Page 16 of The Robber Knight
A squirrel came running out of the directionof the clearing. It looked at Ayla with large, intelligent eyes andthen ran off into the foliage. On the forest floor, it left behindsmall, muddy paw prints.
No, she realized—those weren't muddy pawprints. She squinted. The color was wrong. It was too bright,glossy... red. Slowly, very slowly she reached out and touched thebloody spot where the squirrel's foot had touched the ground.
A shudder ran down her back.
“Come,” she said to Burchard and got up.
“Milady,” he protested, “shouldn't we justreturn to the castle? It's dangerous for you out here.”
“Come with me,” she repeated.
Pushing aside the branches of a yew tree, shestepped into the clearing, followed by her loyal though reluctantsteward.
A Stranger among theCarrion
A terrible and strange sight met their eyes. Dozensof dead bodies littered the ground: bloody, mangled, their facescontorted into masks of terror frozen in death. What was strange,however, was not the enormity of the carnage, but the fact that ofall the men lying in the clearing, only one did not bear the crestof the Falkensteins: a black-haired man in bloody linen clothes,lying on his face, with three arrows jutting out of his back. Helay at the center of a circle of enemy soldiers surroundinghim.
Ayla tried to swallow but could not. Her eyeswandered over the dozens of Falkenstein's soldiers that lay slain.A grizzly sight, yes, but also one that gave her a strange, fiercekind of hope.
It can bedone!The thought shot through her head.He is not invincible!
“Where... where are all the men who didthis?” she asked out loud. She tried to keep her voice steady, yetdidn't quite manage it. Somehow, she felt queasy. What was wrongwith her? Had she eaten something bad this morning? It couldn't bebecause of this, could it? These were her enemies!
She tried to avert her eyes from theslaughter but could not. “It had to have been a considerable force.Where could they have gone?”
“They probably fled,” Burchard grunted.
Ayla threw him a sideways glance and wassurprised to see that his face had turned pale. Did she, too, looklike that?
“Except for this poor fellow.” The stewardpointed towards the fallen man with the arrows in his back.
The fallen man whose fingers twitched just atthat moment.
Ayla gasped and started to run forward,jumping over dead bodies and bloody blades.
“Milady!” she heard Burchard shout behindher. Ignoring him, she rushed to the man on the ground and knelt byhis side.
“Milady, what is it?” demanded the oldsteward, appearing beside her.
“He moved, Burchard! I swear! I think heisn't dead. Help me turn him over.”
“Milady, I don't think...”
“Help me turn him over!”
Sighing, Burchard did as she asked. Together,they gripped the man's shoulder and pulled. Ayla could feel hishard muscles under her slender fingers. However, her attention wasmore focused on another thing her fingers felt: copious amounts ofhalf-dried blood. How could the man still be alive? It wasunbelievable. Aided by Burchard, she pulled and pulled. The man washeavier than he looked.
“We aren't going to manage it, Milady,”Burchard said. “Maybe the arrows pinned him to the ground orsomething.” He raised his arm and wiped the sweat from hisface.
Ayla tugged once more—and suddenly, the manrolled onto his side, his head lolling from left to right. Shegasped.
“What is it?” In a second, Burchard's arm wasaway from his face and he was staring down at the stranger. Then heturned to Ayla, a frown on his face. “What's the matter? He looksperfectly normal. He hasn't even got a scratch on his face.”
True, Ayla had to admit. Only the reason forher surprise had nothing whatsoever to do with the young strangerlying before her having some grizzly injury across his face. Shewas not, however, about to divulge the true reason for hersurprised gasp to Burchard—namely that with his long midnight-blackhair, prominent chin, and high cheekbones, the young man waswithout doubt the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.No, she definitely didn't feel like explaining this toBurchard.
Deprecatingly, she waved a hand, unable toform a coherent sentence.
The onlything that could be said to mar the young man's truly perfect facewas a curved scar, like a scimitar,[22]on the leftside of his forehead. However, this only served to give him adangerous look which increased the allure of his features.
