I crouched next to her, her name on my lips.
I heard Reed call out her name in anguish.
“You bastard!” Ilsit seethed and bent to take up Evangeline’s sword with her good arm. Not used to its heft, she was clumsy with it, floundering towards Gerard who leered at her.
“Come, wife,” he invited. “Let’s end this.”
I did not want to abandon Evangeline, who was looking as if to ask me what was happening, her hands trembling over her heart. But Ilsit was defenseless against Gerard. I straightened and turned towards them. “I’ll burn you alive if you so much as touch her, Gerard.”
“I’ll cut that hand off before you can,” he replied, brandishing his sword.
“I’m coming, Robbie!” Reed’s words echoed from where he still battled with Torm and the other guard.
“Captain,” came the hiss of Starling’s voice behind Gerard. “Get the witch away from the tongue of soundness. She can no longer be saved by its cleansing her. She has chosen to use her spell craft against it.”
“Oh fuck off,” I exploded. “I know what I can do to it. And I can’t wait to watch it all burn.”
“Captain!”
“I heard you,” Gerard yelled at the priest, his eyes still on Ilsit.
“Young man, come and get the witch,” Starling ordered.
The guard who had been fighting Reed left Torm to answer to the priest, racing to his side. “Yes, Father?”
Starling bristled, his hand extended towards me. “Get her away from the tongue. Do you hear me, son?”
Ilsit was cradling her wounded arm to her body, her other arm trembling from the weight of Evangeline’s sword. She stepped back along the length of the river, nearing where Evangeline had slumped forward to her hands and knees.
“I can’t really breathe,” I heard the lady warrior say, her tone conversational and confused. “Why can’t I breathe?”
I too was edging back away from the guard coming for me, trying to place myself in front of Evangeline. He had a determined look in his eyes as he listened to Starling’s renewed tirade about my evil.
Nearby, Ilsit and Gerard shouted at each other.
Reed and Torm were in close combat, the lord’s broadsword against Reed’s two short swords. And then, in an irritated fashion, Reed slid the hilt of the sword in his right hand into his left, holding both swords in the same hand. He reared his right fist back to slam into Torm’s jaw. Then—the lord finally showing his age and dropping his weapon, winded by the punch—Reed returned the short sword to his right hand and made for us.
With speed, he reached the guard that came for me and skewered the man in the gut with one of his blades.
Starling screamed for Gerard again.
Gerard lifted his sword and brought the hilt down on Ilsit’s head.
She ducked before it hit her as heavily as he had intended, but it still caused her to fall. She crumpled and crawled to Evangeline’s side.
Gerard turned and met Reed, who had already begun to charge for him. The two began to duel. They were evenly matched—of equal size, both trained soldiers, tall men who were leaner than they were broad but moved with speed because of their lack of heft. Both of them were coated in a sheen of sweat, and it was hard to tell who would be the victor as they exchanged equally powerful strikes.
Torm had righted himself and drew near the priest.
Free of the guard who had been sent to kill me, I faced the two men.
“Roberta,” Torm grated out. “Do not do this. Put your handout. Surrender yourself to the river. It is what your mother would have wanted.”
“It is too late,” Starling sang out. “She has chosen her gods and their magic. She has chosen to be condemned to the demon realm.”
“My mother,” I spat out, “was a decent woman confused by her church. She wanted me to live, Torm. Remember? She would not let me burn.”
“I spared you then,” answered the lord. “I cannot do that this day.”
