Miles catches the warrior's ax head hooked over the rim of his shield, and tears it from his grip with a sharp jerk upwards. Only a moment later, Eliver throws his right shoulder behind his shield and throws that, with his significantly smaller mass behind it, into the saxon's own shield, thrusting his sword around and into the warrior's belly with his left hand at the same time. The ram and the wound together cause him to slip onto deck, now slick with more than seawater. The battle now at an end, there is nothing and no one to prevent Eliver's sword-tip as it plunges down and up into his belly like a needle through a handkerchief.
With a long chest-crossing windup and the guttural war cry of a womanly warrior, Elspeth swings down and cleaves cleanly through the cur's neck. In a moment of grim and unusual synchronicity, Terwynn does the exact same thing at the exact same time. Both heads topple off and then roll across the deck with the swaying of the ship.
Once Leiryn begins punching, it is not an easy thing for him to stop. He climbs atop the ceorl, drops his shield, and puts both hands toward the endeavor, swinging one after the other with the full force of his pivoting chest. When the fog clears, the battle is clearly over, he is sheening with sweat, his hands are bruised and bleeding, and the man's face is unrecognizable.
The Salisbury knights stand upon the deck of a saxon longship, now completely devoid of living Saxons. Not far off, the rest of the enemy fleet has fared only slightly better, and now withdraws north with heavy casualties, seemingly headed to the mouth of the Colne river. A victorious cheer goes up from the other ships. A significant portion, started from the same ship and carried to the others, take up the chant "Wylye! Wyley! Wylye!". They are right to do so, no other ship has done this well, to counter-board a ship twice it's size and massacre all aboard, while taking no casualties. From not far off, Prince Madoc raises his own bloodied sword in salute, whether it is directed towards the entire ship or Sir Miles personally, it is ambiguous. No cheer goes up in Leiryn's name, but a few knights and several of the sailors take it in turn to personally pat him on the back for his keen aim in dispatching the captain.
The longboat is quickly stripped of all its valuables, and once the vanquishers have taken what they can from their vanquished, the rest is shared commonly. Thus each knight (and Leiryn) receives £1 extra.
Miles takes £2, 10s from the Berserker, 5s from the Ceorl (£3, 15s)
Elspeth takes 5s loot from each of the two Ceorls (£1, 10s)
Leiryn takes £5 from the Captain, 5s from each Ceorl (£6, 10s)
Eliver takes £2, 10s from the Thegn, 15s from the Warrior. (£4, 5s)
Terwynn takes 15s from the Warrior, 5s from the Ceorl (£2)
Once the ship is cleared of valuables, it is cast adrift and torches are flung into it, setting both the vessel and the bodies of it's crew alight.
Before long, a horn is sounded and the drums are beat. The fleet sails up the Colne river to pursue and put a end to the Essex fleet. They find the longships drawn up along the far end of a beach that closely precedes the ancient fortress town of Camulodunum, once the capitol of Roman Britain, now called Colchester by its new Saxon overlords. The Saxons have drawn up a battle line in front of their ships, with the clear intent to give the Cymri another hard fight for their ships before retreating behind the ingenious roman walls. at their back. The Prince accepts their challenge, has the fleet draw up on the near side of the beach, and orders the knights into a matching battle line, placing himself in the front and center.
This encounter will be treated as a Skirmish, and will be using the new skirmish system I've laid out in the OOC thread.
Step 1: You declare your Approach (Bold, Orderly, Hesitant)
Step 2: I determine enemies.
Ste 3: You declare your stance (Aggressive, Balanced, Defensive), and whether you want to Invoke a passion.
Step 4: We do two rounds of combat.