Conrad couldn’t see a way out of their quandary, and with each passing day, his anger and frustration grew. The thought of his brethren rotting away in French jails and his impotence at doing anything to help them was eating away at him. A week earlier, he believed he could make a difference. All that had changed with the ambush in the canyon.
Then on the morning of the ninth day, everything changed again when half a dozen pairs of hooves and a familiar voice echoed through the village.
“Maysoon,” the man bellowed. “Conrad. Show yourselves if you don’t want every man, woman, and child in this village to perish.”
Conrad hurried to the window, closely followed by Maysoon. They looked out to see her Qassem and the two surviving hired hands trotting slowly down the central alley of the cone houses. Her brother had a woman with him, sitting side-saddle on his horse. He held a dagger to her throat. They recognized her from the fields. She was the sister of the midwife who had tended to Maysoon’s wrist.
“How did they know it was us?” Maysoon asked.
“The woman,” Conrad said, indicating the hostage with a nod. “She knows our names.”
“But how did they find us?”
“Greed and revenge,” he said. “There are no better motivators.”
“What are we going we do?”
Conrad glared at the three men, men who had killed his friends, men who had scuttled his plans and sealed his brethren’s fate.
Men who had to pay.
“End this,” he replied. He then leaned out and shouted, “Let the woman go. I’m coming out.”
Qassem looked up, saw Conrad, and said nothing. He just threw the woman to the ground and glared at him.
Conrad spotted his prosthetic hand, dangling from the side of the Turk’s saddle. It only made him angrier. He pulled back from the window and strode across to a wall niche and reached for his scimitar.
“You’re not going down there alone,” Maysoon told him, finding her crossbow, but as she grabbed it, her wrist gave way under its weight. She winced with pain as the crossbow clattered to the floor.
“No,” he flared. “Not with your wrist like that. I need you to stay here. This is my fight.”
“I want to help,” she insisted.
“You’ve done more than enough, more than I ever had the right to ask for,” he said, his eyes burning with determination. “I need to do this alone.”
His tone made it clear he wasn’t open to negotiation.
She breathed long and hard, then nodded grudgingly.
He picked up the crossbow, set it down in the niche, and picked up her dagger. “Help me with this,” he said, placing it against his left forearm. “Tie it to my arm.”
“Conrad …”
“Do it, please.”
She found some leather straps and used them to attach the dagger’s handle to the stump of his left arm.
“Tighter,” he said.
She tightened the straps to a solid, tourniquet-level pinch. The blade was now an extension of his arm.
He picked up the scimitar with his right hand. Felt his veins swell with fury. Looked at her. Moved in and swept her up in a long, feverish kiss.
And stepped out into the sun.
“Where’s my whore of a sister?” Qassem barked.
“Inside,” Conrad replied, sidestepping, moving into wider, open ground. “But you’ll need to get through me first.”
Qassem’s eyes flattened to narrow slits, and he smiled. “That was my plan.”
The Turk nodded to his men. The two riders drew their scimitars, spurred their mounts, and charged.
Conrad watched them hurtle toward him, side by side, and put himself into a defensive crouch, knees bent, shoulders tight, the blade of his sword held straight up in front of his face. Old instincts flared back to life and slowed down time, putting every detail of his approaching opponents into hard focus, allowing him time to read them and plan his blows with deadly accuracy. He spotted a vulnerability in the stance of the rider to his left, who was right-handed, and decided to take him out first. With the riders less than ten yards away, he charged them, bolting at an angle, beelining for the man to his left. The move startled his opponents, who had to yank on their horses’ reins viciously to adjust course. Conrad timed it perfectly and got right up to the horseman to his left before the one to his right could correct course fast enough. His target was also struggling to control his mount, opening him up to Conrad’s blade that struck him across his midsection and sliced right through his side. The Turk flinched sideways and fell off his mount. Just as he hit the ground, Conrad was on him and finished him off with a dagger to the heart.
The second rider pulled his horse around and, angered by the knight’s counterattack, came storming back. Conrad didn’t move. He stood his ground, giving his mind the time it needed to find an opening in the man’s reckless charge, coiling his muscles for the next assault.
He saw it and made his move, darting sideways, putting the dead Turk’s body between himself and the horseman to confuse his advance. The rider made the same mistake his crony had and allowed Conrad to get onto the wrong side of his blade, giving the knight the advantage of going for his undefended flank. Conrad let his sword rip, swinging with ferocious strength and opening up a wide gash right through the man’s thigh, virtually chopping it off. The rider instinctively pulled on his reins, shocked by the sight of his exposed muscle and flesh. Conrad didn’t give him any breathing space. He charged after him and was on him before the rider even realized he was there, striking him from the right, ripping his back open before shoving him off his saddle and finishing him off with another blow.
And that’s when the bolt struck his shoulder.
It rammed into him from behind with a violent, silent impact.
Conrad staggered forward a couple of steps under the momentum of the hit, then turned around, heavy-footed. Qassem had dismounted. He was standing by his horse, staring at Conrad, the spent crossbow in his hand. He threw it to the ground, drew his scimitar, and strode toward Conrad, his brow gnarled in an infernal scowl.
Conrad knew it was bad. It had hit him in the right shoulder. His good arm. His only good one. The one he needed to work the sword. The arrow was lodged firmly in his shoulder blade, unleashing a cascade of pain with the slightest movement of his right arm.
A cascade he would have to ignore if he was going to defend himself.
Qassem didn’t break step, his eyes locked on Conrad, his sword held low to his side. Then his stride turned to a trot, then a sprint, and with a loud howl, he raised his sword and, with a running leap, brought it crashing down onto Conrad.
Conrad lunged sideways, putting his body out of reach and blocking the blow with his own sword. The blades clanged heavily into each other, the strike reverberating through Conrad and shooting a spasm of white-hot pain across his shoulder. He felt his knees buckle, but he couldn’t let them fail him now, couldn’t let the pain cripple him. Qassem spun around and swung again, his blade flying through a full loop before crashing back down against Conrad’s sword.
The third strike flung the scimitar out of Conrad’s hand, his fingers unable to ignore the agony in his shoulder.
Qassem stood still, breathing in deep snorts, and smiled. His eyes dropped to the dagger strapped to Conrad’s forearm and his smile turned into a mocking grin.
“I don’t know whether to kill you, or just take your other hand off—maybe your feet too—and let you live on like a pathetic, crippled maggot,” he chortled. “Maybe I should do that to you both.”
Conrad’s feet faltered. He was having trouble breathing, and he felt a taste of blood in his mouth. His heart spasmed at the realization. The arrow hadn’t just lodged in his shoulder. It had punctured his lung.