The Rovers were positioned in two knots: three in front, and two behind. She went straight at the knot of three and as they shifted to meet her charge, she suddenly jagged right and struck the Rover at the edge of that group. Not with the knife, but with her hand, parrying his reach with her forearm and then bouncing off of that impact and using the resulting force to power a blow with the open Y of her hand formed by thumb and index finger, so that the big knuckle of the index finger struck the man’s Adam’s apple. He gagged and sagged back.

Most people are right-handed, Church had said, and most right-handed fighters are awkward when fighting a left-hander. Although Dahlia was right-handed she had been relentlessly trained to fight ambidextrously. Church had insisted on it. He’d been inflexible, almost cruel about it. As the Rover canted backward and crashed into the smaller of the two women, Dahlia understood why.

Don’t stand and admire your work. When you create an advantage, press it.

She followed the Rover’s fall, reaching now with the heavy kukri knife and striking with a loose, deft flick of her wrist. The blade caught the dreadlocked man across the bridge of the nose. He screamed and reeled back so sharply, grabbing at his face, that his elbow struck a tree trunk. He screamed and fell, landing on top of the man she’d hit in the throat.

When in a pincer attack, don’t turn to see what danger is behind you. Keep moving and turning. If you’re in the center, then you are trapped.

Dahlia jumped sideways, turning in midair and slashing with the kukri as she did so. The blade encountered a stab from the leader of the gang. The muscular woman had a military bayonet and had lunged forward with a powerful blow that was intended to end the fight there and then. The blades rang off one another, striking sparks but drawing no blood. The fifth Rover grabbed Neeko and wrapped a tattooed arm around the little scout’s throat.

“I’ll fucking kill him,” roared the Rover, but then he grunted in pain and surprise as Neeko struck backward to hit the man in the crotch with the side of his fist. Immediately the scout turned inside the choke, pushing his chin into the crook of the arm to create a narrow margin for breath, and twisted his whole body toward the muscular arm. A turn-away would have tightened the choke, but turning toward the shoulder of the choking arm created exactly the opposite effect. For a split second the arm was a cage and inside that cage was Neeko and everything on the Rover’s body he wanted to hit.