The Cache by Philip José Farmer

order.
    Zhem, seeing Benoni’s red face, laughed and then told the woman they would like to eat.
    Benoni felt like walking out. Not only because he was disgusted but also because he felt that Zhem was laughing at him and that, perhaps, Zhem doubted his manhood. But he stayed. If he deserted Zhem, he might be thought a coward.
    Within a few minutes, the waitress placed before him a wooden bowl containing steak, fried potatoes, and a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. Benoni’s mouth watered, and he began to cut the thick meat. But he never got the tender juicy piece into his mouth. As he raised it on the end of a two-pronged fork, he heard a voice behind him. A loud voice, speaking Kaywo with a barbarous accent.
    “Joel!” said Benoni, and he dropped the fork into the bowl.
    He rose from the stool, turned, and saw Joel standing at the foot of the steps. Joel was blinking, his eyes unaccustomed as yet to the twilight. He wore the bobcat skin vest and the helmet fashioned to look like a bobcat’s head, so that Benoni knew that Joel was a sworn-in soldier of the wild-man Feykhunt (Five Hundred). His scabbard was empty, for nobody was allowed to carry weapons inside the city walls unless he was a soldier on duty or a member of the kefl’wiy. His companions, four wild-men, stood by him, also blinking.
    Benoni, growling, unable to articulate, charged Joel. Out of the twilight and the tobacco smoke, he charged, and he caught Joel around the throat with his two hands, and Joel fell backwards against the stone steps.
    Joel’s face, red above the two hands choking him, twisted, and he gasped out one word, “Benoni!”
    He could not have been more surprised if he had seen Jehovah appear.
    Benoni lunged forward and rammed the back of Joel’s head against the edge of a step, lifted Joel, and smashed his head down again.
    Then, Joel’s face swam before him, and Benoni felt himself slumping down by the side of his enemy. He looked up and saw one of Joel’s companions standing over him, a stone mug in his hand. Confused through he was, Benoni knew that the man had struck him on top of the head with the mug. He felt wetness on his head and crawling down his face, but he did not know if it was blood from a cut or beer from the mug. It did not matter; he was too stunned to defend himself. He was done for; the man raised the heavy stone again to crush his skull.
    But the man stiffened, and the mug fell from his hand. Two mugs struck the floor, one of them aimed expertly by Zhem at the back of the man’s neck. The man pitched forward, falling on Joel and knocking him backward again. Benoni, beginning to recover his senses, rolled to one side, away from the steps, and closed his hand around the leg of a stool.
    At the same moment, Zhem flew into the other three companions. He kicked one between the legs, caught another under the chin with an elbow, and grabbed the third by the wrist. Turning, he brought the unlucky fellow over his back and sent him upside down through the air. But a stranger, probably not caring what the quarrel was about or who won, but wanting to get into a brawl, hit Zhem on the jaw with his fist just as Zhem straightened up. Zhem staggered backwards, and the stranger followed, throwing two more punches, one of which went wild.
    Before Zhem could reply, a second stranger locked his arm around the neck of the first and began pummeling his face with his left fist.
    That was enough. In a few seconds, every male in the place was fighting.
    Benoni got to his feet just as Joel charged him. He brought the stool down on Joel’s back. But Joel had caught Benoni in the stomach with his shoulder, lifted him up in the air, and carried him backwards until he rammed him into the wall.
    The breath went out of Benoni; he felt as if his entrails had been squeezed out of his mouth.
    Then, he was falling, for Joel had not only smashed Benoni into the wall but had dealt his own head a hard blow against it.
    Joel got up first, and