Soul of the Fire

Chapter 64

Norris rushed forward, like they’d been trained, going for the legs of one man. The man kicked Norris in the face. Norris fell back, holding his face, blood running out through his fingers. The man picked up Norris’s fallen sword and plunged it through his gut, pinning Norris to the ground, leaving him to squirm in screaming agony, to shred his fingers on the sharp blade.

Karl and Bryce were rushing in with weapons drawn. Carine charged out of the barracks with a spear. Annette was right behind her with another.

Beata felt a surge of conviction. The men were going to be surrounded. Her soldiers were trained for combat. They could handle three men.

“Sergeant!” the woman in red called. “Get back!” Beata was terrified, but she still felt annoyed by the woman, who obviously didn’t know the first thing about soldiering. Beata was also ashamed for the woman’s cowardice. Beata and her soldiers would stand and fight—they would protect the worthless woman in red, who feared to stand up to a mere three of the enemy.

Fitch, too, Beata was proud to note, rushed forward with his prize sword, ready to fight.

As they all rushed in, only the man who had cut down Marie even had his sword out. The other two still had their weapons sheathed. She was furious that they would take Beata’s squad so lightly.

Beata, better accustomed to stabbing meat with a blade than were the rest of her squad, confidently went for a man. She didn’t see how, but he effortlessly dodged her.

Startled, she realized that this was not at all like stabbing straw men, or carcasses hanging from a hook.

As Beata’s blade caught only air, Annette rushed up to stab him in the leg from behind. He sidestepped Annette; too, but caught her by her red hair. He pulled a knife and in an easy, slow manner, as he smiled wickedly into Beata’s eyes, slit Annette’s throat as if he were butchering a hog.

Another man caught Carine’s spear, snapped it in half with one hand, and rammed the barbed point in her gut.

Karl swung his sword low at the man Beata missed, trying to hamstring him, and got his face kicked, instead. The man swung his sword down at Karl. Beata sprang forward and blocked his strike.

The power of the ringing blow of steel against steel hammered her weapon from her hand. Her hands stung so much she couldn’t flex her unfeeling fingers. She realized she was on her knees.

The man swung down on Karl. Karl held his hands up protectively before his face. The sword severed his hands at midpalm before it split his face to his chin.

The man turned back to Beata. His blood-slicked sword was coming for her face, next. Seeing it coming, Beata could do nothing but scream.

A hand snatched her hair and violently yanked her back. The sword tip whistled right past her face, hitting the ground between her legs. It was the woman in red who had just saved Beata’s life.

The man’s attention was caught by something else. He turned to look. Beata looked, too, and saw riders coming. Maybe as many as a hundred. More special Anderith guards, just like these three.

The woman in red pulled Bryce back just before he was killed. As soon as she turned to something else, he rushed back at the enemy despite her orders to stay back. Beata saw a sword, the blade red, erupt from the middle of Bryce’s back, lifting him from his feet.

The big man who had hacked Karl now turned his attention back to Beata. She tried to scurry back, but his long stride was faster. In her panic, she couldn’t get her feet. Beata knew she was going to die.

As the sword swung down on her, she couldn’t think what to do. She began a prayer she knew she wouldn’t get a chance to finish.

Fitch leaped in front of her, his sword blocking the killing blow. The enemy’s blade shattered on Fitch’s weapon. Beata blinked in surprise. She was still alive.

Fitch took a fierce swing at the man. He sidestepped, Fitch’s blade just missing his middle as he arched his back.

With icy efficiency as the blade was going by him, the man casually unhooked a spiked mace from a hanger on his weapons belt. As Fitch was still whipping around with the momentum, the man took a swift, powerful, backhanded swing.

The blow tore off the top of Fitch’s skull. Pink chunks of his brains splattered up Beata’s tunic. Fitch crumbled to the ground.

Beata sat frozen in shock. She could hear her own cries, like a panicked child. She couldn’t make herself stop. It was like she was watching someone else.

Instead of killing her, the man turned his consideration to Fitch, or rather, Fitch’s sword. He pulled the gleaming weapon from Fitch’s limp hand, and then yanked the baldric and scabbard free of the dead weight of the body.

More mounted men were just arriving as the man slid the Sword of Truth back into the scabbard.

He smiled and winked at Beata. “I think Commander Stein would like to have this. What do you think?”

Beata sat stunned, Fitch’s body right in front of her, his brains all over her, his blood emptying out on the ground.

“Why?” was all Beata could say.

The man was still grinning. “Now that you all had your chance to vote, Emperor Jagang is casting the deciding ballot.”

“What you got, here?” another man called as he dismounted.

“Some decent-looking girls.”

“Well, don’t kill ’em all,” the man complained good-naturedly. “I like mine warm and still moving.”

