Forrest wrote:
Looking again, and considering her bum leg, it appears an earlier comment is right; she spellcasts to her left and attacks (clockwise) to her right. Warrel must have walked around behind her back to the other side (walking in front of her would have put him in her sword's path), noticed her sword about to be where he now was, turned around and walked over behind her again, and attacked.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened in Panel 5 on Monday, though. I mean, yeah, leg hit, but... what exactly are we looking at in that panel? What's that boomerang-shaped thing?
Here is what you are looking at in that panel, from upper left to lower right:
-- Sarine's left side, at belt level.
-- Sarine's left arm.
-- Sarine's left hip. Note the hilt of the short sword sticking up.
-- Sarine's left thigh. Poe's cuts are never as deep as they seem to be on first view. Dramatic license.
-- Sarine's left knee, padded. The black shadows to the left are her coat tails, not her right leg. The point of Warrel's spear is down and to the left of the kneepad.
Last, Desperate Overanalysis
Monday Panels
(1) Sarine in a guard position, facing Warrel. Her feet are apart. She had both hands on her sword previously, but now is holding it with her left hand, low and in front of her right thigh. Her left side is less obstructed for Warrel's spear, if he "freezes" her using time-fugue. She has some sort of magical haze floating. Sarine has turned her torso to the right and her right hand is forming a spell behind the partial screen of her face and left shoulder.
(2) Warrel charges, spear point held up above his right shoulder, his right hand on the forward (pointed) end of his grip.
(3) Warrel time-fugues. I believe he has brought the spear point down at this point.
(4) Warrel cuts Sarine's left thigh from time-stop.
(5) Warrel is past Sarine. It appears that he now has his
left hand forward on the spear. This means he dropped the point by letting go with his left hand, rotating the spear point-down with his right, and then re-gripping with his left hand for the slice attack. He could have any amount of lethal or maiming damage to Sarine he cared to. He chose to hold the spear well off her left side and push the tip of it through the meat of her left thigh. If he'd cut through the bone, Sarine would have hit the floor.
(6) Sarine sags down as her left leg looses strength. She is turning to her left to face Warrel, her left arm swung out behind her for balance--you can see a piece of it under Warrel's speech bubble. Her sword must be in her right hand, off-panel, so she switched hands as she tried to regain her balance. I assume that she did not keep the spell focus from the first panel, or Warrel would have attacked her without pausing to chat. We cannot see Sarine's right leg, but it would have to be folded and under her center of mass to make her next maneuver possible. Note: the side of Warrel's chest is visible and is scarred but healed shut. Pretty good healing magic, at that. He certainly isn't favoring it at any point.
(7) Warrel gloats, while Sarine is flabbergasted. Warrel appears to be about four feet away from Sarine.
Wednesday
(1) It took me a while to sort this one out. Sarine has thrown her left hand up in Warrel's face and triggered a flash spell. The left side of her body is below the flash, her left ear to the left of the flash. She is both turning and leaning away from the flash with her right knee brought up under her body for a jump move. Sarine is avoiding the obvious maneuver, which would be to stab at Warrel. It looks is though she is both trying to blind him and attempting a feint, making it look like she is jumping away.
(2) For Sarine to do this move at all, she had to be using both legs. Probably hurt like hell. It looks like she has done a hop and complete spin around to her right, unfolding into a fencing lunge. Since she looses sight of Warrel when she does this, it makes sense for her to sweep the area with her duras flama. If Warrel is moving blind from the flash, he could easily fall in the arc of her swing. If he is extraordinarily fast and not blinded, all Sarine can do is cover a large arc with her sword and hope he makes a mistake. Otherwise, the maneuver is too slow to do any good. As it happens, nothng Sarine does matters. Warrel reacts instantly to Sarine's spell, time-stopping and moving around to be behind her when she comes out of her spin. He is not as bad at this dueling as some people have suggested.
(3) Warrel does the same precision slice from down to up as he did on his first attack. He could have killed her any number of ways, but did not. Again, if Poe's wounds were as bad as they are dramatized on first view, Sarine should be dead or paralyzed and mortally wounded. The spine is just below the skin on someone as thin as she is.