"Hold! Stand your ground!" Linhart's voice was almost completely drowned out by the clamor of metal and dying men around him. And thank the Devil it was: that meant almost nobody listened to his stupid order.

"Retreat!" Reuben's voice was most definitely not drowned out. It rose over the racket like the trumpets of Jericho. It didn't bring the walls down, though, for which Reuben was thankful, because he was standing on one.

Down in the courtyard, Linhart's head turned and he glared up at Reuben with rage in his eyes.

"What the heck—"

"I said retreat!" Reuben bellowed. "Now!"

"We can hold them! We can show those bastards what we're made of! One of us is as good as ten of them!"

Satan save us from heroes! If the stupid fool had been in range, Reuben would have grabbed him by the neck and shaken him like a ragdoll.

"It's not worth the sacrifice! Get behind the inner wall! I command you!"

"We can—"

"Get your ass in here, or I'll come down there and make you!"

That was apparently enough to rekindle Linhart's obedience to his supreme commander. Grabbing a signal horn from his belt, he sounded the retreat, making it clear to any Luntberg soldier who hadn't realized it yet: they were going to lose this fight.

Enemy soldiers poured through the outer gates by the hundreds. For a while, the men of Luntberg had resisted bravely, but there were just too few of them, and Falkenstein's army was pushing them back from the gates by sheer force of numbers, spreading over the courtyard.

The crow's feet, such a deadly danger to the mounted knights, were next to useless against the foot soldiers. Reuben knew he had to get his men out of there. Fighting in the open yard, where the enemy with their greater numbers could outmaneuver and encircle them, was the worst possible tactic.

That did not mean he didn't still want to go down there and fight. But he didn't move a muscle.

Instead, Reuben remained standing atop the inner wall of Luntberg Castle and watched the enemy enter the walls he had sworn to protect. All right, there were still a lot of other walls for him to protect, like the one he was standing on right now, but he still felt like chopping someone's head off from watching the scene below. Too bad the last one was already so long ago. Fifteen minutes could feel like an awfully long time.

"Go, go, go!"

He looked down. Protected by a thin line of defenders, Luntberg soldiers were streaming through the open gate into the inner courtyard. The enemy was still across the courtyard, but they were marching forward quickly. Arrows and spears were already flying in the direction of Linhart's men.

Turning, Reuben looked down at the guards in charge of the gate.

"Get the bars ready!"

"Yes, Sir! Immediately, Sir!"

He turned towards the retreating fighters again. The last few were just slipping through. Reuben waited until the very last man was inside, then—

"Shut the gates! Bars down!" he bellowed.

The gates underneath his feet slammed shut, and the bar dropped into place. A moment later, the first enemy slammed against the wood, trying to force the doors open.

"Portcullis!"

Before the command was out of his mouth, the portcullis began to rattle down on its chain. So he'd trained his men well. Good. The metal grid slammed into the cobblestones with a nasty, hard noise that sounded like a needle stuck into his ear, but Reuben didn't care. They were safe! Ayla was safe.

For now.

Not wasting a second, he unlocked the door to the tower. Ayla was just bending over her latest patient, a knife in her hand. Grabbing both her wrists, he pulled her away and yanked her up against him.

"What in God's name—"

Her words were stifled when his lips came down on hers.

"Hmm! Mmmm!"

Oh yes. He totally agreed with that. In fact he was just about to say something similar.

But why talk, when you could do much more interesting things?

His tongue plunged into her mouth and plundered it. It was a desperate lunge, grabbing all of her he could reach within a few, precious seconds. His hands moved over her body, feeling, holding, reassuring—himself and her.

When he finally broke away, only a few seconds had passed. It felt like weeks too him, and yet, too short. Far too short. He could have spent months in her arms. Years, even.

"What..." she blinked at him, speechless. That one word was all she could manage.

"I just needed that." He grinned at her. "And so did you. Farewell, Milady. I've got to get back to killing people."

"Reuben, wait, I—"

Before he could hear what she had to say, he was out of the room and down the stairs, the door slamming shut behind him. He heard her small fists pound against the wood, but he wasn't really worried it would break.

Now, the gates downstairs... Those were another matter.

When he stepped out into the courtyard at the foot of the tower, soldiers were lying and sitting around, catching their breath, or simply passed out from exhaustion.

"On your feet!" he bellowed. "Get rocks, wood, anything heavy! Pile it behind the gates!"

"Sir?" The nearest soldier stared at him in confusion—then, his face turned into pure horror. "They're bringing the battering ram up here?"

"What do you think? That they'll just let us keep the second gate because they were so naughty and smashed the first? On your feet, I said!"

They were a bit slow to react, so he picked up the first soldier in his way and ripped him skywards. The man flew three or four feet into the air before coming down on his feet with a thud.

"On your feet! Go!"

They ran. All of them. All of them, that is, but one. When all others had run to get stone and wood, the lone figure of Linhart remained, glowering at Reuben as if he were the enemy. Raising his fists, the Captain marched towards him.

