Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [11]
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Merrik stood very still, breathing deeply, until he could finally stand straight once again. Oleg was looking down at the boy in an unconscious heap at his feet.
“I should have killed the little sod,” Oleg said. “He bit down to the bone.”
“Well, he kicked me down to the bone,” Merrik said.
Suddenly, with no warning, there was a fearsome growl and a man, a man both tall and slender, a man not a warrior, jumped on Merrik’s back.
Merrik, still dazed from the blow to his groin, didn’t react as quickly as he normally would have. Oleg jerked his knife from its sheath at his waist and raised it to strike at their assailant. In that instant, Oleg’s leg was jerked from under him. He teetered, astounded, for he saw the boy staring up at him, and knew that the waif had done it to him yet again, and he just couldn’t believe it. He was off balance when he felt the boy’s fist in his gut, and fell against the timbered wall and over into a bush.
No one said anything. There were no curses, no grunts, no yells. The fight was a silent one for no one wanted Thrasco or his men to come bursting from the house.
Merrik managed to jerk the man’s arms free of his throat. He lunged forward, pulling the man over his shoulder. He flung him to the ground at his feet, knocking the breath out of him. He drew his own knife and was on his knees in a moment, the knife tip at the man’s throat.
“No, don’t hurt him!”
The boy was scrambling to the fallen man who was trying to sit up, shaking his head.
The boy grabbed his arm and shook it. “By all the gods! Cleve, what do you here? You didn’t come after me, did you? Is Thrasco close? Cleve, answer me!”
“Hurt this ugly beggar?” Merrik said, his voice low, but filled with surprise and sarcasm. This was the strangest rescue he’d ever attempted. “Why would I want to hurt him when he would have killed me? Would kill me even now if he could. Surely that makes no sense.”
Cleve came to his knees slowly, shaking his head, and reached blindly for Merrik.
“No, Cleve,” the boy said, coming to his knees beside him, clutching at his arm. “Wait, there are two of them and they are both armed. They will kill you. No, don’t move. He is here and he has a knife.”
“I am not here to kill you,” Merrik said, staring at the two of them. “I am here, actually, to rescue you, boy. I have your brother, Taby.”
She stared up at him then, unable to believe her ears. “You what?”
“I am here to rescue you. I am Merrik Haraldsson, from Norway, and I’m here to take you away.”
Take her away? He had Taby? None of it made any sense to her. She was nothing but a slave, as was her little brother. She just looked at him stupidly. “But why?”
Merrik just shrugged. “Because I have suddenly become crazed. I looked at your little brother after Thrasco had taken you away at the slave pit, and lost what few wits I possessed.” He didn’t add that he’d lost his other wits when he’d looked at the boy and couldn’t look away. “Come, boy, let’s get out of here before your owner comes howling from that door with a dozen armed men. I would rescue you but I wouldn’t want to die for you.”
“He’s too fat, but you’re right about his men. There are many of them. They’re drinking in a chamber off the inside corridor.” The boy rose slowly, but his hand remained on the ugly man’s shoulder. “Cleve must come too. He must.” The boy stared at Merrik, then added, “Please.” It was a word Merrik suspected the boy didn’t often say.
“Why not?” Merrik said. “Oleg, are you alive or did the lad bring you low again?”
“If you weren’t bent on rescuing the little beggar, I would kill him.”
“I’m bent on it,” Merrik said. He stared at the man with the hideous jagged scar on his face and his long golden hair tied at the back of his neck. The man stood quietly beside the boy, his arms at his sides. He was slight, but lean and fit. He obviously knew nothing about fighting, thank the gods for something. Merrik sighed and said, “Come along. We’re sailing the moment we get back to my longboat.”
Oleg looked at the filthy boy, stared down at his