The castle was almost eerily quiet. No lights were visible atop the walls, no shouts rang out, no alarm bells sounded. Only a few guards were marching to and fro atop the outer wall, and those, Ayla realized with some surprise, were not equipped with torches.

Behind the crenels, though, out of sight of the enemy army, there was a different sight. Line upon line of fierce, grim-faced defenders, armed with bows, axes, crossbows, guisarms, swords, and any other kind of weapon you could think of. Every single one of them was crouching down or sitting, so their heads would not be visible above the crenels. The guards that walked the walls ignored them, as if they weren't there.

"What the heck is going on here?" Ayla muttered to Theoderich, gesturing up at the strange sight above her, up on the walls. "What's the meaning of this... sitting parade?"

The boy shrank back. "I don't know, Milady. You'll have to ask Sir Reuben."

"Oh, I will, trust me! Where is the blaggard?"

"I believe Milord is in his command center."

"Indeed?" One of Ayla's eyebrows rose, dangerously. "And pray tell me, where is Milord's command center located?"

"Um... at the north tower, Milady."

Ayla gestured. "Very well then. Lead me to Milord and announce my presence. I have a few things to say to him."

"Err... Yes, of course, Milady."

Theoderich hurried ahead, his ears red. Ayla followed him to the northernmost point of the wall, where one of the highest of the castle's towers gave an ideal vantage point over the Lunt Valley. Or it would have given an ideal vantage point, if the night hadn't been pitch-dark. As Ayla stepped out onto the wall from the spiral staircase of the north tower, everyone was still sitting in blackness. The only reason she could make out Reuben's shape among the others on the wall was, because even sitting, he managed to tower over everyone else.

"There you are!"

Reuben's head, facing towards the valley, his eyes just peeking over the top of one crenel, snapped around at her low hiss. A grin spread over his face. The white glint of his teeth was pretty much all she could see of his face in the dark.

"Milady! Come to join our little gathering, have you?

"No! I've come to ask you what the heck you're up to!"

"Oh. Well, you can still join our merry little band. Come, you beef-witted louts! Move your asses!"

He gestured to the men crouching beside him, who hastily moved their asses and the rest of themselves, too, vacating a space for Ayla.

"I've got better things to do than sit with you bladder-headed idiots on a rock wall all night," Ayla whispered. "Why did you send for me? The boy said you sent him to tell me that the castle was under attack!"

"No."

"No? You didn't send him?"

"Oh, I sent him all right. But I didn't say the castle is under attack—because it isn't. At least not yet. But..." He glanced over the wall again, "It's going to be, in about five minutes."

The look Ayla gave him could have roasted a whole boar. But the insolent cur in front of her just grinned wider!

"How I have missed these amusing chats with you," he remarked, absent-mindedly. "You know, it's not nearly as much fun if you simply glare at me in silent disapproval."

"I'll do a whole lot more than glare at you if you don't explain what is going on right this minute!"

"No need to rush. As I said, we've got at least five minutes before the enemy tries to exterminate us."

"Reuben!"

"Very well..." Sighing, he pointed down into the castle courtyard, dozen of yards below, to the gatehouse and the little door set into the stone beside the main gates.

"I sent a few a few of your men out of the castle every night to keep watch, and alert me if the enemy makes a move to attack. Don't look so disapproving. They were all hunters and woodsman, well capable of concealing themselves from the enemy."

"Why send out scouts at all?" Ayla demanded, trying her best to rein in her anger at the unnecessary risk he'd put her people in. "Keeping watch is what the guards on the walls are for, isn't it? At least it would be, if they could see!" She through him a dirty look. "I suppose I needn't ask whose brilliant idea it was to send them out on watch without any torches?"

"Guilty as charged," Reuben said, cheerily. The blaggard's grin didn't diminish one jot.

"Why, Reuben? For God's sake why? How are they supposed to see, without any light?"

He gave her an almost pitying look, and she felt her hands twitch with a strong urge to strangle him. She didn't. Firstly, because she was a good Christian, and would never commit such a sin, and secondly and more importantly, because the son of a witch was already wearing a steel bevor around his neck.

"Light doesn't make you see better," he said to her, in the tone of a schoolmaster talking to a thick-headed, but perhaps not hopelessly stupid child. "It blinds you."

