“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.
He was almost through, he had almost reached his goal, when a gravelly voice shouted over the bedlam: “Stop! Stop right where you are, or I'll slit her throat!”
Standoff and Climbhigh
Reuben's sword froze in mid-air, an inch from an enemy's face. The soldier who had been about to have his head cut in two paled like a corpse and staggered back. The few of his companions who remained alive and standing followed suit. They all crowded together around the beefy man, who now faced Reuben with a superior smirk on his face.
Reuben's eyes narrowed. Never had anyone dared to smirk at him in that manner and lived to see another day. Yet he had to admit, with a shudder, that the man had good reason to feel superior.
His hand held a knife.
And the knife lay at Ayla's throat.
Ayla's sapphire eyes were wide and round as coins and stared at Reuben with an unfathomable expression. Sadness? Courage? Fear? It might have been all of those, or none. Whatever she was feeling, it did not really matter. Reuben forced himself to take his gaze off her eyes and to direct it where it belonged: to the hairy hand which held the knife.
“Well, well,” the man sneered. “Not so quick with your sword now, are you?”
Reuben didn't answer. Having assured himself that Ayla's neck was completely unharmed at the moment, his eyes moved from the man's hand to his eyes. The hand would deliver the blow, but in the man's eyes Reuben would see the action before it began. They were dilated with fear. For all his bravado, this was a man in fear for his life.
As well he should be.
Right at this moment, it would only serve to make him more dangerous, though. More unpredictable.
“Let go of your sword,” the thick-set mercenary snarled.
“No, Reuben, don't!” Ayla's voice was breathless and hardly audible. “Don't! Go! Just go and…”
“Keep your mouth shut, you fly-bitten harlot!” the mercenary growled and tugged on her hair so hard she let out a little whimper. Reuben had to call on all of his powers of self-restraint to remain immobile. In his head, he distracted himself with a list of things he planned to do with the beefy man once he got him away from Ayla. It was not a pretty list, but a rather long one.
“Drop your sword!” the man repeated. “Or do I have to cut her?”
Reuben's fingers loosened. There was a moment of indecision—then his sword fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
“The dagger, too!”
Reuben hadn't even noticed that, during the fight, he had drawn his dagger as well. The blade was bloody, so it must have been of some use. It, too, dropped to the ground. It was of no matter. The man could make him drop his sword and dagger—but he could not make him drop his fists. More than that Reuben would not need once he got within range.
“Let her go, and I promise you safe conduct out of the castle,” he lied, his voice as cold and hard as flint.
“Ha, yes! Safe conduct out of the castle so that Sir Luca can chop our heads off when we get back, hm?” The beefy man spat on the floor. “No dice!”
“What then?”
“I'll tell you what then! We're going to take your precious lass here out of the castle and straight to our master.”
“No!” The word that came out of Ayla's throat was a half-growl, half-whimper.
“Didn't I tell you to shut your mouth?”
Again, the thick-set man tugged on Ayla's hair. She didn't let that deter her, though.
“Reuben, please,” she whispered. “I'
d rather die! Please! I'd rather die than fall into the hands of these…” She couldn't finish the sentence but, rather, ended in a strangled moan.
Her captor laughed harshly. “Ha, what do you think we'll do, harlot? Torture you? Burn you at the stake? No, we're bringing you to your rightful husband, the Margrave von Falkenstein! Once he's given you a good pounding and plowing, you'll soon change your mind. You'll be thanking us on bended knee, wench! Just you wait.”
Reuben made a few additions to his list. What very interesting additions they were…
“Please, Reuben,” Ayla implored him again. “I'd rather die.”
Her words were weighted with significance that, for the first time, seemed to penetrate the thick skull of the man who was holding her. He tensed, looked sharply from her to Reuben, then relaxed again as the latter didn't move. He smirked.
“Counting on your friend here to attack and make me cut your throat, are you?” he laughed. “Well, harlot, you might be ready to die, but from the looks of him, pretty boy here doesn't want that.” He smirked again, directing his insolent gaze at Reuben. “Am I right?”
“Yes,” Reuben said darkly. “You are.”
“Well, then,” the beefy man growled, “we'll just leave now.”
“Leave the castle?” Reuben asked. “How do you intend to get through the gates?”
“Oh, I think the guards will be nice enough to open up when they see the important parcel I'm carrying.”
Reuben heard the loud sound of boots on stone behind him and turned his head for a moment to see five guards, one of them with a nosebleed, running down the corridor. They stopped dead when they saw their mistress in the clutches of the mercenary. Their eyes slid from Reuben, to the mercenary, and back to Reuben. Slowly, it sank in that he was not the danger here.
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.
As quickly as he could, he scaled the wall of Luntberg castle. Normally, it would have been easy, the rough stone providing many foot and handholds. But with the rain making even rough stone as slippery as an eel's privates, and the movements of his hands inhibited by thick, armored gloves, he had to be careful not to make a mistake and fall. And he couldn't fall. He couldn't die yet. Not while Ayla was in the captivity of these monsters. And certainly not while he hadn't yet beaten that beefy bastard into a bloody pulp!
Inch for inch, he proceeded down the wall. It was tiring work. Although he could feel no ache in his muscles, naturally, he c
ould feel a dull tiredness creeping into them, slowing his movements and making his fingers stiff. Satan's hairy ass, this was no work for a knight! He should be cutting people to ribbons, not climbing some infernal wall! Yet he had to get down. He had to!
He climbed and climbed, and all the while, he could hear the voices of the mercenaries beneath him, approaching, arguing. They were still inside the castle. He had to get down before they got out, otherwise…
And then it happened.
A piece of old stone broke away under the weight of his descending boot, and his hands grasped at the air in a vain attempt to grab again the hold he had just let go of. A strange feeling of mixed freedom and dread engulfed him as he fell, and his limbs flailed uselessly through the air.
And in the brief seconds before he hit the roof, only one thought pervaded his mind: He wasn't far enough down yet. Not far enough to not break every bone in his body when he smashed onto the roof!
Air rushed past him at deadly speed.
Oh, Ayla, he thought, and closed his eyes. I'm sorry. I couldn't even get to the first item on the list.
Blood on the Cobblestones
Reuben hit the stork's nest with a resounding thump! Even had it not been for the noise, though, the stork family living on the castle roof would probably have been awakened by a 6-foot-7-inch ironclad figure crashing into the middle of their home. The stork father pecked at Reuben, who rolled away and shielded his eyes, cursing.
Still in one piece! The blasted thing had cushioned his fall, and he was still in one piece! Although the breath had been knocked out of him, Reuben dragged himself to his feet and stumbled farther down the roof. It took him only a few moments to find his strength again, and his movements steadied. Behind him, the stork family shrieked in triumph over the fleeing intruder.
“Now I definitely heard something!” he heard one of the mercenaries call out, still from inside the castle.