Free The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes

the other of you. I reckon you just cleared it up, but we’ll be taking you to someone who knows your face to be sure. No matter, since we’ve got both.”
    Austra,
Anne thought.
They’ve got you, too.
That meant her friend might still be alive.
    “My friends will come for me.”
    “Your companions are probably dead by now,” the man said, his voice shaking with the galloping of the horse. “If they aren’t, they’ll find it difficult to follow us. But that needn’t concern you, Princess. I wasn’t sent to kill you, or you would be dead by now. Do you understand?”
    “No,” Anne said.
    “There are those who would kill you,” the man replied. “That you know, yes?”
    “I most certainly know that.”
    “Then believe me when I tell you that their masters are not mine. I am charged with your safety, not with your destruction.”
    “I don’t
feel
safe,” Anne said. “Who sent you? My uncle, the usurper?”
    “I doubt that Prince Robert cares much for your welfare. We suspect he is in league with those who murdered your sisters.”
    “Who is
‘we’
?”
    “I can’t tell you that.”
    “I don’t understand. You say you don’t want me dead. You imply you wish to preserve me from harm, yet you’ve taken me from my most loyal protectors and my friends. So I know you can’t wish me well.”
    The man didn’t reply, but he tightened his grip.
    “I see,” Anne said. “You have some need of me, but not one that I would approve of. Perhaps you intend to sacrifice me to the dark saints.”
    “No,” the man said. “That is not our aim at all.”
    “Then enlighten me. I am at your mercy.”
    “Indeed you are. Remember that. And believe me when I say that I will not kill you unless I have to.” The knife came away from her throat. “Please don’t struggle or try to escape. You might manage to fall off the horse; if you don’t break your neck, I’ll easily recapture you. Listen and you will know your friends aren’t following.”
    “What’s your name?” Anne asked.
    Again a pause. “You can call me Ernald.”
    “But it isn’t your name.”
    She felt him shrug behind her.
    “Ernald, where are we going?”
    “To meet someone. After that, I cannot say for certain.”
    “I see.” She thought for a moment. “You say I won’t be killed. What of Austra, now that you’re certain she isn’t me?”
    “She…she won’t be harmed.”
    But Anne heard the lie in his voice.
    Taking a deep breath, she snapped her head back and felt it crush into the man’s face. He yelped, and Anne flung herself from the mare.
    She landed badly, and pain coursed up her leg, which already was aching from an unhealed arrow wound. Gasping, she struggled to her feet and tried to get her bearings. She made out their trail and began hobbling back along it, shouting.
    “Cazio! Sir Neil! Help me!”
    She glanced back over her shoulder, almost feeling him there……but saw no one, only the horse. Why would he be hiding?
    She quickened her pace, but the pain nearly paralyzed her. She went down on one knee, then doggedly fought her way back up.
    Something moved in front of her, but she couldn’t see just what. It was like a brief shadow across water.
    “Help!” she shouted again.
    A palm snapped against the side of her head then, and as she fell, she saw a snowy blur. Then her arm was twisted hard behind her, and she was being forced back toward the horse. She gasped, wondering where Ernald had come from. Behind her? But she had looked for him.
    Wherever he had gone, he was here now.
    “Do not try that again, Princess,” he said. “I have no desire to hurt you, but I
will
do it if I must.”
    “Let me go,” Anne demanded.
    The knife was suddenly pricking into her neck again.
    “Mount back up.”
    “Not until you promise not to kill Austra.”
    “I told you, she won’t be harmed.”
    “Yes, but you were lying.”
    “Mount, or I’ll cut your ear off.”
    “My leg is hurt. You’ll have to lift me up.”
    He