The wizard hadn’t even had time to scream.
But Magda heard herself screaming, screaming with ferocity that was a match for the sword’s.
The killing strike thrilled her, filled her with wild joy. It was nothing short of a sense of magnificent completion.
As the blade came around, his headless body was still falling. Parts of his head still sailed away into the night. His arms were lifted out at his sides, the wizard’s fire smothered by his instant death and massive loss of blood.
Behind the wizard, the soldiers were momentarily frozen in shock at the sight. That shock broke all at once. With weapons raised, they screamed as they charged in toward her.
Magda sidestepped the first man to rush in. As she did, she came around, bringing the blade with her in a circle to split his skull from behind. The strike took off the top of his head. A clump of dark hair flew off into the darkness. His forward momentum drove him face-first into the hard ground.
Magda ducked under a mighty swing of another man’s sword. He wasn’t used to fighting someone as small and fast as Magda. His method was mighty blows, not swift, precise strikes. As Magda came up, she drove her sword straight through his heart.
She heard men roaring in rage as they came after her. She didn’t have time to think. She acted on instinct acquired in part from learning to use a knife to fight and in part out of the single-minded drive to kill them. She struck without hesitation or pause as they got close enough, using her smaller size to move faster than they did and to stay out of the way of their reach and weapons.
She didn’t try any clever moves, any fancy tricks. With every opening she saw, she simply went in for the kill.
She kept moving, ducking, rolling, and twisting to avoid their blades. Not being a soldier, she didn’t move the way they expected. There was no time for her to plan her moves. As they swung, she followed up with a strike of her own, allowing them no time for another try.
She pulled back as a man’s arm shot past her, his stabbing move narrowly missing making contact. Still in the grip of rage, Magda whipped the sword around with a scream of power, taking off the arm he had thrust out toward her. As the man fell to the ground screaming, she let the swing of the sword follow around, bringing it up behind her to run it through a man rushing in with his sword raised to chop her from behind. As he was collapsing to the side, she yanked the sword free and brought it around in a circle, gripped the hilt in both fists, and drove it straight down into the armless man writhing on the ground. She hammered it down so hard that the blade stuck in the ground.
Before she could yank it free, another man charged her, his sword flashing through the night air. She knew instinctively that she wouldn’t be able to get out of the way fast enough.
At the last instant, just before his blade made it to her, Merritt crashed into him from the side, knocking him off balance. The big soldier stumbled from the impact and fell to a knee. Before he could get up, Magda brought the sword down from above, splitting him all the way from the top of his head to the center of his chest.
The man toppled, hitting the ground with a wet thwack that spilled organs out the gaping split and across the ground.
The night was suddenly still. There were no more men coming at her.
Chapter 86
Magda, on her knees, sword gripped in both hands, eyes wide, ready to defend herself, gasped for breath. The night was silent. There were no men screaming battle cries. There were no more blades coming at her.
Her head swiveled, looking everywhere, scanning for threats. She was surrounded by bodies. Blood and gore and unrecognizable bits of flesh lay scattered all around her.
There were no men left standing to come at her.
Not far away, Merritt, in the iron collar and hand restraints, struggled to get to his feet. Once up, he rushed to stand over her, a small, proud smile lighting his face.
With the threat ended, the Sword of Truth dropped from her hands.
And then, searing torment started like a spark deep inside, quickly expanding into an inferno of pain, burning through every part of her. Magda doubled over. She cried out as she collapsed onto her side, arms crossed over her middle, trying to quell the torture that felt like it was consuming her. She desperately needed air, but try as she might, she couldn’t draw a breath. The weight of suffering pressing in on her wouldn’t allow it.
Merritt knelt beside her, but with his wrists shackled into the device locked around his neck he couldn’t reach out to her. He was helpless to do anything, but it was a relief to simply not be alone with the terror of the suffering.
As quickly as it came, the pain released her.
As the agony lifted its grip, Magda flopped over onto her back. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gasped, getting her breath. She looked up at the concern on Merritt’s face.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she finally said between panting breaths.
“It’s the sword’s magic,” he said. “It extracts a price when you kill with it. The first time is by far the worst. You’re fortunate. The sword’s power was derived from your life force, so it was already somewhat familiar with you.”
Magda rolled onto her side and pushed herself up off the ground to sit back on her heels. “I’d hate to experience worse.”
“Anger is a shield for the power of the sword’s magic, so that helped, too.”
“Then I was well protected.” She reached out and turned his head to see the wound. “This doesn’t look so good.”
“I’m all right now. I’ll be better when I get this thing off from around my neck.”
“Can you use your gift to break it?”
“No,” he said. “It’s shielded to prevent a gifted person from using magic to escape.”
“Shielded,” she said. She remembered the shielded shackles on Naja. “I think I might have a key that would work on it.”
She retrieved the sword and worked the blade under one of the iron cuffs. She turned her face away. With a mighty pull the iron exploded in a shower of pieces. Merritt held the bar to stabilize it for her to break the collar. In short order she had the rest of the immobilizing apparatus off him.
