Plan, plan, she needed a plan, quick.
The men had closed in a circle around them and Meryl looked around, settling her feet apart into a solid fighting stance. Many of the nearest men had holstered their guns, advancing on the two women with open hands. Meryl weighed her options; there was a shit-load of firepower on the other side, but she wasn't exactly unarmed herself. She had more than enough bullets for all of them, but it would be impossible to act now without getting both Milly and herself killed before doing any real damage.
Okay then, drawing now would be a bad plan. Meryl heard Milly crack her knuckles and knew the other girl had come to the same conclusion. What the hell else did that leave?
Milly coughed quietly and Meryl glanced over. Holding Meryl's gaze, Milly rolled her left shoulder just slightly. Meryl's eyebrows shot up.
Well, hell, that might work. It would be taking a huge risk, and they'd be relying a lot on luck... but she certainly couldn't think of anything else. They were going to get taken.
Meryl nodded at Milly before turning back to the man nearest her.
"As many as you can, then," she muttered, as the man nearest her stepped just slightly into the circle. Before anyone knew what happened, Meryl had leapt forward and dropped him with a roundhouse to the throat, jumping back to the center of the circle again immediately after. There was a split-second of shocked silence before several men growled and rushed forward.
There were shouts behind her and she knew Milly had acted as well. A hand closed on Meryl's wrist and instead of pulling away she stepped forward, slamming her shoulder into the man's sternum, bending low to get leverage on the taller man and throw him over her shoulder. Surprised, he let out a shout as Meryl threw him down into the shins of two others, who stumbled and tripped forward over their comrade. She kicked both these men while they were down, hitting each in the side of the head with two snaps from the knee in rapid succession. Stepping back hurriedly, she dodged a fist aimed for her face, ducking low and coming up under another man's arms, punching him hard in the gut. She blocked another blow for her head with her forearm, the man's heavy fist jarring her whole arm and nearly sending her off-balance as she punched his exposed side under her guard.
Someone seized her from behind, shouting triumphantly as he lifted Meryl off her feet. Others then tried to grab hold of her legs but she kicked wildly at them, shouting wordlessly. She squirmed in the tight grasp for a moment, gasping as he squeezed her painfully, and then slammed her head back as hard as she could into his face. It hurt the back of her skull, and when he screamed it rang in her ears, but he let her go. She dropped to the ground, sweeping his feet out from under him and bringing him down to the ground to fall underfoot of his neighbors.
They were closing around her fast and she was running out of room to try fighting each man individually. She did her best to just do as much damage as possible to her multiple opponents, dodging blows when she could see them coming and striking out at every opportunity. She let a high-kick fly blindly and though it connected solidly against something—someone's face, she wagered, by the howl of pain that accompanied the blow—a hand caught her ankle and held it in a vice-grip, yanking her off her standing foot.
The man holding her ankle brought an elbow down hard on the side of her knee and pain exploded down her leg. She screamed and the man threw her down to the ground. Scrambling up onto all fours, she managed to get a few iches before someone pressed a heavy boot to the small of her back, forcing her down as others kicked sand in her face. She gasped, choking and coughing at the agony of grit in her lungs. The boot pressed down hard, making her spine bow and crack in excruciating pain. Shutting her eyes tight, the grit there digging in further, Meryl shrieked in pain.
"Ma'am!" Milly was shouting, somewhere, sounding furious at Meryl's tortured cry.
The foot at Meryl's back disappeared as hands wrapped rope around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides. They hauled her up to her feet but her injured knee wouldn't support her weight and she almost fell. She put all her weight on the left leg instead and stumbled when they tried to force her to walk toward the green-haired giant.
The men had to hold Meryl up until she faced their boss and could stand on only her left leg again. She looked around for Milly and watched over her shoulder as the other woman was finally dragged down to the ground by her long hair. Again someone stood on Milly's spine to hold her immobile and she squealed in pain.
"Milly!" Meryl called, straining against the men holding her. "You bastards!" she said to the boss. If they man-handled Milly too roughly, their plan for escape would be completely useless. Meryl argued for Milly's safety, and her own. "She's just a girl—" Someone backhanded her and she reeled from the blow, pushed sideways onto her bad leg. She collapsed with a gasp, trying to fall on her side rather than on the knee, and her shoulder hit the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of her. The giant reached down to grab her around the torso with one massive hand and set her back on her feet, grinning.
Moments later, Milly was standing next to Meryl, tied up and held in place by three of the largest men in the gang. They all had bloodied noses and part of Meryl was fiercely proud of the younger woman for the number of men she had put entirely out of commission. Over her shoulder, Meryl saw nearly twice as many men on the ground near where Milly had been fighting as compared to her own (still fairly impressive, she thought) pile-up several yarz away.
