Sam

"You're One-Eye's woman, aren't you?" Jawara asked.

"I resent the notion of being identified only in terms of my relationship with a man. But yes, he happens to be the fella that dicks me down."

"Why would you even want to try something like this?"

"Because I'm going to win and save everyone—duh."

"Right, of course. The fact that he's five levels your greater doesn't concern you?"

"If it was easy, there wouldn't be any sport in it."

Jawara glanced over, the normally unruffled soldier looking a little out of sorts and doing a bad job at hiding it. "You know, I've heard things about you."

"Good things?" Sam asked hopefully.

"Mostly that you're a little off your nut. Now I can see what they were talking about."

"Thanks."

The captain shot Sam a sour look that seemed to say that had been the wrong response to that statement, but made no outward comment.

Following her little intervention, the fighting had abated while the leaders of each side pulled back to discuss the prospect of a duel with their respective camps. Soldiers arrived with makeshift stretchers to carry away the men who had been on the receiving end of Gorebag's thrashing. Four had significant injuries—mostly broken bones—but no one appeared to be mortally wounded. They were Laborers, after all, so it stood to reason that they'd be able to take a beating when needed.

Serene finally caught up, hands on her knees while she huffed and puffed to catch her breath. "You… bitch…" she panted, fixing Sam with a glare that made it plain where she lay the blame for her present condition. "Can't you ever… stand still, you long-legged freak?"

Jawara's reinforced contingent of bodyguards moved in to check Serene for weapons and keep her from getting any closer to the captain, but Jawara waved them aside after learning that the former lady of the night was a friend of Sam's.

"You need to call this off right now," Serene said once she'd recovered some. "I know you think you can just bullshit your way out of this the same way you do with everything, but this one's different. Sam, are you listening to me?"

"I'm listening," Sam replied. Gorebag was over there by the wrecked gates, conversing with a few coarse-looking companions.

"Okay, well, I just Identified this guy, and he's got 30 Toughness. Thirty, Sam. What the fuck are you going to do against that? He just took a shotgun slug to the head like it was confetti."

"Meh. I've got ways."

"That means you have no clue."

"So he put all his points in Toughness, so what?"

"That's not it." She leaned in close and lowered her voice to a whisper. "He's also got six points in Strength, four points in Dexterity, and six points in Totality, so it's not a case of him dumping all his points in one attribute. There's obviously some kind of divine vow at play here, but I can't get a full Identification off on him to tell.

"Between that kind of Toughness and the fact that he has a semblance as a finisher, I just don't see how you can beat this one."

"She doesn't need to win," Jawara cut in, idly stroking the shotgun that rested in the crook of her arm. "Lord Buck is on his way here from the city as we speak to reinforce us. Now, we certainly have the manpower to take this mine with our current forces, but not without casualties. This Pit Boss Gorebag especially will present some issue, I believe, considering that we do not have anyone approaching his equal in level or combat experience, meaning we'd just have to keep throwing men at him until he's worn down. A costly maneuver, and one I'd rather avoid for the sake of my men, given any alternative.

"Of course, expecting Miss Darling to win would be unreasonable. Even if she did, I very much doubt that his cohorts would honor their end of the bargain. But if she can just stall the situation long enough for Lord Buck to arrive, I'm sure he will be able to make quick work of the brute. It's the only reason why I'm considering any of this foolishness."

"You heard the woman," Sam said with a knowing smile. "Just gotta stall him for a minute, that's all."

"Sam, you—"

"Well, off I go!"

Sam went strolling toward the mining village, arms swinging, but Serene caught her by the wrist and held her back.

"Please," she said. "This is such a stupid thing to get yourself killed over. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that there are people out there stronger than you."

"I won't tell you to face the pit boss alone," Jawara agreed. "If you think better of it, I won't hold it against you. In fact, I might just take your place. Or maybe my predecessor, Griff, would like the honor. We're both a higher level than you, so it stands to reason that…"

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Sam looked back and hit them with her brightest grin. In a gentle but firm voice, she said: "It's okay, guys. I've got this." She extricated herself from Serene's grip, began backing away, and gave a quick wink. "Just leave it all to me."

Her words must have struck home, because no one offered any further argument as she traipsed up the road, getting further and further away from the lines of militiamen at her back as she approached the raised log walls of the mining village. Gorebag soon broke away from his people, and they met somewhere in the middle between the two camps, along a featureless stretch of road with flattish, rock-strewn terrain around them.

She took off her shoes and socks and stretched a little, then squinted up at the hulking pit boss with one hand on her hip. "So, I guess since you're here and all, that means you're interested in having it out with me?"

Gorebag laughed a shrill little laugh and hefted a heavy, iron-banded club he had resting against one shoulder. "Indeed I am, little girl. Your proposal intrigues me. However, before we can get to trading blows, I need assurance from your captain that she will honor her word and let us pass when I win."

Sam couldn't help but grin at his confidence. "Yeah, a'ight. That's fair enough."

"As an added incentive, if you'd direct your attention over yonder," he hefted his club to point back at the village, "you'll see that my boys have taken some of our merchandise as… insurance against foul play."

