someone’s jugular with her teeth, ’cause I’ve heard that one too many times,” he
added with a grin, preempting J.B.’s launch into a Trader story.
The only advantage of J.B. telling it rather than Ryan was that the Armorer was
more terse in the telling, and it was a much shorter story.
“Trader was right, though,” J.B. said softly in reply. “Then there’s always one
exception to any rule. Being too rigid can be as dangerous as being too slack.”
Without answering, Dean knew what the Armorer meant as he watched Mac take on
Jak.
The fat man outweighed the slender Jak by almost double, and was several inches
taller. His head was still scarred by the blow he had taken outside the shack,
and from the look on his face he was expecting to get some revenge in a
one-on-one fight.
They circled each other, watched by the crowd of men and women who were there to
learn. The tension grew as they circled, until it seemed that no one in the
crowd could draw breath until the first strike.
It came from the blue, still unexpected despite the close attention and
anticipation of the crowd. Jak feinted to the left, drawing Mac’s attention,
then followed up to the right with a kick that took the sec man’s legs from
under him.
Instead of falling heavily, as would be expected, the awkward-looking sec man
let himself flop to the ground, relaxing his muscles to avoid the rigidity that
broke bones. He rolled as he hit the dirt, out of the range of Jak’s follow-up
kick. Instead of connecting with his jaw, the albino’s foot carved a space in
nothing but air. It was only Jak’s immense control and balance that stopped him
falling flat. Instead he used the momentum of the kick to pivot, taking him out
of range of the thundering roundhouse blow Mac aimed at his body. The sec man
was more powerful and agile than he looked, but his notion of fighting was
basic—he aimed for the body with a succession of kicks and blows designed to
cause maximum damage.
Jak avoided all of those with twists and turns of his body, staying out of range
and letting Mac expend energy. Then, when the sec man was puffing and blowing,
slowing slightly, Jak darted in beneath one of the blows and delivered a hard
jab with his extended fingers, sinking them into the soft flesh above the sec
man’s ribs.
Mac shot backward through the air as though a jolt of electricity had been
forced through him. He tumbled over, falling naturally by instinct. Jak stood
back, waiting for the sec man to get up.
“Less…more,” he said simply as Mac shook his head to clear it.
The sec man gave him a vulpine leer that passed for a smile. “I hear ya,
whitey,” he grated, his breath still coming hard.
They closed on each other, circling tightly, neither willing to make the first
move. Jak feinted, then lunged. Mac second-guessed him and blocked the
straight-fingered blow by trapping Jak’s arm in both of his own, crossed to
strengthen them. He stepped back, allowing Jak’s momentum to carry him forward.
The albino sailed past Mac, hitting the dirt face first.
Like the sec man, he allowed himself to relax as he hit, but Mac had anticipated
that and followed up in the millisecond while Jak was prone and—momentarily—
defenseless. His heavy boot thudded into Jak’s face, splitting the albino’s lip
and causing blood and spit to fly into the dust.
“Water the earth, you mutie bastard,” Mac whispered, his anger expended. “We’re
quits.”
He stood back, allowing Jak to get up. The albino wiped the blood from his face,
hawked up a bloodied glob of phlegm and spit it into the earth.
“Yeah, quits.” The albino laughed. “Learn quick, fat man. Why think I let live?”
Mac laughed, a big guffaw that stunned the crowd and Dean. But not J.B.
“Always a reason to break your own rules,” he said. “Except that it has to be a
good one.”
MILDRED AND KRYSTY were given the thankless task of trying to teach the ville
dwellers to shoot straight. It seemed almost alien to them that anyone in the