"What in God's name was that?" he yelled. "Why did you force me to retreat? We could have defended the outer courtyard! We–"

"You could have died! You were hopelessly outnumbered out there!"

"We could have done it! We could have–"

Reuben's fist struck the man in the face with the force of a hammer blow. Linhart flew backwards, crashing against the wall with a nasty crunching sound. Either his bones were broken, or his armor was dented. Reuben hoped it was the latter. He still needed this blockhead!

"Go," he managed to get out between clenched teeth, "and see to your men. We need to barricade that gate now! Not in two years, not when we've had a nice and long discussion about siege tactics. Now!"

Linhart didn't say anything else. He just gritted his teeth against the pain and ran, following his men. Soon, the first loads of material started to arrive. But not before the gate had started shuddering under the battering ram's assault.

Boom!

"Pile the stones up there! And there! Yes! And now jam the beams of wood in between!"

Boom! Boom!

"Brace the beams of wood against the ground! More stones! Move, you lead-legged sons of porkers! Move faster, or we're all going to die!"

Boom!

"And you, with the crossbows – get up there on that wall and shoot! Do you think the enemy is just going to stand around! They're already climbing that wall! Get up there!"

Boom! Boom! Clang!

Reuben froze. Clang? A battering ram didn't make Clang. It made Boom. His eyes shot up to the wall, where three enemy soldiers had just climbed over the crenels. A few dead guards lay around them.

"Satan's stinking, fat, hairy goat's ass!"

Reuben started moving without even thinking about it. Still, before he was able to to reach the wall, one of the enemy soldiers had already thrown a rope down, slid down its length and disappeared into the shadows of the inner courtyard. The other two followed.

"Satan's stinking, fat, hairy goat's ass with warts on! No!"

Reuben knew that even a few enemy soldiers loose inside the castle during a siege could wreak havoc. He had to catch up with those bastards before they reached their intended target. Who knew what damage they could cause?

"Get up there!" he shouted back at the men, gesturing to the undefended spot on the wall. "Now! I'm going after these sons of mongrel bitches!"

Then he turned forward again, concentrating all his senses on the darkness, and the distant thudding of feet.

It didn't take him long to find them. When he did, he could almost have laughed out loud from relief. They were at the dungeon, forcing the doors open! The old iron gave way with a groan.

"Get out!" one of the enemy soldiers shouted down into the dark depths. "There's fighting going on up here, you lazy bastards!"

The flood of freed compatriots he expected didn't come. Instead, from the depths of the prison came Sir Blasius von Balderingen's lone, defiant voice: "Then I'm staying down here! They took my sword away!"

The enemy soldiers stared down into the dungeon with open mouths. They were so taken aback by the reaction to their heroic rescue attempt, that they didn't even see Reuben coming. Which, considering the fact that he was nearly seven feet of rampaging blood-red muscled rage, was quite an accomplishment.

"Rrrg!"

That was about the sound the first one uttered as Reuben severed his head from his body. The sight of their companion's head flying past them made the two remaining soldiers turn around. Flying heads tend to do that to people.

"Nice plan, that opening of the dungeon doors to let your captured comrades out." Wham! Reuben's fist slammed into the first soldier's face before he could even reach for his sword. He flew backwards and crashed against the wall. "The only problem is: your captured comrades are already out, fighting on our side!" Reuben grinned. "Lady Ayla can be very persuasive!"

The other enemy soldiers extended a trembling arm, pointing to him. "You... you're the one..."

"Yes. I'm the red one. The one with the devil inside." Reuben raised his sword. "Care to taste my fire?"

He took a step towards them, and the soldier stumbled backwards, grabbing his disorientated comrade by the arm.

"Run, Ditmar! Run! It's him!"

They turned and ran. Or rather, they tried to. Reuben caught up with them after ten yards already. What a disappointing chase. He stabbed one through the heart, and broke the other's neck. Then he returned to the dungeon just in time to see Sir Blasius von Baldering peek his nose through the open door.

"And you were so smart a minute ago," Reuben sighed, grabbing the knight by the neck and lifting him off his feet. "Down into your hole again, little rat."

"I'm a knight of the Empire!" Blasius protested. "I deserve to be treated with respeeeee..." His words turned into a scream as Reuben picked him up and hurled him back down the stairs. Then, grabbing the iron bar door, Reuben slammed it shut and called: "Stay down there, where you belong!"

The only answer from down in the dark was a groan and a few muttered curses. Reuben turned and marched back towards the wall. He had waited enough time with this tomfoolery. Back to the battle!

The moment he came close enough to see he knew that things were going seriously wrong. The gate was shuddering under the battering ram's onslaught. It's reinforcements of stone and wood were already shifting and cracking under the strain. Several bodies of Luntberg's soldiers and militia lay on the ground, shot down from the wall.

Yet it wasn't until Reuben looked up to the wall, to where the fighting was going on, that he realized how badly things really were going. How incredibly horribly wrong everything was.

