Griffin let go of her arms and slipped his hands between their bodies, tugging Charlie’s belt. “You’ve got your sword belt caught on mine.” He smirked up at her. “You know, if you wanted me, all you had to do was ask, Charlie. You’re very pretty, and I could be convinced.”
Furious, Charlie tried to jerk away from him again and caused them both to slide a few inches down the hill.
“Damn it, Charlie, I almost had it.” He gave her belt another tug, and she was free.
Charlie pushed herself away from him and scrambled to her feet, still fuming. She immediately began searching for her sword, fulling intended to stab Griffin with it for his cheek. She found his first instead, seized it with both hands, and hurled it recklessly at him. Griffin had just stood up, and the sword barely missed striking him. They both stared at each other, equally shocked.
A shout broke through the air, startling them. Two mounted knights shot from the trees, riding toward them. Griffin turned his attention warily toward them. Charlie began looking for her sword. The knights skidded to a halt before Griffin.
“Griffin!” one of them exclaimed with delight.
Griffin’s face lit with recognition. “Emmett! What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” the yellow-haired young man replied, glancing at Charlie, who scowled at him.
“Oh, just having a friendly little fencing match,” Griffin said pleasantly.
“Wasn’t much what it looked like,” Emmett remarked, giving Charlie another look. “You haven’t got a sword, Griffin.”
“It’s over there somewhere,“Griffin said, unconcerned. “Wherever it fell after Charlie threw it at me.” He absentmindedly began to kick the leaves looking for it.
Emmett cleared his throat uncertainly. “Going to introduce us, Griffin?”
“Oh, yes,” Griffin said. “This is Charlie. What are you two doing out here?”
“Lord Boring sent us to Giblain with some supposedly important message,” Emmett replied. “Of course, you know he sees every sneeze as a plague. Why are you out here? I thought he sent you somewhere too.” He couldn’t seem to stop looking at Charlie even while speaking to Griffin.
A faint look of annoyance crossed Griffin’s face. “I’m on my way to Hawk’s Rest at the moment. I’ll probably have another destination after that.”
Emmett nodded. Finally he seemed unable to help himself and addressed Charlie directly. “Is everything all right out here? He isn’t…bothering you or anything is he? Because whatever we rode up on looked a little strange.”
All three men were looked at her now, waiting, and in her irritation, Charlie fantasized a moment about announcing that Griffin was in fact harassing her and watching the knights take him away with them, leaving her blessedly alone. But all she said was a grudging, “No, he isn’t bothering me.”
“Are you sure?” He gave Griffin an apologetic look. “Sorry, Griffin, I just feel like I have to ask.”
Griffin, who had gone so still during the conversation as to render himself invisible, now simply shrugged.
“I’m sure,” Charlie said flatly. “He isn’t bothering me.”
“All right then. We had better get going. We have to make it across the river before it’s completely dark. Would you two care to join us for a bit? Safety in numbers and all.”
“We’ve already set up camp for the night. We’d only slow you down packing up to move. You two go on,” Griffin told him.
The knight seemed to find this answer acceptable. “Farewell, then. See you at the winter balls if we don’t cross paths before then.” He waved to Griffin and bowed to Charlie, and he and his companion rode back the way they had come.
Charlie let the silence drag on until the men were far out of sight. She turned her head slowly to look at Griffin.
He was looking back at her. “Well,” he said mildly. “Thanks for not crying rapist and having them drag me away. I’m a little surprised you didn’t take them up on the opportunity since you’re always trying to get rid of me.” He paused. “And considering the absolute rudeness of what I just said to you a few minutes ago. It was crude and ungentlemanly, and you have my humblest apologies.” He even bowed slightly.
“It would have been a lie,” she replied, discomfited by his sincerity. “And they wouldn’t have taken you anyway. They would have taken me to ‘protect me,’ and then I’d have two stupid knights to deal with instead of one. Nice of your friend to doubt your intentions toward me though.”
