/palg/ay: part deux... or is it?

The jungle was days behind him, and as the underbrush ended, so too did the trail of the Rogue Spaniard. In the jungle, there were the crushed fronds and bent ferns to follow, but the hard packed dirt that served as the road was inscrutable. The only good thing about the situation also doubled as a bad thing – there were only two ways his quarry could have reasonably gone. On the other hand, if Sha Lin chose the wrong way, there was no telling if he would ever find the Rogue Spaniard again. There was really only one thing to do. Searching his bag, he brought out a coin and flipped it into the air. The bright sun caught, reflecting off the shimmering yellow surface briefly. Faster than the eye could see, Sha Lin's bow was off his back and an arrow was sent flying skyward. It struck the coin with a distinct metallic sound and flew out of sight. The coin was sent tumbling to the ground. Sha Lin walked over to it and bent down. His face was contorted with rage and his hands shook. As he grasped the coin, he attempted to silence his tumultuous emotion. The head side of the coin was marred by a gash. Sha Lin closed his fingers over it and started walking.
They came into sight near dusk the following day. A group of figures up ahead of him, just barely visible in the darkening gloom. Sha Lin registered their presence and continued walking. As he drew nearer, however, he slowed. Something wasn't right. There were cries of pain coming from the center of the group. He suddenly felt it prudent to vacate the road. Crouching down, Sha Lin continued forward through a swath of grass that ran parallel with the road. He watched intently for any sign that he had been heard by any of the group. So far, he hadn't. When he was within a few feet of them, he saw another figure on the ground. It was a woman. It took Sha Lin a few moments to realize what was happening. Her clothes were ripped and torn, revealing pale skin and a horrified face. Her breasts were bared, sweat running in rivulets down them. Dust also billowed around her. This was because she was struggling under a man nearly twice her size. His grin, no, his leer seemed to split his face lengthwise. There were raucous cheers from the others as the man pinned the woman to the ground and laughed.
“Yeah, teach tha' whore what's what!”
“Now this is what I've been missin'.”
“Go on then, Sal. Give us a show!”
The leering man leaned down to the woman in the dust. “I aim to please,” he said. He reached down with the hand not grasping the woman's throat.
Sha Lin didn't think. His bow was off his back once again and and arrow was knocked in record time. Before he pulled back on the string, he paused momentarily. There were eight men in total, including the one on top of the woman. Three faced away from him, but four of them would clearly see where a shot came from, should one be loosed. Sha Lin's grip tightened, and he drew back anyway. He took careful aim, a yellow aura forming around his arrow. A deadly calm settled over his face as he let the projectile fly. It passed in between two of the men and embedded itself in the soft neck tissue of the man on the ground. The force of the arrow was such that he was knocked several feet to the side, off of the woman. When he came to rest, slightly off the road, he clawed at his neck briefly, an expression of terror on his face. A gurgling sound escaped his mouth, his arms fell to the ground, and he was still.
There was a moment in which none of the standing men moved. Their faces were still painted with the mirth of the situation they had been in. How quickly the winds change, Sha Lin thought, knocking another arrow. As expected, one of the men facing the grass was the first to pinpoint where the arrow had come from. He pulled several throwing knives from his belt as another arrow tore its way from Sha Lin's position, taking one of them in the heart this time. Sha Lin knocked another arrow, and was about to loose it, but the knife wielding man let his own weapons fly. Sha Lin was forced to roll into the road to avoid them. He looked up, and saw a man with a bearded axe barreling down on him. There was no time to do anything else. The man was upon him in seconds, and slashed from shoulder to hip. Only, there was no blood. Instead, bits of sand gave way and were blown away from the blow. The man blinked in surprise as the image of Sha Lin slowly faded into more sand and was gone. The arrow ripped through the man's stomach and continued on, coming to rest in another man's foot, pinning it to the ground.
Sha Lin appeared, seemingly from nowhere, as the man with the stomach wound collapsed. The remaining men – save the one with the injured foot – each brought out their own weapons and advanced on Sha Lin. He reached for another arrow, but his fingers closed on thin air. Never taking his eyes from the figures coming at him in the darkness, he bent down, slowly setting his bow on the road. Seeing this, the four approaching men smiled and jeered at him. Sha Lin's face was still a blank mask, devoid of any emotion at all. He pulled a short knife from a sheath in the small of his back and made ready to engage his opponents.