"Christ, these two are a handful," scowled one of the men holding Milly. Meryl thought he probably had a broken nose, but couldn't be sure; he might have been that ugly to begin with. She tried to count the fallen men who seemed ready to stay down for awhile, but the giant was barking for attention and she jumped in surprise, gritting her teeth as the movement jarred her injured leg.
"Okay, Loose," he called. "Now what?"
The bounty hunter was still leaning on his rifle, watching the proceedings with seemingly detached interest. He shrugged.
"String them up over there," he called, pointing. "From that arch."
All heads turned the direction Loose was indicating. Meryl saw a long, narrow stone arch spanning the distance between two rock faces, and her heart raced a little faster. This could work; if everyone stayed here, facing the arch, there was cover on either side past it. If they could just get free, they could make enough of a stand...
Hands hauled Meryl and Milly under the stone arch. A man wrapped another rope around Meryl's torso, grinning at her when she winced in pain at how tightly it was wound. The men threw the other end of the rope up over the arch and fastened it securely. It was holding her up uncomfortably around the arms, though she was still glad it took some weight off her injured leg. Milly was strung up next to her, but she couldn't turn to catch her eye.
Meryl's eyes scanned the crowd facing them. Nearly a third of the men were sitting on the ground, nursing injuries or at least breathing hard. Almost everyone else had put away their weapons; all the pistols she could see were holstered, and as far as she could tell, Ruth Loose's rifle was the only one not slung back over a shoulder.
This could actually work.
"Milly," she said, quietly. "Can—"
"Let's see," interrupted the giant, stepping forward. Meryl fell silent as he surveyed them both, tilting his head this way and that, until he finally grinned and turned his attention to Milly. He stepped forward, reaching toward her.
"No!" Meryl shouted, unable to struggle, but trying to lean forward nonetheless. "Leave her alone!" Her teeth were gritted together and her lips were drawn back in a snarl. "Don't touch her," she growled.
Meryl's job now was simple. She needed to keep everyone's attention on her and give Milly time to act. Milly, Meryl knew, could dislocate her left shoulder at will. Apparently there was an accident when she was younger, wrestling with her brothers, but now it meant she could easily pull the bone free from the socket and let her slip the ropes. The men had taken Milly's stun-gun, but they didn't know about Meryl's derringers; Milly could grab two from Meryl's cloak faster than any of these men could draw their own weapons. At least Milly could get away. That would be enough for Meryl.
This could actually work.
"I said don't touch her!" Meryl shouted, again. The giant looked at her in surprise, but then grinned again, appearing even more frightening than before. He stepped toward her now, turning away from Milly, now close enough that Meryl could feel as well as smell his foul breath on her.
"Then you want me all to yourself?" he asked. The men around him laughed cruelly. He bent close to her face and breathed in through his nose, his eyes closed and expression pleased, until he let out the breath through his mouth. Meryl gagged at the stench of it. "I can smell the fear on you," he said. "It's intoxicating."
He held out the giant metal boomerang blade and Meryl took in a sharp breath. The blunt side of the tip touched her cheek, and she swallowed hard and tensed, trying to stay completely still. She felt the cold metal against her skin as it moved down the side of her cheek and slid under her chin, forcing her face up as high as her neck could allow, craned painfully high. She glared defiantly at the giant, not looking away from his eyes, until his gaze moved down over her body.
Then the blade moved slowly down her neck, traveling over her chest, pushing the cloak open. It slid down over her stomach and then sideways over her hip and down along the side of her leg. It stopped where her cloak hem lay, and Meryl gasped as the giant turned the blade flat, the razor sharp blade scraping gently at the fabric of her leggings without cutting through as he began lifting the cloak. Meryl both heard and felt the derringers clinking together as her cloak moved. The giant's eyes widened and she held her breath.
Meryl heard the faint sound of Milly's shoulder coming free from its socket.
"Emergency!"
The giant turned so quickly that when his blade pulled away from Meryl's cloak it sliced through the thin leggings and cut shallowly into her leg. She gasped.
"What's going on?" All the men were looking around worriedly. Each of them had grabbed his gun again, but no one's attention was on the women anymore. Meryl tried to look sideways at Milly but still couldn't manage to see her, so she turned her attention the same direction as everyone else.
The call had come from some distance. From the direction of the path down to Felnarl, Meryl thought she could see someone on a Thomas. Then she recognized it as the mount she had been riding earlier, its strangely dark face unmistakable even from this distance. She felt her eyes go wide with disbelief.
