“Somebody wants a piece of the chief!” yelled another one, making everyone laugh in lecherous tones. A few of them hooted in excitement.

Oh, gag. Leave it to a group of guys to turn a power challenge match into a naked mud wrestling event. I let their disrespect sink in and fuel my determination.

Trip made the first move like I knew he would - bold and simple, a straight up face to face attack that he obviously hoped would be the first and last move he had to make tonight.

I waited for him to come, balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to make the maneuver I would need to stop the aggression before it got the better of me.

He came at me like a bull, arms slightly cocked, hands hovering near his chest, just below his pecs. He was going to shove me. Hard. A tiny part of me was relieved to see he was taking the least brutal approach to his assault at the beginning - it suggested he might respect girls enough to not punch them in the face … at least not right away.

I knew he was going to make contact; I couldn’t stop that. But I could change the trajectory of my body once it got hit and remove some of the power from it. I also planned to slow him down for at least a short period of time.

The sounds of the crowd dulled and then disappeared altogether. My brain was focused on only one thing - the man in front of me with the evil intention of taking me down.

At the moment just before he reached out to hit me with over a hundred pounds of force, I shot my hand out in a choking position and jammed the space between my thumb and forefinger into his larynx, twisting a little to the side so I’d be able to reach beyond his arm length and so that only one of his hands would actually hit me.

I felt the hard cartilage of his throat flex a little and the immediate response of his body to begin choking and gasping for air. Meanwhile, his right hand hit me hard in the chest, sending me spinning off to the side. I almost went down.

I continued the movement of my body on purpose, catching myself after a full rotation to end up behind him, knowing I had to take advantage of his temporary inability to breathe. I took one step and stomped the bottom of my foot into the back of his left knee, causing it to bend and bring him down closer to the ground. I ran over to bring my fists down at the back of his neck in a double hammer that was meant to drop him, using the force of my hips and shoulders to drive it towards the ground as powerfully as I could. But he was tougher than I anticipated, and all they did was bounce off.

I did the only thing that was left to me at that point and delivered a punishing kick to his face. I hated to mar the beauty there, but this was my only chance to save my friends.

His body flew back with the force of the blow, but only enough to give him the leverage he needed to stand back up. He used his arm behind him on the ground to get his legs under him and then he straightened. And boy, was he pissed.

Blood was coming from a cut by his eye that I’d just put there with my kick. A bruise was starting to form already around his throat. I knew he’d be sore there for days. His voice told me he was already feeling the worst of it.

“You’re gonna fucking die,” he croaked out.

Wow, he really means that.

I watched as he reached down and pulled a knife out from under his pant leg near his shoe, never breaking eye contact with me. I let my eyes widen and fear enter them, hoping that he’d take that as a sign of weakness to exploit.

He moved sideways, looking for an opening he could take so he could give me a new orifice.

Grumbling from the sidelines filtered into my consciousness, making me think that not everyone was okay with the whole knife and death threat thing he had going on. But I assumed that no one would be bold enough to actually say so, since that would probably mean they’d be on the other end of his anger instead of me. It was one thing to disapprove - a whole other to volunteer to take my place. I was totally okay with that, though. This guy was a special case. I doubted anyone here had what was needed to take him out. I knew I did, but every fight was different. Sometimes things happened that pushed the odds in the weaker fighter’s favor and the stronger man went down. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen here - I was the one with the better skills. I knew that with every fiber of my being.

I knew he was going to come for me at any second. His hand and shoulder positioning told me he was going to slash at me, stomach-height, from his left to his right. He was holding the knife in his right hand and it had already started swinging ever so slightly, showing me the plans he was making in his mind. I doubted he even knew he was making them consciously.

He came at me in a mad rush, leaving me little time to prepare my response. I did what came naturally to me, after years and years of practice with guys much bigger than me or him. I waited until the last second - when he thought he had me and started his arc - to jump back and curl my body into a u-shape, allowing the blade to slice the air where my belly had just been.

The momentum of his strong stroke meeting nothing of resistance caused his arm to continue its sideways motion, leaving his abdomen open and unprotected. His legs were spread for balance, and I took advantage, kicking high and hard, intending to check him in the balls.

He swiveled at the last second, causing my kick to go into his thigh instead. It didn’t destroy him like I wanted it to, but I knew he felt it. He struck me once hard in the face with his open palm and then danced back, putting some distance between me and his precious parts.

“You bitch. You’re gonna pay for that.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said, breathing heavy not with the exertion, but with the amped up reaction to his threats and the chemicals in my veins. My face stung where he’d gotten a piece of me. I took some deep breaths, calming myself for the battle that was to come. I could feel blood dripping down my face from my cheek.

This was the hardest part, when the opponent realizes he’s underestimated your skills. He’s more careful now, more studied in his decisions. There would be less weaknesses for me to exploit. And I hadn’t managed to relieve Trip of that knife, or the other one I was sure he had in his other pant leg. Now was when I had to be exacting in my work. No mercy could be shown and no quarter given. It was do or die right now, and I chose do.

