The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(122)
Only a few charged Reuben. Those were the ones who died first.
Suddenly, a loud cry went up from where the archers were fighting. Quickly, Ayla looked over there, and fear gripped her heart like the emperor's tax collector would a sack of gold coins: very, very, very tightly.
Sir Luca and a vast contingent of his soldiers had come over the wall to the right of Luntberg’s archers, via a new grappling hook that had gone unnoticed. The men were plowing into her vassals with merciless ferocity, and Ayla could see that her liegemen had little chance of withstanding the assault. She was just about to cry out, to beg for them to stop, to plead for help from merciful angels, anything…when Reuben bent and picked up something from the walkway. With lightning speed, he rose again and threw what he was holding.
With a wet smack, the bloody head of one of his soldiers hit Sir Luca de Lombardi in the neck and catapulted him right into his soldiers. They tumbled to the ground, a bloody and confused heap, desperately trying not to cut each other to pieces or stand on the nose of their commander.
“Luca!” he called, easily drowning out the thunder that rolled over the castle. “Luca! Come here! Are you not man enough to fight me on your own? Do you hide behind your men's pants because you wear a skirt?”
Muttering some unintelligible curses in Italian, Sir Luca came to his feet. His black beetle eyes were focused on Reuben as if nothing else existed in the world. And it seemed nothing did, for the moment, at least. Amazed, Ayla realized that the fighting around them had ceased. Her men were looking at Reuben. Sir Luca’s men were staring at the Italian, as if they waited for something.
“You sheep-biting bladder! You pox-marked puttock!” Reuben laughed. “You're so ugly that beer goes sour when you're around and so scared of battle that you forget how to hold your sword the right way up!”
The Red Knight raised his sword. The men around him—enemy men, not her own—to Ayla's amazement stepped back, as if they were suddenly under his command, and made free the way to Sir Luca de Lombardi.
“Do you have to hide behind an army of paid cutthroats, or are you man enough to fight me yourself? Well? Answer me!”
None of the mercenaries made a move towards Reuben. They suddenly didn't seem very keen on attacking him, which Ayla could fully understand. They seemed to be much more interested in watching the reaction of their commander.
Slowly, Sir Luca shook himself. Blood and brain-matter dripped from his bevor. He took a deep breath. And then, very slowly, he raised his sword until it was on a level with Reuben's, ready for the attack.
Sudden Bravery
Reuben stood upon the platform that had been hastily erected in the inner courtyard. He stood quite still, not daring to move much on the precarious structure. It was all the carpenters had been able to rig up at short notice. Apparently, it was not often that the lords and defenders of Luntberg needed a platform from which to make speeches to their subjects. And even less often that they had to ask them to risk their lives on a single, risky idea.
“So there you have it,” he finished his explanations to the assembled soldiers and villagers. Nearly all the adults were there, the children having been left in the care of a few old women in the main hall. Reuben would have preferred if only the soldiers had been present, but Ayla had insisted that, if they were going to risk all their lives on this one scheme, then everybody ought to have a say in it. A ridiculous way of thinking, of course, but he knew it was useless to argue as soon as he saw that steely glint in her sapphire eyes.
“There you have it. This is our plan: to draw the enemy into the castle, unprepared, without the large equipment and weapons needed for a proper attack on the castle. In a variation of the pincer movement we will cut off their escape and shoot at them from both the front and behind. This will finally give us the advantage we have so desperately been hoping for. Before, we were always at a disadvantage. In this one battle alone, we will have the elements of surprise, superior weaponry, and superior position on our side. We must make use of them, or we will all perish in the fighting.”
A cautious hand was raised among the soldiers. Reuben's raptor gaze zeroed in on its owner, who immediately tried to shrink back into the crowd. But the crowd wasn't too keen on being shrunk into. It pushed forward the questioner with eager hands.
“Um…hmbl…hm…” he mumbled, trying to avoid Reuben's eyes and absolutely failing to do so.
“You there! What do you want?” Reuben demanded as pleasantly as he could manage. Beside him, Ayla nudged him, so apparently it hadn't been pleasant enough.
“Err…”
Maybe he should smile? But no. His smile didn't seem to have a very positive effect on the men in general. So he simply stood relaxed and tried to look as non-threatening as possible.
“Yes? What was it that you wanted to say?”
“Well…according to you, if this plan of yours doesn't work, we'll all die. Isn't that rather risky?”
“Depends.” Narrowing his eyes at the man, Reuben shrugged. “We have an army outside our gates that is about ten times the size of ours. I think it's time we redefined our meaning of the word ‘risky.’”
Reuben felt Ayla beside him taking a deep breath. Then she stepped forward.
“Our food supplies are dwindling,” she announced. The quiet calm in her voice made the words all the more terrible. “We have only one choice: risk everything and maybe die by an enemy's hand, or risk nothing and surely die by our own empty stomachs. If I have to go, I'd rather die with strength in my body and my head held high. What about you?”