The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(36)

Since they were no threat to him, Reuben cut them out of his awareness and concentrated fully on the man holding Ayla.

“Make no mistake,” the Red Robber Knight said in a growl as deep and deadly as a lion's, giving his enemy a death stare. “If you take her with you, or if you harm even one hair on her head, I will find you and kill you in a manner more painful than anything you can imagine.”

The mercenary laughed. “I can imagine quite a bit.”

Reuben's gaze didn't waver. “Not that much, I promise you.”

“Bah!” The man spat on the floor again. “You, kill me, pretty boy? You're going to do nothing of the sort. Want to know why? Because you're going to stay right here while I deliver this little lass,” he tugged on Ayla's hair again, “to her rightful master. Ludwig!”

One of the other mercenaries snapped to attention. “Yes?”

“Get his blades!”

The mercenary hesitated, throwing an anxious glance at Reuben, who wasn't standing too far away from his sword and dagger on the floor.

“No, he won't move, will he?” laughed the beefy man. “Not while I've got her. Now get to it!”

“Yes, Sir!”

Ludwig hurried forward, snatched up both weapons, and brought them back to his captain, who grunted in approval.

“Now,” he snarled, “we are going to leave. And you are going to stay right here. My men will be on the lookout for anybody following us, and if they even see so much as your little finger, she'll lose hers!” He nodded suggestively at Ayla. “Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” Reuben said. “Don't worry. None of us will follow you through the corridor.”

“Good.” The man laughed a dirty laugh, and his companions seemed to be gathering confidence, too, now that their escape seemed more and more certain. “I knew you were nothing but a wimp, pretty boy! Come on, wench!” With another tug on Ayla's hair, he pulled her down the corridor. “It's time for you to meet your new master.”

Reuben's wrath burned as hot as the fires of hell. He had to use every last ounce of self-control he possessed to keep himself rooted on the spot. Slowly, his enemies retreated with their prize, farther and farther away from him. The last thing he saw before they turned the corner was the desperation glittering in Ayla's sapphire eyes—glittering among her tears.

By all the devils in the pit, no…

The footsteps of the mercenaries receded down the corridor. Then a door closed. For a few terrible seconds, there was no sound but the heavy breathing of Reuben and the castle guards.

“What fould we do, Fir?” one of the guards asked. From the way he spoke, Reuben assumed without looking that it was the one with the nosebleed. A small part of his mind found it amusing that the man would defer to him, considering he had just bashed his face in. Yet most of his mind was too busy adding various vile things to his mental list to have time for any other thoughts.

“You?” he said. “Nothing.”

“But Lady Ayla…”

“I didn't say that nothing should be done,” Reuben cut him off. “I only said that you should do nothing.” And with that, he started running down the corridor, gathering speed as he went. Shortly before he had reached the corner, he bent his legs—and jumped.

~~*~~*

He sailed through the air for a few long seconds, and then his fingers caught onto one of the roof beams, and the weight of his own body and the twenty pounds of his chain mail slammed down on him. Had he been a normal man, this might have felt as if somebody was trying to rip his arms off.

But Reuben was not a normal man, and he had already lived through somebody trying to rip his arms off more than once. He felt nothing. The momentum of his flight carried him up, up, high up into the rafters, where he grasped another beam and pulled himself onto it as though he were wearing merely a linen tunic and not heavy armor.

He looked up, ignoring the cries of surprise from the soldiers underneath him, and grinned malevolently. He had found what he had been looking for. Directly in front of him were the tiles of the roof of Luntberg Castle.

He pulled back his arm, clenched his fist—and then loosed it in a shattering blow! With a deafening crunch the roof tiles exploded outward into the night. Testing, Reuben moved his fingers. They all seemed still to be working correctly, so his armored glove had protected his hand, and the crunch had probably not originated from his own bones. He didn't waste any more time, but loosed a few more blows to widen the hole in the roof, and then pulled himself through.

A shower of cold wetness greeted him. It had begun to rain, and the roof was slippery and shiny blue in the moonlight.

Even through the patter of the rain, his finely tuned hearing could make out the voices of the mercenaries somewhere up ahead.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“That noise? Sounded like bones being broken.”

“Do you want me to break your nose so you know what that really sounds like? Come on, and stop wasting our time! We have to get out of here!”

A raptor's smile appeared on Reuben's face.

Too late for that, my friend. The hunt is up.

With the stealth of a stalking wolf, Reuben ran over the roof, downwards towards the edge. Peering over to the next level of roof below, he could see that it was far enough to break his neck, so he decided—after a few moments of consideration—not to jump. Instead, he swung himself over the edge and, while holding onto the roof with one hand, grabbed a rough, protruding stone in the wall with the other. He moved his feet until he found a foothold—then let go.