Melee (1)

By evening, Orange Town had shed the heat of the day. The sea breeze poured in from the docks, mixing the lingering fishy stench on the main street with the cloying sweetness of fermenting fruit and blowing it into every alley.

The Red Skull Tavern was well-known locally, and the three of them found it easily.

A Red Skull sign hung above the storefront. Beneath it, a wooden door stood half-open, its surface scarred with several knife marks of varying depths. The smell of liquor seeped through the crack, mingling with cheap alcohol and sweat.

Barlow pushed the door open.

The hinges gave a dry creak, and the clamor in the hall seemed to be grabbed by the throat, instantly dropping by half.

The bartender behind the counter had been wiping a glass. His hand stopped.

The people at the tables closest to the door turned around first, followed by those at the middle tables, then those in the corners.

Gazes converged from every direction and settled on the three people at the entrance.

Some were appraising, moving from their faces to the blades at their waists, then from those blades to their shoes. Others were wary, their hands sliding quietly off the tables to hover near weapon hilts.

Three unfamiliar young faces, armed with blades. They had pushed through the door without hesitation or a glance around, as if they were walking into their own kitchen.

Barlow stood in the doorway, his gaze sweeping from the left side of the hall to the right, then back again.

There was no expression on his face.

Roy stepped in beside him, raised a hand, and pointed at someone standing against the wall in the back of the hall—the lanky man.

His cheekbones jutted out, his eye sockets were sunken, and he held a dagger in his hand, its tip lightly tapping against his palm.

"That's him."

Barlow nodded once.

He did not look at the lanky man. His gaze moved past him and settled on the person behind the table in the middle of the hall.

A burly man sat there, the tattoo of a sea serpent coiled around an anchor on his left arm especially conspicuous beneath the oil lamp.

Seven or eight people sat scattered around the table. Counting those standing in the corners and leaning by the counter, there were at least twenty people in the hall, all of them theirs.

Barlow reached for his waist.

His short blade slowly slid free of its sheath. The long, thin scrape of metal against the scabbard's mouth rang clearly through the hall.

He held the blade horizontally before him.

"Do we still need to go through the motions?"

The burly man's eyes narrowed. The dagger in the lanky man's hand stopped; the bald man's hands, folded over his belly, separated; the young man with a pistol tucked at his waist pressed his hand to its grip.

Barlow's gaze shifted from the burly man's face to the lanky man's, then to the bald man's, before returning to the burly man.

"Quite a few of you."

His tone was as flat as when they had arrived.

"Can't be sure someone hasn't gone after my brother too."

He turned his head and spoke to Mila. His voice was not loud, but everyone in the hall heard him.

"Mila, go back."

Mila nodded once.

She turned around, her hand already resting on her sword hilt as she faced the half-open wooden door.

The burly man lowered his legs from the table. His boots struck the floor with a dull thud.

He leaned forward slightly. The sea serpent tattoo on his left arm twisted with the bulging of his muscles.

His eyes passed over Barlow and fixed on Mila's retreating back, traveling from her hair to the short blade at her waist, then from the blade to her ankles. The corners of his mouth split into a grin.

"Don't let the merchandise get away!"

Chair legs screeched against the floor.

The bald man stood first, shoving his stool backward until it crashed into the wall.

The lanky man's dagger flipped from his palm to between his fingers, its point facing outward.

The young man with the pistol at his waist drew it, the red cord wrapped tightly around its grip.

The people in the corners stood up, those by the counter stood up, and everyone seated around the hall rose. More than twenty people moved at once from all directions.

The back door was smashed open. Evening light poured in from behind, illuminating a rectangular patch of gray-white in the depths of the tavern.

Three or four people darted out the back door, their footsteps fading deeper into the alley as they went after Mila.

The rest closed in from three sides. The burly man stood in front, a broad-bladed short sword already in his hand, the nicks along its edge like a row of tiny teeth beneath the lamplight.

On the left were the lanky man and two others with blades. On the right, the bald man led three men.

The young man with the pistol retreated to the rear, its barrel swaying through gaps in the crowd as he searched for a firing angle.

Barlow's blade moved first.

His right foot kicked off the ground, launching him forward as his short blade slashed diagonally upward.

His target was the burly man's right wrist—disable the hand holding the weapon first.

The burly man's blade dropped, its spine knocking against Barlow's weapon. The two blades collided, scattering sparks.

Barlow's blade was jolted upward, numbing the web between his thumb and forefinger. The burly man's wrist was as thick as a ship's rope; the strike had not moved it at all.

Barlow did not withdraw his blade. Borrowing the force of the recoil, he swung it through an arc in midair and slashed backhandedly at the burly man's throat. The man threw his head back, and the edge skimmed across his chin, shaving off a small patch of stubble.

