The Fickle Winds of Autumn

77. Execution

Kira shivered through the bitter night air which wrapped itself around her as she trudged across the wet grass. The unflinching guards bruised their fingers deep into her arms as they dragged her through the thick dew. It soaked into her miserable boots and stole the meagre heat from her wrinkled toes.

A low mist clung to the shrubs and trees nearby, disguising the sharp outlines of the ornate formal gardens as they blurred and merged into the untamed wildness of the graveyard on the far side of the bridge.

The flickering orange of the guards' torches around her made little impact on the dense, uncaring darkness of the bleak night.

No doubt they had brought her to such an unkempt, isolated place so that she could be buried immediately after the execution, and forgotten forever - lost in the grasses and the moss, cloaked beneath the living soil.

Ellis lumbered along just behind. The sound of his footfall was close enough to offer a murmur of solace - but also etched prickles of taunting despair through her, with the sad knowledge that he too was about to share the same wretched ending as her.

Her steps patted across the uneven cobbles of the arched bridge.

Overhead, the careless drifting clouds threatened to obscure the vast blackness of the sky - even the Moon had chosen to forsake her and withdraw its purity and comfort, hiding behind the vagrant misty pall.

Only the occasional tiny bright specks of light still peeked and glinted down through the shrouding gloom and offered the reassurance of their steadfast presence. A tender, quivering hope ran through her - perhaps the terrible crimes of their executions would not be performed while the inquisitive stars gazed down in witness for all eternity?

The muffled, murmuring conversations of Caldor and the others blended with the clatter of their boots as they crossed the bridge further back behind her.

To her left, one of the guards stumbled and fell to the ground. His torch guttered briefly, then failed in the rough wet undergrowth.

Her escorts did not waver in their pace; perhaps they had not even noticed this event, but pressed forward remorselessly to the place of her execution.

Her curious eyes peered out into the thick, midnight air. Agitated shadows sped and flittered in the swirling gloom and mist, low between the grave-markers around the outer edges of the site - too large to be animals or owls hunting for a feast.

A nervous stab of fear crawled through her stomach; anxious goosebumps vibrated along her arms.

She had seen that rapid blur of swiftness before - during the fight in the intense heat of the Reevers' chamber.

A sudden disturbance of the dark air rushed past behind her.

The tight grip on her left arm fell loose. A slow hiss of bloodied breath escaped from the guard's neck as he collapsed to the ground by her side.

She tried to scream, but the constrictive cloth around her face muted her voice and prevented her horror from alerting the others.

The clenched pressure on her right arm relaxed as the guard stared at his fallen companion.

"We are attacked!" he cried out as he let go of her and unsheathed his sword.

A sharp series of yells pierced the hushed stillness of the night; several more guards shouted their final, painful breath and fell; she shuddered in the sudden, breathless silence; the loudest sound was the fear pounding through her own heart.