The patrons with weapons were my first targets.

The drunkard in front of Val and me was the first on my list. He slashed the blade in front of him, but his target was Val, not me. She backed up out of the range of the dagger, and before she could counterattack, I was moving forward. With the blade on his left side, his right was open.

I grabbed the back of his neck with my left hand and as he swung his right arm toward me, I caught his wrist in my right hand. Keeping the dagger pointed away from us, I used his momentum to twist him around. Mid-turn I pressed my knee into the back of his leg. The motion was too much for the inebriated man. He began to fall forward and I slid my left hand up to the back of his head, guiding his face towards the empty part of the table between his friends’ legs.

There was a thud as the man’s face bounced off of the hardwood. I released my hold on him as his unconscious body slid onto the floor. One was down, and that left eleven more to go.

I turned to Val. I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t happy with me for stepping in, but she wasn’t overcome with drunken rage like everyone else.

“We need to stop this before someone gets killed,” I raised my voice so she could hear me.

“We?” She glared at me, “When did we agree to team up?”

I ignored the contempt in her voice. “Since we are the only ones who are sober enough to end this without someone dying.” When that didn’t seem to interest her I added, “This is your bar.”

“Fine,” She growled, “how do you want to do this?”

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The scream of pain alerted us to our next target. One of the card players had impaled a greedy patron’s hand to the floor. That wouldn’t have been life-threatening, except he had a second knife and he didn’t look content to stop the man from reaching for the coins. He wanted a more permanent solution.

A third man, who looked like a friend of the one who was on the floor pulled out a sword. The card player was oblivious as he knelt over his prey.

I thought about going after the man with the sword, but I was on the wrong side. I would have to move around the pair on the floor and Val to reach him. Val would have to handle him, but her sword was lying on the floor near the bar where I had dropped it. The solution to the problem wasn’t one I liked.

“Hey!” I screamed as I pulled my sword out of its sheath on my back, “Catch!”

Val didn’t look at me as I tossed her my sword, unfortunately, the guy with the knife did. I watched her long enough to see her grab the sword and heard the clang as she intercepted the blade of the other man. I had to trust her abilities as I focused all of my attention on the problem in front of me.

The card player was on his knees with the knife over his head. He slashed it at me as he stood up.

I let the slash go wide and caught his right wrist with my left hand. I stepped forward, grabbing his left shoulder with my right hand, knocking him off balance, and pushing him closer. I went with his motion and pulled him forward and jerked up my right knee. He didn’t realize what happened as my knee connected with his jaw. I watched his eyes roll back and let him fall to the floor.

The pinned man was reaching for the knife. I sighed and kicked him in the face, knocking him out.

I had just saved his life and that was all the thanks I got? I was never going to understand humans.

I turned to see how Val was doing, but as I looked up she screamed.

“Behind you!”

My sword was flying towards me. I plucked it out of the air and twisted around, just in time to block a patron from stabbing me in the back.