The Robber Knight's Love

54. Red Beast

Something hard smashed into Ayla from the side and hurled her to the ground, landing heavily on top of her. Her head thudded onto the walkway, and multi-colored lights sprang up in front of her eyes.

“Ow!”

“When I dreamed of getting on top of you,” a voice growled into her ear, “this isn't how I imagined it!”

“Reuben?”

“Who else you silly goose? What by Satan's hairy ass are you still doing up here? We agreed that you’d go down as soon as the attack began.”

“No. You agreed with yourself, and didn't listen to me.”

“Where's the difference?”

Rolling off her, he sprang up, and drew his sword. Smoothly, he took a defensive stance and placed himself in front of the grappling hook that had wedged itself between the crenels.

“Stay back!” With mad energy, he began to hack at the reinforced rope that hung taut from the hook. From below, Ayla could hear the grunts and curses of the men climbing getting louder.

“What does 'puny codpiece' mean?” Ayla demanded.

Startled, Reuben looked around, but didn't stop slashing at the rope, which had already been hacked through about a third of the way.

“What? What did you say?”

“Is it really an endearment among soldiers?”

“Ayla, do you really want to discuss this now?”

“Because it sounded rather insulting to me.”

“Ayla! I'm trying to work here!”

“Why are you here, anyway?”

“I'm protecting you!”

“You should be with the archers!”

“They're managing fine without my help!”

“So am I.”

“Oh, really?”

An enemy soldier stuck his head over the crenels. That was the last time he would be doing anything with his head. Reuben separated it from his body with a swipe of his blade, and it tumbled down into the courtyard, spraying blood in all directions, followed shortly by the rest of the corpse. There was a strangled yelp from further down the rope.

The next soldier was somewhat more careful. He slashed with his sword above his head to clear the way before grasping the crenels with his hand.

But the way had not been cleared. Reuben sprang forward, bringing his sword down on the hand clutching the crenel. It dropped away into the darkness.

“Aaaarr! No!”

Desperately, the mercenary try to hold on to the slippery rope with one hand, while blood gushed from the stump of his left arm. To no avail: he lost his grip, and fell backwards into the darkness.

Clank! Clank!

Ayla's head whipped to the left. She had been so transfixed by the fight unfolding before her that she hadn't noticed two more grappling hooks which had lodged themselves firmly between the crenels a bit farther down the walkway. Burchard had noticed them, though. He had picked up the sword of the dead mercenary, the bloody, severed hand still clutching the hilt in an unbreakable death-grip, and was hacking away at the rope with all his considerable strength.

Clank!

Each time the sword hit the stone beside the rope, it made a dull metallic sound. The rope was about to give way when, from beneath the crenels, a guisarme shot up.