Tadino’s features contorted as he bared his teeth. He touched the angry circular scar on his cheek. “Why? Why does a rat try to bite the dog that’s killing it? Do you know how many people I’ve seen beaten or branded or taken away? Look at my fucking face.” He spat on the ground. “There was supposed to be a revolution. The Janloon bombing was supposed to kill all the clan leaders, and the Clanless Future Movement was supposed to build a new society.” Tadino’s words were thick with venom, but he seemed near tears. “You know why I read the trashy clanmags? I keep hoping to see you Green Bone dogs finally kill each other off.”
“I’m not a Green Bone,” Ru said. He attacked with four strikes to the head in quick succession—two jabs, a left hook, and right cross that grazed Tadino’s cheek as the man dodged instinctively, protecting his face. Ru dropped a blistering shin kick across his opponent’s thigh.
Tadino hissed with pain and swung for Ru’s face, then his body, hitting him repeatedly before driving his shoulder into Ru’s chest and trying to pin him to the nearest wall. They struggled in a clinch, both trying to jam each other’s limbs. Ru took one of Tadino’s sharp knees to the stomach, and all the breath in his body whooshed out in a grunt as he folded forward. His eyes watered fiercely. He was already hurting in a dozen places from being knocked around badly by Koben, and every blow he took from Tadino made it worse.
But Ru was accustomed to being weak and fighting anyway. He’d never attended Kaul Du Academy, but the Pillar would not let his son grow up without a martial education, so Ru had been given plenty of training by his father, his uncles, his family’s stable of private coaches. He’d done knife fighting drills and shooting practice and sparring matches with Green Bones whose abilities he could never equal. Although he was no match for a Fist like Koben Ashi, against another man without jade, he had every advantage afforded by preparation. He was also twenty years younger and much fitter than Tadino, who was gasping after only a couple of minutes and a few hits.
Tangled up close with his opponent, Ru kept his wits; he ducked his head between his folded arms and used the tip of his elbow to nail the larger man in the sternum and ribs several times, hard. Tadino’s grip on him slackened. As they broke apart, Ru threw a wicked backfist that smacked Tadino in the jaw, sending him staggering back, holding his face and cursing.
“You clanless dog,” Ru said with contempt. “You deserve worse than a branding.”
Tadino ran at Ru and tried to take him to the ground with his greater size and weight. Ru leapt backward, sprawling, seizing Tadino around the neck in a headlock. The two men crashed to the floor. Dano made a muffled noise of alarm and the Mountain Green Bones stepped back, pushing chairs out of the way.
Tadino, red-faced, tried to wrap his meaty arms around Ru’s waist and flatten him to the floor. Ru moved too fast for the other man; he swung his whole body around and threw a leg across his opponent’s back. Riding astride him, with one arm wrapped around the man’s neck, he swung furiously, punching Tadino in the ear, and the jaw, dropping the tip of his elbow repeatedly into the back of the man’s neck, snarling.
Tadino collapsed to his stomach, putting his hands over his head to protect against the blows. Ru switched to burying punches in the man’s kidney. In desperation, Tadino tried to buck Ru off, to roll away. Ru put his feet down and loosened the grip with his legs just enough for the man to turn over, then leapt on him again with the weight of a knee in the man’s chest and continued wailing on him, hitting him in the face repeatedly. Tadino sputtered blood and cried out, “Stop, I give up!” Ru did not stop. No one else in the room moved to stop him either. “I concede!” Tadino gurgled. “I said I give up. Stop, stop, stop!”
“You thought you could fuck with me because I don’t have jade?” Ru punched Tadino again, flaying his knuckles on the man’s teeth. “You want to fuck with my family, with the No Peak clan?” He did not really intend to kill Tadino, but he was soaring high on adrenaline and principled wrath, and he was going to make sure the man got every bit of what he deserved, that he served as a message that even the Kobens could not misinterpret. Ru might be a stone-eye, but he would not be a weak link in his family. He was his father’s son; he would not back down from any fight or be used by anyone. You did not fuck with any Kaul.
Bero had seen many terrible things in his life, but what happened next would never leave his memory. Tadino, panicked, believing he would be beaten to death, tried frantically to push Ru off, shoving at his chest and hips. The bartender’s hand fell upon the loosened talon knife sheath in Ru’s waistband. In a flailing, fateful instant, he seized the hilt of the weapon and slashed wildly at the man on top of him. The talon knife caught Ru across the neck and the fine steel opened the side of his throat.