The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(68)

Fifer was right, but she was also wrong. It wasn’t what the knight holds in death; it was what holds him in death. Not the sword, the tablet. The stone slab that entombed him. Just like the stone slab that nearly entombed me.

Suddenly, I know. I know where the Thirteenth Tablet is.

“Fifer,” I whisper. My mouth is dry as dirt. “The Thirteenth Tablet. I know where it is. I—”

I hear it whistle through the air before I feel it: the fist attached to the arm of the guard that just connected with my face. There’s a sickening crunch as my nose breaks and a gush of hot blood comes pouring out.

Next to me, Fifer screams.

“This was almost too easy,” the guard mutters, shoving me aside before going after Fifer. The skirt on my dress is so tight I lose my footing and stumble to the ground, sprawling face-first into a pile of leaves and dirt. My stigma fires hot against my abdomen as my nose snaps back into place. I barely feel it.

Before I can get up, two of the guards flip me over and grab my wrists while a third clamps a pair of manacles around them. I recognize them immediately: They’re the guards we ran into on the road to Humbert’s.

“Not so dangerous now, are you?” one of them mutters.

I struggle wildly, trying to get to my feet. But my hands are bound in iron, my legs in silk. The guards force me back to the ground, one of them driving his knee into my spine, hard.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he says. “Except to prison, where you belong.”

I struggle more. He slams my face into the ground; the force of it makes my head spin. “We’ll stay with her,” I hear him call out. “You go help with the other one.”

I hear a shuffle of leaves, then Fifer’s panicked scream. I turn my head to the side and see the guards circle around her, taunting and laughing.

“Get away from me!” Fifer shrieks, holding the sword in front of her. She jabs it at the two men but keeps missing.

“Look at that little girl with the big sword!”

“You know, witch, you’re lucky we caught up with you instead of Blackwell’s boys. Your pretty face would be roasting on the spit before sunrise.”

“Isn’t that going to happen anyway?” the other guard says.

They laugh some more.

I’ve got to get us out of here. I’ve got one guard on my back, the other standing next to me. I’ve got that triple dagger in my boot, but since my hands are pinned beneath my chest, what good is it? I’m almost tempted to call for Schuyler. Then I remember the necklace and realize he won’t hear me. Which means I’m on my own. I’ve got to get out of these manacles, but I don’t know how.

Then I get an idea.

Quietly, slowly, I break my own thumbs. First one, then the other, gritting my teeth against the pain. I slip my hands out of the bindings, hear a quiet crack as the bones snap back into place. Then I go still. Have the guards noticed? No, they’re too busy calling encouragement to the ones still teasing Fifer. They’re such idiots. Now they’re going to pay for it.

I flatten my hands underneath me. In a flash, I buck the guard off my back. Land in a crouch and yank the dagger from my boot. The guard who rolled off me, I grab him by the hair and stab him in the neck. He falls back to the ground, dead. Before the other one can open his mouth in protest, I pull the dagger from the dead guard’s neck and send it flying toward him. It lands directly between his eyes and he slumps to the ground. Also dead. The whole thing is over in seconds.

The sudden silence gets the other guards’ attention. Their eyes go from me to the two dead men and back to me again. They look stunned. I yank the blade from the guard’s head and start toward them.

“Fifer, get behind me.”

She stands there, dazed.

“Fifer! Now!”

Slowly, she steps around the guards, lowering the sword a little as she goes.

“Don’t!” I shout, but it’s too late. One of the guards leaps forward, grabs a hank of Fifer’s hair and punches her square in the face. Then he drives his fist into her stomach and she drops to the ground. The sword falls limply from her hand.

The other guard picks it up and rounds on me.

I lunge forward and seize his free arm, twist it behind his back and jerk it upward, hard. I’m rewarded with a loud snap as the bone breaks. Still holding his wrist, I yank him to me and drive my dagger into his gut. He falls to the ground as the other guard leaps forward and snatches the sword before I can get to it. He swipes at me with it and I pull back. He does it again, then again, missing me both times.

I drop to the ground, swinging an outstretched leg underneath his feet, swiping them out from under him. As he crumples to his knees, I jump up and smash my foot along the side of his kneecap. I hear a crunch and he screams in pain. He falls toward me and takes a final swing with the sword.

The blade slashes across my abdomen, the cold silver red hot as it sears through the silk, all the way to my flesh. Immediately, it starts gushing blood. I feel the flash of heat in my abdomen and wait for the familiar, tingling healing sensation. But it doesn’t come. Just more heat. And a lot more blood. I clutch my hand to my side and feel it spurt between my fingers.

It’s not healing.

The guard lies awkwardly on the ground, his injured limbs sprawling uselessly beneath him. I stumble to him, snatching the sword from his hand and thrusting it into his chest. He gives a muffled grunt and falls back into the grass. Dead.