Chapter 13
Angelet stared at the mess on the ground, utterly confounded.
Then everyone around her started to mutter.
“What in hell,” someone said.
“This is wrong,” came another voice, stunned by what he saw…or rather didn’t see. “Where is it? Where’s the gold gone?”
“Men! Get ready.” Rafe’s voice came clear to her ears. She saw him about thirty or forty feet away. He tightened his grip on his sword, ready for what was to come.
The big man near her suddenly let out a roar, his voice ringing out over the whole company. “Where the fuck is our gold?”
Someone else growled, “This was a set-up! A trick.”
Angelet felt the mood shift. The attackers had been fierce but confident before. They’d had a goal. Now rage ruled them, and they might do anything. And she had foolishly put herself in the middle of them.
Just as the big man lunged for her, she heard someone howl, “Sir Rafe! Look to the lady!”
She dimly recognized Simon’s voice as her attacker grabbed her and dragged her a few feet away from the carriage. His meaty arm curled around her neck, and she clawed at his forearm with both hands, trying to free herself.
She stilled when the big man angled his blade into her neck.
Then Rafe was there, his sword out and ready to strike a killing blow.
“Hurt her, and you’ll lose the ransom she’s worth.” Rafe faced the man. “You’ve already lost the money.” He took two steps toward the attacker.
“We don’t want her for ransom,” he hissed. Then he yelled as Angelet raised one hand to his face, raking her nails across his skin. The move was desperate, but it worked. The man loosened his chokehold just long enough for her to drop to the ground and scramble a few feet away, against the carriage.
The man made a grab to retrieve her, but Rafe was already moving. He rushed the man, and just as the other swung back, his blade raised, Rafe shifted his attack slightly, compensating for his opponent’s moves.
Rafe straightened his sword arm, aiming for the heart.
“Angelet, stay back,” he yelled.
Angelet did, but she gasped when something thunked right by her head. She looked to the carriage wall behind her, where a crossbow bolt was now jutting out only inches away from her head.
Rafe reached out, grabbed Angelet by the hand, and pulled her next to him, using his body to block her from the general direction the bolt must have been fired.
“We have to go,” he ordered.
Angelet nodded, but lunged to the open carriage, where she grabbed the sack lying on the seat. “We can go!”
She glanced around, but saw no one holding such a weapon as a crossbow. Not that it meant anything. The thick underbrush and densely wooded area could hide any number of bowmen.
Rafe started to move toward where his horse Philon stood, unperturbed by all the noise and shouting, just as a well-adapted war horse should. He muttered to Angelet, “We’re walking to Philon. Quick!”
She matched his pace and a moment later they reached the massive creature. “Stay here. Right here. Keep your head low.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just wait here!”
Rafe moved away, and Angelet waited for an agonizing time.
She watched the ongoing fight through slitted eyes. How were there so many attackers? What would happen?
Then Rafe reappeared, holding the lead to a white horse. “Let’s go,” he ordered, as he mounted Philon.
“We can’t leave! Look!” She’d just seen Simon get struck by a black-clad man. Simon howled in pain and slid to his knees, still parrying the other’s blows. “Rafe, you must help him!”
Rafe looked about to object, but then Simon himself saw them.
“Go, Rafe!” Simon shouted from where he was locked in a grim battle with his attacker. “Get her out of here! Just go!”
Rafe leaned over and scooped Angelet up in one arm. He swung her up into the saddle in front of him, then rode hard back the way the cortège had come. The white horse galloped behind, the lead still gripped in Rafe’s hand.
“Where are we going?” Angelet gasped, clinging to him. She was shaking with fear, and the heat of his body made sweat break out on her skin.
“Away,” he said, sounding out of breath.
“But Simon and the others. We have to help…”
“We have to get you to safety,” he said. “That’s what matters. Simon knew that…knows that. The others will defend themselves. But the thieves weren’t just after the gold. They were after you.”
He glanced behind, searching for signs of pursuit. Angelet did too, and thought she could see a horse and rider in the distance. Rafe urged Philon to go faster. The riderless white horse kept pace.
When the road presented a fork leading west, he took it. The smaller trail suggested a local path, perhaps to a nearby village. If they were lucky, the pursuers would continue along the main road, assuming Rafe would retreat to the last large town, or just be too rushed to look for alternate routes.
The road branched again several moments later, and Rafe once again took the westward-leading fork. Only when a huge felled tree blocked the path in front of them did he slow the blistering pace.
Both horses came to a halt yards before the tree trunk. Angelet glanced behind them again, relieved to see nothing that hinted of pursuit.
Rafe stilled the horses and listened.
Angelet remained quiet, so quiet she could feel the thudding of her heart in her chest. The sounds of the forest around them were ordinary, and even though she strained her ears, she couldn’t identify any hoofbeats.
“I think we can rest for a moment,” Rafe said at last. He circled his horse around to stand parallel to the massive trunk. “Angelet. Hold my hand, and you can slide down. There you go.”
A moment later, she stood on the trunk, well above the ground itself.
Rafe dismounted and took both horses by their leads.
Angelet, still on the tree, pointed to the left. “There’s a little opening that way to get around the trunk. The path is clear on the other side.”
“Keep watch,” Rafe said.
Angelet dutifully stood looking at the way they’d come. The landscape remained silent and empty.
Once Rafe and the horses cleared the trunk, she slid down to the ground on her own.
“We should go back,” she declared, knowing it was a lost cause.
Rafe shook his head once. He looked tired, dirty, and sweaty. “No. They’re either waiting there, or on the path between here and there. There were still twelve or fifteen of them when we rode away. That’s too many. I couldn’t fight fifteen men on my own.”
“Especially since a few of them had crossbows.” She shuddered. “One shot at me!”
Rafe frowned. “I saw that. Are you sure? I mean, are you sure you just weren’t in the line of someone else?”
“No. Remember, I was by the door of my carriage, trying to keep well out of the way,” Angelet reminded him. “The bolt hit the side of the carriage wall about a half a foot away from my head. I was the target. Not you or that big man. I got splinters from the impact.”
His frowned deepened. “Why would they be so reckless? You’re worth nothing to them dead.”
Rafe took her by the hand and led her to the white horse. “Come, mount up. We need to keep moving. You can ride bareback?” The white horse hadn’t been saddled.
She nodded. Rafe lifted her up so she could scramble onto the white horse’s back.
Then Rafe remounted and started down the path. “Let’s go. Just because we haven’t seen them yet doesn’t mean they’re not still on our trail.”
“What about the others?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Either way, we can do nothing. By this point, they’re either alive or dead. I’m not trying to be cruel, Angelet. But no skirmish lasts long—and this one is over, one way or another. Simon and the others would understand why we fled. Hell, Simon was yelling at me to take you out of there.”
“I hope he’s all right. All of them. I hope Bethany got to safety.”
“She was hardly a devoted maid.”
“But to be a woman alone in the wilderness, or to be captured among a band of thieves…I wouldn’t wish that on any woman.”
Rafe looked at her. “Ever the noble.” Then he flicked the reins of his horse. “Come. We need to ride.”
“Rafe?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
He looked over his shoulder, then directly at her. “I’ve got no idea. But we can’t go back there.”