The Robber Knight's Secret

16. The Dangers of Wooden Neighbors

Reuben remained stock-still for just a moment. Then he turned towards Ayla with a charming smile she immediately and utterly distrusted.

"Ah, Ayla! How nice of you to join us." The red knight waved towards Burchard. "Your steward and I were just taking a stroll on the wall and discussing a few matters. Nothing you need to worry about right now, just inconsequential details and—"

Thump.

The low, dull noise from behind Reuben, beyond the castle wall, seemed to travel up into Ayla's head through the soles of her feet. She looked past Reuben, to the skeletal wooden structure that was rising above the enemy camp.

"Inconsequential details?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, maybe not completely inconsequential..."

Thump!

"Reuben!"

"... if you consider the complete destruction of your castle in about a day and a half consequential, that is."

Ayla felt a knot of fear tighten deep in her stomach.

"Yes." Her voice seemed to come from far away, as if it weren't even her own. "I'd call that consequential, I think."

"Well, let's go down and discuss it, shall we?" Reuben suggested. "There's no need to stay up here and..."

He might have said more after that, but Ayla didn't hear the rest of his sentence. She was looking past him to the enemy camp where, high above the tents, high above the spider-web-like construction even, a mighty column was rising into the skies. Accompanied be the distant, regular beat of drums and shouts of "Heave-ho!" a pillar of wood was slowly but surely being pulled up from the ground, trying to pierce the clouds, it seemed.

"I think we had better stay up here," Ayla whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the terrifying spectacle. What diabolical contraption had the enemy come up with now?

Seeing the expression on her face, Reuben turned back towards the east. "What is... No!" Catching sight of the pillar of wood, Reuben's eyes flashed with gray fire and he slammed his fist onto the breastwork. "I had expected something of the sort but this... Satan's stinking pisspot! They have an evil neighbor!"

Ayla turned to stare at him.

"What do you mean, they have an evil neighbor? The Margrave has been attacking and attacking and attacking me for months, and now they are preparing some new devilry to launch at us, and you say he has an evil neighbor? I haven't done anything wrong! If it is anyone who is evil, it is him, not me!"

"No, no." Reuben waved his hand, impatiently. "I didn't mean you. I meant that!" He pointed to the construction in the midst of the enemy camp. "That machine there. It's called an evil neighbor, or tribok, or trebuchet."

A faint memory stirred in Ayla's mind. She had heard that term before, but where? The memory came into clearer focus. Her father, talking about his adventures with Sir Isenbard, long ago, when he could still take walks in the garden with his little daughter... Forcing down tears that threatened to come into her eyes at the memory, tried to think. What exactly had he said a trebuchet was? "A catapult?" she asked. "It's a kind of catapult, right?"

Reuben snorted.

"If it were only that! Normal catapults are powered by hand—a group of men pulling on a rope, which is attached to a wooden pole, at the end of which sits a projectile. But this... this is something altogether different. Do you see that great wooden thing? Like a chest, or a crate, hanging from the end of the pole?"