Page 122 of The Robber Knight's Love
I—love—you. He said it. Tome. It really happened.
Besides, those little words were hardly thatimportant, compared to the hundreds of lives that were at stake atthe moment. They had only been three in number, and verylittle.
Yes. But he said them tome. Reuben. To me.
Suddenly, her horse snorted, just in time forAyla to veer left and avoid hitting a tree. Tree? Wait, she wassupposed to be riding on the path to the bridge! There were notrees on that path, were there? Come to think of it, there weren'tany trees on any path. That was what paths were all about, beingtreeless!
Accursed distraction! She had been so lost inthought that she had veered off the path. She knew she shouldn'thave started thinking about those... three... words...
He loves me.
Ayla did her best to steer her horse back outof the bramble and onto the path. It wasn't very easy, though. Shewas hardly able to contain the tumult of emotions inside her.Somewhere, some mad part of her felt insanely happy while at thesame time she was terribly worried for everybody who was in mortaldanger right now, which in turn made her feel guilty for feelinghappy, which however didn't make her feel any less happy, justmiserable at the same time. This was all so confusing!
Was this really love? Love was always easierfor the ladies in the courtly ballads. But then, these ladiesalways had a knight to save them. Whom did she have? An arrogant,opinionated, loud-mouthed merchant.
Herarrogant,opinionated, loud-mouthed merchant.
And he had stayed. In spite of the danger, hehad stayed. For his... compensation. Ayla didn’t quite know why,but she didn't feel about that like she used to feel about it. Sheused to get angry when he said it. Now she felt a delicious andunfamiliar shiver run through her whenever he did. Why? He meantmoney, surely, didn't he?
Didn't he?
What if...
“Milady!”
The shout ripped her from her thoughts, whichwas probably a good thing, seeing as she was just about to run intoanother obstacle, much larger than a tree: she had nearly reachedthe barricade. In front of her appeared a startled Captain Linhart,holding a torch aloft. The flickering, orange light paintedstrange, 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 thecastle!”
Captain Linhart stared at her as if she wasspeaking a foreign tongue. “But Milady, if we retreat the enemywill...”
“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. Asignal horn sounded and the men gathered, clambering off thebarricade in a frenzy. Soon, they were gathered on the dark meadowin a more or less orderly formation. Ayla had been riding aroundthem in a protective circle all the while. She was perfectly wellaware that, at the moment, she was the only one on a horse aroundhere, and thus could see farther and move faster than any of thesoldiers sworn to protect her. She had to protect them now, lookout for them in the literal sense. The enemy was coming, and shewould be the first to see them.
“One of you,” she called. “Get onto the horseyou have here for couriers to the castle and help me scout thearea!”
A march to the castle was even more dangerousnow than it had been before, when the barricade had still beenmanned. Now, their back, as well as their sides, was totallyexposed. They had to move quickly if they wished to survive thisnight.
“You, Wecelo!” Linhart ordered. “You're agood rider, aren't you?”
“Yessir!”
“Then get your behind on that horse,man!”
“Yessir!”
Ayla watched the man jump into the saddle andwas glad to see that yes, indeed, he was a good rider. Now at leastthere were two pairs of eyes watching.
“You scout on the left, I on the right!” shecalled.
“As you command, Milady.”
Pressing her heels into her horse's sides,Ayla urged the animal forward. She rode a wide circle around hertroops as they began to march up the slope, but nothing happened.No arrows came flying out of the darkness, no soldiers attacked herand tried to grab her. Anxiously, she threw a look up towards theflickering lights of the castle, towering high above them on themountaintop. Could the enemy already be there? Could they havebypassed her troops and taken her home?
No, she reassured herself. There still wereguards at the gates up there, guards whom she had warned of thecoming danger. They would have sounded the alarm if anything hadhappened.
