“That a fact?” Pretty Boy grinned, a mad light coming into the hateful pinpricks of his pupils, “You fixing to get me kilt like you did young Rene?”
Doyd began circling to Deschane’s left, towards the side of his twisted ankle. The navigator tracked him with his eyes but made no other movement. The tension in the air was so thick now that Tooms could all but reach out and slice through it with his knife. Compelled by an unspoken agreement, he and the other pathfinders began clearing the space around the pair, dragging furniture out of the way before the inevitable occurred.
“Oh, a pox on all you pathfinders,” Madame Wimba sighed and took cover under her counter, “I expect a full reimbursement for all the damages!”
“I didn’t get them killed,” Deschane said in a light and reasonable tone, “The fly boys at military intelligence did. We were fed erroneous information.”
“Tough titty,” Pretty Boy said mercilessly, “You were on point. That’s all that matters. You had eyes on the ground, you should’ve seen the lay of the land. Isn’t that what you navigators are all about? Seeing the shape of things to come?” Doyd started rolling up his sleeves, adding: “Tell you what. I’ll give you one chance to guess what’s about to happen.”
“A whole lotta hurt?” Deschane asked, loosening his collar and briskly rotating his wrists.
“You took the words right out of my mou—” Pretty Boy began, but Deschane cut him off by taking a wild haymaker. Doyd’s arms came up to form a tight guard and he leaned back, evading the punch with contemptuous ease. The blow was too telegraphed to catch a seasoned fighter like Pretty Boy by surprise, plus Deschane’s bum foot was clearly slowing him down.
Or so it seemed. Deschane was just getting started, however. The navigator used the momentum to plant his good foot forward before swiveling on its heel, his other arm whipping around in a vicious backhanded hammerfist that slammed into Pretty Boy’s jaw just as the pathfinder was opening up with his own counterattack, knocking Pretty Boy sideways and sending him crashing into Harmer. To her credit the sharpshooter propped Doyd up as he shook his groggy head, then helped him back into the fight with a push, saying: “Go on then, state your case. You asked for it.”
“Damn right I did!” Pretty Boy yelled as he pounced at Deschane, “The dirty prick and his cheap-arse tricks!”
The saloon erupted into shouts as the spectators cheered the combatants on.
“Gettim sir! Rip his fragging head off!” Cooly exhorted him.
“Kick him in the nards, Pretty Boy!” another man urged.
Support appeared almost evenly split between the two. Everyone knew that the result of the contest would decide who would head the platoon moving forward.
Pretty Boy’s left shot out in a steel-piston jab that caught Deschane precisely on the bridge of his nose. There was a crackle of breaking cartilage and Deschane stumbled back, nostrils gushing like fountains as he retreated under a hail of straight shots from Pretty Boy. Driving the navigator into a corner of the room, Pretty Boy pummeled his opponent with blistering combinations, most of the punches landing on Deschane’s shoulders and forearms as the navigator shelled up and did his best to weather the storm.
It was a mistake as far as Tooms was concerned; Doyd had been a champion striker in the inter-service competitions for several years running. The Amits had robbed him of his career and half of his depth perception by permanently damaging the retina of one of his eyes.
But perhaps goading him into a striking match had been Deschane’s intention all along. For as Pretty Boy bounced a thunderous lead hook off the crown of Deschane’s bald head, the navigator countered with an uppercut swung all the way down from his hips, twisting into the shot as he drove it right into the tip of Doyd’s chin, wobbling him. Pretty Boy was forced to take a step back to recover, but the relentless Deschane refused to let him breathe, pressuring him with a flurry of wide overhands.
But Doyd was too experienced to be intimidated by that tactic. The wily warrior simply took a half-step back out beyond the reach of Deschane’s arching fists before delivering a sharp teep kick to the navigator’s solar plexus that stopped the assault dead in its tracks.
Winded by the sudden gut check, Deschane presented an easy target as Doyd sprang back in with another power jab.
Crack!
Deschane’s eyes glazed over and he blinked hard, teeth glistening with the blood from a split upper lip.
Whallop!
A follow-up right cross came right after, knocking Deschane clean off his feet. The navigator rolled across the floor as Doyd kicked him around like a football, beating him from pillar to post until he had the good sense to stagger back to his feet. Pretty Boy was smiling now, a cat toying with its prey. As the better striker he could afford to play the long game and slowly pick Deschane apart from a distance.
Some of the more squeamish pathfinders turned away, not wanting to look on now that everyone knew how the fight would play out. Doyd went to work with gusto, stinging Deschane with another piston left before firing another knockout cross. This time Deschane expected the combination and rolled with it, stumbling back punch-drunk into Tooms, who caught him before he fell again.
“What the hell d’ye think you’re doing, swanging and banging with him like that?” Tooms hissed into Deschane’s ear, “This ain’t a game of fisticuffs!”
“Duly noted,” Deschane slurred. Then as honor demanded Tooms nudged him back into the path of another 1-2, Deschane once more eating the jab and barely evading the destructive right hand that almost finished him.
“Ooh, bravo,” Pretty Boy taunted him, “Try that again, why don’t you?”
In came the long left hand, stabbing like a rapier. Deschane anticipated it and ducked—exactly as Doyd had predicted he would. The navigator crouched forward and was met by a skyrocketing upwards elbow that would have sent the shards of his nasal cartilage right up into his brains if Deschane hadn’t turned his face away in the last moment. Still, the sharp blow managed to split Deschane’s forehead open like an overripe melon.
“Beautiful work, Pretty Boy!” cried Baow.
Deschane keeled over, knocked clean out of his senses by the shot. Tooms clicked his tongue in disappointment as the navigator toppled for the last time, Pretty Boy standing aside to let Deschane’s body hit the deck.
“Hah! Guess he ain’t so tough as you all made him out to be,” he loudly proclaimed, reaching for an overturned stool on the ground. As the dazed navigator groveled on his knees in a feeble attempt to rise, Doyd raised the stool above his head to finish the job. Then he frowned and hesitated, glancing down just in time to see Deschaine’ s hand seize him firmly by the back of his lead ankle.
Coincidentally, this was also where most of his bodyweight was currently centered. The navigator exploded up from his kneeling posture, nowhere near as hurt as he’d been pretending to be, yanking hard on the grip and leaving Pretty Boy with literally no leg to stand on. Simultaneously Deschane’s other hand reached up and gave Pretty Boy a shove in the chest, the combined pushing and pulling motions flipping Pretty Boy over like a hotcake on the griddle.
Doyd squawked as his back smashed into the hard floorboards.
"That's a clean ankle pick if I ever saw one," Harmer commented.
Deschane kept his grip on the ankle and brought his foot stamping down between Pretty Boy’s legs, squashing his pearls flat. Pretty Boy let out a noise somewhere between a wheeze and a groan, curling up into a ball and clutching at his mashed man-parts. Deschane wiped the clotted snot from his mouth, chest heaving as he picked up the stool that Pretty Boy had dropped.
“Tough enough, brother,” Deschane told him, breaking it over Pretty Boy’s head and settling the matter in no uncertain terms. He had to stop and catch his wind for a minute before gasping:
“Fix him up. I want this man ready to march at dawn’s first light.”
The pathfinders dutifully gathered up their unconscious comrade and set him down on the table, upon which Ven came and started clucking and fussing over the bruises on Pretty Boy’s face.
“Case closed,” Cooly said with some satisfaction.
“Someone had better pay for that stool!” screeched Madame Wimba, “Oh, but you pathfinders are a blight upon the earth!”
