Reuben stared at the door Ayla had left open, listening to her receding footsteps, completely dumbfounded.
Thanks?
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Reuben had extensive experience in romance, garnered in his time at the Imperial Court where his charming smile had been the talk of all the ladies. He knew his business. When you told somebody you loved them, you expected an answer like “I love you too” or “Well, too bad” or maybe “Go fornicate with yourself!”
But “Thanks”? What was he supposed to make of that? It was no way to answer a man who had just opened his heart to you!
All right, maybe he hadn't chosen quite the best time for his confession. She had been in a bit of a hurry to save her people from sudden and violent death. But she could have stayed for a quick “I love you too.” It would only have meant two dead peasants, at most.
Or, an unwelcome thought intruded, maybe she would not have said that, even if she'd had all the time in the world...?
Reuben shook his head.
No. She had said thanks. That had to mean she wanted this, wanted him—didn't it? No woman had ever been able to resist his charms before, and neither would Ayla.
Probably.
His gaze returned to the open door. Her footsteps were almost inaudible now. So faint, then even fainter, then... gone.
His hands clenched into fists.
Oh, how he burned with the wish to go with her. And yet, he had held his tongue, had stayed where he was, knowing all too well why.
He was only one man—out there were hundreds. He was still sick—they were fit and strong. As much as Reuben hated to admit it, he couldn't protect Ayla from the Margrave's men all by himself. Not yet.
Worse than not being able to protect her, he would have hindered her. He might be recovering, but he still was not fit to ride at full gallop. The damned weakness was still in his bones, by Satan's warty prick and all the pricks of his little demons! If he had ridden with her, and then had fallen off his horse, she would have stopped and he would have been her doom. She needed to be fast now, faster than she had ever been.
No, he could not save her from the enemy tonight. Only the hoofs of a fast horse could.
Turning away from the door and over to the window, he stared into the darkness of the night outside. Far, far below, down on the path into the valley, he thought he saw for a moment a flash of white and gold.
But maybe it was simply his imagination.
In his head, he saw again Ayla's face as she clasped her arms around his neck and whispered into his ear: Thanks!
With an angry growl, he punched the wall, so hard his knuckles started to bleed. Curse the girl! She damned well ought to have stayed a minute longer. What were two dead peasants, or maybe three, compared to his agony?
*~*~**~*~*
Ayla brought the horse to a halt at the point where the path into the valley forked. One way led directly to the village, the other to the bridge, where the soldiers were. If she hadn't been as well-bred as she was, she would have cursed. She should have thought of this before! Where to go first? Whom to warn first—the soldiers or the villagers? Whose life to put at risk?
Strategically, it made more sense to ride to the bridge. The soldiers there would be an invaluable part of the castle's defense in the coming days. Any coolly calculating general would put the safe return of the soldiers over the lives of villagers who would just be a nuisance in any real battle.
Ayla's horse nickered beneath her and pranced, as if sensing her indecision.
Villagers... who had children...
Yes, any real general would go for the soldiers. But she was no general.
Suddenly decided, she pulled on the reins and turned the horse towards the village, driving it to the fastest possible gallop. In front of the first house on the edge of the village, she jumped off the animal's back. Rushing to the homestead's door, she started hammering on the rough wood until the door was opened by a sleepy-looking peasant, whose nose she nearly bashed in with her fist, still raised to knock.
It took one or two seconds for the sleepy man to recognize her—then his eyes suddenly went wide. “L-lady Ayla, what...”
“There's no time,” she cut him off. “Get your family together, wake everybody in the village up, and head for the castle! Now!”
“Head for the castle? In the middle of the night? Milady, I...”
“There's no time!” She was almost shouting now. “You've been preparing, haven't you?”
“Yes, but...”
“No buts,” she repeated Reuben's words. “They're coming.”
If possible, the eyes of the peasant widened even more at this revelation. Behind him, the anxious faces of his wife and children appeared.
“The soldiers?” he whispered, and his wife crossed herself.
“Yes! Now get moving and get everyone out of here!”
Turning, she strode back to her horse, her cloak and nightgown flowing behind her.
“What about you, Milady?”
“I have to go to the bridge,” she called, swinging herself into the saddle. “Do as I've told you! And woe betide you if a single man, woman, or child is left behind! I'll see to it that you spend the rest of the week in the stocks!”
Paling, the man nodded.
Ayla didn't waste any time to see if he did as she had commanded. She had no time to waste. Not a second. Wishing for once that she wasn't as well-bred and could urge her horse on with a few good, solid curses, she drove it into the night as fast as it would go. She definitely knew enough curses by now. Her acquaintance with Reuben had been very educational.
Reuben.
Oh no, she couldn't think about Reuben right now. She had to concentrate. She had a job to do. She couldn't indulge and...
He said he loves me.
