The saber sank into her shoulder, past her collarbone, and it would have gone in farther if she hadn’t sapped the wind from Cutter’s lungs. He was sent flying, through the window of a nearby home and riving on the floor as he clawed hectically at the straps on his chestplate. It was caved in, crushing his chest, preventing him from drawing in a breath. Resisting the urge to flail uselessly in panic, Cutter unbuckled the straps, tossed the chestplate aside, and gasped like a newborn, inhaling long and sharp. However, a stabbing pain dug into his chest like a dagger. A rib was broken, probably several. That beast girl, Pyrik, had punched him with the force of a cannonball. Cutter was lucky to even draw a breath.

A roar like thunder slit the night. Cutter glanced out the window, terrified, and scrambled to his feet. Although his saber was laced with a healthy dose of the paralytic, Pyrik had yet to seize up entirely. He had watched from the rooftop, astonished that the paralytic had only stiffened her movements as though sore from a hard day of labour. That last play with the saber was supposed to have ended this rampage once and for all. But his blade hardly entered far enough for a huge titre of paralytic to reach her heart, and Cutter had no other cards left to play. That was, other than to fight her head-on. The notion was absolute suicide, pure madness to consider. Pyrik had slain ranks of his men, dicing through them like a wolf in a henhouse.

“Where are you, human!” Pyrik demanded, voice dripping slaughter.

However, the asymmetry of power might have shifted slightly in Cutter’s favour. The dose of paralytic that he delivered her was nothing to shrug off. Parts of her body would surely have locked up. That was an opportunity he had to capitalize on, even if the margin of success was slim. He had no other choice. The only thing left standing between the settlers in the Common House and Pyrik was him.

With an arm clutched tenderly around his chest, Cutter staggered out the backdoor. He stopped short of entering the alley to the main street when he heard heavy boots stamping on the ground. He pressed himself flat against the wall, holding his breath despite it hurt to do so. Her breathing was ragged, animalistic. The footsteps were coming closer, coming from down the alley. Cutter opened his visor, urgently desperate for a breath. Then a flash of inspiration struck. He ripped off his helmet, and aimed as high as he could. The helmet flew up in an arch, clattering down the rooftop until he dropped over on the other side of the house.

The footsteps stopped.

Sniffing.

Cutter stayed stone-still.

Did she see me throw the helmet?

There was a crash like a tornado tearing through a house. Luckily, it was the house down the street. Cutter dashed into the main street, toward where his fallen brothers lay. Pyrik was ripping apart the house, and in a short time she would find that he was not in there. Moving quickly, he searched through the rifles, flipping open the frizzens to check for powder, looking for one that was loaded with a shot. None were loaded, though. Pyrik burst through the rooftop and stamped a crater into the main street from a clumsy landing. On a hunch he grabbed a rifle, anyways.

“That was quite the clever trick, human. I applaud your enginuity, but what did it accomplish?” Pyrik had one arm that hung limply at her side. Her wings dragged the ground like a cloak. She flicked her gaze at the rifle in his hands. “Do you honestly believe that a lone rifle will stop me?”

“I’m willing to gamble that it’d at least slow you down,” said Cutter. It was a bluff, but judging from the observation that Pyrik lept instead of flying through the roof hinted at her wings being paralyzed. She would be unable to block the shot, hopefully. Or else he’d have gambled away his life.

Cutter raised his rifle, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The flint smashed against the frizzen, producing a spark, and Pyrik flinched as she attempted to shield herself with her wings but they only twitched. The margin of victory was small but now was his chance. He charged at her with the rifle like a spear, the bayonet gleaming with the green paralytic. He targeted her armpit, hoping to immobilize her left arm when Pyrik sidestepped the strike even with a rod-straight leg. Swiftly he tried to swipe her with the bayonet, only slicing brigandine. Although Pyrik moved stiffly and with little grace, her impaired faculties were more than sufficient to dance circles around Cutter.

The beast girl caught the barrel of the rifle with her good hand and wrenched it free from Cutter’s grasp, forcing him to free his saber from its sheath. She chuckled, amused. And then she hurled herself at him. Even with one hand she had him on the back foot, surrendering ground, keeping up with her slashing claws with his saber.

“You’re starting to look a little haggard,” Pyrik commented.

Cutter was getting assaulted from the inside as well, by the broken ribs that stabbed into him each time he sucked in some air. Fighting at his pace, he was surely going to get slashed open.

“So do you,” Cutter said, then he pulled out the flintlock pistol from his holster and fired from his hip.

Pyrik howled, the lead shot gone through the knee of her good leg. She buckled, and Cutter lunged forward with his saber. He aimed for the throat. If he could graze the spine, she might get paralyzed from the neck down. The saber was close to sinking into flesh, then Pyrik turned to the side, the tip of the blade sunk into the shoulder on her paralyzed arm, and with her functional arm she slashed across his wrist, causing the saber to drop uselessly to the ground.

His wrist flowed freely like an opened wine casket, and Cutter pressed his free hand to the wound, trying to stem the bleeding as he staggered back.

The beast girl licked the freshly-drawn blood from her claws, and she flashed him a sadistic grin. That was when Cutter knew he was going to die.

***

Ira sat up with her against the wall, hugging her pod to her chest.

Listening to the carnage outside, it was apparent that the Hospitallers had lost. Shae stared at the door, wanting to go out and assist the humans, but what could she possibly do? When guns and steel failed to stop the beast girl, how could her arrows make a difference?

The floorboards creaked behind Ira, and she feared it was Pyrik coming to finally annihilate the last of her kind. However, it was Aella and she had with her a bottle of the paralytic.