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Adam knew well enough how it felt. Lessard had punched him in the kidney before, and that had just been for fun.

Braxton Pickett, with his eyes bulging more than usual, swung his rifle wildly toward Lessard.

Charlie casually chucked his hammer across the cave. It flew toward the Confederate. Pickett refrained from shooting as he dropped and thereby avoided taking a few pounds of iron to his skull.

It all happened in the space of a breath—but Adam had already shoved to his feet and started sprinting across the space that divided him from Ellie and Jacobs.

Dawson shouted as he waved the glowing bone over his head. Buller and Price whirled to point their rifles at Charlie and Lessard instead of at the priest by the water.

Flowers stood just behind the two guards. The big man neatly reached over and plucked the Enfield from Buller’s hands. He tossed it to Charlie.

Adam reached Jacobs and plowed into him.

The blow loosened Jacobs’ grip on Ellie. The smaller man twisted into Adam’s impact, slippery as an eel. They hit the ground side-by-side, and Adam barely managed to catch Jacobs’ knife hand. He stopped it just shy of driving into his guts.

Jacobs was smaller, but he was strong—and damnably quick. It took both of Adam’s hands to keep the knife from disemboweling him… which left him with only one other body part at his disposal.

Thankfully, it was a hard one.

Adam slammed his head into Jacobs’ face.

Something cracked. The force on the knife hand broke just long enough for Adam to shove the blade away and scramble into a crouch.

Jacobs managed to do the same, even though blood was dripping down from his cheek. Adam’s blow had taken him on the bone and split the skin.

Jacobs didn’t seem bothered by it. His eyes were on Adam with the look of a practiced fighter—one who knew how to watch for an opening.

A few steps away, Ellie crawled unsteadily to her feet, and then flinched as a bullet pinged off the stones beside her.

Jacobs darted in, quick and sharp. He was obviously not a man who won by brute force—which was Adam’s usual preferred method—and he still had that damned knife.

Adam was sadly short on knives.

He staggered back to avoid the swipe, batting at the back of Jacobs’ hand as he went by—but the guy was moving too fast. Adam hit the other man’s arm instead, and Jacobs managed to keep his grip on the blade.

There was probably a clever strategy for dealing with this sort of thing. Adam didn’t know it. He just launched himself at Jacobs instead.

Charlie and Lessard had yanked up the crate. They used it as a makeshift shield as they worked toward better cover. Pacheco crouched with them. Charlie peppered off a few rounds at the remaining guards.

Dawson fumbled with his bone as he scrambled for a place to hide. The arcanum slipped from his hands, bounced lightly off the floor of the cavern, and skidded away.

Behind him, Kuyoc had shamelessly darted behind a spill of old breakdown by the stream. The water was rushing faster now than it had been when Adam and Ellie had first entered the cavern, undoubtedly fueled by the rains dumping down on the mountains and the valley outside. The flow of it looked almost like the rapids they’d navigated on theMary Lee.

Ellie made a dash. She bolted across the cave, keeping low as more bullets pinged off the stones.

Still wrestling Jacobs, Adam stumbled up against a low wall of stone—and tripped.

He flailed backwards and slammed onto something flat, hard, and unforgiving.

Jacobs landed on top of him—and immediately sliced the knife in, aiming for a killing blow.

Adam caught his wrists.

Jacobs leaned in, putting his full weight behind the blade as Adam’s muscles strained.

The bastard’s split cheek was still bleeding. Drops fell from it onto the surface of whatever Adam was lying on.

Where they landed beside Adam’s ear, he heard a distinct and surprising hiss.