Page 74 of Highland Slayer
Mabel still wasn’t certain. She was coming to wonder if the girl was simply an opportunist and Estevan had fallen for it. As she was considering that very thing, hoping her son hadn’t been foolish in his assessment of Anaxandra’s character, she wandered toward a stall that had a buildup of mud and debris around the base. It was crumbling, but she wasn’t paying attention to it. She was thinking on what Anaxandra had said. As she reached the stall, she turned around to say something to Anaxandra, but the strangest thing happened before she could get the words out of her mouth.
Hands grabbed her, digging into her flesh, and she let out a yelp. Then she had visions of Anaxandra charging in her direction.
After that, it was pandemonium.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Someone had grabbedLady Torridon.
At first, Anaxandra wasn’t sure she was seeing the situation correctly. Hands came out of the derelict stall, grabbing Mabel by the arm and by the neck. It was Mabel’s cry of fear that jolted Anaxandra from her shock, and suddenly, she was rushing forward, yanking on Mabel and trying to pull her from what turned out to be a rather skinny but surprisingly strong man. He had hair all over his face and shaggy hair on his head, and there wasn’t one inch of him that wasn’t covered in filth.
Something was very, very wrong.
Anaxandra couldn’t stop to think about who, or what, he was. Even after Anaxandra tried to pull Mabel away, the man had hold of Mabel’s wimple, pulling it off her head, but it was tightly pinned. That meant Mabel was falling backward into him.
Anaxandra jumped over Mabel and shoved her open palm right into the man’s nose. He fell back in agony, blood immediately flowing from his face, and Anaxandra was all over Mabel, stepping on her, pushing on her, pulling on her, as she tried to get her away from her attacker. When that didn’t work, Anaxandra balled a fist and hit the man in the face again, twice, before he was startled enough to release Mabel.
Now, the real fight began.
Anaxandra had the man by the hair with both hands, yanking on him as she used her right foot to kick him brutally in the hip and left knee. Mabel fell to the ground but managed to crawl away as the fight became between Anaxandra and the brute who had attacked her.
And what a fight it was.
Having been trained in combat, Anaxandra knew how to stay on a level playing field with a man who was stronger and bigger than she was. She had to go for the vulnerable areas. The hair was a perfect example—she yanked on it until a handful came out and the man grunted in pain, but she wouldn’t let go, even when he began striking her on the arms and torso. She was in the process of kicking him in the groin when he pulled forth a wicked-looking dagger and plunged it right into her back, just beneath the left armpit.
Anaxandra went down in a heap.
It was a shocking end to a violent fight. Beaten, and a little bloodied, the man kicked her when she was down for good measure before turning his attention back to Mabel, who had just managed to get to her feet. He started to come toward her, but she put up her hands as if the gesture alone would stop him.
“Come no closer,” she said, sounding strong and fearless. “If you do, I will scream and every man in this compound will come running. Do you understand me?”
He did. But he still came. The first thing he did was cover her mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding the bloodied dagger. He put the weapon to her neck.
“Do you understand me?” he said in stilted English. “Understand?”
Trapped, Mabel nodded. That caused the man to poke her neck with the tip of his dagger, drawing a little blood. “Aye,” she said.
“Good,” he said, angry and snarling. “Where is the queen?”
By the look on Mabel’s face, she knew exactly who the man was and what he wanted. What an entire battle couldn’t accomplish, a single man with a single hostage probably could. Mabel began to feel real fear as she realized the predicament she was in.
“I know where she is,” she said against his dirty palm. “If you kill me, you will never know.”
He pulled his palm back. “Scream and I will drive the dagger through your neck,” he muttered. “Where is she?”
The man was so focused on Mabel that he had no idea that Anaxandra was stirring on the ground. But Mabel did. She was trying hard not to look at her for fear the man would turn around and kill the woman before she could defend herself, so she kept her eyes fixed on him. But in her periphery, she could see Anaxandra rising unsteadily to her feet. She had to give her time to get help.
She had to stall.
“In the sanctuary,” she said after a moment. “But there are people in there with her. You will not be able to get to her.”
The man snorted, a rude sound. “I do not need to,” he said. “We will walk to the sanctuary together and you will demand they release her to me. Her life for yours. That is the bargain we will strike. We will—”
He never had the chance to finish the sentence. Anaxandra, bleeding heavily from the wound in her back, had collected a rock that she’d fallen on, a big rock, and she came up behind the man and smashed him as hard as she could on the back of the skull. As he faltered, Mabel jumped away from him, screaming loudly. Anaxandra had managed to knock the man silly, but he didn’t go out. He still managed to bring the dagger around low, stabbing her a second time in the left side of her torso. That caused Anaxandra to take the rock and smash him again, in the face, a second time. When he fell to his knees, she hit him in the head twice, thrice, until he finally fell to the ground, unconscious.
With Mabel’s screaming bringing a charge of men and weapons, Anaxandra fell to her knees beside the man, pulled the knife from his hand, and, with both hands, plunged it deep intohis chest. She did it twice before falling beside him, limp and comatose from the wounds she’d received.
And that was how Estevan found her.
