Chapter 7. Perilous Journey
The next day they got up early to prepare for the journey to Bann Alenna's estate. The left part of their retinue at Bann Odwin's estate as it wasn't a long journey and they didn't want to unduly inconvenience Bann Alenna with a large group of people to feed and house.
Bann Odwin assured them that it would not be a problem to have the rest of their retinue quartered at his estate. He also deigned to join them, citing that he had to supervise the preparations for the upcoming melee.
The day was notably chillier than the previous one. Anora drew a cloak around herself for comfort. Michael rode beside her. His own horse was still back in Gwaren, but Bann Odwin had loaned him a fine stallion from his own stable.
She would have preferred to ride herself too, Anora thought glumly. The small road was bad and the carriage bumped a lot. Unfortunately she could not possibly ride in the dress she wore. At least not without it being a scandal.
After nearly five hours ride, the road started to wind a series of wooded hillocks. Michael was beginning to feel tired from the long ride, when something intruded on his senses. He couldn't place the feeling, but something was wrong.
He held his horse and slowed down to a slow canter. Then he realized what it was that disturbed him. The birds. There were no longer any sound of birds chirping.
Suddenly a creaking sound was heard ahead of them and a tree fell right across the road. Several horses whinnied and Michael turned just in time to see a rain of arrows come flying out of the woods ahead of them.
"Dismount!" Michael shouted and got off his horse. On horseback they where an easy target for the arrows and there was no way they could charge the enemies mounted in the dense underbrush.
Several men at arms and two knights where down, arrows protruding from their bodies. He saw Anora and Erlina stare wide eyed at the carnage ahead of them. Without further thinking he pulled Anora from the carriage down on the ground and then got Erlina beside her.
"Stay down and don't move!" he hissed at them and pulled Vigilance from it's scabbard. Flames lept from the magical blade.
His first instinct was to charge the enemy straight on, but he had no idea how many they were and he had not expected any battle so he didn't wear armor.
He guessed that ambush had only partly succeeded. Most arrows came from the other side of the felled tree. The enemy had probably had intended to wait until they had moved further, maybe even splitting their force with the felled tree.
Michael found Ser Gavren and ran to his side.
"Stay by the carriage and protect the Queen at any cost," he told the big knight. Ser Gavren nodded grimly and hurried over to the carriage.
Michael heard sounds coming from the woods on both sides and realized that the enemy would be upon them any second. He quickly took stock of the situation. Two more knights and half a dozen soldiers were still standing. Most of the horses where either dead or trashing mortally wounded from the arrows. Some of the servants looked wildly around, or just stood there screaming. But a few of them had the presence of mind to try and hide.
Michael had been in enough ambushes to realize that overcoming the shock of the sudden attack was vital if they were to have any chance of surviving.
"To me! For the Queen!" He yelled at the top of his lungs and charged to meet the warriors coming out of the forrests.
His battlecry was enough to galvanize some resolve into the rest of his force and they followed him.
Some of the attackers wavered when they saw Michael come charging at them brandishing his magical flaming blade. That was all he needed to get in among them. Slashing furiously with Vigilance in swift arcs of death he quickly brought three opponents down. The rest broke and fled away from him.
With no enemy in his immediate vicinity, he turned to see what was happening around him.
More enemies came charging from the other side of the trail. The guards fought bravely, but where outnumbered. Michael prepared to rush to their side, when a crossbow bolt hit a tree inches from his face.
Michael ducked down just as another bolt whizzed past him. He waited a few seconds and then raised his head again to see where the shooters where, but was immediately greeted by another bolt.
He cursed the shooters. It would take a lucky shot to hit him as long as he stayed in cover, but while he was in cover he couldn't help the guards in their struggle.
Afraid he looked to see if he catch a glimpse of Anora. All he could see was Ser Gavren standing grimly next to the carriage. Suddenly a shadow moved from behind a tree and a dagger struck Ser Gavren in his back.
That enemy had been no ordinary ruffian he realized and now the shadowy figure moved in to dispatch the wounded knight. And Ser Gavren was all that stood between the enemy and Anora.
Adrenalin pumping, Michael shouted a guttural battle cry and ran, heedless of the crossbow bolts that flew past him, towards the carriage. He reached the carriage just as the assassin brought Ser Gavren down.
Michael had a fraction of a second to note that Anora was alive before he hurled himself at the shadowy enemy.
Michael waved Vigilance in a long flaming arc, but the assassin managed to duck out of reach with almost supernatural agility. Not daring to let the enemy gain the advantage, Michael pressed on the attack with a series of furious slashes.
It was very different from the battlefield he was used to. Battle between two armoured knights with shield was slow, both parties seeking to find an opening while trying to not present any to his opponent. Here without armor and shield everything was different.
