Mighty Hammer Down by David J Guyton

crying.
    "You’re evil; pure, unmasked evil. You
don’t care about the blood of the innocent staining your hands. All
you care about is yourself, and you carelessly murder anyone who
stands in your way."
    He laughed. "You know, you have some
interesting views on murder and evil for someone who came to Medora
and tried to kill a man she didn’t know. Is that the kind of
backward thinking you have over there in Vindyrion? What exactly
makes you immune from the same judgment? And why aren’t you selfish
for murdering someone who stood in your way?"
    He didn’t understand. He didn’t know
who she was. This was all a mystery to him because he still had
missing pieces to his puzzle. Finally she felt a little surge of
power. She stood a little straighter, knowing that as long as she
kept her identity a secret, he would have to keep her alive to get
more pieces to fit. He probably thought there was some elaborate
conspiracy to kill him, and he was totally wrong. She did all this
on her own, with no help at all. She never told a soul.
    "No response for any of those
questions?" he asked as he cracked a few of his
knuckles.
    Her instinct was to look up as she
thought of a clever lie to get herself out of the situation, but
she kept her eyes on his. He would know she was making things up
otherwise. When no clever lie rushed into her head, she decided to
flash him an angry, arrogant expression. It might boil his anger
some, but giving answers was going to eventually get her
killed.
    Instead she asked her own question.
"Why do you have guards lock this door when you have a prisoner in
here with you?"
    "Because if you manage to kill me, I
don’t want you to be able to escape. Every door you ever see again
for the rest of your life will be locked behind you."
    She shuddered at the thought. Either
she was going to die, or she was going to be locked away in some
room made of solid rock for years to come. The finality of both
outcomes hit her with an oppressing, heavy weight that darkened all
her hopes. She still stood tall however, not letting him know that
his words could affect her.
    "Now let’s get some answers out of
you," Tannis said as he kicked his heavy boots up on his sturdy
desk, "Who sent you here to kill me?"
    She defiantly turned her head away
from him as she rolled her eyes slightly. Her only option was to
play the silent game. She knew that it was only going to enrage
him, but she needed to uphold this lie. She saw him thread his
fingers together out of the corner of her eye. He seemed calm and
relaxed, not angry.
    "Perhaps you will be more willing to
talk without one of those arms," he threatened.
    She hoped he was just testing her
limits. She didn’t want to have to go through the gruesome ordeal
of losing a limb. A morbid picture flashed through her head of
tendons snapping as her arm was ripped violently from its socket.
Dismissing her fear, she decided to stand her ground.
    A muffled rattle of keys came again
from the other side of the door, then a knock.
    "Come," Tannis said. The door swung
open and a guard entered.
    "The Emperor wishes to see you
General. He says it’s urgent."
    He sighed. "Very well. Stay here with
the Vindyri. Do not speak to her."
    "Yes sir," he said as he saluted and
stood at attention beside the door.
    Tannis got up and approached him. He
took the guard’s keys and exited, locking the door behind
him.
    As soon as she was sure he was out of
earshot, she violently elbowed the guard in the nose. The blow to
the nose wasn’t that hard, but his head snapped back and hit the
stone wall with a sickening thud. He fell unconscious to the floor,
noisily breathing a bloody mess onto the granite. She squatted
down, careful not to hurt her ankles in the process, and checked
him quickly for another set of keys. She found none. She thought
for a moment and realized there must be keys in this room. The
guard who took her here had to unlock the door to enter. Tannis
would not be locked in here without a