Vivienne Ashford's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The six guards spread into a wide ring. Vivienne turned in place, her glowing blade tracking each one. Behind them, her wounded captor pushed to one knee. She could hold two, maybe three. Not six. Her back had no wall now, only open ground and the dark trees she could not reach. The dragon hissed at her boot. The spined creature crouched low, tail arched over its back. Vivienne remembered the barbs. She remembered what they did to the fortress. She glanced at the guards' armor and knew steel would not save them from that poison. "Now," she said. The spined creature sprang. Its tail whipped across the nearest guard's throat. He dropped without a sound. The others broke their ring and rushed the beast. Vivienne cut into the gap they left. Her blade took one man across the arm. He fell back, shouting. Then a new sound came from the fortress gate. Boots striking the ground in one rhythm. Not vines, not guards in cloth. A line of soldiers in black armor marched into the clearing. Blue lights glowed on their chestplates. At their head walked a woman with silver hair shaved close on one side. She did not draw a weapon. She raised one hand, and the line stopped. "Hold," she said. Her voice cut through the noise. The captor's guards froze. Vivienne did not lower her sword. She had never seen these soldiers before. They were not the plant fortress. They were something else, something worse. The silver-haired woman studied the bodies, then the beast, then Vivienne. "Colonel Kane," she said, as if the name settled everything. "You've cut down two of his men with a lizard and a house cat. That's more than his whole guard has managed." She looked at the wounded captor on his knees and did not hide her contempt. A broad man in heavier armor stepped up beside her. A scar cut across his brow. "We take her alive," he said. "Steele, form them up." His men fanned out with rifles Vivienne did not understand. Kane held up her hand again. "She's fast. Rush her and we lose three more." She looked at Vivienne with something close to interest. "The fortress wants you back in a cell. I have other uses for a woman who can fight like that." Vivienne understood then. These soldiers had not come to save her captor. They had come to take her for themselves. She backed toward the trees, dragon and creature at her heels. Kane let her move. "Run if you like," Kane called. "My men don't tire." Vivienne turned and ran into the dark. Branches tore at her arms. Behind her, the black line began to march, steady and slow, in no hurry at all. She had broken the ring of six. But she had traded one captor for a hunter who would never stop.