Michael was physically bigger than his opponent and with Vigilance he had longer reach, but the assassin seemed to possess an incredible speed. Michael kept swinging to keep his opponent out of reach while hoping he would trip himself as he retreated before one of the other attackers could help him.
Suddenly he heard Anora scream his name behind him, his pulse thundered in his head and he flet something almost feral come over him. His opponent seemed to hesitate and that was all Michael needed. He lunged forward almost toppling skewering the assassin on the blade's point. The assassin froze and Michael tore his sword loose almost slicing the assassin's body in half as he did it.
"Anora!" he shouted and ran back towards the carriage where he had left her.
He saw Anora sit white faced holding Ser Gavren in her lap, two crossbow bolts protruding from the carriage near where she sat.
Michael desperately tried get his bearings on the scene. These men were not just bandits, or maybe some of them where, but the man he had just slain, the assassin who had sneaked up on Ser Gavren had been a Crow, he was sure of it.
He saw a group of enemies clumped together at the edge of the woods carrying two wounded comrades. They kept looking at him in terror. They were just rabble and hardly any concern for him right now, but the crossbow men were still a danger.
With a sinking feeling he realized that only three soldiers and one of the knights where still standing, when he heard a sickening thud of two crossbow bolts finding their mark and felling the last knight.
Michael ran towards the place he thought the bolts had come from, trying to find cover along the way. He hoped he would reach the shooters before they had time to reload.
When he was upon them, one of them still desperately tried to put a bolt in the notch of the reloaded crossbow, while the other one had abandoned his crossbow for a sword. Michael felled one of them with a vicious slash and in one motion brought the sword up, reversed the move and with violent force hack the other opponents head clean off, sending the severed head rolling into a bush, spraying blood.
Michael look around for more enemies, adrenalin still pumping in his veins, but he could see none. The only sound he heard was the groaning of injured and dying men and the hysteric cries from one of of the survivors.
As soon as Michael had convinced himself that they were out of danger, he ran back to Anora, who still sat pale faced, with Ser Gavren's head in her lap. Beside her, Erlina sat slowly rocking back and forth hugging herself.
"Anora, are you hurt?" he said, his voice full of fear.
"No, but I think he is," Anora said with an unnatural calm.
Michael looked at Ser Gavren's white face and the ugly looking shaft of a dagger protruding from the knight's neck.
"He is dead Anora," he said gently, and lifted the dead knight's body away from her.
"Oh!" Anora said, with the same calm in her voice.
Michael realized that Anora was probably in shock, but that she was unhurt. Erlina seemed to have taken it worse though. She kept rocking back and forth hugging her knees.
"Anora, please try and comfort Erlina if you can," he said. "I must see what has happened to the rest of our men."
Michael found three surviving soldiers that where fit for duty and three more injured or hurt. He also found three more servants either uninjured or with only slight injuries. All horses where either dead or had so crippling injuries that they had to be put out their misery.
As soon as he and the soldiers had arranged all the dead in a heap, he gathered the survivors around Anora who still held Erlina who now was hysterically crying.
"What's the situation Michael?" Anora said. Michael noted with relief that taking care of Erlina had given Anora something to do and got her out of her own shock.
"We have been ambushed by someone who tried to assassinate you," Michael said bluntly. He didn't have time to hide anything from Anora.
"Assassinate me, Are you sure?"
Michael nodded grimly.
"This was meant to look like bandits, but real bandits hardly ever attack a retinue as big as ours, and some of them where definitely Crows, not bandits.
"Crows? Antivan Crows?" Anora asked.
"Yes, professional assassins. The one who stabbed Ser Gavren and almost reached you was definitely a Crow, and I am fairly sure the two crossbow men where Crows too.
"Then there may be more of them," Anora said. "We have to get away from here."
"I agree," Michael nodded. "Some of them fled and if they can get reinforcements, we cannot stay here. We won't survive another attack like this."
"What about the dead and the wounded?" Anora asked.
"We can't afford time to deal with the dead," Michael replied. We'll try and move the wounded away from the road, but then we have no option, but to leave them."
"Leave them?" one of the servants said.
"Right now we only have one duty and that is to get the Queen to safety as fast as possible, and that means back to Bann Odwin's estate."
"Wouldn't it be faster to continue to Bann Alenna instead?" Anora asked.
"Probably, Michael agreed, but I'm not willing to take that risk. Someone just tried to assassinate you and we have no soldiers whose loyalty we can be sure of, except in Gwaren and Bann Odwin's estate.
"Do you suspect Bann Alenna to be part of this. That's preposterous!" Anora said indignantly.
"Right now I'm not prepared to trust anyone, including Bann Alenna or Bann Odwin, but we have a whole troop of royal knights quartered in Bann Odwin's estate so I doubt he dares to do anything even if he is involved.
