The moment Weiss dropped the shroud, pandemonium struck. Yang wasted no time launching straight at the leader, using a gout of flame to boost her above his tall horse, smashing his face with the cup of her reverse-gripped dagger. His Aura shuddered, holding strong, but he was indecisive in whether he should draw his saber to fend her off, allowing the Huntress to land a flurry of unceasing blows at his unarmored head. His Aura flared out quickly under the barrage, and a headbutt from Yang sent him limply falling from his saddle.
Yang reached out as he fell, dropping her dagger in favor of wrapping her fingers around the falling man's sheathed saber, drawing the long blade as he collapsed to the dirt. With her other hand, she blasted the riders on her left with a scorching cone of flames.
Blake was faring just as well, and with a degree of grace that Weiss found herself begrudgingly respecting. Triplet knives flew from her hand, forcing the rider on the furthest right flank to duck lest he be granted additional nostrils. Blake took this opportunity to advance on him in a sudden, inhuman burst of speed, ducking under one rider's clumsily-swept saber as she pursued her target.
Watching the exchange, Weiss felt altogether useless, that is until a rider— the one Blake had to dodge a slash from— noticed her standing helplessly. With a kick of his spurs, his towering steed charged at the heiress.
Weiss was quite familiar with horses— she and Winter often went riding during the summer months in Atlas— but her familiarity ended at their implementation as weapons. She'd never faced one of those creatures as a steel-laden battering ram, its black eyes boring into her as its hooves pounded with murderous intent. It was only at the last possible moment that she gathered her wits about herself, her memory sparking with the war stories she'd found in her books— one in particular that involved an archer battalion's defense against an overwhelming cavalry charge.
Weiss' hand quickly rose as she tapped into her preferred element of magic, causing wintry wisps to streak out of her hands and blow past her lips. With no Dust on hand, she was forced to draw water from the surrounding soil, rapidly causing a wide circle of grass around her to lose color and wilt as long stakes of ice formed at her front.
The horse let out a panicked cry and, faced with imminent impalement, came to a sudden stop. The rapid halt threw the rider fully from his saddle, sending him flying straight for Weiss' frozen stakes— she rushed to dispel them, but she was too slow. Thankfully, he struck them on the strong bands of plate about his abdomen, and remained unimpaled. When he hit the ground, Weiss could see that every band had broken or buckled, but he was still whole. She imagined these men weren't out to kill her outright, and was willing to extend that same courtesy.
Fortunately for her conscience, she was almost immediately distracted by the rest of the battle, and was spared the sight of the man vomiting thick gouts of blood.
Yang had fought on horseback before, but not against people, and her horses had a bad habit of dying when faced with the nightmare creatures of Grimm. Thankfully, that meant this particular horse was living up well beyond her expectations, and its thick steel barding meant she didn't have to worry about every stray swipe being her potential doom. As such, she fought with fervor and reckless abandon, gleefully taking hits to her Aura in exchange for dealing harder ones; the well of her soul had always been unusually vast, and years of training and fighting had only strengthened that.
Unfortunately, she wasn't invincible, as these two men were proving. She'd expected their horses to throw them when she blasted them with fire, but they had immediately retreated, drawing Yang with them. They had lured her a good distance from the group, giving them enough space to begin circling her with their spears, infrequently closing in to deliver tactical thrusts at her back, her head, and her steed's flanks. She swept out with her stolen saber, just managing to bat a spear away from her horse's unguarded flank.
But just as she repulsed the first strike, another came for her now-unguarded front, driving straight into her chest. The blow nearly forced her from the saddle, and she had to relinquish her saber to grab the horse and steady herself. Another thrust came at her side, making her Aura shudder, and another struck her in the back, forcing her face into the horse's mailed mane.
Disoriented from the strikes, she didn't know where the riders had gone until the heavy hooves thumped right up to her sides. She barely managed to straighten herself up in time to bend backwards under a pair of slashing sabers, but that didn't protect her from the gauntleted fists that followed straight into her stretched abdomen. Her overworked Aura was barely holding on, but Yang knew what to do, and it wouldn't be pretty.
Before she could waste any more time thinking, Yang sprang back up and clenched her arms tight to her chest, gritting her teeth as she forced her Aura outwards, then let it ignite with a shout.
Golden fire engulfed Yang's hands, immediately consuming the meager remnants of her Aura, then moving on to feast directly from her flesh. Her eyes blazed red as she reached out and snatched the incoming sabers, melting their blades in her infernal palms. The men, whose weapons had been reduced to dripping slag, turned and fled.
"Daemon!" One shouted as he spurred his horse.
"Monster!" Cried the other.
Yang sighed and let her arms fall limp out of exhaustion, forgetting they were still aflame. When the golden fire licked against her horse's side, it cried like mad and bucked her fully from the saddle, then raced off over the plains of Vale.
The Huntress landed hard, yelping as she felt her forearm snap under her own weight. But as much as she wanted to hold the broken limbs close, she forced her arms to straighten out, keeping the magical flames from burning anything else. Knowing it wouldn't help, she bit down on her screams and tried not to think of the inferno cooking both of her hands.
"Crook and cane, Yang!" Shouted Blake as she approached on horseback, the heiress following on her own steed. "Weiss, help her!"
Weiss raised her hands, but Yang's feverish shout stopped her, "No, don't! Don't…" she grit her teeth and hissed. "It's a contract… they'll go away on their own."
"W-what?" Blake appeared stunned, her bright eyes widening. "What kind of contract is that?"
"The kind firstborns get!" Yang cried in anguish as the flames surged, gorging themselves on her flesh until they were satisfied, then snuffing out just as quickly as they appeared. Yang was left with charred flesh up to her elbows, some sections burned all the way to her sallow fat. She slowly rose to her feet, throwing her head back as she hissed. "Oooooh fuck me, how am I still conscious."
"Explain," demanded Weiss.
Yang sent her a sneer. "Ancestral contract; firstborns can wield magic without an Aura, in exchange for half a stone of flesh—" she cried out as her Aura visibly flashed to life, aggressively replenishing her tissues as it resurged. Panting, she continued, "T-to be consumed… immediately upon… invocation… of the contract…"
Yang swayed on her feet, but Blake managed to wrap her chain around the Huntress, stabilizing her.
"Th-thanks, Blake," the Huntress mumbled, barely conscious. Blake came up beside her and dismounted so she could help Yang up to the saddle. When Blake settled back behind her and took the reins, Yang leaned into her.
Blake immediately turned bright purple and kicked her horse into a trot. "Come on, princess."
Weiss followed behind, with an unconscious Ruby laid across the saddle in front of her. As they kicked up to a gallop, Weiss barely managed to hear a sound over the wind.
Leaning back, with Blake's arm holding her waist steady, Yang snored.
AN: didn't think id update with just *one* chapter, didja?
