The Longing (35 page)

It was a good pairing, he reflected as he looked from the light-haired Charles, who could learn from Judas’s stealth, to the dark-haired Judas who could learn from the older boy’s bow skill. Together, their chances of putting venison on the table were well-favored.

When they reached the midpoint without alerting the deer, Everard left his cover and followed.

Nearer the young men drew, almost close enough to raise their bows and assume the proper stance. Shortly, they took aim. But before the lethally tipped shafts could be loosed, the deer’s head came up and the animal bounded away.

Had it caught a sound, a scent, or a movement made by its pursuers? Everard pondered as Judas and Charles gave chase and he came after them. Or had another animal of the wood frightened it?

Though Everard had detected nothing untoward, it could have escaped him—that or the warning was exclusive to the deer’s keen sense of danger.

While Judas and Charles raced ahead, Everard kept pace, maintaining his distance in the hope they would be afforded another chance. When they slowed, he slowed, when they crept, he crept.

And there was the deer where it had paused in a clearing, tense and watchful.

Go,
Everard silently commanded and, as if heard, Judas and Charles moved forward.

Everard watched, listened, felt. And that last inconstant sense of his turned constant. Something portentous was here that could not be seen or heard and, a moment later, the deer turned its head in the direction whence that feeling came.

“Run!” Everard bellowed as their prey sprang away and a man—one not too distantly familiar—lunged from behind a tree.

The Cheverel knight, Sir Morris, faltered at the sight of Everard whose presence he had surely not expected, the same who had wrenched his sword to hand and now hurtled forward in the hope of reaching his charges first.

Lord, aid me!
Everard silently shouted as the startled young men, who had yet to heed his order, swung around to face him. “To me!” he barked.

They saw the danger, then—the one who charged, the raised dagger that sought blood—and gathered their legs beneath them.

Judas’s speed served him well, carrying him out of reach, but Charles fell behind. And the one who had become the pursuer, surely realizing he would require a shield to escape, seized the older boy and flung him to the ground.

The impact caused Charles to lose hold of his bow, but he quickly regained his feet. However, the deceptively slight Sir Morris moved with greater speed and dragged the squire in front of him.

Charles thrashed as he tried to retrieve his dagger, but even when it was taken from him and tossed aside, he went still only when his captor slammed his forearm against his neck and pressed a blade to the soft underbelly of the young man’s jaw.

Everard slowed, though he did not halt until Judas had gained his side.

“’Tis him,” the boy gasped, pointing with his bow at the one who had come to murder him, who had tried to ravish Susanna, who had just made the most perilous mistake of his soon-to-be shortened life.

Judas drew a shaky breath. “He is the one, my lord. He—”

“This I know,” Everard rasped as he surveyed Sir Morris whose unkempt, begrimed state evidenced he had been long in the wood awaiting this opportunity. Doubtless, his had been the presence felt at the waterfall.

Everard looked sidelong at Judas. “Stay here.”

“But Squire Charles—”

“Stay!”

Anger leapt in the boy’s eyes, but now was not the time for lessons. Thus, Everard gave him a warning glare and strode forward with his sword before him. “Release him, Sir Morris!”

The knight leaned in and propped his chin on the squire’s shoulder. “I thought you might remember me, Lord Wulfrith. Hence…” He swiftly drew back the dagger, causing Charles to suck air as a thin, red line appeared against his pale skin.

Everard stayed his advance, firmly planting his feet so he would not be tempted to rush the miscreant and cost the squire his life.

“I see we understand each other.” Sir Morris’s smile was a crooked, hunched thing.

“Release him,” Everard growled.

He snorted. “You know I cannot do that. This fine Wulfen knight-in-training is my surety.” He shifted his gaze to Judas. “Of course, I would have preferred it to be that slippery weakling but…” He shrugged. “…no matter since there can be no mystery as to that one’s death now all that is left to me is to go into hiding.”

It was true. He had been seen and, unless he could kill all three of them, those who had set him this grisly task would disavow him and whatever reward he had been promised.

The knight stepped back, taking Charles with him. “Your squire shall accompany me in the retrieval of my horse. And you, Lord Wulfrith, will stay where you are.”

