The Dancer loomed over us, her flaming blade poised to shatter our frail bodies; yet we remained unmoved. I lunged, the broad edge of my greatsword grinding against her slender, crooked weapon. Or'do surged in to my left, his sword grating against her abdomen with a horrid crack of sundering armour and shattering bone. She screamed in anguish, stumbling back and slashing wide, catching me beneath the arm, and hurling Or'do aside like nothing more than a child's plaything abandoned in sudden disinterest.

Silent he lay, dark blood curling ominously over his parched lips, his breath ragged and haggard. Pain blazed like a river of fire beneath my arm, yet all the same, I staggered back to my feet, listing badly and hunched as if my spine rather than my shoulder had been shattered. Agony rolled out from my fractured clavicle, flowing into the inferno of mangled flesh and ground bone that remained where I had once boasted an arm. I reached for my Estus flask, yet she gave me no respite, twisting her entire body as she lunged, her momentum driving that titanic blade against my flesh with devastating power, turning my breath to marbles of broken glass that seared my throat with each gasp.

Or'do cried out in rage, and lowering his Estus flask, whose soothing warmth still clung to his lips, and glowed calmly within his throat, he bellowed a challenge. The flames in his eyes emboldened me, and with a defiant scream I surged back to my feet, forsaking the comfort of Estus to strike in the Dancer's moment of confusion and perhaps fear.

My blade crunched against her shoulder, throwing her to the stones with a satisfying crack! She struggled and gasped, clawing the flagstones in desperation, yet her moment of weakness was all my comrade needed: his blade an arc brighter than the rising Sun, he sprang. Like a scythe of blinding radiance, the greatsword slashed through her neck, and with one last shuddering spasm, the Dancer fell into Death's eternal shadow.