Steel Maiden (14 page)

His eyes showed a fierce resolve as he
watched me.

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and
blood,” chanted the man. “But against principalities and powers,
against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits
of wickedness in the high places. Demons creep in stealthily
through all the avenues of the senses. Demons will lead men to
falsehood.”

I staggered as the world began spin. I
opened my mouth to speak, to tell him I had no idea what he was
talking about, but my words died in mouthfuls of blood.

“You might not die from the mere blade,” he
said, and I saw the sneer on his lips from the bottom of the mask.
“But the poison
will
kill you.”

Poison. Did he say poison?

I knew as soon as he said it that something
was very different from when the high priest ran me through with
his sword. Then it had stung, and I had felt the tearing of flesh,
but it was a clean cut. This wound in my throat felt as though the
skin around the puncture was peeling away and burning piece by
piece, like salt on a wound. As my blood pumped, the pain spread
all the way down and throughout my body. The blade had been tainted
with poison.

Whoever my attacker was, it was clear he
knew more about me and what I could do than I did. But who had told
him?

“It’s for the best. It’s for the good of
Arcania. With your death…millions will live.”

My attacker was waiting to see the effect
the poison would have on me. The twisted smile on his face showed
me that he was enjoying watching me die.

I wanted to spit in his face, to punch him,
but the muscles in my face had stiffened as if I were wearing a
solid mask. I felt the poison burning my fingers. My body was
becoming numb and my fingers stiff. My breathing came in rapid, wet
breaths as my throat began to swell. I didn’t feel the healing
magic I’d felt when I’d been stabbed before. Ingesting the poison
was different. It was in my blood stream and spreading incredibly
fast inside me.

A cold shiver spread through my body as the
fever settled in. Maybe this was it. Maybe I couldn’t heal from
poison.

“It’s Hemlock,” said the masked man as he
prowled closer.

“It causes paralysis of the various body
systems. Paralysis of the respiratory system is the usual cause of
death. You won’t be able to move, but you will be aware of what is
happening. Your mind will be unaffected, until just before you
die.”

My legs felt like ice blocks, and I couldn’t
move. I keeled over onto my back. The hot-white pain spread as the
poison made its way through every inch of me. I couldn’t even cry
out. It stung my face like the scratches of a cat. And then it dug
through my ears and pounded in my head.

Then the pain stopped altogether, and I felt
cold with fear. I couldn’t even feel the blood that gushed out of
my throat and mouth. With my hand clutched on my throat, I was
frozen like a statue in one of the priest’s gardens.

I was dying for real this time…

A twig snapped, and the shadow loomed over
me again. I stared into the sadistic, skull-masked face of my
attacker.

“Demons are always sent to test our faith,
to trick the weak as false prophets.”

His rough voice was nothing like the
priest’s soft, melodic tones.

“Many succumb to earthly pleasures instead
of following our duty to the one true God.”

He talked of the Creator, and yet he was no
priest. I was being murdered by a religious fanatic.

“Bless Arcania. Bless the one and true God.
Deliver us from the evil of the world, from the corruption that is
in the world through the devils; from the evil of every condition
in the world; from the evil of death that is plaguing our world.
Deliver us from ourselves, from our own evil hearts. Deliver us
from evil men and false prophets, that they may not be a snare to
us.”

He made a sign over the left side of his
chest and then kneeled beside me until I could smell his hot, stale
breath. The tip of his curled dagger pointed at my right eye.

I couldn’t blink my tears away. My eyelids
were frozen, and I stared out into the black sky. Stars peered
through gaps in the trees. They were so beautiful. It was almost
calming.

I realized that I would never experience
childbirth. I would never love a child unconditionally, protect it,
and have a family of my very own. I had never really thought about
it before. That deep, throbbing pain of that one thought alone was
terrifying.

I knew I was dying when the world around me
began to melt like ice cream on a hot summer day.

I cried as the trees melted. I cried as the
stars melted into blots of white ink in the sky. I cried when I
thought of the terrible things he’d do to Torak when I was gone. I
cried when the masked man’s face started melting.

“I can see by the fear in your eyes that
you’ve started to hallucinate,” said the man.

His voice seemed far away.

“Soon you will not be able to tell the
difference between reality and the demons in your mind. The poison
will melt your brain inside your skull. It will be excruciating.
And you won’t even be able to scream.”

CHAPTER 14

I
STARED INTO THE masked face of
death. If the poison didn’t melt my brain like he’d said, then
surely he would finish the job.

The tip of his blade dangled in front of my
eyes. It was coming. Death was coming.

And when I’d convinced myself to let go,
that I was ready to die, that I was
going
to die, something
stirred inside me.

My body shook on its own accord. Was this
the poison’s doing?

I watched helplessly as the masked man moved
his blade away from my eye.

He rolled up his sleeve and sliced his
forearm with his dagger.

“I believe in the one true God, the creator
of all things. Soul of the one true God, make me holy, be my
salvation. Purify me. Wash me clean of my sins, strengthen me, hear
my prayer.”

Blood trickled to the ground as he cut
himself again.

“Defend me from the evil enemy and call me
to the fellowship of our brethren at the hour of my death. I say
this praise with them for all eternity.”

He looked over to me and clicked his teeth
together in a wild grin.

“And they said you couldn’t be killed.”

His unnatural laughter cut through the eerie
silence of the forest.