Once he was free, she threw her arms around him. “I was so afraid. I thought you were lost. I was so afraid that they would kill you.”
He pushed her away for a moment. “‘You are surrounded. Do as I say or you will all die.’ That was your plan? Are you out of your mind?”
Magda winced self-consciously. “It was the best I could come up with on the spot.” She frowned. “And it turned out to be true, didn’t it?”
“It certainly did,” he said with a smile as he pulled her back to hold her tight in a grateful hug. “Thank you, Magda. I have to tell you, that was quite something to behold.”
She felt shaky in the wake of the fear from the fight, but it felt good to have his arms around her. “It was the sword,” she said. “Your creation is magnificent.”
“The sword is just a tool. The one wielding it has to be the right person. That’s what matters most.”
She cast him a skeptical look as he stood. “If you say so.”
The clouds were beginning to break up and the moon had emerged to cast light over the landscape.
“We need to get rid of these bodies,” Merritt said as he surveyed the area. “If they’re found it will bring the whole army looking for who was responsible. They’ll look for the missing men soon enough as it is.”
“It’s quite a drop over there,” Magda said, gesturing. “We can roll them over the edge. No one is likely to spot them, at least not for a time. That should buy us a day or two at least.”
In short order, with the aid of Merritt’s gift, they had all the bodies in green tunics and their body parts moved to the side. Arms and legs flailing, the big men rolled and tumbled and bounced down the steep drop, vanishing into the dense underbrush. No one would be able to see anything from the road, and unless they noticed a lot of scavengers no one was likely to clim
b down looking for the men. Merritt then used his gift to eliminate any trace of blood from the fight. With his foot, he smoothed the gouges in the ground. In the moonlight, the road again looked completely normal.
“We have to get off the road,” he said. “There could be more of Lothain’s soldiers about. With the moon out, we could easily be spotted out in the open like this.”
Magda looked around in the moonlight, getting her bearings. She pointed, then, to the dark wall of trees on the opposite side.
“There’s a trail over there coming up the mountainside. It passes by near the road not far off through there. It’s steeper and tougher going in places than taking the road, but it’s also shorter. No one is likely to be traveling the trail at night. The forest is pretty dense, so we can use the lantern in places if we have to. If a patrol passes, they won’t be able to see us from the road.”
Merritt nodded, and after a check of the surrounding area one last time to make sure they weren’t missing anything, they quickly headed off the road, through the dense undergrowth, and in a short while found the trail. The ground was covered in a layer of pine needles, so it made for silent passage. With the moon out, enough light made it through the trees to the forest floor and the trail so that they could see to make their way.
“Now,” he said after they had moved deeper into the protection of the trees, “not that I’m unappreciative, but what are you doing here? I told you that you must rest. I’m surprised that you have enough strength to stand up, and after that battle you’re lucky you can still breathe on your own. You’re in more trouble than you realize, Magda. You—”
“And we’re in more trouble than you realize. Lothain is being installed as First Wizard tomorrow afternoon. He forced me to agree to marry him at the ceremony.”
“What!”
Magda didn’t let him launch into a rant. “Listen to me. I had no choice. He said that he would start killing everyone I know if I didn’t agree. He had Tilly and had done terrible things to her just to show me that he was serious. Had I said no he would have killed her on the spot. As it was, she was in a bad way. She was just the first of many he would start in on if I didn’t agree. I couldn’t allow that.”
“Dear spirits,” he said under his breath.
“Here,” Magda said as she pulled the baldric off over her head and handed him his sword back. “I have a plan, though. I’ve figured it out. I know what we have to do.”
After Merritt had put the sword on, he gripped her arm. “You may have a plan, but I can clearly see in your eyes that you’re at the end of your endurance. That battle and running around out here is only making you worse. I can’t heal you further. You must rest to complete what I’ve done.”
“This wasn’t my choice, Merritt,” she said impatiently.
He sighed. “I suppose not. But I’d better get you back to the Keep. We can talk about your plan after you rest.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Magda insisted as she pulled her arm away from his grasp. “We have something much more important to do and it has to be done right now. I know that I need rest. Do you think I don’t know how weak I am? But we don’t have any choice. This can’t wait.”
He appraised the resolve in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Merritt, we’re in a lot of trouble. Lothain obviously intended to get rid of you so he must suspect that you’re working to find the truth of what’s going on. You were surely being taken back to be tried and executed, and you can bet that they would have tortured a confession out of you, first.
“Lothain needs to end the doubts about himself and subvert any opposition as a last step to seize rule at the Keep. He’s consolidating his power. He was able to dismiss Councilman Sadler so that he can more easily control the council. He already has his own private army.
“By marrying me he gains the confidence of the Home Guard and a number of key officials, as well as a lot of wizards who believed in Baraccus. Were I to refuse, he would then need to discredit me. He’d simply throw me in the dungeon, torture a confession out of me, and have me executed for treason. It isn’t all that hard to get people under torture to confess.
