A Dark Champion by Kinley MacGregor

darkened. “If it is what we suspect, nay. I dare not.”
    A chill went over her.
    He paused for a moment before he continued. “I know of a Saracen called El Sahaar.”
    She frowned as she recognized the term. “The Sorcerer?”
    “How is it a lady of your standing knows Arabic?”
    “My uncle’s physician swears by their medicine. He spent much of his youth studying it in Jerusalem, where he collected many books. After a great deal of coercion, I convinced him to teach me to read some of their stories.”
    Stryder looked impressed. “You are quite remarkable.”
    She smiled at his compliment. “You were telling me of this man?”
    “Aye. He was able to literally vanish into a cloud of smoke. Fast and lethal, he moved as if he were invisible and he told us stories of how his people trained assassins.”
    “I don’t know that term.”
    “They are men trained to slay others silently. They come at you in the night, or even in the day, but always by surprise. Nassir…ElSahaar,” he added, “said that he had known of some who would walk up to men in the bazaars and knife them so quickly that no one could even begin to guess who the murderer was.”
    That certainly sounded like the man she had seen in the orchard.
    “So our Saracen could be anywhere?”
    He nodded. “I would caution you to lock your window tonight. Hang a bell over the lock, just to be sure.”
    Rowena trembled at the thought. “Is there any way to stop them?”
    “One can only fight fire with fire, milady. The only way to stop them is to be quicker than they are.”
    How she hated to hear that. It wasn’t in her nature to return violence with more violence. Couldn’t there be a peaceful solution?
    Rowena led Stryder up the stairs to the ladies’ solar, where numerous women were passing a lazy early afternoon gossiping in chairs that were all about the room.
    At the sight of Lord Stryder, they immediately shrieked and rushed them.
    Stryder pulled her back through the door so quickly that she stumbled. He slammed the door and held it while the women pounded and screamed from the other side.
    “Lord Stryder!”
    “Quick,” he told Rowena, “grab that pole from the wall.”
    She did as he asked.
    “Place it under the knob. Hurry.”
    Rowena hesitated. “They’ll be trapped in there.”
    “Not for long. I shall send my squire back to unlock it. After, I’m gone.”
    She gave him a suspicious look before she agreed to it.
    As soon as the pole was wedged to keep the door from opening, he released it and took a deep breath.
    But not for long.
    Another group of women were coming from the opposite end of the hall, no doubt to join the others.
    They screamed and ran at them.
    Stryder grabbed her hand and pulled her after him as he ran back for the stairs. Rowena would have laughed had one of the women not grabbed her braid and yanked.
    “Ow!” she snapped.
    Stryder didn’t pause as he ran into the great hall. “Val!” he shouted at a man sitting in the corner. “Ten silver marks.”
    The man wasted no time cutting the women off from their pursuit as Stryder dashed back out the door and dodged to the small courtyard to the right.
    Only when they were shielded from the yard by tall shrubs did he stop. His eyes panicked, he looked about as if expecting someone else to leap out at him.
    “Does this happen to you often?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath.
    “More than you’d believe,” he said.
    Rowena knew how women talked about the earl and their attempts to claim him, but she had never before witnessed them actually attacking him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
    “I told you, Rowena, you alone seem immune to whatever it is that makes every woman I meet want to throw herself at me.” His eyes twinkled at that. “Then again—”
    “Don’t say it,” she said, placing her hand over his lips. “I have never intentionally thrown myself at you.”
    He arched a brow.
    “Except when faced with near death.”
    She felt