Holy Warrior Read Online Free PDF

the far side of the bed in the same time it took me to crawl under it. As I began cautiously to poke out my nose, there was a splintering noise as the intruder’s blade hacked down inches from my head and buried itself in the floorboards. As the man wrestled with his stuck blade, I recoiled under the bed and, turning to my right, fast-crawled out of the end of the four-poster, working forward as silently and swiftly as I could on elbows and knees, scuttling like a crab over to the far wall, and when I reached it I crouched, back to the wooden panels, knees round my ears, trying not to pant, with the little fruit knife held out in front of my body.
    The room was silent. The darkness was impenetrable. But my fear was subsiding and, in its place, a cold, hard anger bloomed. I was locked in a room with a sword-wielding maniac who was trying to kill me, and who had almost succeeded three times. I tested the edge of the fruit knife. It was very sharp, although the blade was only two inches long. It would serve. After two years of mixing with Robin’s outlaws, some of the most efficient cut-throats in England, I knew exactly how to kill a man quickly with a small blade. My heart began to slow, and I remained perfectly still as I waited for my enemy to reveal himself.
    Then the man spoke, softly: ‘My lord earl, why do you not call upon your liegemen to help you?’ It was a Welsh voice; I should have guessed by the short powerful body shape that he was an archer - and that was good news. By and large, our archers were not overly proficient as swordsmen; I knew because it was my duty to train them. It was a crumb of comfort, and I felt my courage swelling with the thought. It was also clear that this man thought he had Robin trapped in the room. There was no question of my calling out. It would have brought me help, yes, but if I made the slightest sound, he would be on me with his sword in a heartbeat and, even in that total darkness, I could be cut to pieces. I would be dead or mutilated before any of Robin’s men, now snoring in the hall, could come to my rescue, and he would be out of the window and lost in the courtyard. So I remained dumb. And smiled into the blackness. He had revealed his position to me. By the sound of his voice, I knew he was standing by the end of the bed. I heard the swish of his sword as he sliced the air experimentally around his body, trying for a lucky strike. But I was three paces away and crouched low. If I stayed still he was unlikely to catch me with his sword. And, if he was to find me, he must move.
    After a long silence, in which all I heard was an indistinct whisper of cloth, the floorboards gave a harsh creak, very loud in the silence, echoing like the cry of a gull. The board creaked once again and then stopped, and I knew he was in the middle of the room, standing still to make no further noise. I could see his position exactly in my mind. But I needed him to come nearer to me, without discovering my own location. Groping around in the dark, my hand alighted on the cool earthenware of the water jug. I put my hand inside to discover that it was half-full. Lifting it silently with both hands, knife between my teeth, I hurled the jug away from me and into the corner of the room. It smashed with an unbelievably soul-wringing noise and I heard the floorboards creak again as the man rushed towards the corner and began to flog the air with his sword. On hands and knees I crawled forward to where I believed he stood and, knife in my right hand, grabbed him with my left around the thigh. I was only slightly off the mark and, as I seized his knee, he let out a shriek of surprise and fear. A moment later and I had plunged the knife deep into the soft inside of his thigh, then ripped the blade out of the flesh in a scooping motion. He screamed horribly in pain and terror and I felt him batter at my shoulders with the hilt of his sword. But I had been rewarded for my strike by a great gush of his