Ulmar dutifully walked forward, though he clearly didn’t want to engage an armed, angry knight. And now Alric and Octavian had joined the fight, wreaking havoc.
Before Rafe could do anything—whether fight or try to get to Angelet—Goswin rushed toward him at full speed.
“Distract them!” he hissed. “She’s fine. She’s only playacting now!” Then he started to run in a circle around the group, drawing several pairs of eyes due to the way he was waving his hands and yelling.
Rafe glanced at the still form of Angelet on the ground. She certainly didn’t seem to be pretending. But he had to trust that she was. He rushed Ulmar, keeping the gigantic guard’s attention on him.
Fighting always made Rafe’s muscles tense and his whole body heat up as though a fever was coming on him. He always felt like he could hear everything, smell everything. No matter how many times he fought, each time felt like the first, the primal fear of death reaching out to him. But having faced that fear so many times, Rafe also knew how to get through it, using his heightened senses to focus within the inevitable chaos that all fights created.
Ulmar swung his blade like a woodcutter swung an ax. Rafe could tell the other man relied on pure mass and intimidation to win his fights. However, Ulmar had probably never fought a trained knight before, and not one as well-trained as Rafe. The big man showed not a trace of the fear Rafe always felt, but he knew it was there.
Despite his earlier hasty words, Rafe didn’t want to kill him, so he kept parrying, waiting for an opening to deliver a blow that would just incapacitate the man. But the situation grew dicier when another guard rushed up to attack Rafe from behind. He dodged the first blow, and ducked out of the way.
Ulmar howled as his next swing hit not Rafe, but his other ally. Rafe took advantage of Ulmar’s second of surprise to hit him hard in the side of the head with the flat of his blade. Then he kicked at Ulmar’s knee, causing it to buckle. The giant slid down, clutching at his head, moaning.
Rafe moved away, and saw that Alric and Octavian were both fighting just as he was. The two knights had started fighting as a pair, but got drawn away from each other, exposing their backs.
Yet another fighter went for Alric, wielding his own sword with much more skill than Ulmar did. Rafe yelled out a warning.
Alric turned just in time to avoid being struck. He shifted to avoid being trapped, and regrouped with Octavian.
Rafe turned, intent on getting to Angelet. All of a sudden, a crossbow bolt rushed past him and buried itself in the ground a few feet beyond, not far from Angelet’s prone form.
“Hell,” he muttered, tracing the path back to see where it had come from.
The path led directly to Bethany, who stood yards away from the farmhouse, holding the weapon. She cursed at missing and set about reloading.
“Bethany.” Suddenly, Rafe knew she’d been the one who was responsible for the previous attacks, that she regarded Angelet as more of a threat than any of the knights.
“Bethany, get over here!” Ernald had avoided the fight, instead moving to one of the saddled horses in the paddock. “This is not the time for revenge.”
“Everyone’s always fighting over her,” Bethany said. “Why? She’s a freak, and she should have run while she had the chance!” Now Bethany held the weapon at the ready, sighting the unprotected form of Angelet, ready to shoot once again.
“Don’t you dare,” Ernald yelled, furious that Bethany wasn’t listening. “She still has a use.”
“I will!” Bethany shouted back at her lover, her composure gone. “I won’t miss this time!”
But she didn’t fire. There was a whistling sound, and Bethany dropped the crossbow, transfixed by the shaft of an arrow protruding from her neck.
Everyone was silent for an endless moment, as Bethany collapsed, dead.
“They have archers!” Ernald shouted. “Mount up! Ride!” He went for the nearest horse, got up and rode off, without waiting to see if any of his men were with him, and without any more thought for his slain lover.
“He’s getting away!” Rafe yelled to his fellow knights.
“Let him go.”
Rafe looked down, where Angelet lay, her eyes now open and alert. “Let him go,” she repeated quietly. “Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” he said, helping her up.
Once on her feet, Angelet embraced him, heedless of how it would look. He held her tightly for a moment, absurdly happy to know she was safe. Then he released her. “Enough of that,” he muttered. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Angelet sighed. “What happened was simple. Ernald followed us all this way, and then took Goswin in order to get me out of Cleobury.” She explained everything, concluding that she had been foolish to trust Ulmar. By then Octavian and Alric joined them, and Goswin also hovered near.
“I should have known something was wrong,” Angelet said at last.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Rafe said. “You thought it was an emergency, and you couldn’t have known Cleobury’s guards all by sight.”
