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A loud, wet noise heralded the connection of blade to flesh and the massive beast literally dropped to the ground bellowing with legs that suddenly lost their function.
Sheelal could not help but admire the female's precision—she had managed to position herself perfectly such that she was able to penetrate two specific points on the mumuu's back; there, aside from severing several nerve ganglia that helped operate the creature's mighty limbs, was a direct route to the mumuu's twin hearts.
Any injury there would leave the mumuu crippled, and with potentially mortal trauma.
He watched the woman assess her dying foe.
The mumuu was still roaring in a mix of agony and aggression even as its lifeblood was pooling around it, staining the forest floor crimson.
Sheelal could have sworn that he saw admiration in the woman's eyes—admiration for a foe who would not give up even in the face of death—something he himself would have felt had he been in her place.
The female warrior then grasped both of her swords, still embedded in the mumuu's muscular back and thrust them home, cleaving through both of its hearts and killing the beast instantly.
A clean kill, Sheelal thought, unaware that he had said the words out loud.
The female warrior did not miss it.
Quickly, she whipped out a slugthrower pistol from a bandoleer similar to his own and pointed it at the bush where he was hiding.
"SHOW YOURSELF!" she shouted.
He paused for a moment, still unsure of what had happened and whether or not he should reveal himself to this unknown warrior.
The female though was of a different opinion—something she reflected by firing a shot that missed Sheelal's face by a few inches.
That certainly helped make up his mind.
Damn this! He thought as he stepped out of the brush one hand held up in a gesture of neutrality.
"I yield. I mean you no harm."
The female warrior's eyes widened in surprise for a moment when saw who had stepped out of the jungle.
But only for a moment.
Then she let out a small laugh and withdrew her pistol.
"Khan Sheelal," she said in a naturally melodious voice, "this would be the last place I would expect to meet the legend in the flesh."
It was no surprise to him that she knew who he was. All Kaleesh knew him due to his heroic deeds in the ongoing war and practically venerated him.
I could do well without the latter though he thought blankly.
He shook himself back into form and straightened himself, "Good day to you as well, my lady—"
"I am no lady" the female interrupted, turning away from him to extract her blades from the dead mumuu.
An attitude this one has...he thought, slightly irritated.
"I refer to you as 'my lady' as a courtesy. I know not who you are."
The female warrior did not look at him as she responded, cleaning blood and gore from her swords with a scrap of oilcloth.
"My name is Warrior."
"Now you're just being rude," Sheelal harrumphed.
It was only then that the woman from Grendaju turned to face him as she slid both her swords into their sheaths.
The expression of her golden eyes suggested wry amusement.
"Tell you what, my Lord," she said coyly with sarcastic emphasis on the title, "I would tell you all you wish to know on one condition."
Sheelal raised an eyebrow beneath his own mask, "That being?"
"We spar," she said, her slender red scaled hands grasping her lig swords lightly, "defeat me, and I am all yours."
"And if you win?"
"Then I keep you guessing," she teased.
Sheelal felt his irritation turn into admiration at this woman's gutsiness.
"Done," he firmly stated, drawing his own swords, "it seems the gods deem this so."
The female momentarily looked perplexed as she drew her own blades, "the gods?"
Feeling playful, Sheelal smirked, "You're not the only with secrets."
The woman let out a small laugh, recognizing that he just bested her at her own game.
It was a sound the khan found most pleasing to his ears.
This should be interesting...he thought excitedly, and immediately did the warrior from Grendaju enter on the offensive.
After a few minutes of matching her blade-to-blade, Sheelal immediately recognized her skill. She was a swordswoman of the highest order, possessed of natural, prodigious talent that was the envy of warriors everywhere.
As a fellow bladesmaster, Sheelal could not help but admire the perfection of the unorthodox nature of her fighting style.
She did not meet him head-on—possibly because she knew that he was physically stronger—and instead danced around his blades, parrying his own in perfect sync while retaliating with flurries of light but blindingly fast thrusts and ripostes that the khan could barely anticipate.
It was simply a kind of fighting which he was not accustomed to.
His frustrated strikes more often landed not on the edge of her blades, but through air or the jungle undergrowth.
Skilled as he was, he knew that if anyone was observing their bout he would ultimately look a sloppy novice.
He understood then that he had to change his tactics from strength to guile if they were to make this little dance edge over in his favour.
He attempted to fall back as she pressed on with her offensive, attempting to draw her into the false conclusion that he had begun to tire.
Just a little more...Sheelal thought as he maintained his defence.
If the woman thought that his sudden change of plan was unusual, she showed no acknowledgment of it.
Come on...do it! he thought, while purposefully giving the woman an opening in his defence he hoped she would take.
With a precise, near-effortless flick of her wrist, the female warrior managed to slap away the lig sword from Sheelal's left hand not knowing that that was precisely what he had hoped she would do.
Letting go of his remaining sword, the khan grabbed the woman's wrists as she attempted to bring them down on him.
Now it has her turn to struggle as she attempted to wrest away from Sheelal's grasp.
He did not give her any chance.
Delivering a headbutt that sent her reeling backward, he immediately followed through with a kick aimed at her torso. He hoped that it would be enough to disarm her and then he would follow through by tackling her to the ground to end the bout.
His kick connected even as the female warrior attempted to defend herself using her armoured forearms. She reeled backward even more, with her arms flying backward as well due to the force of his kick.
You're mine! He thought, already savouring his victory that he had failed to notice that both of the woman's swords remained firmly in her grasp.
And so Sheelal tackled her not knowing that she was prepared.
As the both fell down on the jungle's musty undergrowth she used their momentum to flip him over just as he fell on top of her.
He could not even yelp in surprise at that sudden turning of the tables.
By the time Sheelal realized he had been outmaneuvred, the female warrior was sitting atop his chest, his arms pinned under her legs and both of her lig swords crossed at his throat.
He knew he was beaten.
"I yield...my lady," he panted.
The woman let out a satisfied chuckle and got to her feet.
Sheelal had a thousand questions to ask her, right off the top of his head.
But as he rose from the musty jungle floor, he saw that she had already gone.