Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(276)

Even through his righteous wrath, Ruark was amazed at the power of his antagonist. Their breath whistled through clenched teeth, and the tendons of both strained with their efforts. Gaylord’s feet slipped on the dirt floor as he was slowly straightened and bent backward. He had no choice but to give way or be flung on his back. He tried to dive to one side, but Ruark held on. They crashed as one to the floor in a cloud of loose dirt, and to Shanna’s eyes, became a thrashing welter of twisting arms and legs.

Shaking with her own emotions and her anxiety for Ruark, she lifted her skirts and clawed for the hilt of her dagger. Her bound hands were almost numb, but she managed to loosen the knife and tuck the hilt between her knees. Frantically she began to saw the ropes against the blade.

The two men rose on their knees. Ruark thrust his head beneath Gaylord’s chin and clasped his arms about the narrow ribs of the knight, hugging him like a bear until the other’s spine was bent to the breaking point. Gaylord moaned beneath the pressure then suddenly twisted aside. The hold was broken. They teetered and fell and again were obscured in a cloud of dust.

The knight’s flailing hand touched a smooth, hard length of wood, and he snatched its weighty length up. A small, cured pelt of an animal clung to one end, but he had no time to shake it off. Laughter wheezed from his laboring lungs as he rolled above Ruark and brought the stick across the bondsman’s neck, leaning all his weight on it. Ruark caught the wood, and the tendons stood out in his neck and arms like taut cordage as he strained to hold the piece from choking him. The staff moved upward ever so slightly and Gaylord shrieked his dismay. Ruark’s knee worked beneath the knight’s belly and lifted some of the weight away. His foot slid beneath the knight’s hip, and he heaved, hurling Gaylord over his head and away from him, releasing the staff as Gaylord sailed over him. The fur pelt came free. Then the realization dawned on Ruark with sudden clarity that the end of the smooth stick bore a wide double-bladed head. It was the ax he had left in the cabin.

Shanna gasped, and Gaylord chortled in high glee, shifting the double-bladed weapon in his hands as Ruark scrambled to his feet. Ruark seized a length of firewood to defend himself as the knight moved forward. Ruark could only move back as the keen-edged blade threatened him in the narrow confines of the cabin.

The edge of the table caught Ruark on the back of the thighs, and he could retreat no further. With a shout of triumph, Gaylord swung a two-handed blow downward as Shanna cringed and smothered a scream. Ruark dove to one side, and the table, with a rending, splintering crack, fell in halves as the ax cut it clean through. As Gaylord struggled to pull the blade from the shreds, Ruark threw the firewood low at the shins of the man and snatched another piece. The ax swung in a short swipe at Ruark’s belly, and the blow was barely parried with the short stick of wood. The ax swung again. Ruark leapt back to avoid the blade then crashed to the floor as his feet tangled in the wreckage of the table.

Gaylord’s bellow of victory ended in a shriek of pain. He had seen the bright flash and jerked away, but he had still caught the point of the tiny dagger on his cheek and felt the red hot shock of it slash downward along his neck, laying open flesh as it went.

In his lust for blood, he had forgotten the lady, Shanna, again. Indeed, no lady! She had freed herself and joined the fray with the silvered thorn, as fiercely protective of her husband’s life as he of hers. Snarling, Gaylord flung wide his arms, and she was thrust away, the small dagger flying into a corner. But as Gaylord grasped the ax again, she returned to rake his lightly shirted shoulder with her claws. She finally gained his attention. His bony fist struck hard, and Shanna stumbled back as it caught her along the jaw. Dazed and reeling, she sprawled again upon the furry bed, her world suddenly gone black and void.

Now, it was the other beast Gaylord had ignored too long. A half-voiced, bellowing snarl sounded in his ear, and the ax was snatched from his grasp as if from a child’s. He recoiled and thought to see it flash, ending his life. And flash it did, but straight upward with such force the blade was half buried high in a timber of the roof, its handle quivering well out of reach. Gaylord’s relief was short-lived, however, for he was seized in a vise that slowly crushed the breath from him. He was in the grip of a maddened beast who gave no quarter but slowly lifted him from the floor in arms of steel. Hurled halfway across the room, he rebounded from the wall and was immediately beset by punishing blows that took him from every side. He saw bared white teeth beneath dark-rimmed golden eyes in a snarling face that promised only death. Blows rained upon him, taking away his strength. He began to fear defeat and, worse than that, death. He raised an arm and weakly struck out but was attacked with such renewed savagery he stumbled back across the room and could only shelter his head beneath his arms. He fell to his knees and reeled as a hard fist struck him on the face. His hand was suddenly full of soft velvet and dimly he saw a woman’s face above him.