The Robber Knight's Love (The Robber Knight Saga #2)(42)
“Open your eyes, I say!” he bellowed.
The man complied. He was shaking by now, trembling all over.
“Should we try it here?” Reuben asked, his voice soft again.
The man shook his head, not seeming to care that, with Reuben’s hand around his throat, the motion half strangled him.
“How about here?” Reuben asked, moving his burning hand to the man's chest.
Again, violent shudders shook the man's head.
“Are you frightened now?” Reuben asked.
“Y-yes!” The word was no more than a croak, hardly audible.
“And do you repent?”
“Y-yes, Milord.”
“Oh, I am a lord now, am I? Thank you for the honor, but I am just a robber knight. The robber knight. It is good that you repent, though. A priest told me once that one should repent before dying.”
He moved his face right up to the mercenary's terrified features.
“You were going to sell the girl I love to a monster and boasted of it to me,” he said. Although he was almost whispering now, Ayla could still hear every word that was spoken. “That…was…not…wise. You will taste the fires of hell for that. And I think now I have found the perfect place for the fires of hell to begin their work.”
With a sudden jerk, he plunged the burning torch downwards, into the man’s groin.
A piercing scream ripped apart the night. Reuben laughed his devilish laugh—and for the first time Ayla realized how really devilish it was. Not just charming, not just beautiful, but magnificently evil.
The red robber knight grabbed the mercenary by the belt and hauled him off his feet.
“Give Satan my regards!” he roared and tossed the burning man over the castle battlements, down into the darkness.
~~*~~*
The night had passed rather uneventfully for Conrad, the mercenary. He had been standing watch all night at the bottom of the Luntberg Castle walls. There was some shouting and noise from inside the castle now and again, but nothing that bothered him in his half-slumber—until a burning man fell from the sky and nearly bashed his brains in. That sort of thing didn't happen every day.
“God’s teeth!” He jumped back before the flames could touch him. “What in all seven circles of hell…?”
Aghast, he stared at the smoldering figure on the ground.
He was dead, no doubt about it. The way his head was turned one hundred and eighty degrees backwards made that point clear. But the expression on his face…he looked like he was still alive and screaming in terror. Like he had seen something no mortal being should see.
Conrad shook himself. What was the matter with him? If the mercenary captain was dead, their attempt to capture Lady Ayla had failed, and they needed to get out of there quickly. If he and his companion were discovered standing right below the wall, they would be an easy target for projectiles.
He tugged his black, woolen cloak tighter around himself and gestured to the young mercenary who had kept watch with him.
“Let's go.”
The young man didn’t move. His eyes were fastened in horror on the face of his fallen comrade. Conrad didn't blame him. He was no novice at the cruel forms of death, having served as a man-at-arms[10] for over ten years now, but that face…
“Come on,” he hissed. “Or I'll leave you here!”
That shook the young soldier out of his trance. As Conrad strode away from the wall, he hurried after him. Conrad looked back only once—to check if they had been spotted and were pursued. He could see nobody giving chase. But high up on the wall, he saw the figure of a gigantic man, holding a torch in his hand and…
Conrad blinked. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but…no. No, what he saw simply couldn’t be. It looked like the man was holding the torch aloft at the burning end!
He stopped and rubbed his eyes. Surely he had to be mistaken.
But by the time he looked again, the man had disappeared. Who was he? One of Lady Ayla's castle guards? No. Instinctively, Conrad knew that that was not the case.
“Let's hurry up,” he growled. “I want to get to the lookout we ordered to watch the castle wall. I want to know exactly what happened.”
They had left one man as a lookout on a high tree not far away. Jos was a most agile little fellow—no good in a fight at all, but he could run like the wind and climb trees like a squirrel. From the uppermost branches of the tree, he would have seen everything that transpired on the wall, maybe even something of what happened in the courtyard.
Conrad marched to the bottom of the tree and whistled two times.
When, after a minute, there was still no sight of Jos, he called, “Hey, you maggot-ridden scrambler! Get your butt down here!”
It was still several minutes before Jos, with slow, jerky movements, emerged from the foliage. He missed the last branch and tumbled to the ground. This, more than anything else, made Conrad tremble. Jos never fell. Never, ever.
With a curse, he jumped forward to see if another one of their men had broken his neck tonight. But Jos had only a few bruises, otherwise he was all right. If you ignored the expression on his face, that is.
“God's breath! On your feet, you damn squirrel! What's the matter? What did you see?”
He pulled Jos up by the scruff of the neck. Supporting himself against the thick trunk of the tree, the young scout was able to stay on his feet, though he still looked liable to collapse again at any moment.