by Foy W Minson
The whip cracked, and her right breast bled.
He opened a gash on her cheek. Then, one on her right thigh…another one on her left thigh…across her belly.
She still held the knife, jerking away each time the whip flew, but unable to move far enough to avoid its terrible bite.
He didn’t comment on the change of expression on her face, altered from one of stark terror to one of hate and rage. Either he didn’t notice it, or, being unconcerned for her emotions or any danger she might represent, ignored it. But behind the hate, was also thought. She had seen him using the whip, yes. And she was familiar with how he used it, picking his target, judging the distance exactly, and then hitting it precisely. The whip could cut like a knife, but only with the very tip as it arced through its course at supersonic speed, thus creating the crack of a gunshot. At times, she and the other citizens of Napa were required to witness punishments. She had, at times, wondered what would happen if—
The next time his arm snapped and the leather lashed out toward her, she lunged forward, not away from him. She thrust her left forearm against the whip three feet from the tip, hitting it from the side and letting it wrap around just above her wrist. She gripped it with that hand and jerked it taut. Her right hand whipped up, the one gripping Erin’s dagger, and one swipe was all it took for the honed steel to slice through the leather. The useless stub end snapped back to land at Brad’s feet.
For a long moment he just stood there and gaped at his now impotent source of terror and control, emasculated — but only for a moment. Bellowing his rage, he charged at her with such speed and force, she had no time to bring the knife into play. He hit her with his whole body, knocking her sideways and backwards several feet where she sprawled in the dirt.
He grasped a fistful of her hair and hauled her to her feet, holding her up within inches of his purple face. “You are going to suffer like you can’t even imagine. And it’s going to start with watching me rip your brats into pieces. You hear me? With my bare hands, I’m going to rip them apart. And you’re going to watch — up close. Close enough for me to wipe my bloody hands on your face.”
As he ranted, he marched her over to where Sarah huddled with Daryl and Erin was beginning to come around. He slammed Sherri to the ground beside Erin, then, after waiting for a couple of seconds for her to turn back to face him, he reached down.
Sarah tried to back away, but the wall was behind her and she had no place to go. With terror gripping her and tears streaming down her cheeks, she watched each of her father’s huge hands grasp her brother’s two legs and lift him squalling out of her hands.
Brad’s eyes spewed pure hate as they glared at his errant wife. He raised her son, the son that was not his, displaying him for her so see whole for the last time.
Sherri sucked in her breath to scream, to rant, to plead, but terror froze her words within her throat.
Brad’s muscular arms flexed in preparation to ripping the small body asunder.
“No!” The word, the command, seemed bigger, more authoritative, than should come from such a small mouth. And when Sarah screamed again, “No!” it was even greater.
Brad held the baby dangling before his mother’s eyes so that the full repugnance of the atrocity would not be diluted with distance — and there he remained.
A look of confusion, then rage, then fear came over Brad’s face as he glowered, now, at the baby in his grasp and his arms that remained immobile, inflexible, rigid stone. His legs, likewise, were beyond his ability to move. His feet seemed to be rooted to the ground.
“What — what’s happening? What did you do to me? What did you do to me!?” In three short questions, his voice went from a terror-stricken whisper to a terror fueled, rising screech.
Sherri gazed in shock and fear at the brute holding her son, and she had no idea what he was screaming about. When Erin’s hand gripped her arm, she turned to meet the other’s questioning gaze for a moment, then both turned back in horror to the suspended slaughter.
Brad turned his head to them — he could move from the neck up — then back to stare at his locked arms and hands. “What did you do to me?!” he continued to scream.
From the wall near Sherri and Erin, Sarah pushed herself to her feet and advanced with no hesitation to her ogre of a father. When she was beneath the squirming and screaming baby, she reached up and took him from the brawny hands that had no power to stop her.
“You leave my brother alone.” Her voice was low and menacing, a voice that carried suppressed fury, but suppressed only until the tiny one in peril was removed to a safer position.
She cradled him like she had seen her mother do so many times to calm him, swinging him gently in her firm embrace, assuring him of his safety and talking to him in hushed tones until his screams eased off.
Then she slowly turned her face back up to her father, who, looming over her, still standing with his arms held out and his hands cupped as though still gripping two fragile legs, and she glared at him.
“You’re bad!” Her voice quavered, but only from the barely constrained rage she could no longer suppress. “You hurt my mommy and my brother!” she scolded. “You’re bad!”
Brad’s face was crimson from his effort to move his hands mixed with burning rage that even his witch of a daughter showed such disrespect for him. His grunts and whines suddenly erupted in a bellow loud enough to shake the nearby windows if they had still been intact.
Startled, Sarah jerked back, ducked and spun away from him in a reflexive twist, something she had learned as a toddler when the man of her house was near. And when she did, her concentration that had locked his muscles broke.
As she scooted in that old, familiar terror back to the wall with Daryl where Sherri huddled with Erin, Brad spun about with arms flailing, striking out at anyone or anything within range, and continued to roar like a wounded bear.