“Nay.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You shall, else I will gut him where he stands.”

If Sir Morris was so fool—so reckless—to yield up his
surety
, it was better done here than to allow him to take the squire from sight where Charles might even more cruelly meet his end.

“Then all the sooner you will be mine, Sir Morris,” Everard said and realized he wanted that very much as he felt bloodlust seep into his veins, gathering to surge as it had not done in a long time.

And would not do so again, he determined, recalling when his father had hard-heartedly doled out the lesson against allowing revenge to foul decisions made from the hilt of a sword.

Control!
Drogo had snarled above Everard whom he had knocked face down in the dirt in the presence of all, his booted foot in the center of his young son’s back.
Naught will better land the blow than control. Naught will better determine the outcome. Naught will better ensure the state of your soul.

Everard had hated him for days after that, but had been forced to concede his sire was right when next he and his opponent met on the training field. Squire Jordan, three years older and accustomed to drawing blood that often required the physician’s services, had fallen beneath the control exercised by Everard. That day, it was Jordan whose flesh had submitted to the plying of a needle.

Everard returned to the present. “Take him, Sir Morris, but I
will
follow, and the moment you determine your surety is no longer needed, I shall prove otherwise.”

The man’s gaze wavered. It was his only hope. If he could reach his horse with Squire Charles in tow, escape was possible. Here, absent a shield, death was beyond possible.

Pulling the squire with him, he began backing away.

Everard stepped forward.

Charles grunted, for the knight had cut him again, this time a long score near the great vein in his neck.

“Keep your distance!” Sir Morris warned.

Everard gripped his hilt harder. As he allowed the man to widen the gap between them to another fifty feet, he heard the crackle of leaves and glanced around to find Judas advancing on him, bow at his side, arrow loosely nocked.

Returning his gaze to Sir Morris, Everard said across his shoulder in a voice that would not carry beyond Judas, “Find Sir Abel where he hunts in the wood over the ridge, and tell him we head northeast.” Even if Sir Morris changed course, there was none better at tracking than Abel. Not that Everard anticipated the need for help in taking down his prey, but he wanted Susanna’s nephew safely away from here.

When the footsteps continued to advance, Everard growled, “Did you not hear me?”

Judas drew alongside. “I heard.”

A glance at the boy showed his gaze was fastened on the two who were close to distancing themselves another fifty feet.

“Sir Morris tried to kill me,” he said, “and now he intends to kill my friend.”

Everard struggled for patience. “I will not lose any of my charges this day, nor will I see your aunt’s heart broken.” And it was possible, if not by Sir Morris’s foul play, then another of Judas’s breathing attacks that could force Everard to choose between giving him aid or Charles. “Go!”

The boy shook his head. “I will keep my breath about me. I vow I will.”

“Do as told!”

“I will not.” Though it was said firmly, it was edged with fear. “I shall come with you, Lord Wulfrith, and you will just have to make this another of my lessons.”

Such insolence was worthy of dire punishment, but the flint in Judas’s eyes told it would be a waste of time to argue it further. “Then stay close,” Everard barked.

For a quarter hour, they followed their prey, a slow progress since Sir Morris took no chance on becoming a target to an arrow or thrown dagger. Quickly, though surely not soon enough for the squire, they discovered how near they could draw before the young man suffered a cut. By the time Sir Morris’s destination became apparent—a thickly wooded area where a horse was tethered beside a stream—the upper portion of Charles’s tunic was steeped in the blood of a dozen dagger strokes.

“Stay close,” Everard told Judas again and lengthened his stride.

As expected, Sir Morris shouted for them to maintain their distance and retaliated with a sweep of his dagger, this one to the shoulder. The squire’s grunt of pain was met by Judas’s grunt of anger.

Praying the knight did not slay Charles, that he knew he needed to draw nearer his horse to have a chance of escape, Everard began to run.

Two more cuts, the last one causing the squire to stumble and nearly take Sir Morris to the ground with him.

“I shall kill him!” Judas spat where he ran alongside Everard, his breathing audible but seemingly without strain.

