Recovering from the shock that had temporarily frozen them, the Salvation men rushed forward to meet the Mandrake men. It wouldn’t be a fight of skill and savagery, but rather a drunken brawl where those who get hurt usually end up being hurt by accident.
A Salvation worker threw himself past Doc and landed on an oncoming Mandrake man, throwing him backward onto the dirt where they wrestled aimlessly, neither able to get a satisfactory grip. Doc earmarked them for attention in a moment. His more immediate problem was being sandwiched between two more men, both of whom had blades in hand.
As one dived, Doc sidestepped and brought up the swordstick, the upward thrust catching the diving man’s blade and diverting it skyward. Doc followed through in an arc and brought the sword down, slicing at the wrist of the opposing fighter, drawing blood and making him drop his knife. From there, it was simple for Doc—who wasn’t befuddled by spirit or jolt—to take the LeMat from his belt and use the heavy butt to render one of his opponents unconscious while kicking the other in the groin and making him collapse. From there, he turned elegantly to deliver another kick that separated the two wrestlers. The hand of one snaked toward his blaster, but a sudden slice from Doc’s sword split open the flesh of his arm and caused him to cease, and his opponent to scuttle away in the dirt.
Three Mandrake men, incensed by the earlier incident and forgetting their Salvation opponents, headed directly for Ryan, who took out one with a backhand slash of the panga, and attended to another with a kick from his heavy combat boots that caught the man in the chest, making him collapse. That left one man, and Ryan was left partially vulnerable. Although he left no area of attack open, he was still distracted enough by the two opponents to be unable to fully counter a full-on attack by the third man, who flung himself at the one-eyed man. There were no vulnerable areas that he could attack, but the force of his onslaught did drive Ryan onto the ground. But experience taught him to go with the fall, letting his body go limp so that the impact and any possible damage were lessened. His opponent hit him hard, but rolled off the one-eyed man with the force of his impact, enabling Ryan to turn swiftly so that he was on top of him. One swing with the handle of the panga caught the man under the jaw, snapping him instantly into unconsciousness.
All around, the companions laid waste to their foes. Jak was a whirling blur of white hair and flashing knives, the cuts slashing at the faces and hands of his opponents, rendering them useless through pain and defenseless as their own weapons dropped. Dean, Mildred and Krysty had more than held their own without blades, while the Armorer had found it unnecessary to use his as a few maneuvers in unarmed combat rendered his opponents defeated.
Within a few minutes, the area was a scene of carnage, as blood soaked into the earth and dyed it dark beneath the semiconscious and unconscious bodies that lay around, with only the companions still standing. An audience of women and other men had gathered on each side of the divide, but neither showed any willingness to come forward and either collect their wounded or carry on the fight.
At a signal from Ryan, they mounted their steeds and made ready to head off to the work site. But before they left, Ryan paused and spoke out.
“They’re alive because Baron Silas needs them to work. But I warn you all now—anyone else tries to attack us, or any of the sec patrols like this, then we’ll chill the bastards.”
“Weren’t attacking you, were attacking the others,” came a voice from the Mandrake side.
Ryan turned to face it, unable in the dim lamplight to single out who had spoken.
“Doesn’t matter. This shit stops the work being done, and that’s what we’re here to see. You do that, then that’s attacking us. Understood?”
And before anyone had a chance to answer, he charged his horse and led the line out of the area of the fight, and through the rest of the camp toward the expanse of desert that separated the work site from the workers’ dwellings.