The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(22)
He amused himself for about a minute with chopping all their weapons in two, then started chopping off heads for variation. It was great fun! He hadn't chopped off heads in weeks. It felt really good to pick up an old hobby again.
Plus, these villains were Ayla’s enemies. That only doubled the fun of the exercise. After only two minutes, though, all heads were cleanly separated from their bodies. Reuben looked around with regret. He shouldn't rush things so! Patience was an important virtue for a knight! If you always rushed everything good, it was over far too quickly. He should have chopped off a few arms and legs instead of going for the heads right away. Oh well, maybe next time…
Thoughtfully, he turned back to the camp. A few hundred feet away, he could see a line of soldiers rapidly advancing, among them Sir Luca, wearing an Italian armor and screaming at the top of his lungs. Reuben's mood brightened immediately. There were plenty of people for him to kill still, after all! But if he were to take care of all of them single-handedly, he would be busy until Christmas.
No, his primary mission was accomplished. He grinned again as he threw a look over his shoulder at the mare, Eleanor. One horse acquired, check. One lady's heart conquered, check. It was time to get back to her.
He unbolted the doors of the siege fortifications, threw them open—and found himself facing a cavalry force of about thirty lancers.
“Sir Luca!” the captain at the front bowed deeply. His hand was raised as if he had just been about to knock at the camp gates. “You came to greet us in person, Sir? What a great honor. I have come back to report that all is quiet in the vicinity of the camp. No intruders or spies anywhere.”
Reuben gripped the hilt of his sword tighter and swung himself into the saddle. Behind him, he heard the voice of Sir Luca shriek, “Seize him! Seize him!”
“Hüa, Satan!” Sir Reuben bellowed, gave his stallion the spurs as never before, and drew his bloody sword.
Quickly, just before he collided with the surprised cavalry detachment, he threw another glance over his shoulder. Two hundred men, perhaps? Plus these thirty here. Hmm. This might actually be challenging.
Well, maybe not. He didn't have to kill them all, just hack a path through them.
~~*~~*
“Milady! Milady!”
The frantic cries of the guard tore Ayla from the pictures painted by her horrified imagination. She wrenched her gaze away from the chessboard and whirled around, just in time to see a soldier skidding to a halt in the doorframe.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“Milady, Sir Luca DeLombardi is riding up to the castle as if the hounds of hell were chasing him!”
“What?” Ayla's mouth fell open. This didn't make any sense. “Are you sure it is Sir Luca?”
The soldier nodded. “Aye, Milady. I'd know that red armor anywhere.”
Ayla's eyes went wide. Red armor? Could it be that Reuben…?
“There is a terrible host right behind him, shouting and yelling battle cries.”
Ayla's eyes went a bit wider still.
“But don't you worry, Milady,” the soldier added with concern, as he saw the panic on the face of his mistress. “They can't get over the walls, and Captain Linhart told me to tell you that he has everything well in hand. As soon as they are in range, our archers will shoot Luca down like the dog he is. Soon, that red-armored villain will be filled with more arrows than my quiver, and we will mount the head of his corpse on a spike to celebrate the death of our enemy!”
To Shoot or not to Shoot
Ayla had never been a great runner. Riding? Yes, she had enjoyed riding since her childhood. But running had never been her thing.
Now, however, not even the famed runner Thersippus, who, according to Plutarch, ran an entire day without stopping to deliver the news of Athens's victory over the Persians and collapsed dead after delivering his message, could compare to her speed. Fortunately, though, she didn't drop dead on reaching her destination.
Gasping, she stumbled up the last few steps of the tower stairs and out into the cold night air, just as Captain Linhart raised his arm.
“Ready your bows!” he shouted to the archers arrayed on the wall. “Nock your arrows!”
Then he noticed Ayla stumbling towards him and clutching the battlements for support, wheezing like an old pair of bellows.
“Ah, Milady. You're just in time to see us dispatch that rump-fed moldwarp.” He pointed over the battlements to a massive figure in red armor, driving a black stallion uphill so fiercely you might have believed the devil was behind him. The knight’s fist tightly gripped a rope leading another horse—a horse that Ayla recognized immediately. Behind the two animals followed not the devil, but a gaggle of soldiers, yelling terrible insults and curses. “He must have lost his mind, trying to attack a castle on horseback, without a single siege weapon,” Linhart snorted derisively. “But all the better for us. A mad enemy is killed quickly. He will soon be no more.”
He turned to his men.
“Mark! Draw!”
Twenty bowstrings were pulled back.
“Hold! Hold until he is in range.”
Behind him, knees wobbling from exhaustion and hardly able to get out a syllable, Ayla waved frantically in the attempt to get Linhart’s attention.
“Ssst…nnnn dnn,” she gasped but was too breathless to pronounce any real words.