[The deBurghs 07] - Reynold De Burgh: The Dark Knight by Deborah Simmons Page A

the ground, looking for injuries, but there were no visibly broken bones and no blood.
    Foolhardy boy. Courageous, but foolhardy.
    ‘Peregrine,’ Reynold said, cursing his solitary state. He knew little of healing and had no way to summon help. All he could do was throw the boy over the back of a horse and hope that their attacker was not summoning companions from a camp in the forest.
    ‘Peregrine,’ Reynold said, his tone more urgent. He put a hand to his squire’s head, feeling for lumps, and the boy stirred.
    ‘M-my lord,’ he said, opening his eyes. He blinked and started to rise, but Reynold stopped him.
    ‘Hold, squire. Are you hurt?’
    Peregrine frowned. ‘No,’ he said, as though testing himself. Then he surged upwards. ‘He knocked me down!’
    ‘I thought you fell,’ Reynold said. Relieved to see the boy’s outrage, Reynold held out a hand to help him to his feet.
    ‘Well, I guess I did fall, at first,’ the boy said. He reached down to dust himself off, then bent to retrieve the long knife they had taken from the thieves. ‘I pricked him, right in his leg,’ he said, with a grin.
    Reynold saw the blood on the blade. ‘Good work, but let us not tarry in case he has friends.’
    Peregrine’s triumphant smile vanished. ‘My horse!’ he said, glancing around the deserted track.
    Reynold whistled, and the black came trotting back. They hurriedly mounted and put some distance between themselves and the wood though it was nearly full dark now.
    ‘I wish I could throw a knife like that crippled boy,’ Peregrine said. ‘I mean the boy who wasn’t really crippled,’ he added. ‘But I knew I couldn’t, so I tried to get close enough to bury it in his chest.’
    ‘By pulling on his cloak?’
    ‘Well, yes, but I did strike him, my lord, and just like when the knife hit you, it was turned away. He must have been wearing a mail shirt, just like you do.’
    Reynold found that hard to believe, and yet, the boy would not lie. He had struck at the villain, fallen from his horse, and risen to try again, this time thrusting his blade into the rider’s leg, only to be knocked down once more.
    ‘Maybe he’s a knight, too,’ Peregrine said. He paused, as if mulling over his words. ‘But he couldn’t be, not when he’s a brigand attacking travellers.’
    ‘Knights go bad, like everybody else,’ Reynold said. He slanted a glance at the boy. ‘It is expensive to maintain a good destrier, proper equipment and a squire, as well as pay the scutage or days owed to one’s lord. Unless you come from a wealthy family, capture others in battle, or are successful on the tournament field, it is a hard life, a fact that is conveniently missing from the romances.’
    ‘Perhaps he was an outlaw.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Reynold said, but he was more concerned with the two of them than their assailant. The roads were always prey to attacks, especially along a wooded stretch, and Reynold thought himself equal to any fight.Now he wasn’t so sure. If not for the boy, he could have managed, yet his squire was lucky to have escaped serious injury or death. And what if there had been more than one assailant? Reynold shook his head, his de Burgh confidence shaken, as they neared the outskirts of the village.
    And that’s when he heard it, a faint noise that could be called a roar, if closer. Already uneasy, Reynold felt the shock of full-blown fear for perhaps the first time in his life. For he had not yet reached the outskirts of the village, and Mistress Sexton might be in danger, with nothing except Urban and his pitchfork to protect her from the kind of monster Gamel had described.
    Too late, Reynold regretted his hasty departure, and with a low curse, he urged his weary mount onwards to Grim’s End.
     
    It was growing late, Sabina knew, for she kept glancing at the tall windows, where the light was fading. The hall was cast in shadows, an eerie reminder that things were not as they should be, and without the