Page 22 of Vow of the Undead
My skin prickled at the tone in her voice.
I snapped my head up. King Drakkar had already dismounted from his horse. He stood at the front of the party, a good distance from the guards and executioners as he led his horse to be tethered. His sword clung to his back, shining against the dawn light.
Through the crowd of executioners and guards climbing down from their horses, I spotted the side of Ragna’s shaved head. The hair on the other side of her head was bound in three tight braids that she’d coiled into one heap at the base of her neck.
A dozen guards and executioners stood between her and King Drakkar. They gave her no attention, but the king turned at the sound of her voice. They didn’t regard her as a threat, so she easily snaked past them until a guard finally grabbed her. She shoved him off and kept going.
I recognized the shine of determination in her eyes. It was the same look she got right before a race. She knew she would win.
She would not stop until she did win.
And though Ragna wasn’t in a race now, she broke into a run.
Another woman twined through the crowd from the opposite end as a third shoved past me, nearly knocking me to the ground with her shoulder.
Something glinted in her fist. A pendant. Similar to the Y Tree, the tip was sharpened, long enough to stab through someone’s eyes—or into their collarbone.
Three women all slipping through the distraction of everyone setting up camp was either an escape or…no, my stomach dropped.
Ragna was runningtowardthe king, not away in an attempt to escape.
This was an attack. A coordinated attack that I had no doubt was headed by Ragna who would guide the other witches to fight against their captors.
And perhaps my entrance had given them the distraction they needed. While half of the guards laughed and stared down their noses at me, the king was exposed.
“No!” I whispered, my lungs not filled enough to shout out. “Ragna, no!”
This was certain death.
They would not be able to kill him and get away. These witches were sacrificing themselves. I knew many witches believed that if we could only replace the king, we’d changeeverything. An empty throne was safer than a witch hunter at the helm.
But I couldn’t let Ragna kill herself, not with Alva’s hope in me.
Ragna jumped on the king, and because her strength was God-given, she knocked him off his feet, if only for a moment. Though King Drakkar was taken by surprise, he easily threw her off of him.
No blood was shed yet.
Yet.
The other woman grabbed at the sword hanging on his back and tried to pull him back but he did not budge. It didn’t matter because the guard nearest him finally reacted. One ripped the woman away from the king’s back and slammed her into the ground.
The third woman charged him, dodging the reach of another guard as she raised the pendant in her fist. Behind him, Ragna struggled to her feet with a rock in her hands. If I knew her, she intended to bash it into the side of his skull, which would surely lead to plenty of blood.
This attack was a clear and obvious affront to the bloodshed law.
Afterwards, executioners would bring an axe down on Ragna’s neck for all to see, to squash any other thoughts of fighting. Even if the king only lost a single drop of blood.
Despite the flaming in my chest, I broke into another run. I didn’t know what I could do against Ragna’s strength, but I had to try.
“Don’t!” I screamed.
The chaos left a wide open path for me. The guards were too scattered by breaking to set up camp. The attack was too unexpected for them to grab their weapons in time. They must not have thought the witches would ever dare. Nobody would ever dare. Not after years of witnessing executions,beheading of loved ones who’d gotten into a fight or even while defending themself against an intruder.
They believed we were cowed.
Black spots dotted my sight with every strike of my foot against the ground. I blinked, but they only grew bigger, making everything around me dimmer and dimmer. This run would end in collapse.
Wind cut through the reddened skin around my wound. My scabbed cheek burned with an icy sting.
