Boots came across the wet brick toward his head.
Trafalgar heard them through the helm and through the ringing. Four unhurried steps, a man walking to a piece of work rather than closing on an enemy. He could see out of one eye, and what he could see was the grey haft coming down point-first at the back of his neck.
He didn't get up. Getting up took a full second and he had less than that.
He rolled onto his shoulder, drove Maledicta's point into the floor, and poured everything left into the steel until the air above the blade vibrated and the dust started hopping. [Morgain's Last Dusk]
The cut went up from the floor on a rising diagonal.
It split the space in front of it with a thin rising note, and the lance point that should have gone through his spine met the edge of it and stopped being a lance point. Six inches of head sheared off and spun into the dark. The rest of the cut kept going.
It opened Rhavel from the left hip across the ribs and out under the arm.
