Chapter 5: The Fight

We come in screaming like demons. Clairwil and his fusiliers lay down a withering barrage, but the survivors pull back behind the wreck of the carriage so they can't get a bead on 'em. As we run up to the carriage, we split into two groups – one left, one right. I go right, and stay in the middle.

It saves my life. As we round the corner, we find the tall woman, and she screams right back.

"Kreeeee-YAWP."

Even from here, her voice is like a fist in the face. The two guys in front are even worse off – they stagger back, stunned, and she hacks one down with her glaive. I gotta admit I'm impressed.

The man in the turban comes into view, and raises what looks like a skull. There's a sudden red glow above me. I don't look up, but immediately dive right, narrowly avoiding a tentacle of energy that drops from outta nowhere and coils where my head used to be. Man behind me isn't as lucky – another tentacle catches him in the face, and he reels back clutching at a broken nose.

"They got a fucking magician here!" I yell to the others, and come in from the side.

Things get real hectic, real quick. Guy comes in with the boys who went left before and lays about him with the scourge, raking the glaive-woman red across the back. She turns to fight him. Dog's barking, and in the corner of my eye I see it sink its teeth into someone's ankle. I close in on the magician, who drops the skull and pulls a curved knife as he sees me coming.

We take a moment to size one another up. He's got one knife, in his right hand. I got two.

"Fight me, savage!" he yells at me. I say nothin', just grin, to piss him off so he gets sloppy. Sure enough, in he comes, slashing in from my right. I step backward, feint left, and lunge forward with my right, but he sees it and dodges back and to his right. I turn to face him again.

Rule one of knife fighting – keep your eyes on the knife, not on who's holding it. Sure enough, he tries to pull a fast one – he switches hands on me. He drops the knife into his left hand quick as you like and thrusts with the empty right hand to try an' make me dodge left, while slicing upward with the knife held in his left hand. I don't fall for it – I use the knife in my right hand to parry his attack, and use the one in my left to stab him in the guts.

"Ghhhk," he says.

"Nice try," I grin, pull my knife from his guts, and run it across his neck. I step to the side as I do it so I don't get as much blood on me.

The whole fight, start to finish, was about six seconds long. Business like this, you're either quick or you're dead.

As the magician falls, I take a moment to stomp on the skull he was using for his spells and crush it to bits – no sense leavin' it lying around. Then I turn to see what else is happening.

It's bad. The two guys who were ahead of me are dead – the woman with the glaive cut one open from chin to cock, and the other is oozing blood from a hole in the head I guess came from Blondie's pickaxe. I see another two wounded next to Guy, who's got his hands full trying to keep the dog off them. The guy with the busted nose and Rodin are both struggling with glaive-woman, who's drenched in blood, screaming like a banshee, and seems to be holding them both off. Blondie's throwing knives – thankfully, not in my direction. The dog's master is laying about him with a club. Over it all, there's the dog barking and snarling, and a whole lotta yelling.

"Get it off me!"

"Hit her from the side!"

"YAAAAAAAAH!"

"That damn thing's rabid!"

"I'll gut you, bitch!"

"Run for it!"

"Coward!"

"Would someone kill that fucking dog?!"

Guy must have heard that last one, because when the dog comes by him next, he manages to snatch it by the collar. He picks the thing up, still snarling, and slams it as hard as he can against the side of the carriage. It whines and squeals real loud, so he slams it into the side again and it finally shuts up. Hopefully there's still some meat on it.

I'm running toward Blondie, hoping to get her from behind, when it hits me.

"Kreeeee-YAWP."

It's like being slugged in the guts and kicked in the crotch at the same time. Worse. White explodes in front of my eyes, and I sit down with a thump. For a second there, I'm sure I've had it. I close my eyes and wait for the axe to fall.

It doesn't. When I realize I'm still alive, I shake my head to try and get my wits together, and manage to clear it enough to focus on what's happening again.

Blondie, the glaive-woman, and the man who owned the dog Guy killed seem to have realized it's hopeless, because they're legging it across the road, trying to get to the woods. Probably that's why I ain't dead: glaiver yawped at me to keep me off Blondie so they could run. A loud blast of gunfire rings out – Clairwil's boys opening fire – and the man twists and falls in the dirt. But the other two make it.

"After them!" roars a voice I recognize as Rodin's. I take a second to shake off the last of the dizziness and get to my feet, then join the others as we chase the two survivors into the Weald. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone stop to put a knife in the fallen man's back, and grin. Serves him right for bringing the dog.