Sir Morris dragged a bent-over Charles to his feet and continued his backward flight, but though his pursuers neared, he did not apply the dagger again, surely realizing that further injury would slow his retreat and might cause him to lose his shield altogether.

Time and again, Everard gauged the distance between the knight and horse until he determined the place at which the knight might risk relinquishing his surety in hopes of gaining the saddle. He was almost there.

The sun flashing on and off Everard’s blade as he moved beneath the canopy of leaves, he increased his speed and found satisfaction in seeing desperation more deeply line Sir Morris’s face as he peered over his shoulder and back at Everard. His horse was yet too distant, pursuers too near—the latter now barely fifty feet away.

Sir Morris halted. Bracing his feet apart, he dragged Charles close, laid the edge of the dagger across his throat, and once more set his chin upon the squire’s shoulder. “Come no nearer, else his death shall be upon your head, Wulfrith!”

Everard heeded the warning and felt Judas’s roiling when the boy did the same. “Do you kill him, Sir Morris,” Everard shouted, “I will take you down like common game.” He nodded at the bow Judas held. “Release him, and I will grant you the opportunity to die like a man, perhaps even kill me.” He raised his sword higher.

The knight stole another glance at his horse, and the bitter smile that spread his lips revealed he recognized the hopelessness of his quest—and also told that he had made his decision. Death was at his door, but he would not be the only one standing there when the specter forced its way in.

Everard considered Squire Charles whose life was about to be sundered. The young man’s eyes, dark with fear, bright with unshed tears, awaited his.

Once more stirred by bloodlust, Everard began to imagine the ways in which he would exact revenge upon this vile, godless—

Control, Everard! There has to be a way. Think! Observe! Find!

“You believe me a fool,” Sir Morris called.

Almighty, show me ere the spilling of blood cannot be stemmed!

The knight shifted his weight. “Even if I slay you, and I assure you ’tis not beyond me, that whelp”—he jutted his chin at Judas—“will put an arrow through me.”

Everard looked sidelong at Judas and saw in his eyes what Sir Morris knew. The boy would aim as best he could and wish his arrow all the way to its mortal target. Only ten years old…

It must not come to that.

Determined that Judas would not lose his friend, that he would be dealt no further emotional wounds that could push him over an edge from which he might never be retrieved, Everard focused on Sir Morris. And there, in the straddling of the miscreant’s legs, in the lessons of the one held before him at dagger’s edge, was the answer. A poor one since it could go horribly wrong, but the only one.

“Release him,” Everard called, “else the squire may forget a lesson he found difficult to learn—one I would encourage him to set aside this one time.” He shifted his eyes to Charles and watched a frown crawl across the young man’s face.

“What say you?” Sir Morris demanded.

Understanding widened Charles’s eyes, and it was he who answered his captor by once more embracing the fighting strategy to which he had often turned when he had first arrived at Wulfen. With a shout surely fed by every drop of blood cut from his flesh, he kicked his right leg back and up between Sir Morris’s legs.

The knight howled.

Praying the dagger at Charles’s throat would be displaced as the two fell backward, Everard lunged.

Flailing. Cursing. Scrabbling. Grunting. Then the flash of the blade. And more blood.

“Nay!” Everard bellowed as the squire, a hand to his neck, life trickling between his fingers, broke free of the knight. He made it to his knees, dragged a foot beneath him, and fell onto his side.

Almighty!
It was all Everard had time to send heavenward before Sir Morris stumbled upright, transferred the bloody dagger to the opposite hand, and jerked his sword from its scabbard.

Despite the smaller man having been incapacitated by Charles’s blow, one that put a bend in his back and shoulders, he was quick to deflect Everard’s sword. Then he was to the right, raising his blade overhead to ward off the next blow, thrusting his dagger forward in an attempt to pierce his opponent’s heart.

Everard registered the sting long enough to also register that his control was slipping again. Forcing out all thoughts of Charles who might already be lost to them, he focused his awareness on every inch of his body in relation to the knight who had leapt backward and was positioning himself to transition from defensive to offensive. Then Everard charged.