“I’m in a box. The way it is right now, no matter whether I go along with him or not, I can’t change what is going to happen. It still all ends the same way. My word alone against Lothain’s won’t sway enough people. He will be First Wizard. He will rule the Midlands.
“By agreeing to marry him during the ceremony tomorrow when he is named First Wizard, that at least keeps people from dying tonight. But that’s all the time it buys. If I refuse, a lot of innocent people are going to die immediately, but I hold no illusions; once he uses me to win the popular support in the Keep and has an iron grip on rule, he will purge the army and the officials of anyone who doesn’t fully support him and then I will encounter an unfortunate end. I am only an expedient means to his ends, and my value to him is very short-lived.
“If we don’t do something, and do it now while I’m still useful to him, then we and a lot of our people are going to die. I now know the truth about him, but half the Keep doesn’t.
“Many people believe that Lothain is fighting for the good of mankind by prosecuting those he says are traitors. They think he is our savior. If I tell them otherwise, that he is often prosecuting people who can reveal his true intent, like Naja, most people won’t believe it. They will believe the lies Lothain tells them.
“People aren’t going to believe me if I try to tell them what is really going on. They believe the word of Lothain, an important man, the head prosecutor. When Lothain makes the accusation that Baraccus conspired with those in the Old World to defeat us, they believe him. No matter what I say, they would think I am the real traitor for siding with Baraccus.
“People need the truth. I’m the only one who can deliver truth. But I’d be dead before I could finish making the accusation.
“The way things stand, I don’t have any way to stop him.”
Merritt eyed her suspiciously. “But you said that you have a plan.”
“Yes, I have a plan. It’s true that I’m so exhausted I can hardly stand. I understand that. But we have only one chance. We have to take it. I came looking for you for a reason.”
Merritt’s expression turned unreadable. “What reason?”
Magda gathered her resolve.
“I want you to use me to create a Confessor.”
Chapter 87
Merritt tilted his head toward her as his eyes narrowed. “You want me to alter you into a Confessor?”
“Yes,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of time. We need to hurry.”
Merritt walked off a distance to stand beneath one of the enormous limbs spreading from an ancient oak. With his back to her, the moon cast cold light over his broad shoulders.
Looking grim, he finally turned back.
“Please don’t ask that of me, Magda.”
She stepped closer under the massive limbs of the oak. “I had always thought that changing a person’s nature with magic was a cold, calculating, callous thing to do for the sake of creating a weapon. I could never understand how people could allow wizards to alter them. I thought that it was a perversion of our existence.
“Isidore taught me that it isn’t always the case. She taught me that if it’s done for the right reasons it can actually be a chance to make the best of ourselves. Done in the right way, it is adding to who and what we already are and what we already believe. In that way it’s not altering a person’s nature, but adding to it. Such a purpose can be the moral thing to do.
“Even more, though, you’re not only a wizard. You’re Merritt. You may not see the difference in that, but I do. Though we haven’t known each other for long, it has been long enough for me to know you, to know your heart.”
“That’s reassuring to hear, but knowing me isn’t enough.”
“I realize that, but I’ve thought this through. You may not believe that, but I have. It’s not ju
st that this is the only way, it’s that it’s the right thing. While creating weapons out of people can be a terrible deed, done in the right way by the right person and for the right reasons, it can be a wondrous thing.
“You envisioned the idea of a Confessor for the right reasons. Life is truth. Truth is life. You wanted a way to seek truth. Such a cause, in the promotion of life, is noble.
“Killing is a terrible thing, too. I hate killing. But killing isn’t necessarily wrong.” She gestured back down the trail. “Killing those men tonight was the right thing to do, for the right reasons. It was done for good. It was done to preserve innocent life. In this instance, not killing would have been immoral.
“You intend the Confessors to stop evil, just as my killing those men stopped them from doing evil. That makes both the right thing to do.
“Merritt, I want that person, that Confessor that you create, to be me. I understand the nobility of purpose in the creation of a Confessor. I know precisely what to do with that opportunity. Please, give me the chance to do what only I can do. Give me the means to help stop evil and preserve life. Don’t let me fail to do what only I can do.
“It’s my life. I want it to have this purpose.”
“There’s more to it, Magda. We need time to consider all the implications.”
“Ordinarily, that would be the right thing, but we have no time. It has to be now. It has to be tonight. I have to use that Confessor power to expose the truth. I wish it could wait, but it can’t. This is our only chance.
“Baraccus told me that my destiny is to find truth—”
Merritt threw an arm up, gesturing angrily. “Life is not about fulfilling a destiny. Your life has no destiny but what you make of it.”
“And this is what I want to make of it. Baraccus also told me to live the life that only I can live. He told me to have the courage to take up that calling. He was asking me to choose my destiny. Prophecy is not only about destiny, but the balance—free will. Becoming a Confessor is my calling. But it’s not preordained. It’s a chance, a fork in the road of my life. I have to have the courage to take it on of my own free will. In that way, the balance of prophecy and free will is the magic of the future.”