Free Witch Queen by Kim Richardson

the man’s
face and leaped to the side. He screamed. One hand went to his face
as his blade went wide and missed me completely. I came up behind
him and drove my sword into his back until I felt it lodge against
bone. But if I thought had him then, I was sadly mistaken.
    My sword slipped from my grasp as he turned
around with unnatural strength, the blade still embedded in his
back. Baring his teeth like a beast, he let out a guttural growl.
Before I could react, he caught my throat with his free hand.
    I reached up and tried to pry his fingers
away, but it was as though they were made of steel. I thrashed
violently, kicking out with my legs—but I couldn’t reach him. His
hold on me hardened, and he squeezed tighter and tighter. I could
hear him laughing. The sound of my heart thundered in my ears.
Would my magic help me survive without air? Could I come back to
life once I was dead? I didn’t think so. Ada’s scowl flashed in my
mind’s eye as I felt my life and the success of my mission fade
away while the pressure around my neck increased.
    My blood rushed to my head. There was
nothing I could do. I couldn’t fight against these hands of steel.
My magic didn’t give me that kind of strength.
    I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream for
help. My magic couldn’t save me.
     
     

CHAPTER 7

     
     
     
    T HE ROMILIAN’S FINGERS CRUSHED my
throat. Something snapped. For a moment I was sure he had broken my
neck, but I could still move my legs. My eyes felt that they would
pop. My throat was aflame, and I was drifting away to the
darkness.
    He pulled me closer to him, so close that I
could see the hairs inside his nose and feel his hot pungent
breath. I tried to look for the others, but the world was a blur of
grays and black. The blood throbbed in my ears, and I felt a shift
inside me, as though my soul had been diminished. I was fading out
like a puff of smoke.
    “Yes, you’re going to die,” he said. “I can
see the fear of death in your eyes. Death is far more merciful than
what my family suffered, how they…”
    His voice broke, and I would have felt sorry
for him if he weren’t trying to kill me.
    I could feel the pommel of my sword against
my hip. With the last of my adrenaline, I let my hands slip from
his that were around my neck.
    He pulled me closer still until the stubble
of his days-old beard brushed my cheek, and he whispered in my ear,
“But you will suffer. Yes, that’s right. You will suffer and
burn as the devils and demons torture your soul for all eternity in
hell—”
    I grasped the pommel of my sword, and his
eyes went wide as I drove the blade deep into his back with all the
strength the Goddess allowed me.
    He spit up blood into my face and then
loosed and released his hold around my neck. I stumbled back and
found my footing. I filled my lungs with cold, wonderful gulps of
air, and although it burned like liquid fire down my throat, I
didn’t care. The pressure behind my eyes lessened, and I fought off
a wave of dizziness and looked up.
    I heard a wet cough as buckets of blood
spilled out of my attacker’s mouth and down over his shirt.
Drowning in his own blood, the big man’s eyes flashed with fear and
then glazed over. He slumped to the ground at my feet.
    For a moment I stood there, staring at this
big dead man whose hatred for me was worse than that of my late
father’s. But I felt nothing, no anger or sorrow at ending his
life. If it stirred anything in me, I didn’t have time to dwell on
it.
    I knew that Garrick needed help.
    I yanked my short sword free from the dead
man’s back and sprang to my feet. Although my face was sticky and
stank of the man’s blood, I didn’t bother to wipe it off. I fought
the lightheadedness and nausea that threatened to tip me over as I
looked around.
    The forest floor was carpeted with blood,
and m en lay
sprawled
like gutted
marionettes. I searched for faces I recognized, but there
weren’t any. In spite of the blood that