They are back facing each other, just as it was a minute ago; except that each is where the other was standing a moment before. Except too, for the ravine of blood that runs round two-thirds of the highwaymaid's left thigh. To her credit the outlaw doesn't act is if it affects her at all but Stendahl knows that no degree of stoicism can counteract the bloodloss or even, entirely, the pain and the impairment.
« Well hit! That's paid me for playing cock o the walk. » the girl quips, wry-faced, as she raises her sword to salute him again. Then they resume the fray and Stendahl isn't afraid anymore; he's faring well: her agility, alacrity, dexterity and energy are draining away, momentarily. In this moment too, he's well placed to put into play his secret weapon. He gives a strange, stuttering cry; causing the horse's hoof to hammer into the highwaymaid ... sending her stunned form flying, as if the entire coach has crashed into her. The girl it is that comes crashing down, in a crumpled heap by the side of the coach. Somehow, she still keeps her sword squeezed tight in her fist, for all the good it will do her. Axed to the ground her rib-cracked carcass convulses and she's entirely helpless, at that instant — an instant he is swift to seize.
Age encumbered, he can no longer stoop to stab a fallen foe. However, her head has hit home midway between the wooden wheel and his brass-bound boots. She still has her wits about her and knows well what is coming. He doesn't disappoint: booting brutally into the side of her head and bouncing it off of the wheel; setting her skull to rebound right back at his boot; letting him lash her head into the wheel, yet again; for another ricochet back to his brassed-boot — and on and around, again and again. Steadily kicking her senseless, he knows it can't be long before bone and flesh break against brass and timber.
Suddenly he stops; toes stubbing against spokes — the girl is not there. She's gotten her own foot up against the rim of the wheel and boosted herself backwards, shooting along on her spine, and is well out of his orbit; before he's more than barely aware that she's become absent. A distance apart, she's able to find her feet and face him again. Bobbing and weaving she awaits him; but this is no bareknuckle match and this is no tactic of hers ... only a dazed and desperate dance to keep her dizzy body upright. Stendahl has no doubt what his tactic must be and launches a swordstorm of slashes against her, shredding her tunic to scarlet and black. He hasn't the wind that he once had; so he wants to wound the groggy girl as much as he can, while he can. By launching this assault he's sure to be short of breath by the time she comes to her senses but he hopes that, by then, it'll be far too late for the highwaymaid.