never quite close enough to touch. He waited until Jegojah tried to stab him again, stepping back and using his staff's length to make the Doomwalker back off, to force him to thrust.

And it came. At the end of another complicated and admittedly exceptional series of complex slashes and movements designed to confuse an opponent into defending high, then come in with a stab at the belly. Tarrin slithered aside again as the thrust sought his belly, but this time he snapped his staff up across his twisting direction, a powerful underhanded parry to the thrust that hit the Doomwalker right in the wrist. The hand was smashed upwards, the sword going with it, and Tarrin instantly reversed the direction of his move, going from a strong underhanded motion to a wickedly powerful overhanded chop, smashing the wrist again on the other side. The power in the blow would have taken the hand right off a human, but the Doomwalker's skeletal hand remained affixed to its wrist. But even its inhuman strength was not enough to keep hold of the sword's hilt as it was jarred in one direction, then the other. The wire-bound hilt came out of its hand, skittering a few times on the stone before coming to rest at the edge of the wharf.

Jegojah's answer to that was to grab the staff and drag Tarrin forward, then slam its helmeted head right into Tarrin's face. His ears rang and his vision blurred as he staggered back, and he put a paw to his face and shook his head to clear the ringing and the cobwebs. He cleared his vision in time to see the Doomwalker pick up its sword, then point it at him across the distance.

He knew it was coming. His legs coiled and then exploded, carrying him up and out of the path of the lightning bolt as it erupted from the tip of the sword. He landed on the top of a stack of old crates, hearing them groan and shift under his weight, looking down the ten spans at the Doomwalker as its red eyes tracked his movement. "Jegojah be impressed," it said in its raspy voice. "Better ye are since the last time, yes. Better, but not smarter."

Jegojah raised his foot. Tarrin remembered that one too, so he jumped again, well into the air and well clear as the Doomwalker's foot hit the ground and created a powerful shockwave that raced towards him at blinding speed. It hit the stack of crates and smashed them off the wharf, crushing them and scattering shards of wood into the wide bay. High in the air, thirty spans over the Doomwalker, Tarrin coiled up like a spring, then exploded into motion. He came around in the air and whipped an arm out, the arm holding the staff, and he threw it like a spear. His innate understanding of where he was in the air relative to the ground gave him deadly aim, and the tip of the staff shot down at the Doomwalker like a quarrel shot from a crossbow.