Jack Whyte - Uther

Nemo's blood pounded in her ears and a wild cry rose from her throat as her horse, with a thunderous hammering of hooves, struck the witch's right shoulder, throwing her forward and off balance.

Nemo's heavy, hard-swung iron ball caught her beneath the right collarbone with massive, crushing force and lifted her into the air, throwing her as though she were weightless back towards the water's edge. She went spinning through the air until she hit a willow tree by the waterside and fell sideways across a low branch, to hang there like a sagging, swollen sack from which blood poured to the ground in thick, ropy runnels.

Cassandra was dead with that first fearsome blow, but Nemo took no chance of failure. She wrenched her horse around and brought it up again onto its hind legs, where she could brace herself in the stirrups and create sufficient momentum to deliver a full swing, and this time the killing ball crashed into and through the swollen lump of belly that contained Cassandra's unborn child. The force of this terrible blow knocked the body into the shallow waters at the lake's edge.

Then, her vision blurred and her heart banging against her ribs with terror, Nemo clambered down from the saddle and fell to her knees, where she swayed for long moments before falling forward to lie full length, face down upon the grass, shuddering and shaking.

Later, much later, when she had convinced herself that she was still alive and had won the battle with the witch. Nemo began to wonder at the ease with which she had achieved her victory. She had expected unearthly powers to come against her from the underworld, She had expected to be faced with fire-breathing furies and the powers of the damned. She had expected to be exhausted by the effort required to fight, let alone kill, a witch. And she had expected, most of all, to die herself in her quest for victory. But none of those things had happened. She was still alive and still breathing, and slowly, frighteningly, she was beginning to regret the lack of all of the things she had expected . . . beginning to wish she had felt even one of them. Any one of them.

At one point, before she could clench her jaws and close her mind and thrust the disturbing thought aside, it occurred to her that her victory could hardly have been easier had the dead witch been an ordinary, pregnant, helpless woman.

And once that thought had entered her mind, it refused to leave again, and she had to force herself to go and examine the dead witch.

Nemo knelt above the shattered body and gazed at the destruction she had wreaked. She tried to tell herself that this was Cassandra's witchcraft, that she could bend people's minds and make them believe that what they saw was different from what it actually was. This woman, had she been allowed to live, would have been a danger and a threat to Uther, and so to all that Nemo held to be of value. But gazing at the dead woman, who lay on her back in the shallow waters of the lake's edge, her face above the surface, eyes closed and skin unmarred in any way, she found herself amazed at its beauty and at the serenity stamped on it, despite the awful fury of her death. The dead face bore no trace of pain or fear, as though someone had come along and soothed her terror at the moment of her passing. Nemo found herself staring at the gentleness of that face, afraid to think of what she was thinking. She forced herself to stand upright and walk away, and as she went, the flail that still hung from her wrist by its leather loop dragged behind her through the water and then bumped on the narrow strip of sandy grass that formed the beach.

Two ways to kill a witch: fire and iron. But the iron used may never again he used by human hand.

Nemo spread her feet, slipped her hand free of the leather loop and swung the iron flail over her head until she could hear it hissing through the air and doubted that she could swing it any harder. Then, at the top of her swing, she opened her hand and released the weapon, knowing that it would soar and fall into the centre of the little lake and be lost in its depths. But she had misjudged her throw. The weapon, released, flew for more than twenty paces, but to her right rather than forward, so that it struck the water quite close to the bank, yet sufficiently far from the body of the woman to escape detection.

She walked over in that direction to see if she could see anything, but there was nothing visible. The flail had landed in a bed of reeds and had plunged deep into the muddy bottom. It was no great loss, other than in the fact that it was the first such weapon ever made. Since then, however, it had become quite common to see troopers riding with them hanging from their saddles. Once Uther and Merlyn had begun to use them, others had rushed to copy their design, because the things were far less difficult to make than a good sword. Nemo would quickly find a new one.

She turned and walked back to where the body of the witch Cassandra lay sprawled in a shapeless, sodden tumble of bloodied limbs. The edges of her clothing drifted and eddied in the shallows and the surrounding water had turned pink with blood, so that the skin of the dry, upturned face was creamy white by contrast. Fascinated, Nemo stared down at it for a long time, reminding herself of all that had occurred. Finally she nodded, satisfied that what she had done was right, and as she did so, she caught a movement from the corner of her eye. It was completely unexpected and her startled reaction was out of all proportion to what she had seen.

It was Cassandra's horse tossing its head, and now Nemo wondered what to do about it. It was still tethered between the shafts of the wagon, and she knew it would be cruel merely to leave it behind that way. And yet if she were to release it or even leave it harnessed to the cart, the animal would eventually make its way directly home to Camulod, where its arrival would set alarums clanging and precipitate the discovery of the witch's death. She heaved a deep sigh, knowing she had no options, and crossed to where the beast stood waiting for her, twisting its head to see her as she drew close to it.

The long cavalry sword made a slithering sound as it cleared the iron carrying ring at her back, and she held it out at arm's length, aiming it at the downward sloping column of the horse's neck. But then she thought about the bones and muscles in that massive neck and changed her mind, deciding to use her wickedly sharp double- edged dagger instead. She bent forward slightly, reaching completely beneath the horse's neck, and then plunged the pointed blade upwards into the animal's jugular on the other side with all her strength. Then, gripping the hilt strongly with both hands, she pulled the long blade back strongly towards her, slashing and slicing hard and deep. The horse barely made a sound, beyond an initial grunt of pain, and its leap of surprise was stillborn. Blood sprayed everywhere and the animal fell immediately to its knees and died quickly, still between the shafts.

Nemo stepped away from it and looked down at herself, shaking her head in disgust. Her entire lower half was drenched in blood. She found a length of white cloth in the back of the cart and carried it to the water's edge, well clear of the spot where the dead witch lay. There she soaked it and used it to clean the worst of the blood from her armour, scrubbing at the tiny bronze rings that covered the heavy leather leggings of her armoured trousers.

When she was finished, she dropped the cloth in the water and left it there. She then took one last look around the lovely little valley, noticing that the mid-afternoon sun had already started bending the shadows slightly towards the east. She glanced once more time towards the body in the water, wondering how long it would be before someone found it, and then she sighed and spat loudly before crossing to her horse and pulling herself up into the saddle. She had decided not to return to Camulod for the evening meal, as she had originally planned, but to strike out immediately for Cambria and home instead, pitching her camp that night wherever sunset found her. Within three days she would be in Tir Manha again with Uther, secure in the knowledge that the threat to him had been removed and that he and his cousin Merlyn could be friends again.