The Soul Collector - By Tamela Quijas Page 0,2
of a horse’s heavy body pushed her.
Even without the benefit of sight, she realized she was surrounded, her liege lord before her, and his men flanking her. For a long moment, brutish mounts and their equally minded riders, men who received the church’s blessing for their supposed honor, shoved her.
“Be still!” The unpleasantly thick voice of the Lord of St. Lorraine commanded, and his armored men reluctantly fell back.
“My lord,” she stood proudly before him, her expression defiant, her hunched shoulders pulled back.
“Witch,” his words were low, but not lost to the men encircling him. His steed pranced beneath him, flecks of blood-tinged spittle spraying the air as the animal reared its massive head. “You have led my men on a trek scarcely worth their valuable time!”
The woman’s face became tranquil beneath the wild tangle of her steel-gray hair. Proudly, she stood on the minor piece of dying land that had been her beloved country. Despite her bravery, she wished to weep bitter tears. Pushing the urge aside, she tightened her grasp on her tattered shawl.
“I am a simple woman, ancient before my time, my lord.” Her voice was loud and steady as she indicated the obvious. “How could I be of value?”
He leaned forward in his saddle, his helmet in the crook of his arm, and the reins of his pawing mount lax in his gloved hand. “You, woman, threaten my land and rule.”
She cackled, her laughter long and wheezing.
“An old woman is a menace to a man of your ilk?” She jested defiantly. “I threaten the great king of St. Lorraine?”
The ruler edged his prancing steed nearer. The woman detected the fetid breath of the animal on the chill of her papery skin, and the inexpressible heat radiating from the monarch's malice.
“My lady wife,” he began, his words holding a lethal edge as sharp as his sword. “Your Queen Anjelie speaks of your many deeds. She prattles of the power you hold, and your ability to envision the events of the future, the present, and the past.”
“I am an old woman,” she reaffirmed, pushing the snarl of straggling hair from her face. “The tales she speaks are fables spun by imaginative children. I lack any type of power.”
The ruler straightened, and his disbelieving snicker matched his animal.
“I’ve heard the whispers throughout the kingdom. I want your power. No,” he paused, “I demand your power!”
“It shall never be yours to command!” She didn't have any significant power, truth told, only the simple gift of the sight. Within her mind, she heeded the words of the lost souls roaming the land in faded wisps of smoke. He would never understand merely spirits existed in her unsighted world, phantoms granting her insight into a realm beyond life. “You’ve heard naught but tales whispered by superstitious peasants.”
“Under the threat of persecution, I think not,” he snarled.
“Torture will make many a man tell outlandish tales defying belief.” a frisson of dire filled her at his short bark of laughter.
“As it may be….” He paused, and the lusterless color of his eyes scanned her face, as if he held the innate power of the devil to peer into her soul. Instead of cowering, she granted him the full benefit of her sightless eyes. Her ordinarily charitable heart hardened as she sensed the fearful flinch and the dread overcoming his knights.
“You seek what I’ll never freely award you, D'Angel.”
Peculiarly tranquil, a mocking smile twisted her lips. The monarch returned her disdain with one of his own, unaware of the thoughts filling her nimble mind.
D'Angel.
The name of the liege lord was a mockery, she thought, for he was not the glorious angel his name implied. He was a dark seraph of iniquity and death, a scourge infesting previously blessed lands.
Proudly, he wore the name of D'Angel the Destroyer, The Daemon of St. Lorraine.
“If you refuse to grant me what I want, you are worthless to me!”
He raised his gloved hand to the mounted knights. Within her innermost sense, the ancient woman envisioned the dark vision of a rising daemon horde. She readily foresaw the auras surrounding her, despite her blindness, blanketing her crippled body in a wave of darkness. Deep crimsons and black, darkness and terror burst from the knights, instead of the promised glory and light.
She hung her head, attempting to project the mob’s negativity away. She was unable to suppress her smothered gasp torn as weighty ropes bound her arms to her sides. The uncomfortable bindings tightened, nearly ripping the breath from her lungs.
“There