Only a few charged Reuben. Those were the ones who died first.
Suddenly, a loud cry went up from where the archers were fighting. Quickly, Ayla looked over there, and fear gripped her heart like the emperor's tax collector would a sack of gold coins: very, very, very tightly.
Sir Luca and a vast contingent of his soldiers had come over the wall to the right of Luntberg’s archers, via a new grappling hook that had gone unnoticed. The men were plowing into her vassals with merciless ferocity, and Ayla could see that her liegemen had little chance of withstanding the assault. She was just about to cry out, to beg for them to stop, to plead for help from merciful angels, anything…when Reuben bent and picked up something from the walkway. With lightning speed, he rose again and threw what he was holding.
With a wet smack, the bloody head of one of his soldiers hit Sir Luca de Lombardi in the neck and catapulted him right into his soldiers. They tumbled to the ground, a bloody and confused heap, desperately trying not to cut each other to pieces or stand on the nose of their commander.
“Luca!” he called, easily drowning out the thunder that rolled over the castle. “Luca! Come here! Are you not man enough to fight me on your own? Do you hide behind your men's pants because you wear a skirt?”
Muttering some unintelligible curses in Italian, Sir Luca came to his feet. His black beetle eyes were focused on Reuben as if nothing else existed in the world. And it seemed nothing did, for the moment, at least. Amazed, Ayla realized that the fighting around them had ceased. Her men were looking at Reuben. Sir Luca’s men were staring at the Italian, as if they waited for something.
“You sheep-biting bladder! You pox-marked puttock!” Reuben laughed. “You're so ugly that beer goes sour when you're around and so scared of battle that you forget how to hold your sword the right way up!”
The Red Knight raised his sword. The men around him—enemy men, not her own—to Ayla's amazement stepped back, as if they were suddenly under his command, and made free the way to Sir Luca de Lombardi.
“Do you have to hide behind an army of paid cutthroats, or are you man enough to fight me yourself? Well? Answer me!”
None of the mercenaries made a move towards Reuben. They suddenly didn't seem very keen on attacking him, which Ayla could fully understand. They seemed to be much more interested in watching the reaction of their commander.
Slowly, Sir Luca shook himself. Blood and brain-matter dripped from his bevor. He took a deep breath. And then, very slowly, he raised his sword until it was on a level with Reuben's, ready for the attack.
Sudden Bravery
Reuben stood upon the platform that had been hastily erected in the inner courtyard. He stood quite still, not daring to move much on the precarious structure. It was all the carpenters had been able to rig up at short notice. Apparently, it was not often that the lords and defenders of Luntberg needed a platform from which to make speeches to their subjects. And even less often that they had to ask them to risk their lives on a single, risky idea.
“So there you have it,” he finished his explanations to the assembled soldiers and villagers. Nearly all the adults were there, the children having been left in the care of a few old women in the main hall. Reuben would have preferred if only the soldiers had been present, but Ayla had insisted that, if they were going to risk all their lives on this one scheme, then everybody ought to have a say in it. A ridiculous way of thinking, of course, but he knew it was useless to argue as soon as he saw that steely glint in her sapphire eyes.
“There you have it. This is our plan: to draw the enemy into the castle, unprepared, without the large equipment and weapons needed for a proper attack on the castle. In a variation of the pincer movement we will cut off their escape and shoot at them from both the front and behind. This will finally give us the advantage we have so desperately been hoping for. Before, we were always at a disadvantage. In this one battle alone, we will have the elements of surprise, superior weaponry, and superior position on our side. We must make use of them, or we will all perish in the fighting.”
A cautious hand was raised among the soldiers. Reuben's raptor gaze zeroed in on its owner, who immediately tried to shrink back into the crowd. But the crowd wasn't too keen on being shrunk into. It pushed forward the questioner with eager hands.
“Um…hmbl…hm…” he mumbled, trying to avoid Reuben's eyes and absolutely failing to do so.
“You there! What do you want?” Reuben demanded as pleasantly as he could manage. Beside him, Ayla nudged him, so apparently it hadn't been pleasant enough.
“Err…”
Maybe he should smile? But no. His smile didn't seem to have a very positive effect on the men in general. So he simply stood relaxed and tried to look as non-threatening as possible.
“Yes? What was it that you wanted to say?”
“Well…according to you, if this plan of yours doesn't work, we'll all die. Isn't that rather risky?”
“Depends.” Narrowing his eyes at the man, Reuben shrugged. “We have an army outside our gates that is about ten times the size of ours. I think it's time we redefined our meaning of the word ‘risky.’”
Reuben felt Ayla beside him taking a deep breath. Then she stepped forward.
“Our food supplies are dwindling,” she announced. The quiet calm in her voice made the words all the more terrible. “We have only one choice: risk everything and maybe die by an enemy's hand, or risk nothing and surely die by our own empty stomachs. If I have to go, I'd rather die with strength in my body and my head held high. What about you?”
The soldiers shuffled uncomfortably. Reuben saw how the eye of every villager, men and women alike, was on them. Suddenly, he realized that giving the people a say in things might not have been Ayla's only reason for allowing not just the soldiers to be present. Satan's hairy ass! She was clever…
“Understand this,” Reuben said, his voice ringing out over the courtyard. “We cannot do this without everybody agreeing.”