The men all laughed. Beata whimpered as she pushed with her heels, scooting away from the men.

“This sword is something I’ve heard of. I’m taking it to Commander Stein. He’ll be pleased no end to be able to present it to the emperor.”

Over her shoulder, she saw another man up on the Dominie Dirtch casually disarm Estelle and Emmeline as they tried to defend their post. Emmeline leaped from the Dominie Dirtch to escape. The fall broke her leg. A man on the ground grabbed her red hair in his fist and started dragging her toward the barracks as if he had caught a chicken.

Estelle was getting kissed by the man up on the Dominie Dirtch as she beat her fists against him. The men thought her battling comical. Men in dark leather plates and belts and straps covered with spikes and chain mail and fur, and with massive swords, flails, and axes, were dismounting everywhere. Others, still on their horses, were racing around and around the Dominie Dirtch, cheering.

When the men all turned to Emmeline’s renewed screams of pain and terror, and to her captor’s laughing, a hand snatched Beata’s collar and dragged her back on her bottom.

The woman in red leather behind her growled under her breath, “Move! While you still can!”

Beata, powered by panic, scrambled up and ran with the woman while the men weren’t looking. The two of them dove into a dip in the ground hidden by the tall grass.

“Stop that crying!” the woman ordered. “Stop it or you’ll get us caught.”

Beata forced herself to stop making noise, but she couldn’t stop the tears. Her whole squad had just been killed, except Estelle and Emmeline, and they were captured.

Fitch, that fool Fitch, had just gotten himself killed saving her life.

“If you don’t hush, I’ll slit your throat myself.”

Beata bit her lip. She had always been able to keep herself from crying. It had never been this hard.

“I’m sorry,” Beata whispered in a whine.

“I just saved your fat from the fire. In return you can at least not get us caught.”

The woman watched as the man with the Sword of Truth galloped away, back toward Fairfield. She cursed under her breath.

“Why’d you just drag me away?” Beata asked in bitter anger. “Why didn’t you at least try to get some of them?”

The woman flicked out a hand. “Who do you think did that? Who do you think was protecting your back? One of your children soldiers?”

Beata looked then and saw what she hadn’t seen before. Dead enemy soldiers sprawled here and there. She looked back to the woman’s blue eyes.

“Idiot,” the woman muttered.

“You act like this is my fault, like you hate me.”

“Because you are a fool.” She pointed angrily out at the carnage. “Three men just wiped out your post and they aren’t even breathing hard.”

“But—they surprised us.”

“You think this some game? You’re not even smart enough to realize you’re nothing more than a dupe. Those in charge puffed you up with false courage and sent you out to fail. It’s plain as day and you can’t even see it. A hundred of you girls and boys couldn’t knock down one of those men. Those are Imperial Order troops.”

“But if they just—”

“You think the enemy is going to play by your rules? Real life just got those other young people killed, and the dead girls are going to be better off than the ones still alive, I can promise you that.”

Beata was so horrified she couldn’t speak. The woman’s heated voice softened a little.

“Well, it’s not all your fault. I guess you aren’t old enough to know better, to know some of life’s realities. You can’t be expected to see what’s true and not. You only think you can.”

“Why do you want that sword so bad?”

“Because it belongs to Lord Rahl. He sent me to get it.”

“Why’d you save me?”

The woman stared back at her. Behind those cold, calculating blue eyes, there didn’t seem to be any fear.

“I guess because I, too, was once a foolish young girl captured by bad men.”

“What did they do to you?”

The woman smiled a grim smile. “They made me into what I am: Mord-Sith. You wouldn’t be that lucky; these men aren’t anywhere near as good at what they do.”

Beata had never heard of a Mord-Sith before. Their attention was drawn to Estelle’s cries from up on the Dominie Dirtch.

“I need to go after the sword. I suggest you run.”

“Take me with you.”

“No. You cannot be of any use and will only hold me back.”

Beata knew the awful truth of that. “What am I to do?”

“You get your behind out of here before those men get a hold of it or you’ll be very much more than sorry.”

“Please,” Beata said, tears welling up again, “help me save Estelle and Emmeline?”

The woman pressed her lips tight as she considered a moment.

“That one,” the woman finally said, with cold reckoning pointing at Estelle. “As I’m leaving, I’ll help you get that one. Then it’s up to you two to get away.”

Beata saw the man laughing, groping Estelle’s breasts as she tried to fight him. Beata knew what that was like.

“But we have to get Emmeline, too.” She gestured off toward the barracks where they’d dragged her.

“That one has a broken leg. You can’t take her; she’ll get you caught.”

