I had a lot of fun with Senta in The Young Sorceress.  I just read it again and I enjoyed it more than I remembered.  I tried a couple of things in this book that I don’t think worked as well as I wanted them to, but that being said, I think it works well within the overall story arc.  I had written The Drache Girl and The Two Dragons almost 4 years before The Young Sorceress.  In The Drache Girl, Senta is a happy-go-lucky kid.  In The Two Dragons, she is a sorceress whom everyone is afraid of.  In this book I get to show how she changed.  Here she deals with two would-be attackers.

She strolled north toward the park, walking between the warehouses rather than following the road because she wanted to avoid lookie-loos in general as well as a few specific individuals.  She was just about to exit the narrow passage between one of the governor’s warehouses and a private one when two men stepped into her way.  They were both at least six feet tall and broad shouldered.  They both looked to be in their early twenties and they both dressed poorly. 

“It looks like we’ve found our little bird,” said one of the men to the other.

“I think you owe us a good time, little girl,” said the other.

Senta took the last bite of sausage and threw the stick on the ground.

“How about it?  Are you going to show us a good time?” the second man continued, though the first man’s face showed the first hint of confusion.  Why wasn’t the girl showing any sign of fear?

“Here’s a good time for you,” she said.

Reaching out, she touched the second man with her index finger.  He let out a bloodcurdling scream and dropped to the ground clutching his crotch.  He continued to scream and scream.  The first man looked from his friend to the girl and back, panic slowly crawling up his face.  At last his gaze stopped on the girl.

“Here’s an oldie, but a goodie,” said Senta.  “Uuthanum.”

A blue cone spread from her finger to engulf the man.  His skin turned blue as frost formed on his skin.  Within a few seconds, he was frozen solid.  The sorceress stepped over the prone man, still screaming and holding his privates, and around the standing man, still completely stiffened.

“How much fun are you going to have now, I wonder?”  Then she continued on her way to the park.