Whew!
Crap got bloody fast. There weren’t that many slavers in the fort – later they estimated that there were about eighty slavers in all of Purty to their band of fifty, total – and not many were bothering to wear armor. But the slavers that did had a big advantage, and even the ones that didn’t still outweighed and sometimes outreached Tabetha’s fighters. A few even had crossbows. They could’ve won.
Maybe. It took ‘em too long to realize that they were fighting foes who’d take a crossbow bolt to the gut if it meant closing on the enemy while he was still fumbling to reload, and edged weapons are an equalizer. Not as much of one as the fabled revolvers of the Old Americans, but knives always work.
As for the swordsmen? Well, fight three people at once, even when they don’t have armor themselves, and see how long you can last before somebody cuts your hamstring. You can’t gut out a severed tendon. Then you’re on the ground, and now your enemy has your weapon, and maybe your shield, and nobody’s fighting fair anymore.