The 44-year-old man awoke during the night in April to answer a knock on the door of his Butler apartment and was confronted by two masked men.

“They bum rushed me and put a knife to my throat,” Richard Mackalica testified at a preliminary hearing Monday.

The two intruders accused him of stealing drugs and money. Then came the attack.

“It all broke loose and they started to beat the (expletive) out of me,” Mackalica recounted.

Stomped, punched and repeatedly stabbed, the admitted one-time marijuana dealer was left dazed and bloodied.

The assailants fled. However, within minutes they returned. “Second round,” Mackalica said.

But this time, he fought back with knives of his own, cutting one of the purported attackers, 23-year-old Steven Lee McCardle.

The suspects ran off, allegedly stealing the victim’s prescription medication, cell phones and other items.

District Judge Pete Shaffer, following testimony at the hearing, ordered McCardle, who has no known address, held for trial on felony charges of aggravated assault, conspiracy, robbery, burglary and trespass.

McCardle’s alleged accomplice, Jason Lee Roberts, 28, of Butler, faces similar charges at his own still-to-be-held preliminary hearing.

Both defendants remain in the Butler County Prison: McCardle on $100,000 bail and Roberts on $50,000 bail.

Mackalica, meanwhile, is free on his own recognizance stemming from unrelated charges of selling marijuana in connection with a Butler County Drug Task Force investigation last year.

At McCardle’s hearing during questioning by the defendant’s attorney, public defender Kimberly Hudak, Mackalica acknowledged he sold marijuana out of his Virginia Avenue apartment for about a year.

He claimed he quit dealing drugs three or four months ago.

Mackalica said that during the initial attack between 1:30 and 2 a.m. April 19, he managed to pull the ski masks or bandannas off the intruders’ faces.

He recognized Roberts, who he knew as a previous drug customer. He said he had met McCardle before, but did not know him.

He told Hudak both suspects were armed with what he described as “steak knives.”

Moments after forcing his way in, McCardle said, “I want your drugs and I want your money now,” Mackalica testified.

He said the defendants kicked and hit him and stabbed him, again and again. At one point, the suspects beat him with baseball bats they found in the apartment, Mackalica said.

During the attack, he said he did his best to defend himself.

“But I was pretty beat up the first time,” he said.

The second time came 10 to 15 minutes later, he recalled, after McCardle and Robert initially left and returned.

“They beat me up again,” he testified. “They threatened to kill me if I called the cops.”

However, Mackalica said he wielded two knives of his own the second time. He told Hudak he believed he cut both suspects.

“I was doing everything possible to save my life,” he testified.

Despite several broken facial bones, a black eye and 15 stab wounds to the head and body suffered in the successive attacks, Mackalica did not seek medical care for his injuries. He didn’t say why at the hearing.

Police believe he didn’t call for help because at the time he knew the drug task force had arrest warrants for him stemming from its 2014 case.

Police began investigating the suspected home invasion that day after getting a call about 3:35 a.m. from Butler Memorial Hospital, where both defendants had appeared with stab wounds.

McCardle, who was stabbed twice in the lower left leg, was in the emergency room, according to a police report. Roberts had a cut on his left wrist.

Investigators said the suspects initially claimed they were the victims of a strong-armed robbery. Later, court documents said, they confessed to having targeted Mackalica for “weed, pills and money.”