Gisborne: Book of Pawns Read Online Free PDF Page A

dark screaming circles as a terrified Khazia tried to spin.
    ‘Stay behind us, Ysabel!’
    Guy’s voice yelled as he and the men pushed their battle-trained mounts forward. The horses reared, danced sideways, kicked out, even gnashed with their teeth and not once did a sword find a mark, my men’s powerful parries deflecting harsh blows. I held Khazia hard between my knees and longed for my own sword as I watched a brigand fall with half a shoulder gone and could not take my eyes away from the spouting blood.
    ‘Ysabel, Ysabel!’ Guy screamed. ‘Behind!’
    I turned in the saddle and saw nothing but a sword l ifting, sour breath gushing toward me in a noxious puff. Panic filled my veins with ice, fingers I didn’t kn ow were mine pulled the blade from my girdle and threw it end over end into the man’s neck, his sword hand dropping its weapon as he tried to pu ll my knife from his throat. Blood spurted wildly , the attacker groaning with wet gurgles, Khazia shrieking as the man folded under her feet. My head felt as if it were wrapped in a cloud and I thought I would fall on top of the bloody carcass but Harry was by my side grinning.
    ‘Great stroke, milady ! You’re a born soldier! ’
    ‘Harry,’ I croaked. ‘God, Harry!’
    He laughed and turned to fig ht off the remaining brigands. My three guards pushed forward, slashing until ano ther of the ambushers had fallen. One more collapsed but I kept my eyes on Gisborne’ s back, unwilling to see th e damage my protectors wreaked. Two left, only two, four attac kers dead or mortally wounded. The remainder threw down their swords and began to run and Wilfred was behind them, his horse cantering as he drew his sword back in a wide swe ep, catching one in the thigh. It was callous butchery and I longed for it to st op.
    ‘Let him go!’ I screamed.
    But a s I shouted, I saw Wilfred arch back, his arms swinging wide, his sword dropping.
    ‘Je sus God,’ Guy called to Harry. ‘The archer! Pull back, back!’
    But Harry’s horse reared and a n arrow caught it in the neck. It spun around and before Harold could turn it again, another arrow shrieked in from the left and caught my old friend deep in the chest, another in his shoulder and a third in his arm.
    ‘ No!’
    I spurred Khazia forward across the glade and into the brush, filled with fury and grief. The hidden archer looked up at me as the mare burst through the leaves to trea d about , hooves slicing into bone, muscle and sinew. Khazia’s shoes bruised and cut as the felon cried out in agony but hatred filled my soul as I screeched at him.
    ‘The y were my friends, my friends!’
    I thr ew myself off the horse as the man’s eyes stared into a forever horror, frozen in time, his last breath bubbling out in a red froth. I picked up his bow, a short Saracen one of a type I had handled in the past and turned back to Gisborne, but a move ment b ehind him caused me to rip an arrow from the dead archer’s quiver with speed, nocking it to let it fly.
    Oh God, Gisborne!
    ‘ Fall , fall!’ I shouted.
    He dropped forward without hesitation and my arrow caught the final rogue. The man screamed, a hideous high-pitched wail, reeling from the trees, pulling at the arrow embedded in his eye. It would h ave been a kindness to kill him but Guy galloped to my side as I lea ped onto Khazia’s back. He grabbed her reins and pulled me after him and we fled the ambuscade .
     
    ‘ We can’t leave them like that. We can’t!’ I sobbed. ‘They were my friends. They have children. Guy, please!’ We had stopped some leagues away and our horses’ sides p uffed in and out like bellows. I sat as if I were a half-empty sack, drooping wit h shock as the image of Wilfred arching back on h is horse, went through my mind over and over again.
    ‘What will ha ppen to them if we leave them? I can’t do that. In the name of Go d I owe them a burial. For the ir families and for my father.’ I wiped a sleeve under my nose an d