Ayla turned to throw an inquiring glance at Theoderich. "Has he gone and cracked his head, or something?"

Theoderich, caught between the Lady he was sworn to protect, and the knight master who wouldn't hesitate to tan his hide, gulped, and preferred not to answer. His opinion, though, was clear on his face.

"You have, haven't you?" Ayla turned back to Reuben, who actually had the gall to look offended. "How are you supposed to see at night without torches?"

Reuben looked thoughtful for a moment—then motioned her over. "Come. Let me show you."

Hesitantly, Ayla stepped nearer, crouching down behind the crenels, right beside him.

"See there?" Carefully raising a hand over the crenels, Reuben pointed to the distant enemy camp, where still a few campfires burned. "You can see the fires, can't you?"

"Yes, of course I can!"

"And the men walking around between them?"

"Yes."

"And do you think they can see us?"

"No, of course not! They'd be blinded by the li—"

Ayla stopped in mid-sentence, realizing what she'd just been about to say.

Reuben nodded. There was no cockiness on his face now, not even a grin. It was that fact that made Ayla listen more than anything else.

"It's a bit of a strange concept, and most soldiers don't understand it. But if you spend a few years with a band of robbers in the Holy Land, doing nocturnal raids on caravans, you learn quickly enough. Light makes you easy prey at night. You have to learn to see without it, or don't see at all."

He gestured to the guards marching atop the walls.

"If I'd allowed them to keep their torches, as soon as the enemy attacks, they'd be shot down like flies. We'd lose a dozen men or more, just for a bit of fire. Like this, the enemy won't know where to shoot."

He reached over, covering her hand with his.

"I promised to take care of your people, Ayla, and I will."

Ayla felt a surge of warmth shoot through her. Her temper cooled considerably, she squeezed his hand.

"And what about us two, and all these other fighters?" she asked in a low voice. "Why are we sitting behind the crenels, whispering?"

"Because I don't want the enemy to know that we know they're coming, nor how many of us there are—not until the very last moment."

There were a few moments of silence.

"Oh." Ayla bit her lip. "Well, if that's it... I guess, that's all right then."

"Thank you for your ringing endorsement of my brilliant strategy." He shot a sideways smirk at her. "I gather you no longer think I hit my head too hard on something?"

"No! But I'm going to take care of that for you if you don't wipe that smirk of your face!"

"Charming as ever, Milady."

Carefully, very carefully, Ayla peeked over the top of the wall. At first, she couldn't see a thing. Then, slowly, as her eyes grew used to the darkness, she could make out the shapes of dark trees in the distance, swaying gently in front of a lighter night sky.

Yes, the sky was lighter than the forest. There weren't many stars to be seen, but the few that shone in the gaps between the clouds threw an eerie half-light onto the ground. Ayla thought she could almost make out the path that led up the rough mountainside towards the castle. And on the path...

"Mary Mother of God!" she whispered.

"I hate to disappoint you, Milady," she heard his voice from beside her, "but I think whoever is coming to call on us, it isn't the Holy Virgin."

"Shut up!"

But Ayla didn't think it was the Holy Virgin coming, either. For one thing, Saint Mary didn't usually wear metal helmets that glinted faintly in the moonlight. For another, she didn't have that many heads and feet.

Men were coming up the path. Men in Armor.

It suddenly struck Ayla that this was it. The battle they had all been waiting for, had all ben dreading, had finally come. Cold shot down her spine. Not a shiver, not a feeling of unease, but a cold, hard, spike of ice driving into her back, unleashing untamable terror.

Falkenstein was on his way to keep his bloody promise.

"Or maybe it is the Virgin Mary, after all," Reuben mused beside her. "I mean, we've never met in person, so I can't be sure—maybe she does have a scraggly beard and more flees than a hibernating bear."

"Will you shut your blasphemous mouth?"

"Not unless it's absolutely necessary, no."

Throwing aside a glance at him, she saw that he was still grinning. It was that grin again, the one that made you expect that any time now, his eyes would start to glow red in the dark and a little horns would peak out from between his unruly mass of black hair.

"Aren't you afraid at all?" she hissed.

"No, of course not. Why?"

"Why? How about because we could all die tonight?"

"No we couldn't. If they manage to take the castle, it'll take them at least two or three days of heavy fighting. So if we all die, it won't be until the day after tomorrow."

