Moodily, Reuben stared out of his window, up at the moon. He had heard quite a few ballads sung about it. The damn thing was supposed to be romantic. He couldn't decide whether that really was the case or whether he'd like to hack it into tiny little pieces. Just as he couldn't decide what to make of Ayla.
Had she forgiven him? Did she still have feelings for him?
That maid, Dilli, seemed to think so. But then, the same maid, Dilli, had taken him to be one of the undead on their first meeting, so Reuben didn't feel a lot of confidence in her judgment. Unable to decide what to think or what to do, he continued to sit on his bed, staring up at the moon. He was completely lost in his thoughts. So completely that he almost missed the quiet scrape of metal on metal.
Almost.
He had been a robber knight for five years. You didn't stay alive with a price on your head for five whole years on the roads of the Holy Roman Empire and the roads of even stranger, far deadlier lands without learning the difference between an “oh damn, I have just made a scratch in my brand-new bronze mirror” sound and a “psht, I am drawing a dagger” sound. He had certainly heard the latter kind often enough.
Swift and silent as a striking snake, Reuben swiveled around so his head faced the door, and his legs were like a coiled spring beneath him, ready to catapult him to his feet at a moment's notice. His hand clamped down around the hilt of his sword, and darkness descended on his features.
There it was again! There was no doubt this time; it was the sound of a knife. Reuben could imagine only one reason why a man with a knife might want to come into his room in the middle of the night, and it wasn't to cut his toenails. Whoever wanted his life would not find him unprepared, though. His other hand slid under his coat of mail to the hilt of the familiar dagger concealed in a secret pouch there. Luca, the fenn-sucked scut, had probably not even realized it was there, in the brief period during which he had dared to don Reuben’s armor.
Reuben grinned. These other enemies out there would remain just as oblivious of the dagger’s existence until it was too late for them.
Then, very slowly, the grin slipped from his face as a terrible possibility occurred to him.
Who could possibly be after his life right now, except one person? The only one who knew who he really was. The one who had sworn to see him dead.
His hand clenched so hard around the hilt of the dagger that he almost ripped the thing out of its sheath involuntarily. God's teeth! Did she not have the courage to have him hanged in broad daylight and see the deed done? Did she have to send a hired killer to do her dirty work for her? He had not thought so low of Ayla as that.
But…no. Reuben frowned. He could still hear the snoring of the guards right in front of his room. If Ayla had sent a killer to rid herself of him, surely she would have sent her own guards away first.
The alien, secretive noises came closer. Now they were not scrapes of metal anymore, but quiet footsteps. Nevertheless, it was the same person, Reuben was sure. More footsteps followed. They approached his room slowly. Reuben loosened his sword in its scabbard and prepared to face his enemies, whoever they might be.
And then the footsteps went past his room, on down the corridor.
For some reason Reuben didn't feel better.
If they were not after him, who could they possibly…?
*~*~**~*~*
A dirty, smelly hand clamped down over Ayla's mouth. Above her, she could see the beefy figure of a man dressed in light leather armor, with several knives at his belt. What little moonlight fell in through the small window showed only the rough outlines of his face, but that was more than enough. A patchwork of scars, a massive chin, and a broken nose told Ayla as surely as the knife at her throat: this man wasn't here for a game of chess.
“Up with you,” he growled.
When she didn't react, paralyzed with fear, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled painfully. “Up with you, I said! Do as I say, or I'll leave a few marks on that pretty little face of yours. Would you like that? Now move!”
She half rose, half was dragged to her feet. Her head was on fire, the man still having hold of her hair. He used it to pull her against his chest, and he snaked an arm around her waist.
Ayla dragged in a ragged breath and almost gagged. Ugh! The thought shot through her head. He stinks worse than a week's worth of pig’s dung!
And then she thought, A man is taking me against my will and pressing a knife against my throat, and all I can think of is how bad he smells? What's wrong with me?
She felt rather odd. Blood was pounding in her ears, her hands were sweaty, and her eyes were opened unusually wide. She didn't feel fear as such—she was still far too shocked for that, having been ripped from sleep in half a second. But she knew somewhere deep down that fear was on the way. And when it came, it would hit her like a rampaging boar.
“Ortwin!” the beefy man hissed. “Is the way clear?”
“Err…not as such, Sir,” came a voice from the direction of the door. There are more of them, another thought shot through Ayla's head.
“What do you mean, not as such?” growled the beefy man. “Are there guards outside or not?”
“I don't know whether there are guards outside, Sir. There's a girl inside, though, Sir.”
“What?” The beefy man’s grip on Ayla’s hair tightened, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.
“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. 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!”