While everyone was distracted, Maxie went to find Just John. He was stirring, trying to sit up, his lethal spear held limply in his hand. If she could take him out, she might be able to stop this.

She had Arran’s club in her backpack. She’d been hoping not to use it, but she needed it now. She reached back for it and felt a terrific blow in her side. It took all her breath away, and it felt like her ribs had been caved in. She staggered sideways, her vision blurred with the pain. Out of the corner of her eye she sensed a movement and turned to fend off another attack. The second blow caught her in the upper arm, and she lost all feeling in it.

It was a squatter with a baseball bat. He wasn’t big, but he had two others with him. One of them swung at her, and she ducked, but it hurt like hell to move, and she thought she might pass out. There was no way she was going to avoid the next swing.

Suddenly the three squatters went down like bowling pins.

It was Freak. He had barreled into them full speed. As they struggled to get up, he grabbed a fallen bat and laid into them like a maniac.

Maxie was doubled over, fighting the pain and trying to draw some oxygen into her lungs.

Freak was making short work of his fight; one of the squatters ran off, another went down and didn’t look like he was getting up again. Freak was just about to finish off the last one when he yelled and sat down on the gravel. He looked confused. A bubble of saliva formed on his lips. There was an ugly patch of blood spreading across his back.

Just John. He’d stabbed up at Freak from the ground with his horrible three-bladed spear.

“No!” Maxie’s cry sounded like the snarl of a wild beast. All her pain forgotten, she moved quickly, with an inhuman strength fueled by rage and despair. Arran’s club swung through the air in a blur of silver gray. It slammed into the shaft of John’s spear and knocked it out of his hands.

He looked up at her, surprised. She raised the club above her head.

“Tell them to stop!” she shouted. “Now!”

“Make me, bitch.”

Maxie swiped the club across John’s face. It smashed into his nose and flattened it sideways. He howled. Maxie kicked him flat and picked up his spear.

“Now tell them!” she shouted, pressing the blades into the soft skin at his throat. “And don’t ever call me a bitch again, you ugly piece of shit.”

Just John mumbled something, blood streaming from his ruined nose into the gravel.

Maxie looked over and saw Carl, with a bunch of tough-looking squatters, grappling with Achilleus and his best fighters.