The Trial

Chapter 4

My attacker looks dirty from the caked mud on his hands, feet, and clothes. His skin isn't the color of health, it is the color of nausea. The stench reeking from him causes my nose to burn from disgust. When he grimaces down at me he reveals his brown teeth surrounding the black holes from his missing teeth. The rags he is wearing are sewn in patches from there being no one length of fabric big enough to cover him.

"Who are you, girl?" His voice booms down at me as the hammer held against presses deeper into my ribcage. I gasp out for air with my name laying on my lips. The man leans down towards me making his stench grow fowler and me turn a fainted green color.

"Beowulf, she's-"

"No Grayson, she is on my territory now." The man sneers allowing his rancid breath to leak out. As he pushes the bat farther on my abdomen I groan out feeling the bile rise to my throat.

"What are you doing trespassing, human?" He asks.

"Please," I choke out not having enough oxygen to tell him how his bat is pushing the air from my lungs. My only hope is Grayson, but it seems he won't do anything. Maybe this was his plan, to lead me here, so this giant man will kill me. So he didn't have to do it himself.

"Please, what?" He twists the bat then leans farther onto it, "How is your begging?"

"Can't. Breathe." I cough out feeling like those were the last words I will ever speak. My gaze drifts into swirls of dizziness as the lack of oxygen worsens. It seems that I will die today. The image of my parents fills my mind allowing me to drift away from the idea of death. A booming laugh fills my ears, but it stops at the sound of a growl.

"Tsk tsk, Grayson. You know the laws," the man smiles down at me as the world seems to grow darker. The darkness is caving in on me -swallowing me. He won't let the hammer up, just to let me breathe. He will suffocate me, the promise is written in the way his mouth curves to the side.

If the giant hammer were to break against his weight, I could live. It was all that I could wish for. As my surroundings became darker the shouting became louder. The sound of voices turning into a buzz at the back of my mind.

Before I knew it thunder echoed through my ears. A storm was coming. I could feel the harsh winds caress me as the leaves began to swirl. The energy from the storm fills me with strength and clears the fog from my brain. Suddenly I can see through the daze that the lack of oxygen left me with. The man above me smirks as the thunder roars over head. I reign in the power from the storm letting it fill me with life.

I don't flinch when the lightning strikes.

Instead I breathe in the surrounding oxygen. Hands grip my arms and lift me to my feet. I can't tell who it is through me coughing at the air. They wrap my arm around their shoulders and one of their arms around my waist to support me as I walk. My legs feel like jello beneath my shaking form. We begin walking away from my attacker as my coughing seems to settle. Once we reach a big oak tree the person sits me down where my back rests against the trunk. As they walk away they make sure not to look at me, but they didn't have too. I can tell who it is just by his gait.

Will steps up next to Greyson both of them staring off at something. I follow their gazes to see the giant man sitting against a tree and starring at me. My eyes go wide at the realization of him cowering away from me. His eyes look wild as his body shakes pressed so far against the tree his knuckles are white around the earth. Splinters are scattered around the ground next to the two halfs of his broken hammer. The smell of burnt wood fills the air.

While staring into the black eyes of my attacker I listen closely to the murmuring bouncing between Will and Grayson. It's strange how a man that was so determined to kill me only a few moments ago is now terrified of me. He must have not known I was a witch. Grayson did say that my race was supposedly extinct. But why be so afraid of my race? There was something he didn't tell me.