32. The Leader

The third room had gone worse than the others. Escapee opened there with the spear, trying to keep the larger of the two gang members away while Roughhand closed on the other. Misgiver stayed a step back from the doorway, feeding warnings where he could. The smaller man was quicker than expected, nimble in the cramped space and skilled enough to punish every overreach. Roughhand kept up, but only because Misgiver caught the first signs of the deadlier counters and pushed the warning through before the clone could commit too far.

The big man, meanwhile, took a shallow spear strike as though it barely hurt, stepped inside Escapee’s reach, and smashed one of the clone’s arms so hard it went useless at once. The blow should have decided the fight immediately. Instead, the fight dragged into something uglier.

Escapee stayed alive only by giving ground, shifting the spear between one-handed thrusts and clumsy sweeps, and forcing the brute to stay engaged even after the broken arm. Misgiver’s warnings prevented disasters, but they did not create an opening.

Roughhand and the smaller man turned the near side of the room into a tight, messy exchange of bruises, blocks, stumbles, and quick counters, with neither one able to fully take control.

They were surviving, but victory was nowhere in sight.

When the second room cleared, the balance finally changed. Rattler grabbed the fallen crossbow and moved toward the third room while Cadencer followed at a slower pace, bleeding from both his leg and his arm.

Roughhand recognized the opportunity immediately and changed his approach. Until then, he had been meeting the smaller man head-on because there had been no better option. Now he stopped trying to beat him in place. He gave ground instead, making it look like a man starting to lose. He stumbled back toward the doorway, let one block come in late on purpose, and showed the right amount of weakness to pull the other man forward. The nimble gang member took the bait. He pressed hard, eager to finish, and crossed the doorway quickly.

A bolt flashed toward his face. The man reacted with astonishing instinct, twisting so violently out of line that he nearly damaged his own ankle. The shot missed his head by inches and buried itself in the wall behind him. The dodge saved his life, but it also broke his balance at the worst possible moment. His feet landed wrong, his hips turned too far, and the speed that had carried him through the doorway suddenly worked against him.

Roughhand took him there. Off-Balance guided the moment better than raw strength could. Instead of striking, the clone hit him shoulder to chest, caught at one arm and one hip, and turned with the man’s broken step rather than against it. The move sent the man crashing sideways into the doorframe and then down hard enough that his next breath came out as a grunt rather than a shout.

Misgiver reached him before he could rise. The baton came down into the side of the neck and upper chest. The discharge did not kill him instantly, but it destroyed any chance of recovery. His body jerked, one arm spasmed uselessly, and Roughhand finished the work with the knife before he could force himself upright again.

Only the brute remained. Escapee was nearly done by then. One arm was broken, his breath was ragged, and control was slipping. The big man had little regard for him and moved to prove it. So Escapee went with the only option left. He charged simply to force the brute into a committed strike and hold him in place for one heartbeat. The gamble worked. The man answered with a crushing blow that would have destroyed Escapee, but because he put his whole body into it, he gave the other clones their opening.

Roughhand reached him from the flank. Instead of attacking high, he used the brute’s planted stance and recent strike against him, dragging one leg and turning at the hip while Misgiver struck from the other side with the baton. The first thunder strike only made the man spasm and roar. He tried to turn through it, so strong he almost forced through the pain, but the twist Roughhand had pulled into his lower body kept him from planting properly. The second strike landed a heartbeat later. At the same moment, Roughhand drove the knife low under the ribs. The combination finally broke him. His knees buckled, he crashed half into the wall and half onto the floor before the fight left him for good.

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The house quieted, though harsh breathing, scraping boots, and low groans still filled the rooms. Harsh breathing, scraping boots, and the low groans of wounded men and damaged clones remained, but the three room fights were over.

Only the leader remained.

He had used the time. By the time the third room was clear, the man was already coming out to meet them, leaving behind Carver and Survivor where they lay broken and moaning in his room.

Alistair had four working bodies for the next fight. Rattler was bruised and carrying the captured crossbow. Roughhand was cut and bleeding, Misgiver remained unharmed, and Cadencer was limping.

When the leader stepped out of the room, he dismissed the two suffering clones, then did the same for the fallen bodies in the second and third rooms once the fighting there was decided. Alistair could not afford to keep splitting his attention into bodies that had already served their purpose, and he certainly did not want wounded clones groaning in the background while he faced the most dangerous man in the house.

Another pair of clones had already been sent from Clovermead, but they would not arrive in time unless he somehow stretched this next part beyond what seemed realistic.