Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Jennsen's frantic urge was to turn and run in blind panic but she knew that running would be a mistake. Running aroused the instinct to chase. Once in a chase, that instinct took over and men like this wouldn't stop until they had a kill.

Both men expected her to run in the direction that seemed open to her-away to her left. Instead, she bolted for them, intending to slip right between them and out of their snare before they could close in. The closest man, the one she knew to be wearing mail, had his axe at the ready. Before he could raise it and strike, she slashed the exposed inside of his arm. Her razor-sharp knife sliced across the meat of the underside of his forearm, just up from the wrist. She could hear the soft snap of tendons under tension parting as they were cut.

The man cried out. Unable to hold his axe, he dropped it to the ground. Jennsen snatched it up as she ducked under the second man diving for her. She spun and slammed the weapon into his back as he flew past.

Jennsen scrambled away as one of the men held his useless right arm and the other wheeled toward her with an axe handle jutting up at an angle from his back. He staggered a few steps, still coming for her, before he dropped to a knee gasping for breath. By the gurgling sound of his breathing, she knew that she had punctured his lung at the least. It was clear that he was in no condition to fight, so she turned her attention elsewhere.

If she was going to escape, this was her chance. Without hesitation, she took it.

Almost immediately a wall of men loomed up before her. Jennsen skidded to a stop. Men appeared all around her. From the corner of her eye she saw shadows twisting through the shaft of light as figures raced up from within the tomb.

"If you want," the man in front of her said in a gruff voice, "we'd be happy to cut you down. Otherwise, I'd suggest you just hand me that knife."

Jennsen stood frozen, considering her options. Her mind didn't seem to want to work.

In the distance she could see figures, silhouetted by the light, rushing toward her from the tomb.

The man held out a hand. "The knife," he said with menace.

Jennsen wheeled her arm and stabbed him through the palm of his hand. As he flinched back at the same time Jennsen pulled, the blade parted his hand between his two middle fingers. The night air rang with a rage of profanity. Jennsen took the chance to dart through the biggest opening in the wall of men and into the darkness beyond.

Before she had run three steps an arm hooked her around the middle. He yanked her back so violently that it drove the air from her in a whoosh. The soldier slammed her back against his leather armor. Jennsen gasped for breath.

Before he was able to corral her flailing arms, she drove her knife into his thigh. The tip hit bone and stuck. Cursing, he finally collected her arms, pinning them to her sides.

Tears of terror and frustration stung at her eyes. She was going to die here in the middle of a graveyard without ever seeing Tom again. At that moment, he was all that seemed important, all she wanted. He would never know what had happened to her. She would never be able to tell him one last time how much she loved him.

The soldier jerked the knife from his leg. She gasped back a sob at all that was lost to her, all that was lost to these people.

Before the men could tear her apart as she expected them to do, someone appeared with a lantern. It was a woman. She had something else in the same hand as the lantern. She came to a halt before Jennsen, scowling as she took charge of the situation.

"Be quiet," the woman said to the man holding his bloody hand and still cursing.

"The bitch stabbed my hand!"

"And my leg!" the man holding her added.

The woman glanced to the bodies lying nearby. "Looks like you got off lucky."

"I guess," the man holding Jennsen finally grumbled, clearly uncomfortable under her implacable scrutiny. He handed the woman Jennsen's knife.

"'She cut my hand nearly in two!" the other interrupted, not yet content to submit to the woman's indifference to their pain. "She must be made to pay!"

The woman turned a withering glare on him. "Your only purpose is to serve the ends of the Order. What good do you think you will be in that service if you are a cripple? Now, shut your mouth or I won't even consider healing you."

When he hung his head in mute agreement, the woman finally withdrew her glare and turned her attention to Jennsen. Holding the lantern up, she leaned in to get a better look at Jennsen's face. Jennsen saw then that it was a book she was holding in the hand along with the lantern. She had probably stolen the book from the underground stash.

"Amazing," she said, as if speaking to herself as she studied Jennsen's eyes. "You're right there in front of me, and yet my gift says you are not."