The Robber Knight's Love

55. 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... you say, 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.