Page 51 of The Knight's Pledge
“Whatare you doing?”
Effie only glanced at him. “Business. If we’re not back in anhour, follow.”
“I’ll follow now, thank you,” he said, urging Agrios after the blonde.
“Lucan,” she snipped. “You don’t want anypart of this.”
“Another robbery, you mean.”
“I don’t have time to explain it to you.”
“I’m a quick study—I’m certain I already have it figured out.”
“Stay out of the way, or a wounded foot will be the least of your troubles,” she tossed over her shoulder witha glare. “Hah!”
In moments they were back in the woods, and Lucan could hear shouting ahead even over the pounding hooves. The caravan was stopped, and the riders to the rear were dismounting in a hurry. The next events seemed to happen in half-time, and yet everything at once. Lucan caught sight of Effie reaching over her shoulder into her quiver, her horse still galloping toward the group. Her bow raised—
Effie, no, Lucanwanted to say.
She fired.
The rider who had glared at Lucan fell to the road with a scream even as Effie reached foranother arrow.
Bob swung his leg over his saddle and crouched, his reins in his hands. He neared one of the dark clad riders and leapt from his horse, flattening the man to the ground. A blade flashed, a gurgling screamwas cut short.
Dana singled out the only rider still mounted, and the pair raced toward each other astride. The rider’s swinging flail was easily evaded, and Dana pulled the man from his saddle by the front of his tunic and dashed him to the road before leaping down upon him beyond the wagon, out ofLucan’s sight.
Chumley rode straight toward the wagon, so fast that Lucan thought the man was going to collide with it, but Chumley, too, leapt from his saddle onto the wooden structure, his boots turning under him like mill wheels as he scaled the side and reached the pinnacle. The driver appeared over the crest and Chumley delivered two swift blows to the man’s face before picking him up and throwing him from the wagon. The driver landed on his head with a sickening crunch and crumpled to a stop. He didnot move again.
Lucan swerved around the wagon where Gorman, Kit Katey, and James were surrounded in the road by the other four riders, swords drawn. The trio stood in the center, their backs to one another’s; James and Gorman wielded long swords, Kit a pair of short blades decorated with streaming red ribbons at the handles. Two men already lay dead at the side of the road.
An arrow whizzed through the air and one of the riders staggered, the projectile finding purchase in his upper arm like the spindly branch of a winter tree. The injured man staggered and folded in half, but in the next instant swung his sword wide, ready to swipe at Effie as she thundered toward him, too late in re-knocking her next arrow. She would be upon him beforeshe could fire.
Lucan swerved around, drawing his own short sword and guiding Agrios with his knees. A swift thrust at the back of the man’s neck and he fell dead beneath Agrios’s hooves, the well-trained mount leaping and kicking his way free from the body. Lucan pulled around and halted the beast in time to see the trio in the center of the road spring into action.
They spread out from each other, each having located their own target, and now they stalked them, testing the distance. Gorman was first to act, rushing forward, meeting steel with steel. Two clanging, ringing thrusts, and hisopponent fell.
James Rose was not quite as straightforward, dancing around the rider’s flank, swirling the tip of his sword before the man’s face with his own typical smirk. “Watch out,” he taunted. He flicked the earflap of the man’s leather skull cap, and the severed piece went flying away. “Next is yourear,” he warned in an excited whisper, wiggling his eyebrows.
The rider turned and began to runinto the woods.
James dropped his sword down by his leg for a moment, dejected. “Oh, come now; must we run?” He sighed and then sprinted after the fleeing man, his sword held above his head. “Fine! But you’reit next round!”
Only Kit Katey still faced her foe, and none of the others seemed inclined to come to her rescue as the beautiful woman circled her challenger, her slippers rising and falling in a graceful creep, her short swords crossing each other, weaving in the air, their streamers dancing in elegant patterns. The man charged like a rabid dog. A blur of red, like exotic birds’ feathers, swirled in the air before him and Kit Katey stepped back, the swords held juxtaposed before her face, the blades running red.
The man rocked to a halt, his sword fell to the dirt. Red lines, faint at first, bloomed into stripes, then ribbons, and then the man’s jerkin was awash in the color. He lowered his face as if to look down at his front, but then his head fell from his shoulders and thudded to the road in the instant before his body collapsed at Kit Katey’s feet.
Kit Katey made a low bow over the fallen man as birdsong spontaneously returnedto the forest.
James came stomping up onto the packed track. “He was a fast one,” the young man gasped, swiping at his eyes with his forearm. “Shit ran me aquarter mile.”
Gorman and Kit Katey were already cutting purses and gathering weapons.
Lucan sat atop Agrios and let his gaze rove over the carnage that lay in the road as reality slowly dawned on him: he’d done this. He’d participated in this slaughter of strangers, no matter that his contribution had been made in order to save Effie Annesley’s life. Lucan Montague, Knight of the Royal Order of the Garter, enamored fool, had just set upon a band of travelers, and now there were nearly a dozen men dead in the dirt.
Dead, and being robbed.
Lucan’sstomach turned.