Griffin had located his sword, and they both walked slowly back to their camp. “Emmett? He’s just zealous about trying to be a hero. He’s outright stupid sometimes, but at least he wants to help. They’ll never make it to the river before it’s too dark—especially if Emmett’s in charge of the map.”
“Who was the other knight?” she asked, pulling the tie from her hair.
“I don’t know him very well. He doesn’t talk very much.”
“I noticed,” she said as she watched him roll out his bed. “You’re going to a place called Hawk’s Rest?”
Even in the dim light she could see the annoyance in his face. “Maybe. It’s my great aunt’s home, and I might stop. I just said that to Emmett.”
“Why are they using knights as couriers? And aren’t I slowing you down?” Charlie wanted to know.
“Not really. I was heading east anyway, and I’m in no hurry. Are you trying to distract me from the fact that you actually just hurled a bladed weapon at me? If that had hit me, I could have died.”
She was quiet, uncomfortable with how embarrassed she was by her own actions. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
Griffin seemed prepared to dismiss his brush with death in light of his own sins. “Oh, well, the important thing is I won the bet,” he teased.
“You didn’t!” Charlie protested. “Nobody won. We fell down a hill.”
“All right,” Griffin consented. “We’ll call it a draw. I’ll keeping asking you questions, and you’ll keep not answering them. Deal?”
“Deal,” Charlie agreed.
* * *
6
Enemies and Friends
Griffin threw a log onto the fire, sending sparks flying into the air. A spark landed on the map Charlie held, burning a hole in the Black Sea. Charlie scowled at him. He shrugged but didn’t apologize.
She went back to brooding over her map. A rustling noise drew her attention to the trees to her left. She stared for a long moment, but she couldn’t see anything in the dark, and the noise didn’t repeat itself. She glanced at Griffin. He was reclining with his eyes closed, half-asleep. She went back to what she was doing, but her concentration was lost.
A moment later, she heard the noise again, several yards away this time. Again, Charlie stared vainly into the dark woods, absently folding the map and tucking it into her tunic. “Griffin,” she said as softly as she could.
Griffin opened his eyes and started to speak, then stopped, understanding at once that something was wrong. He sat up and gave her an inquisitive look.
She pointed to her ear, still staring at the spot where she had heard the noise.
Griffin listened, then gave her a small shrug. He couldn’t hear anything.
Charlie heard the rustle again and tracked its new location with her eyes. Griffin looked where she was looking, but he didn’t seem to see or hear anything. He looked at her questioningly. Increasingly uneasy, Charlie broke her focus from the still, silent spot in the woods and glanced all around their camp for any sign of trouble. Their horses were both standing with their heads raised and their ears pricked in the direction of the woods. She pointed at them. Griffin had just turned to look when the snap of a twig drew their attention in the opposite direction. As before the noise was followed by a long period of silence. The horses were beginning to shift about and snort softly, and Charlie began to fear the source of the rustling was wolves. She stood and walked toward them, intending to c
alm them down.
“Charlie, wait,” Griffin said softly, standing up himself and continuing to watch the trees.
Right as she turned back to face him, a large hand clapped over her mouth and a grizzly arm clamped her arms to her sides. Frantically, she began to struggle hard, kicking her captor’s shins and jabbing backward with her elbows. She found her sword-hilt but couldn’t get an arm free to draw the sword.
At the sound of her struggle, Griffin turned back to look at her. Alarmed, he dashed toward her, sword drawn. Before he could reach her, a flurry of assailants shot from the trees behind him, forcing him to spin to defend himself.
Charlie’s captor was hauling her away from the fight. With one last, frantic attempt, she jerked an arm free long enough to grab the hilt of the knife stuck in the top of her boot. The man had seized her upper arm again, limiting her movement, so she drove the knife into his thigh, the only part of him she could reach. He howled in pain, and his grip slackened, allowing her to twist free. With an unnatural clear-headedness and speed, she spun and struck her attacker in the nose as hard as she could so his eyes would water and he wouldn’t be able to see to chase her. Leaving him crippled and half-blind, she ripped her sword from its sheath and pelted toward Griffin.
