Indri was stopping Knives from hitting me or Chensina. The pointman would try to give her a clear shot. I couldn’t keep her between us and Knives for the rest of the fight, so I wasn’t going to try. I picked up another stool. 

Knives was crouched behind a flipped table. Her wrists twitched. Indri swatted two throwing knives out of the air. The next pair was already in her hands. 

I lobbed the stool at her.

Knives didn’t notice it until it was over her head. She swore and dropped flat to the deck. The stool missed her head, but I heard it hit her shoulder. She swore again. 

Indri was already vaulting a table, blowtorch-focused on Knives. She dropped the throwing knives and scrambled for her melee daggers.

The pointman was right behind me. I ducked and ran. Her boots pounded the deck.

I grabbed the edge of the table next to me and pulled it over. Tin plates crashed and something heavy splatted on the floor. I was hoping the pointman would slip. Instead, her steps went silent.

Then her broadsword thudded through the air next to my ear. The deck creaked. She’d landed and she was already back to top speed. I could hear her breathing. She wasn’t winded.

She was too close. I didn’t have time for more tricks. If I turned around, I could be dead before I could even get into a fighting stance.

All I had to do was keep running until Indri beat Knives. Make sure the pointman didn’t corner me. Wait for him to back me up.

The pointman and I were on our second lap of a stupid little circle around the stairwell when Indri yelled my name.

“What?”

“I won!” he shouted. “I won’t kill her!”

“Good! You can’t!”

“Great! Fuck do I do now!”

The pointman’s sword curled the air behind my neck.

“Tie her up!”

“With— oh.”

“Then help—”

The pointman wasn’t running. Something scraped the deck. 

I knew that sound. I crouched, and the leg of a stool barely missed the top of my head. The pointman was already kicking a table at me. 

It wasn’t very tall. My legs were coiled under me. 

I jumped and pulled my knees up to my chest. When the table was under my feet, I pushed off, landed in front of the pointman, and swung my polearm down hard on her broadsword. At the same time, I kicked her arms up. 

Something snapped. She screamed. Her sword hit the ground with a dull thunk.

The pointman’s right wrist hung limp. She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped to one knee, breathing shallowly.

“Hey, Awas,” someone said casually.

I turned around. “Hey, Zamerald.”

Zamerald, wearing his Porfidu mask, stood with his hands in his pockets. An electric-blue silk scarf covered his hair. He’d done the calligraphy on his purple t-shirt and the Porfidu logo on the back of his ankle-length black leather duster. I have no idea where he bought it. He’s one of the tallest people I’ve ever seen. He has a long face and he smiles easily.

The other four members of Chensina’s squad were fanning out across the deck. They’d hooked a ladder to the railing from the rooftop on the other side of the alley. Three of them helped Chensina surround Dingo. His smile hadn’t slipped, but his hands were up. The fourth one— Saveryu, the one who never talks— crouched on the deck, examining one of Knives’s throwing knives.

“Want any help with her?” Zamerald was already crossing the deck to the pointman.

“Absolutely.” I tossed him her sword. 

“Thanks.” He threaded it through the web of straps stretched across his back.

“No worries. Is your arm broken, or your wrist?” I asked the pointman.

“Fuck you.”

I jerked my head at Zamerald. “He’s going to make you a sling or something so you can walk back to Flishkun. Arm or wrist?”

She ground the last air out of her lungs. “Wrist.”

Zamerald unclipped his med kit.

Dingo’s hands were zip-tied behind his back, and Ryali was tying his shoelaces together. Knives’s wrists were tied to her ankles with orange plastic twine. It looked like Indri had never restrained anyone before, but he’d made a strong effort. He stood. His pants looked like a pair of skirts.

“Awas.” Chensina hid a limp almost perfectly. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Indri?”

He turned around. Blood was seeping through the bandages around his arm. “Nah.”

“What happened to your arm?”

“I got a cut last week.” He shrugged, then winced. “Stitches tore.”

Very fast, quiet Nassa tal Hut buzzed in the stairwell. It fell silent when Chensina leaned over the railing.

“Rina, would you mind getting the first aid kit?” she asked in Ser.

“I’m fine,” Indri said.

No one was listening. Jilyu Deheb was here.

She’s pushing seventy, and the only black left in her hair is at the very end of her braid. The chain of gold beads draped around her shoulders hung past her knees. Her stole was fastened over her shoulder with an eight-pointed gold brooch. Her sleeves were pushed up past the most impressive Nassa tal Hut tattoos I’d ever seen. 

A phalanx of purple aprons followed her up the stairs and spread out across the deck, picking up plates, collecting throwing knives, and moving the tables so the mops could get through.

“Sinyura Deheb,” Chensina said. “I’m so sorry about this.”

Jilyu shook her head. She scanned Chensina, then me and Indri, who was tilting his arm back and forth so his blood would run up and down his arm instead of dripping onto the floor. “Someone’s getting the first aid kit?” she called without looking up.

Indri shook his head. “I said I’m—”

“Shut up,” I said quietly.

“Katarina’s getting it,” Chensina said.

“Indri, how about you sit down.” I grabbed his shoulder and steered him to the corner of the deck.

“Fuck’s sake, Awas, I said—”

“Sit down.”

He needed both hands to lower himself into a seat. His skin was gray. “I’m fine.”

“Indri, shut up and let them help.”

“But—”

“I know you fucking mummified that arm, and—”

“I can—”

“You— helped— them. Now let them help you.”

He hesitated.

“Wait here.”

He did. He probably couldn’t have stood up if he’d tried.