Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,47

to outrun pursuers.

Once Zedekiah’s feet were in the stirrups and reins in hand, Vitalis strode to where Nicola awaited him, but before he could swing into the saddle, the trap was sprung. And not by the riders whose horses had yet to be felt and heard. Three men came on foot, possibly from the house or around its backside, and one of those who carried torches was Sir Daryl.

Vitalis unsheathed his sword and lunged forward to cut down the short-haired Norman who swung the hinged door closed. Though he could not reach it before it settled in its frame, there was a chance he could before the bar sealed them inside and provided the grinning Daryl time to torch the stable.

“Burn Vitalis, King William’s enemy!” the traitorous Saxon called. “Burn, Zedekiah the smithy! Burn, Bjorn’s woman!”

The door slammed into place, and the sound of the bar sliding toward the bracket sounded like a death knell.

Vitalis threw his weight against it, and it gave, but he would never know if that alone kept the bar from crossing the seam and fitting into the iron bracket. What he knew was Zedekiah’s command of his mount ensured the door did not remain in its frame, his rearing horse landing its hooves on the planks and reversing the turning of hinges.

As the chevalier who closed the door stumbled back, Vitalis swung up behind Nicola who had shown sense in urging his mount forward.

“Head down, arms in!” he commanded as he snatched the reins from her, knowing the smaller she made herself, the greater the range of movement and force of the sword he would wield against the three who, no longer able to murder with fire, had traded torches for blades.

Zedekiah forging ahead, leaning to the side to extend the reach of his sword, caught the man to Daryl’s right across the forearm, causing the Norman to spin away and drop to a knee.

That left two for Vitalis. “Ride, Zedekiah!” he bellowed, knowing it unlikely his friend had more fight in him even were he taken with bloodlust. But as Vitalis slashed at the chevalier who had failed to bar the door, his misguided blade finding no pleasure in grinding its edge across a mail-covered abdomen, Zedekiah came back around and set himself at Daryl.

“’Tis time to join your sire in hell, whelp!” he shouted.

“Nay, Zedekiah!” Vitalis roared, all the more angered for missing his mark because of the woman before him who could not make herself small enough to avoid interfering with his swings.

But his friend paid him no heed, determined to make a path for Vitalis and Nicola. And that he would have done had he the speed and strength possessed before Danes left him for dead in the alley.

The sword with which Daryl defended himself not only turned aside Zedekiah’s blow but spun the Saxon’s weapon out of his hand. Then the injured chevalier who had been dropped to a knee was on his feet again. As Zedekiah struggled to remain in the saddle and turn his mount aside, the man leapt forward, swung high, and opened up the neck of the smithy-turned-warrior.

Like an echo in a distant valley, Vitalis heard Nicola scream above the raging of his own blood and the pained shout of the Norman who now paid with his life for what he had done to the worthiest Saxon.

As a slash to the place between the chevalier’s neck and shoulder dropped him on his face, Vitalis turned to aid Zedekiah and saw his friend was being dragged from atop his frantic mount by the Norman whose chain mail had saved him from Vitalis’s blade. Zedekiah’s eyes met Vitalis’s and he shook his head on his bloodied neck before landing hard on the ground.

If not for the woman before Vitalis and that Daryl was a heartbeat from thrusting his sword into one or both, no amount of pleading would have kept Vitalis from slaying the chevalier who dealt Zedekiah another blow.

Something far from sanity prevailing, Vitalis turned aside with no time to spare, as told by his horse’s enraged cry when the blade intended for its master cut its haunch.

Vitalis spurred away, and as Nicola convulsed and gasped, reined in at a distance.

To fix the evil in his mind, he told himself. And yet, if not for the riders whose appearance Nicola and Zedekiah had warned about, he might have flung himself back into the frenzy of Daryl and his man who desecrated Zedekiah’s body as if they believed