In the top lane, the fight was no longer a match. It was a butcher's floor.
Baines came at Lysandra with his axe swinging in a brutal horizontal arc, the blade whistling through the air. She ducked under it, felt the wind tear at her hair, and drove one rod into the side of his knee. The crack of bone was sharp and wet. Baines roared, stumbled, but the berserker rage was fully lit now. Pain was fuel. He didn't go down. He swung again, wilder, faster, the axe reversing direction in a backhand that should have caught her across the throat. She dropped flat, felt the blade pass over her skull, and drove the second rod into his other knee. He collapsed to the stone, both legs screaming, blood pooling under him.
