Tunnels 02, Deeper

the soldier's arm, Will used all his weight to keep him from using his knife.
    Cal followed suit and launched himself onto the soldier's legs, wrapping his arms around the man's ankles as tightly as he could. The Limiter punched at Will's back and neck with his free arm, trying his utmost to get at his face. But Will's rucksack had ridden up around his shoulders, making it difficult for the Limiter to land his heavy blows. Shouting to Chester, Will kept his head well tucked down.
    "Use the gun!" Will bawled over and over again, his voice muffled because his mouth was pressed against the Limiter's upper arm.
    "Chester, the gun!" Cal shouted hoarsely. "Shoot him!"
    As the boys discarded lanterns sent a flurry of random beams glancing off the columns like a confusion of small spotlights, Chester, poised several feet away, had lifted the rifle and was trying to take aim.
    "Shoot!" Cal and Will screamed in unison.
    "I can't see!" Chester screamed back. Frantically.
    "Do it!"
    "Just shoot!"
    "I can't get a clear shot!" Chester shrieked in absolute desperation.
    The man thrashed wildly under Will and Cal, and Will was just about to shout again when something large slammed up against him. He swiveled his head around, lifting it just enough to see that Chester had also piled on. He'd evidently given up trying to take a shot with the rifle and decided the only thing he could do was join the fray. He'd dropped to his knees, pressed one into the Limiter's abdomen, and was raining punches on his face with both fists. As Chester made an attempt to pin down his free arm, leaning forward to grab hold of it, the Limiter saw his opportunity. He tensed his neck and, with a sickening thump, head-butted Chester hard.
    "YOU SCUM!" Chester screamed. He immediately resumed the beating, dodging the Limiter's loose arm every time it took a swipe at him.
    "DIE! DIE, YOU JACKHOLE! DIE!" Chester raved as he intensified his punches, his fists pummeling the Limiter's face.
    If Chester had happened to catch sight of his reflection in one of the columns, he wouldn't have recognized himself. His face was a distortion, twisted into a crazed, determined mask. All the resentment and fury from his imprisonment in the Colony had found a release and was pouring out in one unstoppable torrent. He kept pounding the soldier, pausing only to fend off the Limiter's fist when he tried to retaliate.
    The four of them writhed in the deadly struggle, swearing in breathless desperation as the man grunted stertorously like a wild boar, trying anything and everything to get free. Chester was still hammering away at the soldier, but it seemed to be having little effect. The boys' combined weight constricted his movements, but he was still able to use the elbow of his free arm to deliver the occasional weak counterstrike. And he tried to gouge at their faces with his clawed fingers, again unsuccessfully.
    "KILL HIM!" Cal yelled from lower down the Limiter's body.
    The boys fought on, knowing only that they had to restrain the soldier by whatever means necessary. There was simply no alternative. It was him or them.
    As their bodies strained and pumped against each other, there was an obscene intimacy to the struggle. Chester could smell the sourness of the man's sweat and his vinegary breath in his face. Will felt the man's thick muscles knotting underneath him as he used all his strength to try to free his arm.
    "NO. YOU. DON'T!" Will shouted, doubling and redoubling his efforts to restrain the man's bucking form.
    The Limiter changed his tactics, perhaps as a last resort. He raised his head as far as he could and spat and snapped, attempting to bite them while making noises not unlike the stalker that had mauled Will so horrifically in the Eternal City.
    But these small acts of savagery were only a distraction: He'd identified a chink in their combined onslaught. He screeched victoriously as he brought up his knees and dislodged Cal just enough to be able to wrest free a leg. He drew it back and drove his heel hard against Cal's stomach. The kick sent Cal sprawling across the glass gravel, his breath knocked out of him. He curled up, gasping air back into his lungs.
    Now the Limiter had more leverage. He swung his legs and began to twist and thrash with such force that Chester was finding it impossible to hang on. As Chester fought back, the Limiter caught him with a resounding clout to the head. Stunned, he slumped to the ground.
    Will had no idea of the others'