Medieval 03 - Enchanted

urgently.
    Simon simply tightened his arms around Ariane,
pulling her even closer.
    “There is blood,” Dominic said, bending
down to his brother.
    “Not mine,” Simon said hoarsely.

“Ariane’s.”
    “Let me see to her,” Erik said,
kneeling.
    His voice, like his expression, was surprisingly
gentle. