Hugh laughed and jerked Diana up, her temple pressed against his cheek. “See that woman you put in the cage?”

Diana’s breath came out in hoarse gasps.

“Ask her for your life,” Hugh said.

“You fucking bastard.” When I got out of here, I would cut pieces off him until he stopped moving.

“Ask her nice,” Hugh repeated. “If she gives you your life back, I’ll let you go.”

“You made your point. I don’t want her to die,” I said.

“Ask her,” Hugh said.

Diana’s lips moved. “Fuck you.”

“Wrong answer.” Hugh sliced her throat and stepped back. The female knight froze, upright, eyes opened wide. Dark blood gushed from her throat. Her eyes rolled up and she stumbled and fell. Her blood spread in a wide puddle on the floor.

Nick’s eyes were empty. He looked at the blood, seemingly untroubled by it. He might as well have been dead.

“A waste.” Hugh flicked the blood off his sword.

Towers moved forward, cautious. He moved like a spooked cat, light on his toes and jumpy.

Had everyone gone crazy today? “What are you doing? Just shoot this asshole! He can’t keep using power words. He’ll run out of juice before you run out of crossbow bolts.”

“Swordsman, huh.” Hugh put the gladius on the examination table behind him. “Look, Ma, no sword.”

Towers darted at him and thrust, lightning-fast. Hugh leaned out of the way just enough for the blade to miss, grabbed Towers’s wrist, leaned back, and hammered a side kick into the knight’s ribs, just above his right hip. The kick didn’t just land, it exploded. Towers stumbled back, bending over his injured side.

Hugh smiled and motioned him over. “Come on.”

Towers darted in and slashed left to right, aiming for Hugh’s throat. Too slow; I’d lean back.

Hugh leaned back and the blade grazed his left shoulder.

Towers reversed his swing and tried to smash the pommel of the sword into Hugh’s face, leaving his midsection wide open. You could drive a bloody cart through that opening.

Hugh dodged, grabbed his gladius from the exam table, and cut at Towers. The first blow opened the knight’s stomach. Before he had a chance to reel, Hugh sank a sharp precise thrust to the knight’s side, right between the ribs into the liver.

Towers dropped to his knees, cradling his guts. Hugh grabbed his hair. “Ask her for your life.”

“I want him to live,” I ground out.

“He has to ask,” Hugh told me.

Towers jerked a knife from his belt and buried it in Hugh’s thigh.

“I guess we’ve got ourselves a no.” Hugh stabbed his gladius into the knight’s chest.

Towers gurgled and sagged to the floor.

I spun in the cage, helpless. He kept killing them and they kept dying and I could only watch. Rage boiled inside me. “Why are you doing this?”