"It's him," said Loose, sounding as stunned as Meryl felt. He took up his rifle and shot at the figure in the distance, rapid-fire, the cross-handle rotating in a blur. All the giant's men fired as well, but Meryl managed to hear one distinct gunshot from the distance, echoing strangely differently off the rock outcroppings around her.
Simultaneously, she felt the tension of the rope holding her go suddenly slack. She almost fell, arms still bound tightly to her sides, but next to her Milly had slipped the ropes and burst out of her own wrappings. The younger woman grabbed Meryl around the waist and threw them both down behind the left side of the rock face next to the arch.
"Are you alright, Ma'am?" Milly asked, untying Meryl as quickly and carefully as she could. "I'm sorry I couldn't—"
"It's alright," said Meryl, favoring the bad leg as she caught her balance. She checked the slice across the other thigh, blood darkening the indigo leggings, but it wasn't severe enough to warrant immediate concern. "But I don't understand what happened," she began. "How did I—" Meryl stopped abruptly, finding the end of the rope tethering her to the arch. The ends of the unraveling fibers were burnt, shot clean through. "That's not possible," she whispered, gripping the rope tightly in one hand as she stared down at it with wide eyes.
"Ma'am, look!"
Meryl heard shouting and gunshots and leaned out to see what was happening, drawing two pistols from her cloak as she did so. The scene was total chaos, everyone shouting and shooting at what seemed like phantom shapes in the dust the giant's boomerang would kick up each time he threw it. He threw it again now, and on the return trip it sliced through the stone arch above them.
The arch crumbled, raining heavy debris on their heads, and Meryl shouted for Milly to move. She flung herself out sideways just in time, some of the smaller chunks of rock pelting her body as she rolled out of the way.
"Quickly, Ma'am," called Milly, taking Meryl's arm. "Up here!"
They climbed up a steep slope along the ridge, Meryl finding her way with some difficulty. She holstered the derringers and used both hands to help pull her up, gritting her teeth against the pain in her leg until they came to rest at the top of a plateau looking down on the crater below.
"Where is he?" Meryl asked, breathlessly, scanning the scene for the man in the red jacket. It was impossible to think he had freed her with one shot to sever the rope—but she couldn't come up with any other explanation.
"There!" said Milly, excitedly. She pointed, but then her face fell. "He's embarrassing to watch."
It was true; the man was scrambling around on all fours, screaming his head off, somehow managing to escape being shot or exploded or cut in half by the boomerang. Meryl shook her head in disbelief, but then saw one of the giant's thugs pop up out of nowhere, ready to shoot the man in the back.
Without even thinking, she drew another derringer and fired. The bullet hit her mark exactly and the giant's man sprawled on the ground, clutching his ruined shoulder. The man in red spun, his gaze finding Meryl even at this distance, his green eyes catching hers for a moment. They were the other eyes again, and her skin prickled into goosebumps at the sight of them.
Just as quickly, the man had returned his attention to the fight. He seemed to hold his own for another few moments, but then the giant had him pinned down at the edge of the cliff, and Meryl knew there was no time for them to reach him, especially not with her injury. Even if Milly ran for it herself it would be a stretch, and the younger woman didn't have her stun-gun, or Meryl's skills with the smaller weapons they had available.
"What do we do, Ma'am?" asked Milly, worriedly.
"I don't know, Milly," she said, dread settling in her gut. "I don't think there's anything we can do."
They were far enough away that Meryl couldn't hear the voices of the men on the cliff below, though certain sounds and syllables were carried to her ears on the wind. There seemed to be a standoff of some kind, but she had no idea what was happening. Then she gasped; the man in red had moved more quickly than she could have imagined and somehow, moments later, both Ruth Loose and the giant were down and unmoving.
"It's over," Meryl said in disbelief, both relieved and shocked. "He beat them both." She just kept staring at him in the distance, wondering what the hell had happened, picturing his brilliantly green eyes as they met hers. "I don't know how," she said, shaking her head, "but—"
"It's like he really is Vash the Stampede!" said Milly, clasping her hands together and grinning in her excitement. Meryl turned on her, ready to argue vehemently against this ridiculous notion, but the man had started screaming. She turned quickly in alarm, a derringer in each hand as easily as breathing, and saw his long red jacket billowing out behind him as he ran, for all he was worth, away from...
Meryl gasped.
Ruth Loose's last bomb exploded in a blaze of flame and smoke and dust and made the ground shake beneath them.
"No!" shrieked Meryl, fisting both hands in her hair as she stood, staring down at the cliff's edge as several tons of stone were set loose, most of the mountainside simply sliding down the rock face and onto the town. "Not again!"