They could very well, if Ayla saw her way to giving him a horsewhip and permission to use it, but she probably wouldn’t.
“Every one of you,” he lied, his hand rising to move along the lines of soldiers, “has to be a hundred percent behind this, because we need you to fight with everything you've got. And every one of you—” his hand moved to the villagers, “needs to be one hundred per cent behind this, because we will be risking your lives and the lives of your children in a single, momentous battle. You have a right to decide.”
Or so she says, he thought grimly to himself. You're damned lucky that you've got the woman I love as your mistress, or I would have you on the wall in two shakes of a devil's tail.
“What does that mean, exactly?” a voice asked.
Reuben sighed. “It means that we all have to agree that this is the best course of action to take. And it means that the men who go up on the wall to fight for all our lives have to be volunteers. This is no ordinary fight. For better or for worse, it is the last battle in this war.”
Anxious whispers rose up in the crowd. Some for, some against the plan. It seemed as though it could go either way. Then, Ayla climbed from the platform. Stepping among her people, she took the hands of the first woman that came into her way. Ayla gave a little smile, and the woman smiled back uncertainly.
“I know you're frightened,” Ayla said, and although she was looking only at the woman, it was as though she were speaking to all the people, not just to one. “But really, there is nothing to be afraid of. We all were already condemned to death. Now, by God's grace, this miraculous chance has arisen for us to save ourselves.”
Reuben had problems associating the treachery of a slimy little worm like Hans with the Grace of God, but then again, he was no expert on the divine, preferring to rely on the satanic. Ayla's words seemed to work fine so far.
“We have only to grasp it, and the way to freedom and safety is open. I know it is a terrible thing to commit your lives and those of your children to a
single chance—but at least it will be a chance at life, not at death or slavery under the Margrave. I say we do this. Are you with me?”
And the shout of the crowd went up in a thundering chorus:
“Yay!”[22]
Reuben watched Ayla embracing the older woman and, not for the first time, wondered how she managed to have this effect on people. She hadn't even needed a horsewhip.
“Very well,” he called out, and the jubilation abruptly cut off. “Now that we've decided that we're going to fight, we come to the more important question: who is going to fight.” He glared at the assembled soldiers, sending them as clear a message as possible as to what he thought of people who didn't volunteer. “Make no mistake—this is going to be unlike any battle you've fought before. The enemy will be like a caged lion, mad with rage. They will want to get out, and they will have to go through you to get there! That must not be allowed to happen, or we are lost. So I ask: Who is going to stand beside me on the wall tonight when the moon comes up and the Margrave's army enters our castle?”
There was silence over the assembled soldiers. They threw each other uneasy looks. Clearly, they were uncomfortable under the gazes of the villagers around them. But they probably reasoned that an enemy's sword in the gut would be quite a bit more uncomfortable.
Then, a chirpy little voice suddenly came from among the crowd.
“Me! Me! I'll fight with you! I'll smash them all to bits! Just you wait and see!”
The crowd parted to reveal a little girl, hopping up and down eagerly. Reuben heard Ayla's groan, and his lips twitched.
“And you are?”
“Fye! My name is Fye. Can I be in the vanguard? Please let me be in the vanguard!”
“Sorry, can't do that.”
“But I've heard the bloodiest fighting is always in the vanguard! I want to be in the vanguard!”
“I mean, I can’t do that because there is no vanguard. This is a siege battle, not a pitched battle where we have a vanguard and a rear.”[23]
“Oh.” For a moment, the little girl looked crestfallen. Then she perked up again. “But you'll let me be on the wall? Where all the fighting will be?”
“Fye!”
A woman rushed forward and gathered the little girl up in her arms, though not without considerable difficulty. The little girl suddenly had a stick in her hand and was defending herself vigorously against the motherly assault.
“Fye! I thought I told you to stay—ouch!—to stay with aunt Marion in the castle. What—ouch!—are you doing out here?”
“I want to fight! I want to fight like Sir Reuben! Let me go! I'm armed!”
In all probability, the mother was more than aware of that. She had to feel Fye's stick several more times before she was able to wrestle it out of her daughter's hands and drag the little girl off towards the castle, still wailing at the top of her lungs.
“Well,” Reuben observed, “that was interesting.” His raptor's gaze slid over the soldiers again, whose faces now were varying shades of red. “Is there anyone here who is brave enough to follow the example of our first volunteer? Anyone? Or are none of you as brave as a little girl?”
“Me! I volunteer!”
“Me, too! I'll do it!”
“Count me in!”
“I'll be there, of course I will!”
“Me, too!”
It wasn't very long before every last one of the soldiers had volunteered. Reuben, who had to work hard not to smirk, nodded gravely.
“Very well, then. We will, and we must, all stand together. You have volunteered. I hope you know what this means. It means that you will be fighting to your very last breath. It means that you will stand shoulder to shoulder, even if your leg is broken and your sword is gone. It means that you will never, ever give up the fight. Our survival now depends on that we all stand together. It depends on us now. All of us.”
