Page 13 of The Knight's Pledge
“Turn back!” the friar wailed.
Effie and Gorman, their faces concealed, raised their weapons and pointed them at the monk as a pair of riders began to descend the Break.
Gilboe continued. “In the name of God!”
“What’s going on here?” one of the riders called down.
“Turn back, friends,” Gilboe shouted. “Turn back, lest you be set upon by the devil’s minions!”
“Stay right where you are,” Gorman advised, his and Effie’s bows turning together in one fluid movement toward the interlopers to the Break.
The riders, two young men, well-dressed and, as Effie had guessed, travelling without cargo, held up their hands and looked at the pair of hoodedbandits warily.
“Oh, Lord, have mercy!” Gilboe wailed. “Have mercy on these innocents!”
“Come on, then,” Effie advised, her voice noticeably lowered in timbre, and Lucan was reminded of her speaking in the wood the day of the hunt before she’d shot him. How had he not been able to tell she was a woman? One look atthose trousers…
He glared at her from inside his hood.
Effie and Gorman divided and bracketed the riders as they approached.
“I’ve done what I can to serve thee, Lord,” Gilboe continued to rail at the sky. He gestured toward the sleeping Chumley. “I’ve tried to deliver the body of our dear brother!” He flung an arm toward Lucan. “I’ve laid one of the brigands low through your power withmine own hand!”
Lucan huffed. As if the fat friar could best him even if Lucanwasa corpse.
“I can do no more, O Lord!”Gilboe wailed.
Gorman spoke up. “Hand over your purses.”
“We’ll not,” one of the men replied indignantly.
“Hand them over,” Effie warned, “or the priest gets it.” She turned her weapon backtoward Gilboe.
“You wouldn’t dare,” the otherrider scoffed.
Effie let her arrow fly and Gilboe dropped to the cart bed with a scream. Lucan’s breath seized in his chest.
“You’re next,” Gorman advised, as Effie pulled another arrow from her quiver and set it to her string. “Hand them over and you may pass. Or we kill you and take them any matter. The first option allows you to leave with your lives.”
“I told you we should have taken the other road,” the first rider grumbled to the other as her jerked at the stringsof his purse.”
In the cart bed, Gilboe hadn’t so much as twitched.
Two purses flew through the air to land in the dirt. Gorman stepped back, widening the path for the riders to pass.
“Ride hard until the bend,” he said. “We’ll be watching. If we see you slow, you’re dead. If we see your faces again—also dead.”
“Go,” Effie commanded.
The two young men kicked at their horses and were soon splashing through the river and up the far side of the bank. In a moment, they were gone, the dust from their hooves floating over the break in a weak, dry cloud.
Gilboe raised his head. “Are they gone?”
“Aye,” Gorman replied. He bent to gather the purses as Effie walked into the shallow water to retrieve her spent arrow.
She raised up and pulled the hood from her head, prompting Lucanto also unmask.
“You’re unbelievable,” he said to her as she neared him, but she acted as though he wasn’t there at all.