...think about three certain words he had spoken. No, she definitely couldn't. Not now. Not here.
I—love—you. He said it. To me. It really happened.
Besides, those little words were hardly that important, compared to the hundreds of lives that were at stake at the moment. They had only been three in number, and very little.
Yes. But he said them to me. Reuben. To me.
Suddenly, her horse snorted, just in time for Ayla to veer left and avoid hitting a tree. Tree? Wait, she was supposed to be riding on the path to the bridge! There were no trees on that path, were there? Come to think of it, there weren't any trees on any path. That was what paths were all about, being treeless!
Accursed distraction! She had been so lost in thought that she had veered off the path. She knew she shouldn't have started thinking about those... three... words...
He loves me.
Ayla did her best to steer her horse back out of the bramble and onto the path. It wasn't very easy, though. She was hardly able to contain the tumult of emotions inside her. Somewhere, some mad part of her felt insanely happy while at the same time she was terribly worried for everybody who was in mortal danger right now, which in turn made her feel guilty for feeling happy, which however didn't make her feel any less happy, just miserable at the same time. This was all so confusing!
Was this really love? Love was always easier for the ladies in the courtly ballads. But then, these ladies always had a knight to save them. Whom did she have? An arrogant, opinionated, loud-mouthed merchant.
Her arrogant, opinionated, loud-mouthed merchant.
And he had stayed. In spite of the danger, he had stayed. For his... compensation. Ayla didn’t quite know why, but she didn't feel about that like she used to feel about it. She used to get angry when he said it. Now she felt a delicious and unfamiliar shiver run through her whenever he did. Why? He meant money, surely, didn't he?
Didn't he?
What if...
“Milady!”
The shout ripped her from her thoughts, which was probably a good thing, seeing as she was just about to run into another obstacle, much larger than a tree: she had nearly reached the barricade. In front of her appeared a startled Captain Linhart, holding a torch aloft. The flickering, orange light painted strange, nightmarish shadows across his face.
“Milady, to what do we owe the...?”
“Sound the retreat,” she yelled at him, without bothering to get off her horse. “Withdraw to the castle!”
Captain Linhart stared at her as if she was speaking a foreign tongue. “But Milady, if we retreat the enemy will...”
“Do as I say, Captain!”
For a moment, he measured her with his eyes. Then he abruptly turned to his men and began shouting orders. A signal horn sounded and the men gathered, clambering off the barricade in a frenzy. Soon, they were gathered on the dark meadow in a more or less orderly formation. Ayla had been riding around them in a protective circle all the while. She was perfectly well aware that, at the moment, she was the only one on a horse around here, and thus could see farther and move faster than any of the soldiers sworn to protect her. She had to protect them now, look out for them in the literal sense. The enemy was coming, and she would be the first to see them.
“One of you,” she called. “Get onto the horse you have here for couriers to the castle and help me scout the area!”
A march to the castle was even more dangerous now than it had been before, when the barricade had still been manned. Now, their back, as well as their sides, was totally exposed. They had to move quickly if they wished to survive this night.
“You, Wecelo!” Linhart ordered. “You're a good rider, aren't you?”
“Yessir!”
“Then get your behind on that horse, man!”
“Yessir!”
Ayla watched the man jump into the saddle and was glad to see that yes, indeed, he was a good rider. Now at least there were two pairs of eyes watching.
“You scout on the left, I on the right!” she called.
“As you command, Milady.”
Pressing her heels into her horse's sides, Ayla urged the animal forward. She rode a wide circle around her troops as they began to march up the slope, but nothing happened. No arrows came flying out of the darkness, no soldiers attacked her and tried to grab her. Anxiously, she threw a look up towards the flickering lights of the castle, towering high above them on the mountaintop. Could the enemy already be there? Could they have bypassed her troops and taken her home?
No, she reassured herself. There still were guards at the gates up there, guards whom she had warned of the coming danger. They would have sounded the alarm if anything had happened.
Completing her circle, she slowed her horse down beside Captain Linhart, who radiated tension and kept throwing glances over his shoulder.
“There you are!” he hissed as she appeared out of the darkness. “Would you mind telling me what is going on here?”
Ayla was slightly taken aback. Linhart was usually such a calm man. But she had, after all, ordered him to abandon his position without any explanation whatsoever. That had to be a strain on a soldier. If she was being honest with herself, she was surprised that he had followed her orders without demanding an explanation.
“The attack on the bridge tonight was a ruse,” she said simply. “It was meant to draw off the river patrols. While we fought, the enemy crossed the river somewhere else, under cover of darkness. Soon they will be everywhere.”
Linhart said a word the meaning of which Ayla didn't know, though she thought she recognized it from one of Reuben's outbursts. His face reddened slightly. “Forgive me, Milady.”