The first one to reach him wielded a longsword, and used its superior reach to keep Sha Lin at a range where his dagger was ineffective. One thing was clear to him as he expertly parried each slash – these men were not fighters. The other three stood back, allowing him to duel with the man instead of helping him. After a particularly clumsy strike in which he left himself open, Sha Lin exploded forward driving his dagger in between the man's ribs with both hands. The man was pushed off balance, and fell beneath Sha Lin's weight. He stared into the man's stunned face and drove the dagger in even deeper, with a vicious plunge. The man's face contorted in pain, and his eyes fell closed.
After a few moments, Sha Lin looked up to see the three men were no longer smiling. In fact, none of them made a sound as he pulled his dagger from the bloody wound. He also picked up the man's sword with his right hand, adjusting his grip on the dagger. Two of the men still standing seemed too shocked to move, but one charged forward, bellowing and swinging a large club wildly. It was almost child's play, but children did not play at this game. Easily dodging the careless blows, Sha Lin snuck the tip of his blade into the man's navel, stopping him cold. He swung upward in a visceral motion, flaying the man open like a fish. Sprays of blood spurted from the long, deep wound, staining Sha Lin's clothes and face.
The two men's faces were now as pale as the moon that hung overhead in the sky. Clutching their weapons, a rapier and a flanged mace, close to themselves, they exchanged a look. They took up defensive stances and advanced much more slowly than the two who lay dead in the dust. Sha Lin adjusted himself to match. It was some time before the one with the rapier struck, quickly stabbing at him and retreating. Sha Lin parried away the blow with a quick twist of his wrist. The one with the mace then charged as the other split away to get a better angle on him. Seeing this, Sha Lin backtracked  rapidly to avoid a pincer attack. He barely avoided the deadly mace as he strove to keep both its owner and the other man in his vision.
He inflicted a superficial cut on the mace wielder's left arm with the tip of his sword, but was unable to finish him. The one with the rapier stepped forward to save his comrade before that could happen. The pace of the fight once again slowed to a crawl. The sudden shifts were affecting both opposing men – adrenaline was continuously being dumped into their systems, and was then going unused. However, Sha Lin had been trained for these situations, and adapted to them much better than the average person. His heart was beating only slightly faster than normal, his breathing was even. It was time to go on the offensive.
He struck with as much ferocity as ever, driving the two back in tandem. He rained down blow after blow in a whirlwind of steel. It was all they could do to block his strikes. Suddenly, his foot twisted the wrong way and he stumbled mid swing. The man with the mace stepped forward with his weapon raised, about to brain him, but it was already too late. The true nature of Sha Lin's ruse was never apparent to the man as the underside of his chin was pierced by the sword. The mace tumbled from his slack fingers as Sha Lin ripped the blade free, sending the corpse sprawling.
He turned his gaze on the man with the rapier, who gave one look at his fallen companions and bolted, making it only a few yards before Sha Lin's knife whistled through the air and embedded itself in the man's back. He fell with a grunt, and Sha Lin quickly strode over and put him out of his misery.
A shout made Sha Lin refocus his vision in the gloom. The man whose foot had been pinned by his arrow was trying in vain to pull it free. Sha Lin looked at him. Then, he slowly advanced, grasping the handle of the longsword with both hands. As he drew near, anger sparked in Sha Lin's face. He took the final step and raised the sword over his head, poised to strike. The man slowly looked up, sweat rolling down his horrified face. He saw Sha Lin, saw the sword, and raised his arm to shield his face. The sight of him cowering for his life made Sha Lin even angrier. A brutal shout tore itself from his lungs as he brought the blade down. The man's arm was cleaved in two, and the sword continued on its path, slicing through the man's collarbone and a few of his ribs before getting lodged in his sternum. More sprays of blood marked Sha Lin as the victor of the fight. Only, it hadn't been a fight. It had been a slaughter.