I grab for a weapon. There were plenty of swords, knives, and other modalities of pointy murder in the armory, and I picked a couple that most resembled the light, slender rapiers I'd favored back in the city. In hindsight this is starting to look like a very bad decision, since parrying a blow from that monstrous cleaver is going to be like trying to deflect a descending boulder. Better than nothing at all, though.

  "Infidel girl!" the priest roars. His belly jiggles, spattering blood from his self-inflicted wounds. Two more raiders flank him, adorned with the same icons on their foreheads. The most devout of the flock, I guess. "Why must you vex me?"

  "Guess I'm just fucking vexatious," Theo says, bringing her rifle to bear on him. "You gonna chop me up with that thing? Doubt my brother will pay much ransom for a sack full of meat."

  "Perhaps not." The priest's fleshy lips draw back in a smile. He's filed his teeth to points, because of course he has. "But he'll beg for his beloved sister back once we send over her hands and feet. And you'll be much better behaved in the meantime." He licks his lips with a fat wet tongue. "Though I think I'll save myself a finger."

  "Fucking ," Theo says, and pulls the trigger.

  The cultist to the priest's left shoves forward, taking the shot high in the chest and sagging against his master with a gurgle. The priest cuffs the dying man aside and advances on Theo, surprisingly quick in spite of his bulk. Theo drops her rifle, draws a long knife, and backs around the engine cowling.

  The priest isn't paying me any attention, which feels rude, and also like a really good time to stab him in the back. But when I get up, the third raider moves to intercept. She's a whip-thin, mad-eyed woman, blood still leaking from the icon on her forehead, a serrated knife in each hand. I thrust the sword at her, more by instinct than plan, and she bats the blade aside and charges me with a growl. I scramble back toward the bow with a very un-fencer-like grace.

  Less panic, Kal, more thinking. I've got reach on her, so I stand my ground and use it, evading her parry and forcing her to back off a step, out of range. Frustrated, she swipes at my arm, but I'm too quick. Abruptly this starts to feel like a winnable fight --

  -- and then she drops one knife and my blade, blood welling instantly between her fingers. I'm so startled I nearly die then and there as she pulls me forward and lunges for my throat. At the last moment I let go of my sword and duck, the point of her blade slicing my scalp. I'm inside her reach now, so I deliver a punch to her belly and jam my arm into her throat. She staggers back a step, blood dripping from the carving on her forehead into her eyes, and for a moment she's blind. One more shove and she flips over the deck rail, clattering down the side of the hull before disappearing under the skirt.

  Fuck. Still alive. My scalp stings and my hair is matting with blood. I grab my sword again and look around for the priest.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  At just that moment he staggers back into view, arms waving. Whatever exchange of blows happened behind the engine cowling, it left Theo bleeding from a deep cut across her back while the priest has a half-dozen stab wounds in his flank. Theo has lost her knife, but she's attached herself to the big man's side, her legs curled around his bulk and her arms straining at his bicep. Her weight is enough to keep his cleaver-arm extended and useless, and he slaps at her head with his other hand, his sausage-fingers trying to get a hold in her short, ragged hair.

  I rush toward the pair, sword in hand, as the priest staggers drunkenly across the deck. He gets his fingers in Theo's face, but she bites down savagely and he roars in pain. He takes another blind step backward and the port rail takes him out at the knees. He tries to balance, one arm pinned and the other hand stuck between Theo's teeth. He's not going to make it.

  Theo's eyes meet mine. I start to run, just as the priest's wobbling bulk starts to pull both of them over the side.

  My sword clatters to the ground. I hook my fingers into the priest's leather apron and pull, my feet sliding across the deck until they meet the rail. I put my whole weight into it and it's barely enough to reverse the huge man's momentum, sending him staggering forward head-first into the engine cowling instead. The impact dislodges Theo, who tumbles to the deck with a thump beside me.

  For a few seconds, none of us can get up.

  The priest recovers his feet first, crawling up the cowling, his hand leaving long, bloody streaks on the metal. The last joint of his index finger is missing.

  "Infidels," he gurgles. "Glad-of-war will reward me with your service, when I am called to His glory."

  "Yeah?" Theo raises her head, her smile a gory horror. "Does that mean I get to keep this?" She spits the missing finger-joint onto the deck, a tiny nugget of flesh and bone. "Tastes like garbage. I don't know how you fucking eat that shit."

  My groping hand finds my sword. Theo pulls her emergency backup knife, a short blade that looks like a toy compared to the war-priest's bulk. The cannibal raises his cleaver, an enormous, scarred hunk of metal.

  ""

  Mercy vaults over the engine cowling, flipping in mid-air like a gymnast nailing a dismount. Her spin has sharp edges, though, and her blade passes through the war-priest's forearm, above where metal meets flesh. The big cleaver falls away, hitting the deck with a clang, and the huge man can only stare dumbfounded as blood fountains from the stump.

  I lunge, neat as a textbook, the long blade sinking into the priest's fat belly right in the center of the gory icon. At the same time, Theo scrambles up, climbing the cannibal's bulk like a scurrying spider. He barely has time to scream before she plants the short blade in his eye. Theo leaps off, landing heavily beside me, as the priests burbles something incoherent and slumps sideways to the deck, landing like quivering mountain of flesh.

  Another contemplative silence. Mercy prods the enormous corpse with her foot, like a cat urging a dead mouse to keep being amusing.

  A change in the sound around us draws my attention. To either side of the cutter is a fleet of bikes and trikes, the cannibals watching to see how the battle plays out. Now they're turning away, cutting a wide curve across the desert and leaving us behind.

  "That's it?" I say. It doesn't seem possible. "We killed their boss, so they're just giving up?"

  "Murder," Mercy says with satisfaction.

  "Nah," Theo says. She hauls herself up on the rail with a groan. "They know better than to stick around."

  She points toward the bow. Following her gaze, I see another dust cloud approaching from that direction, full of the characteristic glint of sun on chrome. There's a hell of a lot of them.

  "Told you I have a big family," Theo says, grinning.