Griffin’s attackers had circled him, and he was sweeping them back with his sword. None of the bandits had weapons long enough to challenge the range of a knight’s sword, but they far outnumbered him and would overpower him as soon as they predicted his next move and coordinated their efforts. When he was forced to lunge to one side to parry a blow, the men on the other side of the circle made to seize him from behind. Without thinking, Charlie slashed viciously at their legs. Both men cried out as their knees buckled beneath them. Their collapse had the dual benefits of drawing attention away from Griffin and of impeding the movements of their nearby comrades as they fell. Griffin took advantage of the confusion to run his sword through an opponent, duck away from his other attackers, and leap over the pile of collapsed bandits.
As soon as he landed, he seized Charlie’s arm and ran, dragging her with him. Unable to look behind her and still keep up with Griffin, Charlie was frightened, expecting a hand to grab her and pull her down at any second. Griffin hauled her toward their campfire where he paused to snatch something from the ground where he had been sitting,then yanked her a few more steps toward where he’d left his bow. He skidded to a halt, stopping her so short that she landed on her knees. The bandits were bearing down on them as Griffin raised the object in his hand and shouted.
Charlie watched in horror as a knife-wielding man lunged for Griffin with a growl of fury. Instead of the deadly blade making contact, the bandit’s body was bounced backward as if he had run into a wall. Unable to arrest their movements, several of his companions trampled over him, only to be repulsed in the same manner.
Still gripping her sword, Charlie stood shakily. A faint, shimmering wall of light had appeared around them, like a giant soap bubble an arm’s span across. Griffin gripped her arm and pulled her toward him. “Stay very close,” he warned softly, not taking his eyes away from the men grouping cautiously in front of them. He had his sword in one hand and the wood carving he had been making in the other.
One of the bandits broke away from the murmuring crowd and aimed a hard downward blow of his mace at them with a ferocious shout. The mace hit their protective bubble and glanced away again. At this failure, the remaining bandits drew away to plot among themselves, casting looks back at Charlie and Griffin.
“Are you all right?”Griffin asked quietly.
Charlie contemplated. She could feel the swelling around her black eye, and her mouth was bleeding. She was covered in bruises where her assailant had grabbed her, but she was still too hyped from the skirmish to really feel the pain. “I’m fine. How about you?”
“Fine,” he said. He had dabs of blood on his clothing, but she wasn’t sure if it was his.
“Are we safe in here?” She kept her voice quiet as he had done.
“I think so.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. We need to assume it’s temporary and make plans.” He tucked the wood carving into his tunic and sheathed his sword. “Hand me my quiver.”
Charlie passed him the quiver, which he slung over his shoulder, then his bow. Their movements had attracted the attention of the bandits, who were starting to gather around them again. Griffin notched an arrow and stood watching the menacing crowd of dirty, scarred men in tattered clothing, his face as unreadable as a stone wall. They had wounded several of the party, and the man Griffin had killed was still lying on the ground, forgotten.
“Can you shoot out of this thing?” Charlie whispered very softly.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back, not moving his lips. “Kneel down in case it ricochets, and be ready to fight if the protection breaks.
Trembling, Charlie dropped to one knee and held her sword at the ready to lunge.
Griffin waited until the next impatient man decided to try his luck, this time with a large hunting knife. Griffin’s arrow broke cleanly through the bubble and lodged itself perfectly in the attacker’s throat. A bubble of blood welled out of the man’s mouth, and he slowly fell backward, where he lay on the ground gurgling quietly.
While Charlie stared at the dying man with horror, Griffin watched him impassively for a moment, then reached for another arrow.
