Page 167 of The Sea Witch
The mage screamed as his severed right hand fell to the sand. Blood streamed from the wound in a red cascade.
The thorny pain stopped. Replaced by a vibration traveling up her sword arm. It surged, and a ferocious ringing sound stabbed through her head. She was almost blind with agony.
The ringing... it came from her cutlass. All along the blade, the mage’s blood congealed into patterns and figures.
She dropped her sword. Yet the ringing continued, filling her head with white-hot misery.
The mage chuckled through his grimace of pain.
“Stupid witch... you haven’t stopped it...” the mage gasped as he sank to his knees. “This is... but one battle... the war... the war is coming.”
“What war?” Alys demanded, grabbing the mage’s hair.
But the mage only smiled. “A war... you’ll never win.”
Still in agony, Alys threw the mage forward, and he sprawled in the sand.
“We’ve heard enough from you,” she rasped.
Mustering her last scraps of magic, her hands clenched around all the air within the mage. She pulled it from his lungs, dragged it from his mouth, stole it from every corner of his body.
His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped wide. He clawed at his throat in a desperate attempt to breathe. Yet he couldn’t. He writhed in the sand, making awful smothered sounds. Hand shaking, he reached for her. He thrashed, and then... stilled.
At once, the ringing in her head stopped. She gasped, released from agony.
Alys turned at the sound of steel against steel. Ben and Strickland battled their way up the beach. They fought on, despite their wounds.
She hadn’t enough power left in her to take the air from the admiral’s body. Her arm shook with exhaustion as she tried to pick up her sword. There was nothing she could do to help Ben. All she could do was watch. And hope.
Ben had heard Alys’s cry of pain. The sound had torn him into bleeding shreds, more than the wound in his shoulder. At once, he’d spun to go to her aid, but Strickland had blocked his path. Limping, the admiral had struck with surprisingspeed, and Ben had been forced back to parry Strickland’s offense.
Now, Warne’s twisted body lay in the sand. Alys stood near the mage’s corpse, her skin covered with flecks of blood, her face drawn and weary as her wet hair hung in tangles around her, and she struggled to grab her cutlass. But she was alive.
Ben turned back to Strickland. The admiral had one hand pressed against his side, red dripping through his fingers, and he kept weight off his wounded leg. Yet Strickland’s mouth twisted in disgust as he glared at Ben, the length of their swords between them.
“A failure,” the admiral jeered. “That’s what you were to him. What you are now. Disgraced in the navy, whoring yourself with that witch pirate. A disappointment to him, that’s all you’ll ever be.”
Ben’s jaw firmed. “His approval isn’t necessary. Neither is yours. Killing you is for myself.”
Strickland spat onto the sand. “When this is done, I’ll personally take Tanner to London and light the torch on her bonfire.”
Sword first, the admiral pounced.
Ben rammed his fist into Strickland’s face before knocking the blade out of the stunned admiral’s grip. The sword fell to the sand.
Strickland’s eyes widened.
“I’m unarmed,” Strickland said, desperation in his voice. “An honorable man wouldn’t slay an unarmed man.”
“Honor. That word doesn’t belong in your mouth. You showed no honor murdering my father. I don’t give a fuck about killing you.”
Ben stabbed the tip of his cutlass straight into Strickland’s heart.
The admiral looked down at the weapon plunged in his chest, then back up at Ben. He opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out but a trickle of blood.
Ben pulled his blade from Strickland’s heart.
Strickland sank to his knees. Ben knocked him over with the heel of his boot, and the admiral splayed in the sand, motionless. A wave washed over him. When the water ebbed, it was pink with Strickland’s blood.