I’d been on the defensive for the whole time so far. Now it was time to attack. I approached him, praying that he’d take the opportunity to try and use that knife against me and that he’d try a lower stroke this time since he knew the higher aim hadn’t worked out so well.

He didn’t disappoint me. He pulled the knife back and then leaned over, bringing it forward to slice up under my arms.

I bent over in half again, making sure that knife couldn’t make contact with my body and crossed my arms in front of me, throwing them out, connecting at their juncture with his knife arm, about four inches up from his wrist. As soon as the forward motion of the knife swing was stopped, I slid my right arm out of its crossed position, up to his elbow, pulling it towards me while simultaneously using my other hand to twist his wrist around and bend his arm up around his back.

Now the knife was in his hand and pointed at his own back. One shove from me on the bottom of the handle and I could take out his kidney, making it game over.

Instead, I just pushed a little. One pop from my fist, enough to sink the blade in a half-inch, before I grabbed it out of his semi-limp hand and tossed it out of our circle. I pushed his bent-over form away from me and backed up.

I heard gasps around the circle as I danced back and forth on my toes. He had blood running down his back, smearing his paint, making his injury look way more gruesome than it really was. He was going to be pissed, but I had to try and end this without someone getting more hurt.

“I didn’t push the knife all the way in, but I could have. Fight’s over. I won.”

He stumbled one step before standing up most of the way, a murderous look in his eye.

“Bullshit!” he yelled, before he charged me, hands out, ready to choke the life out of me.

I let him come.

As soon as his hands locked on my throat, I reached up, my hands facing down in a cupped and hooked position, coming up and over his arms to meet in the center in front of my throat. I used the couple inches of space between my hands and the inside of his wrists to power his hands away from each other, releasing them from my throat, and more importantly, my windpipe.

I held his hands tight, knowing if he got them back I’d be starting all over. My leg came up and delivered a punishing blow to his balls. I’d finally made contact, but only because he’d thought he had me with the brutal force of his very strong hands, and left them dangling out in the open on a silver platter.

I used the muscles in my back to bring my right elbow forward. I pushed his hands down, ones he was still holding tense in an effort to use his strength against me, causing them to lower his face into the perfect position. I slammed his left cheek with the pointy bone in my elbow, and then pushed his head to the other side with the forearm that was following through, still holding his right arm up against my shoulder.

As he bent in half with the pressure of my arm and the pain in his midsection, I drove my knee upwards into his chest, one, two, three times, knocking the rest of the wind out of him.

My last move was to stomp his right knee that was bent and pointed out to the side. I eased up a little at the end, sparing him from a break that could mean his death without proper medical care. Instead, I bashed it hard enough that he’d feel it for a couple weeks. And maybe every time it rained, he’d get a reminder of the little white girl who’d gone American all over his ass.

He fell to the ground, gasping like a fish out of water, one hand holding his nuts and the other stretching towards his knee.

I reached down and pulled out the other knife he had, from the sheath at his ankle, swinging it over to put the tip to his neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy move like he was going to come after me; but Paci and one of the Creek grabbed him by the arms, shaking their heads at him. He stopped and stepped back, for the moment agreeing to wait and see what I would do.

I pushed the tip of the knife until it drew a little blood, before stopping. I announced in a loud voice, “This challenge is over. I won. Call me the winner, Trip, or I’m going to gut you right here.”

He didn’t say anything at first. Then he spit and said in a hoarse voice, “You win.”

I stood up, pulling the knife away from his neck. I was just about to start talking to the crowd when I felt a hand grab my ankle. I didn’t stop to think, I just reacted. I twisted around and dropped my whole body down, slamming my elbow into Trip’s temple, knocking him unconscious. His grip on my ankle went slack.

I adjusted my body so I was no longer lying on my back across his. Instead, I moved so I was sitting on him, my legs bent up in front of me, my feet on the ground. I rested my forearms on my knees, letting the knife stay solidly in my hand, assassin-grip-style. For all intents and purposes, I looked like I was sitting on a fresh kill. I smiled with the knowledge of the visual impact it was having on Trip’s faithful.

They might not like the situation one bit, but I had wiped the ground of the Kahayatle with his butt fair and square, and they had to respect that. A lot of the rules in our world had changed, but not the most basic one of all: our chances of survival were entirely dependent on our ability and willingness to dominate others. I’d shown I was not only willing but able to do that - to their leader. The Kahayatle was my world now, at least temporarily, and we were going to be making some changes.

***

Paci came walking over across the open space and offered me his hand. I took it and stood.

“Well done, Nokosi.”

“Thanks, Paci. He’s going to be fine, you know. I didn’t kill him.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know. Too bad. Trip will live another day to make an ass of himself.”

Bodo and Peter came over, Peter with a wet cloth someone had given him. He reached up to wipe the blood off my cheek, causing me to wince when it made contact with the wound.