When he finally settled to a solid stance on both feet, he faced away from them. Hunched over, he flexed his shoulders and curled his powerful arms inward with his fingers splayed out like grasping talons. As he slowly turned about to face his family with his eyes glaring, he seemed more hulking beast than human.
With her children huddled in terror beside her, with the friend who had fought for her for as long as she could still recovering on the ground behind her, Sherri gripped the dagger anew and lurched to her feet to confront the fiend.
Recognizing a tactical advantage, she charged before he could recover from the shock of seeing her rising, yet again, to oppose him. Ducking at the last instant beneath his grasping hands, she twisted and spun past him, but not without slashing his ribcage from front to back on the way. Still snatching with hands that kept coming up empty, he spun after her, but she was too fast.
She whirled to face him and was ready by the time he focused on her. But, rather than allowing him to set the pace and the course their battle would take, hoping to catch him between breaths, she lunged again.
The tip of her blade jabbed into the palm of his left hand as it stretched toward her beside the right one, and the instant pain triggered a reflex to jerk both back away from her. While she was still close enough to reach him while his arms were still retracted, she slashed her blade across his belly, leaving behind a red line that grew larger as she watched, and then jumped back out of his reach.
While she backed away from him, he reached down and picked up the remnants of his whip. Although shorn of its vicious tip, it was still a cruel weapon. He swung it at her, but it didn’t reach. He stepped closer and swung again. But she had stepped back. It was still too short. The handle felt right in his hand, but the weight and balance of the remainder was wrong. It was too stiff, more like using a cane to thrash a prisoner sentenced to twenty lashes. It caused pain to the point of crippling, but it was of little use against a moving target other than to force her to keep moving.
But she was too eager to inflict her own punishment on the man who had dealt years of cruelty to her a
nd her children. In her inexperience in battle, she misjudged what she believed to be an easy opening and ran in for another flick of her knife blade. His whip stub had just whistled past her and followed its momentum on around behind Brad before dropping to the dirt. She made her dart forward even before it had stirred the dust and while his whip arm, his right, was curved around to his left. She went in low, aiming her outstretched weapon at his side at waist level, her eyes locked on the target. But with her focus there, she failed to note he was watching her all the time. When she was within range, he released the whip handle and hammered downward with his fist.
Even as she felt the pain, she heard the crack of the bone breaking in her forearm. She fell forward into the dirt and the swirl of agony engulfing her arm. She rolled back and forth as she sought to alleviate the torment of her misshapen limb. Even when his fist closed in her hair and lifted her high enough for him to glare at her eye to eye, she cradled it to her breast.
His lower lip curled down in what, for him, was a grin as he drew his other hand back to his shoulder and clenched it into a fist. Still grinning, he slammed it forward into her face.
He let go of her hair when he hit her so she could flop onto the ground with both arms flailing. When she landed, she curled into a ball, again cradling her broken arm. She wasn’t even surprised when his hand twisted into her hair and dragged her to her feet again to where his eyes met hers when she opened them. Her vision was blurred and the pain in her smashed nose seemed to extend halfway down her body, even overshadowing that in her arm. She tasted blood that streamed from her nose over her lips and chin, down her throat. Then, surprising her as much as it did him, she spat it into his face.
He reacted with an immediate pounding of his fist into her already broken nose, which sent her into another flop in the dirt.
When he lifted her by her hair again, it occurred to her tumult dimmed thinking that he was going to beat her to death one slammed fist after another, that her present degree of consciousness was as good as it was ever going to be, diminishing from there until it was gone, and that he would then turn on the children. And so, certain that no opportunity better than the one before her would likely come, she snapped her foot up, slamming the toe of her borrowed boot into his groin with as much force as she could manage. It was enough.
Moaning and groaning, he sank to the ground where he curled into a ball. Released from his grip, she sank briefly onto her knees before rising to her feet. She spun about, searching for the knife she had held just moments earlier.
There! It lay in the dirt five feet behind him, just waiting for her hand to close upon the fine ivory handle.
She zagged around him as she began stooping to pick it up. But, before she had gotten past, his hand flashed out and grasped at her ankle, missing the grab but not the trip.
She flopped into the dirt again, but this time it was just where she wanted to be — at least until she rose again, armed and ready to battle, once again, with the man she had never realized she hated so much.
But she didn’t rise. He was there first, standing over her, looming over her, his hand wrapped in her hair and lifting her to the glare of his hate filled eyes from mere inches away. His grin began again with a twitch at one corner of his mouth. He brought his other hand up and slowly clenched it into a fist directly in front of her face so she would know what was coming before drawing it back to his shoulder.
But, relishing the coming feel of his fist crunching once again into her face, he tarried in extending his long arm from which she dangled. Before he pushed her out of range, she struck. With the knife firmly gripped, she thrust the blade into him to the hilt, entering just below his ribcage and angled upward to pierce his black heart.
His hand, suddenly weakened, released her.
She stood there, still inches from him, and returned his glare.
He lowered his eyes and gaped at the hand-guard of the dagger firm against his belly and her hand still wrapping the handle. He raised them again to peer into the face of the wife he had been given by the Prophet, a terrible wife that even his other wives disliked. The hate, the rage, the cruelty was gone, replaced by wide-eyed and mouth-gaping shock. He still wore the look when his knees buckled and he dropped to sprawl, unmoving, in the dirt.