“But she’s—”

“Forget her. What are you going to do? Carry her? Stop being a fool child. Think. Do you want to try to get away with that one, or do you want to get yourself captured for sure going after both? I’m in a hurry. Decide.”

Beata struggled to breathe, wishing she couldn’t hear the screams coming from the barracks. She didn’t want to find herself in there with those men. She already had a taste of one of them.

“The one, then. Let’s go,” Beata said with finality.

“Good for you, child.”

The woman was deliberately calling her that, Beata knew, to put her in her place, hoping it would keep her in line and save her life.

“Now, listen and do exactly what I say. I’m not sure you’ll make it, but it’s your only chance.” Desperate to escape the nightmare, Beata nodded. “I’m going to go up there and take out that man. I’ll see to it you have at least two horses. I’ll send the girl down while you grab the horses. Get her up on a horse with you and then head out there and don’t stop for anything.”

The woman was pointing out past the Dominie Dirtch, out to the wilds. “You just keep going, away from Anderith, to some other place in the Midlands.”

“How are you going to keep them from getting us?”

“Who said I was? You just get the horses and then you two run for your lives. All I can do is try to give you a lead.” The woman held a finger before Beata’s face. “If for any reason she doesn’t make it down the steps, or get on the horse, you leave her and run.”

Beata, numb from terror, nodded. She just wanted to get away. She didn’t care about anything else anymore. She just wanted to escape with her life.

Beata clutched the red leather sleeve. “I’m Beata.”

“Good for you. Let’s go.”

The woman sprang up, running in a crouch. Beata followed after her, imitating her low run. The woman came up behind a soldier standing in their way and knocked his feet out from behind. As soon as he crashed to his back, before he could call out, she dropped on him, crushing his windpipe with a blow from her elbow. Two more quick blows silenced him.

“How did you do that?” Beata asked, dumbfounded.

She pushed Beata down in a thick clump of grass by the man. “Years of training in how to kill. It’s my profession.” She checked the Dominie Dirtch again. “Wait here until the count of ten, then follow. Don’t count fast.”

Without waiting for Beata’s answer, she sprang into a dead run. Some men watched, confused by what was going on since she wasn’t trying to escape, but heading right for the center of all the men. The woman dodged between all the horses racing around the Dominie Dirtch, their riders hooting and hollering.

The man next to Beata was burbling blood from his crushed nose, maybe drowning in it as he lay there on his back.

The man holding Estelle turned. The woman in red yanked the striker from the holder, tearing it away from the restraints. The restraints added momentum as they broke. When the striker clouted the man in the head, Beata could hear it crack his skull from where she stood, as she finally reached the count of ten. He toppled backward over the rail and fell beneath the hooves of running horses. In the grip of terror, Beata jumped up and started running. The woman, with a mighty swing, brought the striker around, slamming the Dominie Dirtch.

The world shook with the dull drone of the weapon going off. The sound was overpowering, like it might shimmy her teeth out of their sockets and vibrate Beata’s skull apart.

The men on horseback out front screamed. Their horses screamed. The cries ended abruptly as man and beast alike came apart in a bloody blast. Men still running round the Dominie Dirtch couldn’t stop in time. They skidded or tumbled past the line to their death.

Beata ran for all she was worth even as she felt her joints might come apart from the terrible chime of the Dominie Dirtch.

Wielding the striker, the woman whacked men off their horses. She seized Estelle by her arm and practically threw her down the steps as Beata gathered the reins to two frightened animals.

The men were in a state of confused panic. They didn’t know what would happen with the weapon, if it would chime again and in turn kill them, too. Beata snatched a confused, terrified Estelle by the arm.

The woman in red leaped from the railing onto the back of a man still mounted. The woman still had the broken neck of the black bottle. She gripped the man around the middle and ground the broken bottle into his eyes. He fell screaming from his horse.

She scooted forward into the saddle and snatched up the reins. She reached the tired animal she had arrived on, grabbed her saddlebags, and with a cry of fury urged her horse into a dead run toward Fairfield.

“Up!” Beata screamed to a dazed and bewildered Estelle.

Thankfully, the Ander woman understood her chance to escape and seized it as Beata, too, scrambled atop a horse. Both animals wheeled all about in the confusion.

Men went charging off after the woman in red leather. Beata was no horsewoman, but she knew what she must do. She thumped her heels against the animal’s ribs. Estelle did the same.

The two of them, one Haken, one Ander, ran for their lives.

“Where are we going, Sergeant?” Estelle cried out.

Beata didn’t even know what direction she was running, she was just running.

She wanted the uniform off. It was just another cruel joke played on her by Bertrand Chanboor.

“I’m not a sergeant!” Beata yelled back, tears streaming down her face. “I’m just Beata, a fool, same as you, Estelle.”

She wished she had thanked the woman in red for saving their lives.