“Stay down so if I have to swing around I can do it over your head,” Griffin told her, still not moving his lips.
The next man to attempt to breach their protective circle was stopped short by the arrow sprouting from his chest. After that, the handful of remaining bandits seemed to conclude that more circumspection was in order. They moved away from their cornered prey and began to explore the rest of the camp for something more productive.
Charlie looked up at Griffin. His gaze was tracking the bandits as they found and began to rummage through their saddlebags; his face was impassive.
“What are we going to do?” she asked quietly. “Can you shoot the rest of them?”
“Maybe, if I do it patiently. I can’t afford a bad shot, and I don’t want to encourage them to attack us again by harrying them.” He risked a quick glance downward at her. “I really don’t know what kind of force this thing can withstand, or how long I can maintain it.”
A bandit had now dug Charlie’s little pouch of jewelry out of her bag and was examining the contents. Griffin took careful aim, but a shout from a comrade warned his target in time for him to move. The arrow hit his shoulder, only wounding him.
Griffin cursed and reached for a new arrow.
The bandits had become savvy to Griffin. They were now more careful not to give him a clear target, knowing he couldn’t waste arrows firing multiple shots. They dragged saddlebags behind trees to paw through them, discarding all of Charlie and Griffin’s belongings in careless heaps around them. Having rooted out all of the valuables, they moved on to the horses.
Charlie heard Griffin huff with anger as a man reached for his gelding’s halter. He raised his bow, but he couldn’t take the shot without risking hitting his own horse. Fortunately, the black horse was not in a compliant mood. Already on edge from the activity around him, the horse moved away to the extent his rope allowed, his eyes rolling anxiously. When the man continued to reach for him, he darted forward knocking the man down. The bandit stood as his friends jeered and encouraged him to try again. This time he made a more determined grab for the halter. The gelding slung his head upward, yanking the man off his feet. Angered, the man tried a third time, his embarrassment in front of his companions making his movements aggressive. The horse had had enough—instead of trying to evade capture, he bolted straight for the man, pulling his picketing stake out of the ground. He barreled into the man, knocking him down and trampling him solidly. After a flurry of dust and screaming, the gelding darted away into the trees, leaving a limp, crumpled body lying on the ground.
<
br /> After a moment of stunned silence, a member of the diminished band approached the body and nudged it over with his boot. Having determined his companion was either dead or nearly so, he muttered something to the rest of the crew, and they turned a speculative eye toward Charlie’s mare, who had been racing around her picket line in fear the entire time.
“No,” Charlie whispered. She didn’t think her riding horse would put up the same fight as Griffin’s warhorse.
“Steady,” Griffin said quietly to her. “Ahem,” he said aloud, drawing the bandits’ attention. When they turned and looked at him, he shot one of them in the chest, sending the rest of them scattering to shelter.
The most recent shot had pushed the bandits to come to a decision. They gathered behind a clump of trees to plot, casting furtive looks at their targets.
“This is about to come to an end,” Griffin said grimly. “They’re making a plan to attack, and so must we. If they attack us with enough force concentrated in one place, they’ll probably break through, and even if they don’t, we can’t stay in here indefinitely.” He glanced down at her, his eyes serious. “If they rush us, I’ll only be able to shoot one of them before they’re too close. If one gets close enough, could you stab him with your sword?”
Charlie felt her stomach drop. “Yes,” she said shortly, staring straight ahead. “Yes, I can do it.”
“Good. If we succeed in taking two of them out, we’ll have evened the odds. If it looks possible, I’ll rush the other two. If I do, the protection will break.” The bandits were turning toward them, weighing the weapons in their hands. “Run for the trees and wait for me to call you back when it’s safe.”
“Ha!” Charlie replied.
“Fine.” He nudged her gently with his foot. “Stay down where you are. Thrust upward through the belly. Hold tightly so your sword doesn’t get pulled from your hands when he falls backward. Got it?”
The Silver Key Page 15