She waved a hand. “I've heard worse.”
“So what do we do now, Milady? Must we retreat?”
“They have ten times as many men as we do. You're a professional soldier, Captain. What do you think?”
He nodded grimly. “What are your orders, Milady? March directly to the castle?”
“Not quite. I've warned the villagers and they should be making their way up to the castle somewhere ahead of us. We must remain between them and the enemy to protect them as best we can.”
Linhart's eyes widened. “But you just said it yourself, Milady, we're outnumbered ten to one! What are we supposed to do if the enemy catches up with us?”
“If it's the main force, there's only one thing we can do.”
“And what is that?”
She gave him a weak smile. “We can die bravely.”
There were a few seconds of silence, but for the sound of marching feet.
Finally, the captain nodded. “As you command, Milady.”
Ayla breathed a sigh of relief. “Anything else, Captain? If not, I have to get back to scouting.”
“Nothing. Just... be careful, Milady. Those bastards want you more than they want any of us.”
“I'll bear that in mind.”
Ayla pressed her horse onwards again, and it shot into the dark. She continued making rounds around her soldiers, sometimes meeting with the other rider, but never catching a glimpse of the enemy. It was beginning to make her uneasy again when, suddenly, she saw them.
Dozens of red spots appearing out of the darkness, down at the river's bank. The light of the torches grew, and Ayla could make out the black forms of men, in stark contrast with the glittering background of the river. One raised an arm and pointed up towards them.
An unmistakable gesture.
Ayla turned to look ahead. Against the faint glow of the castle, she could make out the crowd of villagers making their way up the mountain path. There was no way of telling whether everybody was there, but the crowd seemed large enough. She looked back at the enemy once more, judging the distance. They had come ashore quite a long way away from the bridge, and even farther away from the path Ayla and her people were traveling on, thank the Lord!
“Do you see them, Milady?” Wecelo the scout called, pointing down into the valley.
“Yes. But they're too far away to catch up with us!”
“Seems they aren't even trying.”
Wecelo was right. Ayla couldn't see much, because all the surrounding landscape was black and she had to look to the front often to prevent her horse from stumbling—but from what she could make out of the enemy, the mercenaries seemed to be heading towards the bridge, not towards them.
Coming up beside Captain Linhart again, Ayla asked: “What do they want at the bridge?”
The captain shrugged and kept marching. With the tempo he and his soldiers were managing, the distance between them and the villagers grew shorter and shorter. “Who knows? Maybe they see that it's pointless to chase us and want to gather there to put up camp.”
“No, I don't think that's it,” Ayla mumbled. “I don't like it. I have a funny feeling about this.” The bridge... What could they get across the bridge that they couldn't get over the river in small boats?
With growing apprehension, she watched the barricade being torn down. It was as if somebody were tearing her heart along with it. This had been the defense of her people for so long. Now it was gone. Yet her apprehension was about more than just that.
What could come over a bridge?
A second later, shadowy figures started moving across the cleared bridge. Not the same kind of black figures that she had seen by the waterside. These were larger, and moving considerably faster.
Ayla understood just as Wecelo cried: “Riders! Riders approaching!”
“But we killed all their riders in the first attack,” Ayla cried in panic.
“They must have had reinforcements! Ride, Milady, ride! They mustn't get you!”
“I can't just leave you!”
“He's right, Milady,” Linhart said, grimly. “Halt!” he called to his men, who obeyed immediately. The captain's grip on his spear tightened. “Turn!”
They all as one turned to face the approaching enemy.
“Cancel that order!” Ayla shouted. “Continue up the path!”
“Milady—”
“Listen, Captain! If you stop here to provide my escape, you will all be slaughtered!” With a sweeping gesture Ayla indicated the broad slope they stood on. “The area is much too open. The riders will set upon you from all sides and ride you down. We will march up to there.” She pointed to a point where the path became winding and narrow, with both its sides falling steep. “There you can make a stand, not before.”
“We might not make it in time.”
“You most certainly won't if you continue to stand here arguing about it with the liege lady you are sworn to obey!”
The soldiers looked back and forth between Linhart and her. The captain was glaring at Ayla, but she was glaring back just as fiercely. She would not let that stubborn, loyal man put her life before everybody else's.
Finally, after three endless seconds, he bowed his head. “As you command, Milady.” He looked up again. “Men, continue to the narrows.”
They started moving again, marching even faster than before.
Would it be enough?
Ayla, no longer venturing ahead but staying close at Captain Linhart's side, threw a look over her shoulder. The dark riders were rapidly approaching.
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Greetings, noble comrades in arms! :)
The story is slowly approaching its climax. What Did you think of Reuben's reaction to Ayla's words? ;)
And now I must hasten and hurry away, for I march with Lady Ayla and the riders must not catch us!
A hurried farewell
Sir Rob