Power's Pride {Watty Awards 2013 Entry}

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Reba forced herself to sleep in order to conserve strength for her escape. She did not know how long she had rested before she awoke to the echoes of his footsteps approaching; but her body was buzzing with energy. It was nearly impossible to keep herself from fidgeting in her excitement, but she knew she must avoid any outward signs of her intention. This period, more than even the escape itself, was when she was the most vulnerable to failure because The Hound was so accursedly perceptive. And she still did not know when he intended to kill her. If tonight was that night, she just might learn the truth about his supposed invulnerability to magic herself.

Thankfully, her meal time came and went following the mostly silent established pattern, and Reba was left to wait for her chosen time to run. She had to strike the right balance between allowing The Hound enough time to fall into a deep sleep and not allowing him enough time to reawaken.

After counting the seconds for what she thought might have been close to an hour of waiting, she fortified her heart with the courage of desperation and slipped out into the corridor. At what felt like a painstakingly slow pace, Reba positioned herself just outside the entrance way to the room where all five of the Hunters were gathered. Blessedly, The Hound was napping again today in a corner as far away from the sunlight as possible - in a corner as out of the way of her escape as possible. “Thank the Powers for small graces.”

Reba knew that she was still too weak to use much of her magic to save herself; and that meant she must depend upon surprise, confusion, and speed. Ignoring her growing sense of terror and certain failure, Reba tapped into the small amount of magic she had chosen to risk and caused the stained shirt of the cowardly Hunter to alight in flames as he was reaching into the fireplace to add another log. He screeched in pain as fire raced from one grease spot on his shirt up to another until even his disgusting hair was on fire.

As the other three completely awake Hunters turned to gape at the burning man, Reba burst from her hiding place and ran with all the speed she could pump into her legs towards the prison entrance and her one chance for freedom. The blonde, manly wench was the first Hunter to recognize their prisoner was among them; and she screeched furiously as she threw herself into a full-body dive to tackle Reba to the floor. They wrestled together for a bit with Reba receiving several well placed punches that were accompanied by cracking noises in her face and chest more than once and promised a slow and painful healing process was ahead, if she survived. All the while, the female Hunter continued to scream in a manic bloodlust until the witch finally managed to grab a handful of the other woman’s sloppy braid, viciously yank her head to one side, and use her free hand to plunge her shank deep into the Hunter’s throat.

She barely had time to register that another living being’s life-blood had just splashed onto her broken face before she was hauled bodily to her feet by a cruel fist in her own hair. The fat man was holding her head immobile with his grip on her scalp in such a way that she found herself staring at the lecher who leered and whose brown eyes were lit with the certain knowledge that he now had an excuse to torture her as perversely as he wished. In what must have been less than two minutes, Reba’s only chance to escape had failed. Ruefully and belatedly, she realized “Set one on fire and run” was not an infallible plan, after all. "I should have waited until they were all asleep!" She had badly miscalculated in her desperation to not be forced to face...

“My, my. Such a mess,” a deep voice remarked coldly. Reba stared in terror as The Hound calmly rose from the floor and walked over to toe the body of the Hunter she had set on fire. “Dead.”

"Dead? How had the first Hunter died? It had only been a small fire spell; he shouldn’t have died from that." She watched in confusion as the Third High Hunter walked to the woman. “Also dead,” The Hound confirmed with another quick, booted inspection before locking his frosty gaze onto hers. “So...now what, Witch?”

Driven by instinct alone after the soul-consuming fear drove all coherent thoughts from her mind, Reba’s arms reached out of their own accord and slammed the palms of both her hands against the ears of the Hunter directly in front of her. Both his eardrums burst from the combined pressure and he dropped to the ground howling in misery. At the same time, she relaxed her legs, allowed all her body weight to rush back to the floor, and stifled a scream of pain for the hair ripped from her head as she reached for the knife still protruding from the woman’s throat. In one smooth motion, Reba thrust the knife up into the large Hunter’s groin and hurled herself towards her exit.

In the short amount of time The Hound took to help his remaining two men, Reba’s mad dash successfully delivered her to the seashore. And there, in the distance just as she had hoped, she saw her own ship. Sam had either followed the Hunters or used a tracking spell and was now waiting for the chance to save her. She heard The Hound’s howl of fury and turned around long enough to see him charging down the path after her. Without another thought, Reba threw herself into the ocean and began swimming.

The water was shockingly cold and reminded her that Autumn would be turning to Winter soon. Salt stung her eyes and her every laceration while her heavy dress, which had been such a boon for keeping her warm in Autumn’s cool air, demonstrated how much of a liability it was while swimming by attempting to bog her down with its weight. A splash behind her warned that the last able-bodied Hunter had entered the water as well, and Reba allowed a sob to escape her lips.

"So close. The ship and safety are both so close..." but her arms were growing tired. Adrenaline that had flooded her body when she first began the battle for her freedom was now wearing off, and all those weeks with neither proper nutrition nor proper rest were making themselves felt with every forward motion of her arms. Coldness from the sea was seeping into her bones and doing its own part to weaken her by leeching strength from her muscles. Sam’s familiar voice reached her - urging her onward. But, somehow, she just…did not care anymore. A firm hand grasped her ankle and pulled her backwards. "I failed..." floated through her consciousness just before her mind sank into blackness.