I wanted to shout for help. I wanted to kick
out with my legs, but my body wouldn’t obey my mind. It was as
though I was already dead and my soul was waiting to be taken by
the Creator.

The man’s cold eyes watched me. “It won’t be
long now.”

My vision blurred then, and I was glad that
I wouldn’t have to look into that horrid masked face anymore.

A soft neigh reached my ears. I went cold.
Torak. Where was my beautiful horse? The thought of this bastard
hurting Torak woke something inside me.

A new feeling stirred in my chest. And then
sensation.

It started with a tingling like tiny insect
bites under my skin. And then tingling turned into a throbbing
pain.

Pain. What a wonderful thing.

I knew it before it happened. My body was
healing itself. My magic was working.

It attacked the poison. I kept my face
straight, did my best not to blink to give myself away. Surprise
was my only advantage at that point. The pain changed to a warmth
that spread through my entire body. I felt my neck wound begin to
repair itself. Delicious air filled my lungs.

The masked man continued to mutter prayer
after prayer.

Let him keep talking. Keep praying.

He obviously enjoyed the sound of his own
voice. I took comfort in knowing that I would repay his attempt on
my life by cutting his throat. He had been foolish. In his
confidence, he hadn’t removed any of my weapons. I waited calmly
for the perfect opportunity. It was as though it came naturally to
me, like I’d been born to do this.

“This is taking too long. You should be dead
by now.”

The man’s voice was hard and unfeeling,
business like. “I’m done waiting.”

I watched and waited.

The man grasped his blade with both hands,
raised it high above his head, and brought it down.

But I was already moving.

I rolled away, and the tip of the blade
plunged into the earth where I’d lain a second ago.

By the time he realized what had happened, I
was on my legs, and my own blades were ready in my hands. Although
my legs were still stiff and painful from the effects of the
poison, I could feel adrenaline surging through the rest of my
body.

My would-be assassin spun around. His eyes
widened with a mixture of fear and fury.

“Impossible! No one can survive the hemlock.
What kind of demon are you?”

I smiled. “And here I thought I was a
witch.”

My voice sounded strange, muffled, different
from how I had spoken before.

My heart thumped hard as I took in deep,
wonderful breaths of air, and my healing magic ate away at the last
of the poison.

I watched the assassin’s fury spread through
him like a wildfire. I could see his poisoned blades shining
beneath his long black sleeves. I couldn’t risk a scratch from
those damn blades again. I had to be extra careful.

I swallowed hard and took a chance.

“Why do you want to kill me? Who sent
you?”

Instinctively I looked over my shoulder,
expecting more skull-masked men to jump at me from the forest. But
they didn’t. It was only him, for now.

The skull mask gleamed in the light of the
moon.

The man snickered. “I shall kill you once
and for all, demon. And this time you will
stay
dead!”

Scowling in determination, I crouched with
my knees bent and prepared to engage him at close range. I thanked
the Creator that I’d been raised in the Pit. I might have been
blessed with the gift of healing, but I’d learned to fight, and to
fight dirty, from experience.

“You’ve got that wrong. I’m
not
dying
today,” I growled.

I wasn’t about to let him hurt me again. I
was going to fight with everything I had in me.

He snarled as he came at me like a blur of
darkness. He was much faster than I’d first anticipated. But I was
ready for him.

He lunged for my heart, but just as the tip
of his blade brushed the front of my tunic I parried and spun
around. With a twist of my forearm, I sent one of his daggers
sailing into the air. But that didn’t stop him.

With incredible speed, he sliced through my
garments but never reached the soft of my skin. I kicked out hard
and made contact with his knees with a satisfying crunch. He yelled
out in pain and surprise. I ducked and swung my leg at his ankles
and swept him off his feet.

He tumbled backward but regained his balance
as skillfully as a cat.

He grimaced in the faint moonlight. “I’m
going to enjoy killing you, demon whore.”

I flashed him a toothy grin, my confidence
building with every breath.

“From where I’m standing, you’re the one who
looks more like a demon than I do. I’m not the one sneaking up on
defenseless women in the dark.”

His lips curled into a vicious smile beneath
his mask. He slashed me with his dagger, but I blocked with my
sleeve and slashed my blade across his chest. He stumbled back, his
robes were torn, and a large wet stain began to grow over his
breast.

“Better than you thought, aren’t I?” I
taunted.

My eyes narrowed in the dark. “You lack the
necessary skills to kill me. The high priests made a huge mistake
sending you.”

“Ha! You’re even more stupid than I thought
if you imagined we’d ally ourselves with those false men and their
false God.”

I could see the darkening fury in his
eyes.

“You know nothing.”

“If not the priests, then who? Who sent
you?”

He roared with wild rage and came at me
again. But I twisted easily away from him.

I crouched low, then jumped and slammed my
knees into his back. He went sprawling and his blade fell from his
hand. He reached for it, and I stomped on his hand.

He shrieked and kicked out with his legs,
sweeping my feet from under me.

I barely had time to blink as he threw
himself at me again. I ducked, but as I pulled away he managed to
get me in a headlock. I kneed the muscle in his thigh and brought
my fist crashing against his kidney and groin. I flipped him over,
but he slipped out of my grasp like an oily snake.

“Die, demon bitch,” he sneered and
charged.

Call it instinct, call it the hand of the
Creator, but at that exact moment, I sidestepped and spun. He
impaled himself on my blades as I held them protectively in front
of me.