Soul of the Fire

The woman sprang up, running in a crouch. Beata followed after her, imitating her low run. The woman came up behind a soldier standing in their way and knocked his feet out from behind. As soon as he crashed to his back, before he could call out, she dropped on him, crushing his windpipe with a blow from her elbow. Two more quick blows silenced him.

"How did you do that?" Beata asked, dumbfounded.

She pushed Beata down in a thick clump of grass by the man. "Years of training in how to kill. It's my profession." She checked the Dominie Dirtch again. "Wait here until the count of ten, then follow. Don't count fast."

Without waiting for Beata's answer, she sprang into a dead run. Some men watched, confused by what was going on since she wasn't trying to escape, but heading right for the center of all the men. The woman dodged between all the horses racing around the Dominie Dirtch, their riders hooting and hollering.

The man next to Beata was burbling blood from his crushed nose, maybe drowning in it as he lay there on his back.

The man holding Estelle turned. The woman in red yanked the striker from the holder, tearing it away from the restraints. The restraints added momentum as they broke. When the striker clouted the man in the head, Beata could hear it crack his skull from where she stood, as she finally reached the count of ten. He toppled backward over the rail and fell beneath the hooves of running horses. In the grip of terror, Beata jumped up and started running. The woman, with a mighty swing, brought the striker around, slamming the Dominie Dirtch.

The world shook with the dull drone of the weapon going off. The sound was overpowering, like it might shimmy her teeth out of their sockets and vibrate Beata's skull apart.

The men on horseback out front screamed. Their horses screamed. The cries ended abruptly as man and beast alike came apart in a bloody blast. Men still running round the Dominie Dirtch couldn't stop in time. They skidded or tumbled past the line to their death.

Beata ran for all she was worth even as she felt her joints might come apart from the terrible chime of the Dominie Dirtch.

Wielding the striker, the woman whacked men off their horses. She seized Estelle by her arm and practically threw her down the steps as Beata gathered the reins to two frightened animals.

The men were in a state of confused panic. They didn't know what would happen with the weapon, if it would chime again and in turn kill them, too. Beata snatched a confused, terrified Estelle by the arm.

The woman in red leaped from the railing onto the back of a man still mounted. The woman still had the broken neck of the black bottle. She gripped the man around the middle and ground the broken bottle into his eyes. He fell screaming from his horse.

She scooted forward into the saddle and snatched up the reins. She reached the tired animal she had arrived on, grabbed her saddlebags, and with a cry of fury urged her horse into a dead run toward Fairfield.

"Up!" Beata screamed to a dazed and bewildered Estelle.

Thankfully, the Ander woman understood her chance to escape and seized it as Beata, too, scrambled atop a horse. Both animals wheeled all about in the confusion.

Men went charging off after the woman in red leather. Beata was no horsewoman, but she knew what she must do. She thumped her heels against the animal's ribs. Estelle did the same.

The two of them, one Haken, one Ander, ran for their lives.

"Where are we going, Sergeant?" Estelle cried out.

Beata didn't even know what direction she was running, she was just running.

She wanted the uniform off. It was just another cruel joke played on her by Bertrand Chanboor.

"I'm not a sergeant!" Beata yelled back, tears streaming down her face. "I'm just Beata, a fool, same as you, Estelle."

She wished she had thanked the woman in red for saving their lives.

CHAPTER 65

Dalton glanced up to see Hildemara gliding into his new office. She was wearing a revealing dress of a gold-colored satin with white trim, as if anyone would be interested in what she had to reveal.

He rose behind his new, expansive desk, the like of which he had never imagined would be his.

"Hildemara. What a pleasure to have you stop in for a visit."

She smiled as she peered at him like a hound eyeing a meal. She ambled around his desk to stand close beside him, leaning her bottom against the desk's edge so she could face him intimately.

"Dalton, you look marvelous in that outfit. New? Must be," she said, running a finger down the embroidered sleeve. "You look good in this office, too. Better than my worthless husband ever looked. You bring it some… class."

"Thank you, Hildemara. I must say, you look ravishing yourself."