"How comforting!"

His grin flashed again, then disappeared, plunging the rest of him into darkness. "Comfort is my middle name."

Ayla glared at him. Even in the dark, he must have felt it. She caught the motion of a shrug among the shadows.

"Why should I be afraid, Milady? I've fought hundreds of battles, and many of them much more hopeless than this one."

"And you always won?"

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"You could have run."

Ayla listened to her echo of her softly spoken words in the silence that followed. An image came into her mind: Reuben, lying unconscious and severely wounded in the center of a forest clearing, surrounded by the dismembered bodies of over forty of his fallen enemies.

"No," she answered herself. "You could have run, true, but you wouldn't. Not ever."

He shrugged again. "Why run, when fighting is more fun?"

"This isn't fun Reuben! People will die tonight! My people!"

His grin reappeared. "If you want me to go out there and sort it all out by myself, just give the word."

The remark was just the sort of thing she was used to hearing from him: arrogant, impossible, and as confident as if it were set in stone. But the tone of his voice wasn't right.

Glancing at him again, she saw his grin flicker, for just a moment. With a feeling of dread she realized that he wasn't calm and confident at all. He was scared—not for himself, no, never for himself. Nor for any of the other people in the castle. Not Reuben. He was a self-confessed selfish, soulless monster, who didn't care for anything or anyone—except her.

He was scared for her. And he was trying to hide it behind a mask of casual bravado, trying to distract her from her own growing terror with his usual charming mix of banter, blasphemy and insolence. And until a few moments ago, it had been working.

By the apostles! Why do I always have to try and puzzle him out? Why couldn't I leave well enough alone this time, and be just happy being enraged at his insolence? It was so much easier while I thought that he, at least, wasn't afraid!

"Ayla?"

At the sound of Reuben's voice, she looked his way again. There was no smirk on his face now. In the dark she couldn't see exactly what expression lay on his features, but his voice was steady and deep again.

He reached out a hand, and she took it. He gave her fingers a squeeze, and she felt a bolt of hot lighting shoot up her arm, banishing the cold.

"It will be all right," he said. His voice didn't waver.

She took a deep breath, and nodded. Yes, she was deathly afraid, and maybe he was, too—but together, they could still be brave.

Down below, far, far below, she saw a tiny, reddish shimmer in the darkness.

"What do you think?" Ayla asked. "Did the Margrave von Falkenstein also spend a few years with a band of robbers in the Holy Land, doing nocturnal raids on caravans?"

The reddish glow grew stronger, then expanded until it was clear: a torch was burning down there, cutting the dark in two.

"I highly doubt it," Reuben murmured. Glancing over, Ayla saw that the look on his face had changed again. It was fierce and noble, his eyes burning with a determination as dark as the deepest pits of hell. Down in front of the castle, the flames spread, springing from torch to torch, from enemy's hand to enemy's hand, until the entire castle was surrounded by a blazing ring of fire. A horn sounded in the distance. Hundreds of men raised their swords, axes and guisarmes, and out of hundreds of throats, the war-cry rose to the sky:

"For Falkenstein! For Victory!"

Reuben was still crouching beside Ayla on the walkway, hidden behind the crenels. The guards had stopped in their tracks, ceasing to pretend doing their normal rounds, but everyone else was still kneeling, too, waiting for Reuben's signal.

"Ayla?"

His eyes found hers. His hand, so strong, hard and warm even through the gauntlet, grasped hers tightly. Ayla felt terrified, more frightened than she had ever been before in her life—and yet, she felt inexplicably calm. This was it. The last battle. The one they had been waiting for. The one that would decide over life and death.

"Yes, Reuben?"

Her words sounded faint about the roar of the charging enemies. His reply came loud and clear, however:

"I love you."

Before she could answer, he let go of her hand and rose to his feet, raising his sword over his head. He didn't have a torch, or a banner, or anything like that to rally his troops. And he didn't need any of these things. When his roar sounded over the castle, it drowned out the battlecries of the multitude below.

"Warriors of Luntberg, attack! Send those reeky, guts-griping bastards back to hell!"

------------------------------------------------

Greetings, Milords and Ladies

The time has come! The last battle for Luntberg is about to begin! I'm sharpening my sword and my pencil, to make it truly magnificent :-)

Farewell,

Sir Rob