The crowd broke around her and she grabbed the first man she could reach by the scruff of his jumpsuit, yanked him back with one hand as she drove her other fist into his kidney. He barked in pain, tried to twist around to come at her but she held fast to his collar and kicked the back of his knee. Fabric twisted in her grip, rubbed her knuckles raw as he staggered sideways and wrenched away from her.
“The fuck–” he spat, but before he could get another word out she stepped into him, swung a jab into his liver as he threw his arms out to catch his balance and followed it up with a hook to that nice little sweet spot on his temple. He crumpled.
One down. Someone grabbed her hair and she swore as her head jerked back, chin pointing skywards and vision fuzzed around the edges for a heartbeat. She crouched, the movement just confusing enough for her attacker to think he’d knocked her down. The man let go of her hair and she spun, brought her leg up in a heavy kick aimed at stomach-height and connected with a woman she’d never seen before.
The woman toppled, taken by surprise. Ripka scanned the crowd closing in tight around the brawl. Pockets of fights broke out among the masses, twisted knots pushing and shoving against those who wanted to watch the show. Things were getting out of hand, a riot was about to start.
There – Enard had kicked the bench under the table and had his back against it, facing the two men who circled him. His stance was tight, squared off, his head ducked down while he protected his middle. Ripka grimaced. Decent form for a ring, but he wouldn’t last long like that against two determined bastards with his back against a figurative wall.
“Hey!” she yelled and grabbed a fallen clay plate, then hurled it at the back of the man standing closest to her. It shattered in a satisfying puff. “Hey, fuckface!”
He flinched as the plate slammed into his back and took a hit to his chest from Enard while distracted. With an enraged bellow he spun around, seeking his attacker. Ripka forced herself to stand still and smirk at him. He was much, much larger than she had originally thought. This was going to hurt.
If he could catch her.
She kicked up a cup into her hands and chucked it at the man. His lips curled in a snarl as he turned into it, taking the hit on the shoulder. She blew a kiss at him, winked, and spun to elbow her way back through the crowd.
No need to elbow, she realized. The big man chasing her scattered the other inmates like chaff. She sprinted along the edge of the table, threw a glance back over her shoulder to make sure he followed. Yep, still enraged and pointed right at her. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy about that or not. It was what she’d wanted, but… Still.
As she glanced back, she caught sight of Enard laying the other man out flat with a heavy blow to the jaw. At least he was safe.
She almost barreled into a cluster of smirking men before she noticed they weren’t moving, and she didn’t have time to shove them aside. She stumbled, arresting her course, saw one of them reach for her and realized they must be the big bastard’s friends, willing to hold her in place while he caught up.
Twisting away, she flung herself atop the trestle table and rolled to her feet, facing the man dashing toward her. The men crowded her side of the table, grins leering up at her. She swung her gaze along the other side of the table and found more of the same. Wonderful. If she could make it back to Enard, then at least she’d have an ally.
Taking a breath to steady her nerves, she sprinted, legs pumping hard enough to shake the table with every step, cutlery and cookware clattering as she stormed down the length of the table. Her heel hit spilled porridge, and she nearly lost her footing. Skidding, cursing, she righted herself and saw… blackness as the world swung above her head.
She hit the table with a grunt, air whooshing free of her lungs, shoulder burning as it took the brunt of her fall. Knowing only she needed to get moving again, she twisted, attempted to kick herself up. Someone had her ankle gripped tight. The songbird.
That cursed woman leaned over the bench on the other side of the table, spindly fingers digging in tight to Ripka’s ankle, a satisfied grin twisting up her sunken features. Ripka kicked out with her free foot, aiming for the woman’s head, and then the sun went away.
She blinked, understood the darkness as the eclipsing figure of the big man. He towered above her, brought back his arm as if to swing. Ripka threw her arms up, forearms pressed together, to shield her face. But he wasn’t interested in hitting her. His massive hand curled around her throat.
Squeezed.
Gasping for air she tried to shove her thumbs under his fingers. No use, the man was attached to her like a sandtick.
Her vision blurred out at the edges. Her need for air burned in her throat, her chest, her mind. Couldn’t think, couldn’t work out what to do. Her mind was one big scream of breathe!
A strange fuzziness filled her, making the world distant and slowed, the pain somehow less – it’d end soon, one way or another. A tickle of a memory called to her. She felt the hard lump in her pocket, Honey’s gift. As her fingers closed around the warm wooden handle she heard Warden Faud’s words, from all those years ago, before she’d even been a watch-captain. When he was teaching her to control a fight without killing.
Never go for a death blow, if it can be helped. Find the path to the quickest, safest end, and when you find it, do not hesitate.
On the edges of her awareness voices were raised, the big brass bells of the Remnant’s alarm beating along with the fading stutter of her heart. Guards were coming. Would be here soon. Not soon enough.
She shanked the big man in the hollow of his elbow. Drove the point up and in so hard splinters bit her palm and she felt the elastic give and snap of his tendon under the shiv’s point. Saw the severed tendon curl up under his skin like a gnarled root.
Maybe I am a farmer, she thought, delirium ebbing away as she sucked in great mouthfuls of sea-salted air. She coughed, retching stomach waters on herself, the table, anywhere at all. Hands closed around her shoulders and shoved her upright.
She heard the big man scream in pain, but she didn’t care. He’d made a mistake, looking to kill her.
“Where’d you get that?” Captain Lankal’s face loomed into hers, and she laughed, because it seemed such a stupid question. She opened her mouth to answer and tasted fire again, fell into another coughing fit.
“Fine.” He snapped as she was dragged off the table by too many hands to count. “You want to start fights, missy? Want to draw blood? I’ve had enough of your shit. You’re going in the well.”
As they bound her wrists and marched her out of the rec yard, she caught sight of Honey, watching her from behind the table where her new friends sat, hunger bright as a bonfire in her dark amber eyes. More than hunger. Reverence.
Chapter Seventeen
After a few irritating wrong turns, Detan stood on the roof of the building to which both the Larkspur and the Happy Birthday Virra! were docked. He eyed the long tongue of a gangplank that reached from the Larkspur’s deck to the stubby pier which extended from the roof. He didn’t have a lot of confidence in that pier. It was a slapdash job of old boards, greyed from the sea winds, supported by equally sorry looking bracing. He liked the look of the gangplank even less. One good kick from either end would send the traverser plummeting to the hard, stone streets below. There wasn’t even a decent awning to break his fall.
“Second thoughts?” Tibs asked.