From my tower sometimes, I get to watch little hawks catch mice and rats in the gardens. You know, the back gardens of the town houses. And nothing makes a hawk dive, right, like seeing a rat run.

[ He cut again, made a quick slash across the pads of the fingers of his left hand. Hastily, he unbuckled the sword-belt and let it drop to the dust, used the blood to make an unfamiliar symbol on the palm of his other hand. He was talking fast, nerves sparking. Excited, almost. ]

And it can't be you, that armor will make you slower over a long distance, and you won't have any force in your stroke if you're racing forward then suddenly having to slash behind you. If the point is to kill the thing fast, you need all the momentum you can get behind the edge of that... what is your sword even made of, anyway? So, it won't just be your sword moving forward, but the bird diving into it. That amount of force would be like... firing your sword from a four-man ballista.

And uh, between us both, I'm way more likely to survive some fire, and even with those long legs of yours I'd slay you in a mile sprint. So I'm gonna teleport across the field, and be the rat. The bait.

You've just gotta be fast enough to meet me in the middle at the right time.