"Satan's hairy ass!"

Up there on the wall, in the thick of the fray and within plain sight of the enemy, stood Ayla, commanding her troops in battle.

*~*~**~*~*

After Reuben had left, it took Ayla only a few minutes to realize that he had forgotten to lock her in. Carefully, she peeked out of the tower. Outside, the battle was in full fling.

"Load!" A sergeant shouted, only a few feet away from her. His face was covered in sweat and dirt, and his eyes were fixed with a piercing intensity on something down in the yard. "Mark! That group over there with the siege ladder! Hold... Hold... Loose!"

Twenty strings twanged, and Ayla flinched as she heard screams from down in the courtyard.

"Load!" The sergeant shouted again. "Mark! Loo–"

His voice cut off in mid-sentence. That might have had something to do with the arrow jutting from his open mouth, buried deep in his brain. Slowly, he keeled over backwards and toppled from the wall. From down in the inner courtyard, there came a crash.

Ayla didn't even hesitate. She probably should have been horrified, or frightened. Instead, she ran forward, taking up the sergeant's post.

"Mark the archers! Loose!"

The soldiers didn't hesitate either. The crossbowstrings sang and more screams echoed down among the enemy. Up on the wall, a chorus of cheers rose into the air.

After that, it was pretty much a blur. Ayla picked out targets and shouted commands at a rapid rate. The crossbowmen and women were too busy shooting to think about whether she should be out here. That thought only returned when a familiar voice growled, right beside Ayla's ear: "What are you doing out here, Milady?"

Ayla glanced over her shoulder. "Ah, Reuben. Hello. Where were you?"

"I was taking care of something. Answer my question! What the hell do you think you're doing out here?"

"Commanding your battle for you."

"You could get killed!"

"Yes, so?"

"So get in there and lock the door behind you right this minute!"

"No."

"Ayla—"

"Load! Mark! Same target! Loose!"

"Ayla, I swear to the Devil, if you don't get out of here right away I'm going to kill you!"

Ayla raised an eyebrow at his logic. "Then you might just as well let me stay out here and let the enemy do it, hm?"

"Rrrrah!" The stone breastwork in front of Ayla shuddered as Reuben slammed his armored fist against it. Ayla let him vent his rage. She wished she were wearing armored gloves, so she could punch something, too, without braking her fingers in the process. For a few minutes, all that came from Reuben's direction were muttered curses. She concentrated on her commands.

"So..." Reuben's voice reached her ear again. He seemed calmer. His teeth were still clenched, but at least he could speak coherently once more, albeit in a falsely sweet tone of voice. "Since you've taken over the battle, how is it going, Milady?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid."

"Dear me, what a surprise."

"Reuben... how is the gate?"

He dropped the act right away, becoming serious. "Not good, I'm afraid. It's creaking like an old fishing boat just before its falls apart."

Ayla's eyes roamed over the sea of enemy soldiers down below, until finally, at the very back of the tightly packed mass of meat and metal, they found the man responsible for all this. The Margrave von Falkenstein was standing in the shadow of the outer gatehouse, watching the chaos around him with calmly folded arms. She had never seen his face, and she couldn't see it now, it was too dark for that. But she could see the gleaming silver on black of his crest, identifying him to all the world.

"Is it going to hold?"

"The gate, Milady? I don't think so."

Ayla's fist slammed against the stone wall. To hell with bloody knuckles! "If only we could put a bolt through that man!" Her eyes burned into the Margrave with hellish hatred. "Then all this madness would be over! But he's out of range, curse him!"

"Yes..." Ayla wasn't really paying attention to Reuben's low murmur. If she had, she might have noticed the speculative tone in his voice, or the way his mouth curved up in small diabolical smile as he spoke.

"Is there really no chance the gate will hold, Reuben? How long will it be before it breaks?"

"Ten minutes, maximum, I'd say."

Clenching her bleeding hand in desperation, Ayla looked down at the ground. Ten minutes! Ten minutes, and they'd all be dead. There was nowhere else to retreat to. The keep wasn't large enough to hold them all, and she couldn't leave half of her people out here to die. She would rather that they all die side by side. And that was what was going to happen. And there nothing anyobody could do about it.

"So..." Reuben murmured, "There's really only one thing we can do."

Ayla looked up, just in time to see him start running. She opened her mouth, but before her scream had had a chance to get out, Reuben leapt over the breastwork down towards the churning mass of enemy soldiers.

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

Greetings, Milords and Ladies!

We are approaching the end of this medieval tale! On the Radish Fiction App, it is already finished & completely available. If you have a gold coin or two to spare for a medieval bard like me, please consider getting the latest chapter there and supporting my burgeoning professional writing career! I appreciate every bit of support! :)

As for the paperback & ebook publication of "The Robber Knight's Love", the second book in this series, I am only waiting for the final proof copies from the publisher before giving my okay for the publication. Then you can get your hands on the next part of Reuben's mysterious past! :)

Farewell,

Sir Rob