*~*~**~*~*
The echoes of Reuben’s challenge were ringing from the walls of the courtyard. The two men stood on the wall, facing each other, swords raised.
“Fight you? With pleasure!” The Italian’s voice was like silk-wrapped steel. “Before we begin, may I know whom I will have the pleasure of killing? You have caused me an inordinate amount of difficulty for a would-be knight appearing out of nowhere.”
“A would-be knight?” Reuben laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that sounded as though it came directly from the pits of hell. Sir Luca's swordarm twitched. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”
The castle itself seemed to hold its breath while Reuben relished the anticipation.
“I,” he finally said, a demonic grin pulling at the corners of his mouth, “am Sir Reuben Rachwild.”
And, for the first time ever, Ayla saw Sir Luca's tiny, black beetle eyes widen. He jumped back, hissing between his teeth.
“Tre volte maledetto scomunicato!”
“What?” Ayla turned to Burchard. “What did he say?”
The steward shook his head. “I don't speak Italian.”
Neither did Ayla. A few of the enemy soldiers did, though, obviously. Their faces had become as white as chalk, and they retreated as far away from Reuben as the narrow walkway allowed.
“That's right!” Reuben laughed bitterly. “Get away from me, lest hellfire burn you! The plague on you, and the pox, and hellhounds on your heels!”
The mercenaries twitched back, as if his words physically hurt them. Ayla couldn't understand.
Meanwhile, Sir Luca seemed to have regained part of his courage. He stepped forward again, a strange gleam in his eyes.
“It shall give me great pleasure to strike you down, devil!” the Italian hissed. “God Almighty will reward me.”
“No, he won't.” Reuben shook his head. “Because I'll cut your head off first.”
“That remains to be seen. Have at it! Now it’s just you and me, diabolo. Just you and me.”
“Yes.” Reuben nodded. “Just you and me.”
And then they charged.
Swords, Lies, and Shadows
The two knights’ swords met with a glitter of sparks. But before Reuben could lock their blades, Luca whirled to the side, evading the full power of his opponent.
Ayla thought a very bad word she would never have uttered aloud. No! She had hoped Luca would be foolish enough to meet Reuben head-on, and the Red Knight could bring his far superior strength to bear. Apparently, this was not going to happen. Instead, Luca attacked Reuben from the side and, when the Robber Knight's huge sword came swinging around, ducked out of the way.
Even Ayla could see after only moments that Luca was no novice at sword-fighting. He didn't have Reuben's strength, but he was sneaky and clever and was going to make the most of that advantage. With a few quick steps, he retreated towards one of the towers of the gatehouse, always just out of reach of Reuben’s sword, and took up a position next to one of the two doors.
“Coward!” Reuben growled, advancing towards him. “Stand and fight!”
Reuben had barely reached the other knight when Luca grabbed the doorknob beside him. Ayla, guessing what dastardly trick he was planning, opened her mouth—but it was too late. Luca had already flung upon the door, directly into Reuben's face.
“Boo!”
“Bastard!”
Protesting shouts went up from the watching crowd. The heavy oak rushed towards Reuben with enough force to knock a man senseless. But before it could hit home, Reuben's fist came up and smashed into it, reversing its course and slamming it shut with an almighty boom. Through the slit of his visor, he regarded Luca with blazing gray eyes.
“I think you have yet to learn something about me, Sir Luca,” he growled.
“Oh yes? And that is?”
“These tricks of yours, dirty tricks that would catch any ordinary, fair-fighting knight off his guard easily…”
Luca feinted to the left, then whirled around and struck at Reuben's other shoulder. Reuben's sword was already there, blocking the strike.
“…they won't work on me!”
Reuben whirled his blade around in a masterly move, tugging on Luca's blade so strongly it made the knight scream. The bad news: it wasn’t strong enough for the blade to fly out of his hand. The good news: it was strong enough for him to fly off his feet and to sail past Reuben, crashing onto the stone of the walkway. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet.
“Because, you see,” Reuben continued, and Ayla could hear the explosion approaching under the superficial calm of his voice, “I’m not ordinary. And I most definitely do not fight fair.”
“Yaa!”
Dashing forward, Sir Luca again pretended to strike at Reuben with his sword. This time, though, he didn't change the direction of his blow but simply stopped it and moved his leg up sharply, sinking his knee into Reuben's crotch. With a dull thud, his knee made contact.
It had absolutely no effect.
For a moment, just a moment, all the eyes of the men on the wall went wide, and Ayla could see it in their faces: they weren't thinking about the fight anymore. Hands went to areas between legs. Hundreds of male faces twisted in mixed pity, awe, and incomprehension. It was obvious to Ayla that whatever Reuben had done before to weave a legend around his name, this would easily outstrip it.
“Satan's warty prick…” Burchard murmured behind her, his voice raw. “What's the matter with the fellow? How is he still standing after…that? He isn't…you know…missing something?”
Ayla’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t even considered that possibility! But no, that couldn’t be it! Not with a smile as lascivious as his! He had to have…stuff down there. It had to have been his painlessness. It had to!
“No. He isn't. It's something else. He’s, um…fully equipped down there. I am absolutely sure.”