Fourteen

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Edgard pushed me up against the wall and I gasped for breath, my fingers clawing against his face.   But he only grabbed both my wrists, pinning them between his huge hand as I cried out in pain.  I looked around me,  hoping for help to come.  The guardhouse was always occupied by two to four men at a time, assigned to close the gates at nightfall, especially during storms such as this.  And with the presence of goblins nearby, should an attack happen, the guards could easily ring the main bell to warn everyone. 

But there was no one by the gate house except for Edgard.

On the other side of the door, Thorin yelled and banged the knocker, demanding entry.  The door rattled against the sheer power of his kicks, but it held. When the door began to crack, I realized Thorin was using his axe against the thick wood.

“Is that your dwarf prince coming to save you?” Edgard sneered and his grip tightened around my neck, my feet leaving the ground as he pushed me up against the wall. “I wondered when you would finally come out.  I was getting tired of waiting.”

“I’m here to talk to Lialam,” I gasped as Edgard’s fingers tightened around my neck.  

“You’re not talking to anyone, love.  Not anymore.  I rule the town now,” he said, his mouth against my face as I squirmed my wrists free from his grip and scratched his face.  I’d made a huge mistake, coming here like this, I thought as I began to kick at him even as I felt my strength slowly fading.

Ever sincle Edgard had arrived in Greenbanü twelve years earlier, I’d never liked him.  He used to come to the house wanting his clothes sewn by Jerrel, and each time she would say no and refer him to another tailor in town, one who would have been more qualified.  After all, Jerrel specialized in gowns and dresses though I knew her reasons had nothing to do with her specialty.  

But Edgard still came and this time he’d wait till Tadd wasn’t home, pretending to have something mended - a tear here, a rip there.  Those had been the lean years when the town had suffered through a drought and then a flooding the year before, and even Jerrel was too proud to say no to a few pieces of copper coins to help put food on the table.  And so she’d let Edgard sit in front of her and watch her as she sewed, sending me upstairs to play with the dolls she’d made for me.  

Only Jürgen’s presence next door kept Jerrel safe from more than just the lewd stares of the squinty eyed Edgard.  I always suspected that he was a Dunlending, though his was hair cropped short so that he’d fit in with everyone else.  He had a wild look about him, something that could never be tamed, and when women he liked disappeared from Greenbanü, I always wondered whether it was because of him.  

But Edgard had earned the respect and trust of Lialam, who promoted him as head of his own private guard, and soon, his right-hand man.  Lialam often sent him to Dunland to do business, and I wondered now if one of those had been to mislead the dwarves about my presence, as there were many dwarves who dwelled in the south.

And as everything I knew about Edgard flashed before me, I knew for certain from the look in his eyes, that he had killed all those women who’d disappeared all those years.  Killing me was simply too easy, and I was but just another body with no worth.  His eyes betrayed his soul, and it sent fear through every cell in my body.

Suddenly everything that Jürgen taught me in defending myself all those years finally rose to the surface.  But instead of continually struggling against him, I saved every ounce of strength I had and relaxed, allowing myself to become limp in his grasp.  It worked.  When Edgard loosened his hold upon my neck, I brought my knee up, slamming it as hard as I could into his groin.  He bellowed in pain and dropped me to the ground, crumpling in front of me in a fetal position.  

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