The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(34)

“A girl, Sir. In fact, several of them, sleeping on the floor. Two of them have rolled over and are now lying in front of the door, blocking our way out.”

“What the devil are girls doing lying around on the floor in this room? I thought this was the lady’s chamber!”

“I have no idea, Sir.” There was nervous whispering from the door. Apparently, there were several men over there. “What shall we do, Sir? Take them?”

“No! We're not here for servant girls. It's her we want.” He tugged on Ayla's hair again, and she couldn't help letting out a whimper of pain. “Cut their throats and be done with it!”

Ayla's eyes widened. Dilli! Heilswinda! No! But before she could start to fight and moan in protest, the man at the door said, “Um…it's dark over here, Sir. I might just as well stab them in the foot as in the throat.”

“Then try to roll them out of the way without waking them!”

Ayla relaxed again. Thank God.

She heard muffled movement, a grunt—and then the sleepy voice of Dilli, moaning, “Yes, Milady…? What is it—?”

Cursing, the beefy man stepped towards the door and whirled Ayla around. Ayla could suddenly see the rest of the room and stared right into Dilli's wide, brown, terrified eyes. The maid had sat bolt upright, and her face was illuminated by a narrow shaft of moonlight from one of the windows. Ayla had never seen anything so chilling in her lifetime.

“Don't make a sound,” the beefy man hissed. “Or your mistress is dead.”

Dilli nodded. Her lower lip began to quiver.

One of the men sidled up to Ayla's captor. He leaned forward and whispered so that Dilli couldn't hear, “What shall we do with her? You said yourself, we can't take her.”

“Get behind her quietly,” the beefy man replied in a low voice. “I'll talk to her, keep her distracted. Then you cut her throat before she can scream.”

That was his mistake. Up until then, Ayla had been unsure about what to do. She had been shocked, frightened, confused. Now, she was none of those things. She knew exactly what had to be done. So she parted her lips, letting one of the man’s fingers, which still covered her mouth, slide between her teeth, and bit down hard!

~~*~~*

Reuben heard the anguished roar and was on his feet in a single second. Then came the cry. The cry in Ayla’s voice.

“Help! Please help! Enemies in the castle! Enemies—”

It was cut off abruptly.

Reuben didn't even notice that the door to his room was shut and bolted from the outside. He slammed against it, and it flew open, the wooden bolt breaking under his merciless assault like a dried twig. The sleeping guards outside the room, startled awake by his less than silent exit, jumped up and drew their swords, but Reuben hardly saw them.

“Halt! In the name of—” the head guard got no further. As he tried to step in his way, Reuben kicked him in the ribs and sent him flying down the corridor. Another man he punched in the face so hard that he heard bone crack under his fist. Then he was past them.

Up ahead, he could hear more females screaming. Some dispassionate part of his brain that always stayed analytical in battle told him that none of them were Ayla. The knowledge didn't soothe him, though. It might mean that Ayla had no reason to scream—or that she couldn't anymore, because there was no breath of life left in her body.

Rage such as he had never felt before boiled up in Reuben at the thought. A red mist seemed to cover his vision. Ha! People thought his armor was red? They knew nothing! It was nothing in comparison with this. This was the red of wrath. The red of battle. The red of blood.

He skidded around a corner and suddenly saw them: not a dozen feet away, a group of men were dragging a slim figure in a white gown down the corridor—a figure with shining golden hair falling down her back. A few more figures, yammering and lamenting, were blocking Reuben's way—females of various sizes and shapes. He decided not to punch any of them in the face to get them to move, if he could help it. As it turned out, he didn't need to. When they turned towards him at the noise of his approach and saw a raving lunatic with a giant sword in hand bearing down on them, they screeched and made themselves scarce.

Alerted by the screaming, one of the men around the slender, golden-haired girl—Reuben could not bring himself to think her name yet, not with drawn weapons everywhere—turned around to face him.

“Die!” he shouted. “Die, in the name of the Margr—”

Reuben had cut him down before the fiend had even had a chance to pull his sword. Then he proceeded to viciously eviscerate the rest of them.

Two of them he simply killed by smashing in their throats with his armored fist. The stupid fools were not even wearing gorgets.[7] His next adversary was neatly cut in half, and the next one slipped on his companion's spilled intestines and stabbed himself to death with his own dagger.

Reuben didn't waste his time with the corpse but went on to the next foe, cutting his way through the clump of men with deadly ease. A hundred of them would have not been a match for him if they had worn full armor, and they were wearing only light protection. The clothing of silent assassins, not warriors. Besides, he was armored with a strength all of his own: every now and again, he saw the golden shimmer of hair between the spurts of blood issuing from his ferocious blade, and it drove him on like a madman.