On the left, the lanky man's dagger stabbed in from the side at a vicious angle, aimed straight beneath his ribs. Barlow's blade was still occupied with the burly man, too late to defend.

Roy's blade arrived.

His short blade thrust in from the side, sliding up along the lanky man's dagger and knocking it half an inch higher. The dagger skimmed over Roy's shoulder, tearing his clothes without touching flesh.

Roy did not pull back after blocking. He drove his blade forward, its tip stabbing directly at the lanky man's chest.

The lanky man twisted aside, sweeping his dagger back. The two men tangled together in a flurry of blades.

On the right, the bald man and three others pressed in.

The bald man's weapon was a short iron bar, mottled with rust.

He swung the iron bar down in a full arc. Barlow sidestepped, and it smashed into the tabletop, splitting the table in half and sending splinters flying.

The bottles on the table rolled to the floor and shattered, and the stench of cheap alcohol burst into the air.

Barlow's blade followed the iron bar, its edge sliding along the shaft toward the bald man's fingers. The bald man released one hand, changing from a two-handed grip to a one-handed one. The force behind it dropped by more than half, but his other hand drew a dagger from his waist and stabbed backhandedly. Barlow had no choice but to pull his blade back to defend.

The two of them were surrounded in the center of the tavern.

The burly man bore down on Barlow from the front, his broad-bladed short sword striking heavier with every blow.

He cared nothing for technique. Every slash came straight down, relying entirely on brute strength.

Every time Barlow caught a strike, the web of his hand trembled from the impact, and he retreated half a step.

The lanky man and bald man attacked from both sides, dagger and iron bar alternating as they rained blows upon him. The others blocked the perimeter, sealing every possible escape route.

Roy was no better off. After blocking the lanky man, he was immediately surrounded by three others.

One was the swordsman who had been sitting beside the bald man, while the other two had rushed over from the counter.

Three men, three blades, hacking at him from three directions at once.

The short blade spun in his hand. He deflected the slash from the front, twisted aside from the thrust on the left, then drove the pommel backward into the wrist of the man on the right.

The man cried out in pain, and his blade slipped from his hand.

But the swordsman in front brought down a second slash. Roy had no time to recover his blade and could only leap backward.

His heel landed on a shattered bottle on the floor, broken glass crunching beneath his shoe.

Barlow's back crashed into Roy's.

The two were forced into the center of the tavern, surrounded on every side. The burly man's broad-bladed sword came down again, the bald man swung his iron bar from the right, and the lanky man's dagger flickered in and out of sight through gaps in the crowd.

Bang!

The pistol fired.

It was the young man with the pistol. He had found an opening, and the barrel extended between the two of them as a flash of fire flared.

The bullet grazed Barlow's ear and buried itself in the wall behind him, blasting a small patch of plaster apart.

Barlow's ear rang, and a searing pain spread from its edge.

He did not cover it. Taking advantage of the burly man's momentary distraction from the gunshot, he thrust his blade upward.

The tip pierced through the back of the burly man's right hand. It was not a fatal wound, but the hand holding his weapon was ruined.

The burly man let out a muffled groan and transferred his broad-bladed short sword from his right hand to his left.

A hole had been punched clean through the back of his right hand. Blood poured from it, running down his wrist and into his sleeve, but his left hand still held the weapon steadily, and the force of his blows was not much weaker.

In the alley behind the tavern.

Mila had not run far after darting out the back door. She turned at the corner, pressed her back to the wall, kept her hand on her sword hilt, and listened as footsteps drew closer behind her.

Three. She could tell.

Three sets of footsteps. One heavy, two light. The heavy one was running in front, with the lighter ones following behind.

She did not draw her blade.

She waited.

Inside the tavern, Barlow and Roy stood back-to-back, surrounded by more than a dozen people in the center.

The burly man gripped his sword in his left hand. Blood kept pouring from the hole in the back of his right hand, dripping onto the floor and mixing with the liquor from the shattered bottles.

The lanky man shifted his dagger from his left hand to his right. The bald man tightened his grip on the iron bar. The young man with the pistol was loading a second shot, biting open the cap of the powder flask and pouring powder into the barrel.

The burly man bared his teeth. Blood seeped between them, whether from the blow to his mouth earlier or from biting himself, no one knew.

"Two little brats, but your blades are fast enough."

He turned the broad-bladed short sword in his left hand, the nicks along its blade flashing beneath the oil lamp.

"But our merchandise isn't getting away."

Barlow said nothing. His hand was steady, the tip of his blade aimed at the burly man's throat.

His ear was still ringing, and the place the bullet had grazed burned fiercely, but his breathing remained calm.

Roy's back pressed against his. Roy could feel Barlow's shoulder blades rise and fall faintly with each breath—not fast, not slow, exactly like when they practiced swordsmanship in White Wax Forest.

Outside the tavern, Orange Town's evening was sinking into night.

But soon, the night would turn blood-red.