AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Never!” Gideon replied.
Cautiously, I made my way forward to the horses. As I did so, I almost fell over something yellow. I only just managed to suppress a scream. It was the man in the yellow coat. He had fallen off the coachman’s box and was lying on his back in the sand. I saw, with horror, that part of his face was missing and his clothes were drenched in blood. The eye of the undamaged part of his face was wide open, looking into nowhere.
The shot I’d heard had been aimed at him. It was a ghastly sight; I felt my stomach churn. I’d never seen a dead person before. I’d have given anything to be sitting in the cinema now so I could close my eyes and know it wasn’t real.
But this was real. This man was dead, and Gideon was out there in genuine danger of death himself.
The clash of metal roused me from my numb state. Gideon groaned, and that finally brought me back to my senses.
Before I knew what I was doing, I’d spotted the sword at the dead man’s side and clutched it tightly.
It was much heavier than I’d expected, but I immediately felt better. True, I had no idea how to handle a sword, but it was certainly sharp and pointed, I knew that all right.
The fighting carried on. I risked a glance around the coach and saw that the two men had managed to force Gideon back against it on the other side. Some strands of his hair had worked free from the ribbon holding it back and fallen over his forehead. One of his sleeves was ripped wide, but to my relief I saw no blood. He was still uninjured.
I looked all around one last time, but there was no help in sight. Weighing up the sword in my hand, I stepped firmly forward. At least the sight of me would distract the two men. I might be able to give Gideon an advantage that way.
Instead, the opposite happened. The two men were fighting with their backs to me, so they didn’t see me, but Gideon’s eyes widened in horror when he caught sight of me.
For a fraction of a second, he hesitated, and that was long enough for one of the black-clad strangers to score another hit on him, just next to his ripped sleeve. But this time blood flowed. Gideon fought on as if nothing had happened.
“You can’t last much longer!” cried the man triumphantly, attacking Gideon with more force than before. “Pray if you can, because you are about to meet your maker!”
I clasped the hilt of my sword in both hands and ran at him, ignoring Gideon’s shocked expression. The men didn’t hear me coming. They didn’t notice me until the sword had sliced through the black coat that one of them was wearing and slid soundlessly into his flesh. For a frightful moment, I thought I must have missed—maybe I’d run the sword through the gap between the man’s body and his arm. But then his breathing slowed. He let go of his weapon and dropped to the ground like a felled tree. I couldn’t bring myself to release the hilt of the sword until he was lying there, nearly dead.
Oh, my God.
Gideon used the other man’s momentary alarm to thrust at him so hard that he too fell to his knees.
“Are you out of your mind?” Gideon shouted at me as he kicked his opponent’s sword aside with his foot and put the point of his own blade to the man’s neck.
The other man collapsed entirely. “Please … please, let me live,” he said.
My teeth were beginning to chatter.
This can’t have happened. I didn’t really just run a sword through a man’s body—did I?
The man I’d attacked let out another gurgling breath. The other one looked as if he was about to burst into tears.
“Who are you, and what do you want from us?” asked Gideon coldly.
“I was only obeying orders. Please don’t!”
“Who ordered you to do what?” A drop of blood formed on the man’s throat where the point of the sword met it. Gideon’s lips were tightly compressed, as if he could only just manage to keep the blade still.
“I don’t know any names. I swear I don’t.” And then his face, distorted by fear, began to blur in front of me. The green grass of the park spun around and around. I closed my eyes, almost relieved to fall into the whirlpool.
THIRTEEN
I’D MADE A SOFT landing in the middle of my own skirts, but I was in no fit state to stand up. Every bone in my body seemed to have dissolved, I was trembling all over, and my teeth were chattering frantically.
“Get up!” Gideon held out his hand to me. He had put his sword back in his belt. I saw, with a shudder, that there was blood on it. “Come on, Gwyneth! People are already looking at us.”
It was evening, and it must have been dark for some time, but we’d landed under a streetlight somewhere in the park. A jogger with headphones on glanced at us in surprise as he ran past.
“Didn’t I tell you to wait in the coach?” I didn’t react, so Gideon took my arm and pulled me to my feet. His face was completely drained of color. “That was incredibly reckless and … dreadfully dangerous and…” He swallowed hard and stared at me. “And, dammit all, rather brave of you.”
“I thought when the blade struck a rib I’d feel it,” I said, my teeth still chattering. “I didn’t expect it to be like … like cutting up a cake. Why didn’t that man have any bones?”