She backed up several steps before she turned to locate her children with Tina and Erin, all with their eyes on her.
“Mommy!” Sarah cried. Still holding Daryl, she scrambled to her feet and rushed into her mother’s arms. Sherri went to her knees with daughter and son both, again, within her embrace, and, even with the agony of her broken arm and her twice broken nose, she felt whole. She smiled at Erin and Tina even as tears streamed down all their faces.
She heard the approaching footsteps pounding behind her, just more sounds washing over her from the torrent of numerous nearby battles, but any meaning to be had from the sound failed to register with her until Sarah flinched and twisted from her arms.
“No!” the girl cried. “No! Don’t!”
Erin and Tina’s eyes went wide and their mouths opened to voice warnings but hadn’t gotten them out yet when Sherri spun on her knee to face whatever new peril had come.
Two men, raiders, each armed with blood smeared, nail-studded clubs raised to strike, bore down on her from less than ten feet away and closing fast.
“No!” Sarah cried again and raised her free hand with fingers splayed as if to fend them off.
At a distance of seven feet, their clubs had topped their arcs and were hard into their lethal, driven descent.
And then they weren’t.
As Sarah’s arm straightened, shoving her open hand forward, both men flew back and away in a flat trajectory at ground level as though shot from a canon. They smashed against the side of a house two hundred feet away with such force they penetrated the wall. Where they had stuck was an irregular, dark hole, six or seven feet across with splintered ends of wall studs dangling down, all edged in smears of red, and with the lower portion of a leg sticking out, unmoving. The clubs the men had held lay in the dirt where they had last stood.
Sobbing, Sarah turned slowly to Sherri. With great care of her disabled arm, she laid Daryl into his mother’s trembling good arm then threw herself face down onto her mother’s lap. “I’m sorry Mommy! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do it! I’m sorry!”
Sherri shifted Daryl so she could cuddle the traumatized girl and caress her head and back with the arm that hurt so much to move. She started to speak several times, to try to impart comfort and reassurances that what Sarah had done was okay, that it was necessary, that she had saved all three of them plus Erin and Tina from terrible deaths. All she could manage was to hold her and try to process what she had seen.
She knew Sarah could raise sticks and stones into the air like soap bubbles floating in the breeze, she had seen her do it more than once before her repeated admonitions got through to the child to not do such an unholy thing. But, this…
Between sobs, Sarah got out, “Am I bad, Mommy? Is God going to punish me? I’m sorryyyy!”
CHAPTER 26
When Raven heard a sudden howling whine at the same instant it echoed through her mind, she didn’t have to think about what it was. She spun to her right and rammed her sword blade into the chest of a raider who made the mistake of confronting her instead of striking her down. She jerked her blade free and her gaze swept right and left as she sought out what she feared to find. And there it was, across the battle zone the village center had become. A fur-covered lump lay unmoving near the downed flagpole.
“Satan!” she cried and broke into a run past groups and pairs of fighters hacking and bashing at each other. Sliding up to his body on her knees, she repeated, although softer, “Satan.”
She hadn’t seen the blow that felled him or the man delivering it, and it didn’t really matter. There was nothing personal in a battle between armies of whatever size where a soldier would fight another to the death, and then turn to seek anothe
r.
With trembling hands, she cradled his huge head with its blood smeared muzzle and turned it to look into his eyes, terrified to see lifeless orbs unable to return her gaze. But his eyes opened, and he peered back at her as a soft breeze passed warmly through her mind,
“Oh, Satan! You scared me!”
Her fingers explored the gash on top of his head from which blood oozed into the little bit of graying fur about his muzzle not already coated with red. With gentle pressure, she satisfied herself that his skull was intact. Then, before she could stop him, he lurched to his feet, gave his body a good shaking and looked, again, into her eyes.
Matti/Raven not hurt? Matti/Raven fight bad men more? Satan fight bad men more — more more!
Even with the din of battle around them, Raven had to smile at her friend and his remark that he was ready to get back to fighting the raiders even more than she was.
Raven is ready.
She turned to charge back into the melee, but never made it. Not ten feet from where Satan had fallen, she saw an unmoving form lying on the ground amid puddles of blood. Even without seeing the face, she knew that form with its long limbs, regal stance and kind heart. So long ago, it was, that he had opened his house, his home, and his heart to her as the refuge she so desperately needed. The Judge had given her a much needed place to rest her body and soul, a secure place to set her anchor in a horrible new world.
She tried to hold hope in her heart that he still lived, but she knew better. It wasn’t only the amount of blood pooled around him. Just by looking at the stillness of his body, at the way it sagged into itself in the total relaxation of muscle tension that comes only when life has departed.
With a breaking heart, she took a step toward him. Before she could take a second, though, thirty feet from her, and glaring so much hatred at her she could feel the heat of Hell, Ned Morgan stopped after rounding the corner of a house. He said nothing as he raised his pistol in her direction and lined up the barrel on her. Without losing the hateful glare, he managed to insert a death’s head grin into it.