A line of taskmasters, all garbed in gray and black, were arrayed at the gates holding some dirty, emaciated, sorry-looking persons hostage at the points of cudgels and daggers and horrible saw-toothed swords. Slaves taken out of the mines, evidently. They looked out over the open fields with hollow eyes, evidently finding no hope in the hundreds of soldiers poised to ensure their liberty.

They bore welts and cuts and badly healed fractures, some looking like they were more than halfway to the grave already, needing to be hoisted up by their captors to even stay on their feet. Sam felt sick at the sight of such misery, but forced herself to stay still for the moment, channeling her anger to stoke a fire in her gut.

I can't wait to remodel this guy's face.

Once Jawara had given the pit boss all the assurance he wanted, she retreated a ways to give them space to fight, and Gorebag squared off against Sam, his grotesquely muscled frame glistening in the noonday sun.

"Okay little girl, here are the rules," he said in an unabashedly patronizing tone. "We fight to the death—no surrender. No restrictions on ability or weapon use. Neither party will accept any outside help until the duel has been concluded. This is between you and me and nobody else. Understood?"

Sam managed a grin even though she tasted bitter bile on her tongue. "You got it, man."

"Would you like one of them soldiers to bring you a sword or something? I'll wait."

"I'm good. I like my fists just fine."

Gorebag shrugged his great meatball shoulders. "Bah! Your choice."

"Mmhmm. We all ready to go, then?"

"Sure. You know, I like to give people a free hit—it makes things more fair that way." He held out his arms to leave his naked torso fully exposed, and let the broad end of his club thump to the ground beside him. "So go ahead and hit me with your best shot. Impress me."

"If you insist," Sam replied, kneading a fist out of one hand in the palm of the other. "Let's see how you enjoy getting the beatdown for a change."

Normally she would have thrown something fair for a free shot, but this guy was a cowardly, sneaky, murdering, slaving, villainous fuck, so she felt no such compulsion. Gorebag waited patiently while she limbered up, big arms still extended, his round face broken up by a smarmy little smirk.

"So," he said, "are you going to—"

Sam shuffled two quick steps and put her hips into a full-strength body shot straight for the liver. Her fist met rippling soft flesh that suddenly turned unyielding, bulging layers of muscle tissue hardening under impact as the pit boss clenched his abs tight. His eyelid twitched and he let out a soft grunt, but he didn't move back an inch, and he quickly reasserted that annoying smile of his.

It was like hitting a brick wall—only, she'd probably make quick work of a brick wall, so maybe more like a wall built out of steel bricks.

"Don't feel bad," he said, his smile growing into a sleazy grin. "You hit pretty hard for a girl. Kind of offensive that you didn't even use a Strike on me, but oh well, that's on you." He took a long step back, then another, swinging his club in slow circles that made the air go whoom, whoom, whoom. "All right, let's get this sideshow properly underway."

"Hold on," Sam said. "I've had my turn. Now it's yours." She tapped two fingers to the side of her jaw. "Your best shot, please."

Gorebag fell still for a moment, letting his club smack against his shoulder. He blinked. Then he let out a shrill squawk of a laugh that made his rounded stomach bounce. "Hah! Eager to die quickly, are we?"

She gave a small shrug and put her hands behind her back. "Fair's fair, that's all."

"Well, okay, little girl. Out of respect for your guts, I'll give you exactly what you asked for."

Goreback reversed his momentum on a dime and shot forward with that startling speed of his, like a charging rhino. "Rush!" he squealed, followed by: "Amp (Five): Strike!"

There was a dark blur of the club coming at her, then a sharp crack that set her head spinning, her whole body spinning. She was yanked clean off her feet and sent through the air. Wheeling. The back of her head struck the ground, then her feet as she made another half revolution, then her head again. A jagged rock caught her side and sent her tumbling out of control, rolling across the ground, until finally she came to a stop on her back, staring up at a blurry sky. All she could hear was a ringing in her ears, loud and persistent. Her heartbeat thumped inside her skull. Her face was all hot.

She waited until the world stopped rocking like a boat on some topsy-turvy sea, and the passage of time started making a little bit of sense again. She worked her fingers, then her toes—just to remind herself how to work the machinery of her body—then sat up and tucked into a clumsy forward roll all in one motion that somehow ended with her standing upright, tottering on the balls of her feet.

Her neck crunched disconcertingly when she moved it; sent cold, shooting pain down her spine. Her jaw clicked on the left side when she worked it. She gave the bottom of her chin a sharp smack and knocked the joint back into reasonable alignment.

She realized when she saw Gorebag standing maybe fifty feet up the road that the pit boss had sent her quite a ways. He tossed his broken club aside and cackled: "Would you look at that! You're alive!"

"Yeah," Sam said in a thick, hoarse voice. Tasting blood, she hawked up a gob of saliva and spat. She found her balance; took one laborious step, then another. "You see, the thing about us heroes is…" She managed a bloody grin. "...we just don't stay down."

Gorebag gave a derisive snort. "A hero, are we? You think quite highly of yourself, don't you girl?"

"I think you should prepare your ass for the righteous whooping you're about to receive, villain."

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