As quickly as it came, the pain released her.
As the agony lifted its grip, Magda flopped over onto her back. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gasped, getting her breath. She looked up at the concern on Merritt’s face.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she finally said between panting breaths.
“It’s the sword’s magic,” he said. “It extracts a price when you kill with it. The first time is by far the worst. You’re fortunate. The sword’s power was derived from your life force, so it was already somewhat familiar with you.”
Magda rolled onto her side and pushed herself up off the ground to sit back on her heels. “I’d hate to experience worse.”
“Anger is a shield for the power of the sword’s magic, so that helped, too.”
“Then I was well protected.” She reached out and turned his head to see the wound. “This doesn’t look so good.”
“I’m all right now. I’ll be better when I get this thing off from around my neck.”
“Can you use your gift to break it?”
“No,” he said. “It’s shielded to prevent a gifted person from using magic to escape.”
“Shielded,” she said. She remembered the shielded shackles on Naja. “I think I might have a key that would work on it.”
She retrieved the sword and worked the blade under one of the iron cuffs. She turned her face away. With a mighty pull the iron exploded in a shower of pieces. Merritt held the bar to stabilize it for her to break the collar. In short order she had the rest of the immobilizing apparatus off him.
Once he was free, she threw her arms around him. “I was so afraid. I thought you were lost. I was so afraid that they would kill you.”
He pushed her away for a moment. “‘You are surrounded. Do as I say or you will all die.’ That was your plan? Are you out of your mind?”
Magda winced self-consciously. “It was the best I could come up with on the spot.” She frowned. “And it turned out to be true, didn’t it?”
“It certainly did,” he said with a smile as he pulled her back to hold her tight in a grateful hug. “Thank you, Magda. I have to tell you, that was quite something to behold.”
She felt shaky in the wake of the fear from the fight, but it felt good to have his arms around her. “It was the sword,” she said. “Your creation is magnificent.”
“The sword is just a tool. The one wielding it has to be the right person. That’s what matters most.”
She cast him a skeptical look as he stood. “If you say so.”
The clouds were beginning to break up and the moon had emerged to cast light over the landscape.
“We need to get rid of these bodies,” Merritt said as he surveyed the area. “If they’re found it will bring the whole army looking for who was responsible. They’ll look for the missing men soon enough as it is.”
“It’s quite a drop over there,” Magda said, gesturing. “We can roll them over the edge. No one is likely to spot them, at least not for a time. That should buy us a day or two at least.”
In short order, with the aid of Merritt’s gift, they had all the bodies in green tunics and their body parts moved to the side. Arms and legs flailing, the big men rolled and tumbled and bounced down the steep drop, vanishing into the dense underbrush. No one would be able to see anything from the road, and unless they noticed a lot of scavengers no one was likely to climb down looking for the men. Merritt then used his gift to eliminate any trace of blood from the fight. With his foot, he smoothed the gouges in the ground. In the moonlight, the road again looked completely normal.
“We have to get off the road,” he said. “There could be more of Lothain’s soldiers about. With the moon out, we could easily be spotted out in the open like this.”
Magda looked around in the moonlight, getting her bearings. She pointed, then, to the dark wall of trees on the opposite side.
“There’s a trail over there coming up the mountainside. It passes by near the road not far off through there. It’s steeper and tougher going in places than taking the road, but it’s also shorter. No one is likely to be traveling the trail at night. The forest is pretty dense, so we can use the lantern in places if we have to. If a patrol passes, they won’t be able to see us from the road.”
Merritt nodded, and after a check of the surrounding area one last time to make sure they weren’t missing anything, they quickly headed off the road, through the dense undergrowth, and in a short while found the trail. The ground was covered in a layer of pine needles, so it made for silent passage. With the moon out, enough light made it through the trees to the forest floor and the trail so that they could see to make their way.
“Now,” he said after they had moved deeper into the protection of the trees, “not that I’m unappreciative, but what are you doing here? I told you that you must rest. I’m surprised that you have enough strength to stand up, and after that battle you’re lucky you can still breathe on your own. You’re in more trouble than you realize, Magda. You—”
“And we’re in more trouble than you realize. Lothain is being installed as First Wizard tomorrow afternoon. He forced me to agree to marry him at the ceremony.”
“What!”
Magda didn’t let him launch into a rant. “Listen to me. I had no choice. He said that he would start killing everyone I know if I didn’t agree. He had Tilly and had done terrible things to her just to show me that he was serious. Had I said no he would have killed her on the spot. As it was, she was in a bad way. She was just the first of many he would start in on if I didn’t agree. I couldn’t allow that.”
“Dear spirits,” he said under his breath.
“Here,” Magda said as she pulled the baldric off over her head and handed him his sword back. “I have a plan, though. I’ve figured it out. I know what we have to do.”
After Merritt had put the sword on, he gripped her arm. “You may have a plan, but I can clearly see in your eyes that you’re at the end of your endurance. That battle and running around out here is only making you worse. I can’t heal you further. You must rest to complete what I’ve done.”
“This wasn’t my choice, Merritt,” she said impatiently.
He sighed. “I suppose not. But I’d better get you back to the Keep. We can talk about your plan after you rest.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Magda insisted as she pulled her arm away from his grasp. “We have something much more important to do and it has to be done right now. I know that I need rest. Do you think I don’t know how weak I am? But we don’t have any choice. This can’t wait.”
He appraised the resolve in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Merritt, we’re in a lot of trouble. Lothain obviously intended to get rid of you so he must suspect that you’re working to find the truth of what’s going on. You were surely being taken back to be tried and executed, and you can bet that they would have tortured a confession out of you, first.
“Lothain needs to end the doubts about himself and subvert any opposition as a last step to seize rule at the Keep. He’s consolidating his power. He was able to dismiss Councilman Sadler so that he can more easily control the council. He already has his own private army.
“By marrying me he gains the confidence of the Home Guard and a number of key officials, as well as a lot of wizards who believed in Baraccus. Were I to refuse, he would then need to discredit me. He’d simply throw me in the dungeon, torture a confession out of me, and have me executed for treason. It isn’t all that hard to get people under torture to confess.
“I’m in a box. The way it is right now, no matter whether I go along with him or not, I can’t change what is going to happen. It still all ends the same way. My word alone against Lothain’s won’t sway enough people. He will be First Wizard. He will rule the Midlands.