Free The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen Page B

stump in bursts, soaking the riverbank a deep red. After a moment, Kelsea realized that she was watching the rhythm of the man’s dying pulse, his heart pumping out his lifeblood onto the sand.
    Dimly, she realized that she should do something. But her legs still weren’t responding, and her ribs ached horribly. The two remaining Caden came at Mace from each side, but Mace ducked them neatly and buried his mace in the side of one man’s head, crushing it in a spray of blood and bone. Mace didn’t recover quickly enough; the last assassin reached him and sliced him up the hip, his sword tearing cleanly through the leather band at Mace’s waist. Mace dove beneath him, rolled once, and came to his feet with the grace of an animal, swinging the mace with crushing force against the assassin’s spine. Kelsea heard a snap, a sound like Barty breaking a branch of greenwood, and the Caden thumped to the ground.
    Behind Mace, Kelsea saw that the black-cloaked men had arrived and dropped from their horses with swords already drawn. Mace whirled and charged forward to meet them while Kelsea watched with a sense of disappointed wonder . . . it seemed such a waste for him to die here. She’d never heard of anyone beating one Caden swordsman before, let alone four. She took her hand from her neck and found it slick with blood. Was it possible to bleed to death from a shallow wound? Barty had never covered death or dying.
    Someone reached beneath Kelsea’s arms and flipped her onto her back. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. The gash in her neck tore wider and began to pulse with warm blood. Her legs splayed out, the feeling in them reawakened to horrible life as though shards of glass were being driven into her calves. A face loomed just above hers, a face the color of pale death with fathomless black holes for eyes and a bloodstained mouth, and Kelsea screamed before she could help it, before she realized that it was only a mask.
    â€œSir. The Mace.”
    Kelsea looked up and saw a second masked man standing in front of her, though his mask was a mercifully plain black.
    â€œKnock him out,” ordered the man in the white mask. “We’ll take him with us.”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œLook around you, How. Four Caden, all by himself! He’ll be trouble, for certain, but it would be criminal to waste such a fighter. He comes with us.”
    Kelsea hauled herself up, though her neck shrieked in protest, and reached a sitting position in time to see Mace, bleeding from numerous wounds now, surrounded by several black-masked men. One of them darted forward, quick as a weasel, and brought his sword hilt down on the back of Mace’s head.
    â€œDon’t!” Kelsea cried as Mace crumpled to the ground.
    â€œHe’ll be fine, girl,” said the white-masked man above her. “Get yourself together.”
    Kelsea dragged herself to her feet. “What do you want with me?”
    â€œYou’re in no position to demand answers, girl.” He held out a flask of water, but she ignored it. Black eyes gleamed behind the mask’s eyeholes as he studied her, peering closely at her neck. “Nasty. How did that happen?”
    â€œA Mort hawk,” Kelsea replied grudgingly.
    â€œGod bless your uncle. His taste in allies is no better than his taste in clothing.”
    â€œSir! More Caden! From the north!”
    Kelsea turned northward. A cloud of dust was visible across the acres of farmland, deceptively small at this distance, but Kelsea thought that the party in pursuit must be at least ten men strong, a reddish mass against the horizon.
    â€œAny more hawks?” asked the leader.
    â€œNo. How shot one down.”
    â€œThank Christ for that. Tie up the horses; we’ll take them with us.”
    Kelsea turned to look at the river. It was deep and wild, the far bank covered in trees and shrubs that overhung the water for at least five hundred yards