There was a satisfying crunch. Blood squirted from the mess where his nose had been, and his cudgel clattered to the ground. Beside me, Veronica ran a goon through with her vector sword while Amelia stepped in close and brought her knee up to crush another man’s balls with a powerful blow.
Mohawk’s eyes had rolled back up into his head, and he fumbled at his smashed face as he tried to crumple to the ground, but I wasn’t done with him yet. I caught him by the shirt front and spun him round as two more goons came straight at me. It was Eyepatch and Red Nose, both of whom we’d seen off the other night.
“Not had enough yet, boys?” I taunted them, and shoved Mohawk’s dead weight at them. All three went down in a heap, cursing.
I stepped in, grabbed Eyepatch’s cudgel, and tried to pull it out of his grip. Like a fool, he hung onto it, drawing his arm out tight. I pulled the cudgel harder and stamped on the arm, breaking it at the elbow as if I’d been breaking up firewood. The man howled and rolled away, clutching his shattered limb to his chest and leaving his weapon, a big, heavy bit of hardwood with a lead-filled head, in my hands.
Red Nose, to his credit, came up fighting. He had dropped his club and pulled a short, ugly knife. He dropped into a fighter’s crouch and tried to close the distance with me so he could stab me, but I stepped nimbly to his right. As his own momentum carried him past me, I dealt him two solid blows in the kidneys with the heavy club I’d taken from the other man. Red Nose staggered forward an unsteady step or two. I stepped behind him, shifted the hard, knobby cudgel into a two-handed grip, raised it, then brought it down on the crown of his head with every ounce of strength I could muster. His head cracked like an egg under a horse’s hoof, and he fell lifeless to the ground.
I turned and surveyed the battlefield. All around me, Mohawk’s team were taking a beating. Mohawk himself was feebly trying to crawl away from the action, blood still pouring from the place where his nose had been.
Veronica and Amelia were working together. Veronica was mostly leading the way, but Amelia, for all her scholarly nature, was holding her own. Even as I watched, Amelia ducked in under a big trollman armed with a broadsword who seemed intent on using his superior size and reach to beat down Veronica’s guard. Amelia came in low on the trollman’s left side and felled him with a sturdy thrust of her shortsword through his abdomen.
All around, townsfolk who had obviously been used to these bullying thugs for years were getting the chance for revenge. I saw a man who looked like a blacksmith wielding a hammer with skill, two men in bright merchants’ clothes fighting side-by-side with elaborate basket-hilted swords, and a group of ten young barmaids with brooms who had obviously ventured out of the tavern to give one particular man a sound beating with broom handles.
When I raised my eyes from this group and looked at the tavern itself, I saw the buxom figure of Mistress Blossom leaning in the doorway, watching the proceedings with interest. She saw me looking at her and raised one shapely hand in greeting.
A loud voice intruded itself on that pleasant sight. “Take that, you filthy drainpipe fucker! Corpse breath! Cockroach cock! Rain barrel sniffer!” The voice—and the bizarre insults—could only be coming from Jacques.
I looked in the direction of the shouts and found my old friend in the crowd, holding off the last two thugs with his razor sharp, whip-thin Sunlands sword. The blade and the fighting style that went with it were like nothing anybody else in the Kingdom used. It had baffled many an opponent during our hell-raising days back in Aranor, and he was even better at it now. For all his buffoonery, the man was still serious about his swordplay and had kept in practice.
He pirouetted like a dancer, whipping the thin sword in and out under both men’s guards quicker than either of them could blink. The Sunland swordplay relied on speed and was designed more for non-lethal dueling than this kind of brawling fight. As a result, neither of Jacques’ opponents had fallen, but both were bleeding from multiple cuts to their hands, arms, and legs.
I began to stride toward them, across a town square that was now littered with wounded or dead thugs. As I did so, Jacques dived into an opening and finished one of his men with a lightning-fast thrust through the throat.
“Die, maggot brains!” I heard Jacques shout as he felled the man. The last thug turned and fled as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him.
Jacques let out a yell of triumph, but I heard a sudden harsh shout from the other side of the square. I’d almost forgotten the soldiers.
They’d formed up into a staggered line, every second man two steps behind the first and to his left, and each of them perhaps a yard apart. In this formation, they could cover a lot of ground each. They came forward in lockstep, shouting with each tramp of their heavily booted feet. Long, viciously pointed pikes were in their hands and swords were at their belts. They were well-armored, with ringmail down to their knees, steel shin guards, tight-fitting breastplates and tall helmets which protected most of their faces.
Maximilian had not moved from his position. He stood with a satisfied smile on his face and his red-robed arms
