The Robber Knight's Love

33. Sleepfighters

At once, Ayla was something she hadn't been for days: wide awake.

In one single motion she was on her feet and through the door. Behind her she could hear Reuben call out: “Ayla! Ayla, wait.”

But she couldn't waste a second. Outside of her room there stood a guard, leaning against the wall, his eyes half-closed. He didn't seem to have noticed anything. The small hand that made contact with his face in a resounding slap changed that.

“W- what? Milady?”

Her arm quivering, hand stinging from the slap, Ayla pointed out of a window towards the outer wall of the castle from where the sound of the alarm bell reached their ears. “Don't you hear that? Get moving! Assemble the guards! If you're not at the outer gates in three minutes you will regret the day you were born, understand?”

The man blanched.

“Yes, Milady! As you command, Milady!”

They both hurried down the corridor, down the steps and out into the courtyard. There, their paths split. The guard ran to wake all the soldiers not roused by the alarm bell. Ayla had another route in mind. She ran directly towards the source of the racket.

For that was all it was now: a racket of disjointed metallic clanks, mixed with the ring of the bell. Sir Isenbard's shouts had ceased. Fear gripped Ayla’s heart as she thought of the possible reasons behind that, fear that only increased when the sharp clangs of swords on swords rose above the clamor.

“Ayla! I said wait, damn you!”

Reuben’s voice again, farther behind now. He might be the faster runner, but he was in full armor, and she knew all the quickest ways through the castle.

“Damn you yourself, Reuben Rachwild!” she growled. If he thought she was going to stop now, with Isenbard and her men in danger, he was very much mistaken.

Doubling her efforts, she sprinted down the inner courtyard and towards the gate. Her feet still hurt from her bare-footed run the other night, but she didn't care. Something terrible was going to happen. She knew it. She could feel it in her bones.

“Ayla! Wait you…” Reuben’s voice again, finishing with a garbled string of oaths and expletives. Ayla felt a tinge of relief that she was too far away by now to understand a single word.

Before her, the two doors of the huge oak gate stood wide open. Apparently the guards here had not been as tired as the one in front of her room. But they were just two. Two, she was sure, wouldn't be enough.

Then she stepped through the archway, and knew she had been right. Something terrible was going to happen—or rather, it was already happening.

Enemy soldiers were swarming all over the wall, yelling, waving torches and wicked-looking guisarmes glistening with blood. There were so many! For one moment, she asked herself how they had gotten there—then she saw the ends of the ladders poking above the outer wall.

Mercenaries were working on securing them to the crenels with hooks and ropes, while others rushed up over the castle wall like locusts. New ladders appeared besides the one already placed.

One. Two. Three…

Ayla stopped counting; it was a waste of time. Instead she looked for the one thing that now stood between her and total defeat: the men on the wall wearing the blue and white of the house of Luntberg.

She spotted them—and her heart sank. There were six. Six men only, standing against dozens. They had taken up positions on both sides of the enemy, three on each side, standing shoulder to shoulder, trying desperately to prevent the enemy from spreading, trying even more desperately to get to the ladders and cut off the steady supply of reinforcements that clambered over the wall.