“Get them!” Gold Tooth shrieked, and they all ran back to their bikes.
Five motorcycles charged toward Val and the others. She ripped out her dagger and threw it, then whirled to tackle the first guy off his bike. Behind her, Damascus steel tore through rubber with a hiss of air. Val and the biker she’d tackled crashed to the ground. The first bike slammed into the doorway with a crack of steel. Hamish pulled another guy off his bike, and they rolled over each other, punching and yelling.
That left two bikers, who jumped their rides over the fallen and charged into the brewery, yipping and yelling like deranged hyenas while Val struggled to choke her opponent.
“Shit!” Yuka yelped. “If they set this place on fire—”
Val thought about the sacks of dry grain, pipes under heavy pressure, and fermenting gases. “It’ll go up like a torch.”
The juiced guy struggled against her arm as she locked it around his neck, but his struggles grew weaker.
“Blair, Yuka, get into Genevieve and get out of here!” Val roared.
“This is our fight, too,” Yuka barked and charged into the fight between Hamish and the biker. Blair and two other dwarves grabbed the biker whose tire had exploded.
Val had no time to worry about them. If the brewery blew up, it would endanger the entire block. She dropped the unconscious biker and charged into the brewery. As she ran, she extended her hand behind her, and her dagger zipped into her grasp.
“Hey!” she barked.
The bikes roared around the brewery, rubber squealing as they dodged between pipes and vats.
“Get her!” one biker ordered, skidding to a halt near the massive vat filled with grain and hot water. Shimmering heat rose from the copper.
The other biker planted a foot on the ground to drift his bike around and charged her at full speed.
Val stepped aside at the last second, arm extended, and clotheslined the biker in the face. The bike rejoined the fight outside, and the guy hit the floor on his back with a bone-crunching impact. He groaned and squirmed. Val drew her arm back for a punch, but before she could let fly, Yuka rushed up with her copper pipe and hit the guy in the balls.
“Shit, Yuka,” Val commented.
“Look!” Yuka yelped, pointing.
The biker near the copper vat had opened his backpack. He pulled out a beer bottle that sloshed with liquid, a rag protruding from the neck.
“Get out of the brewery!” Val roared.
“Make up your mind, would you?” Blair yelled between punches.
Val sprinted as the biker ripped a lighter from his pocket and held the flame to the rag. Fire hissed over the cloth, and the biker raised his hand to throw the Molotov cocktail. Val slammed into him, and the collision wrenched grunts from both. Her fingers closed around his wrist a heartbeat too late. The bottle sailed through the air.
“No!” Val snarled.
The instant before she hit the floor, she threw her dagger. It lanced forward and up, her power driving its arc, and smashed into the glass. The bottle exploded in midair, and a yellow fireball roared to the ceiling.
Val and the biker hit the ground so hard they skidded. He rolled to his side before he stopped sliding, and his punch connected painfully with her jaw, snapping her head back. Dark spots swarmed in her vision and turned scarlet. Val roared, drew both knees to her chest, and kicked the guy in the guts. He slid across the floor with a yelp of pain.
Val flipped to her feet.
“Fire!” Yuka yelled. “Hamish, activate the system!”
Dwarves swarmed across the factory as flames licked the beams. The biker scrambled to his feet.
“Val!” Yuka roared. “Turn that valve!”
The bright red handle was on a copper pipe feet from Val. A fragment of scorched wood fluttered to the concrete before her. Another landed on a nearby vat and sizzled.
“Screw this,” Val snarled.
The biker bolted. Val lunged for the valve and wrenched it open. Sprinklers opened in the ceiling, and icy water misted onto the flames.
A strangled yelp resounded from outside. Val wrenched her dagger from the wall and sprinted to the door.
A cacophony of bike engines greeted her as the gang scrambled to their rides. Three bikes peeled out to the alley, their tires smoking.
“No!” Blair growled, clinging to a fourth biker. The guy was huge and burly, and as Blair strove to choke him, he landed punch after punch on the dwarf’s unprotected skull.
Genevieve thundered, ready to go after them, and flung her driver’s door open.
“Gennie, stay!” Val ordered.
Blair’s growl became a roar. He released the biker’s neck. The guy whirled to face him as Val threw her dagger. It lanced through the biker’s arm, and he stumbled back with a cry as blood sprayed his skin.
A bike snarled in the brewery. Its rider was the guy who’d thrown the Molotov cocktail, and he leaned over the handlebars as it shot through the door, heading straight for Blair as the dwarf seized the other biker by the arm.
“Blair!” Val roared.
He was closer than the bike. The scarlet fog blazed, and Val knew she only had one choice. She tackled Blair.
“No!” he growled.
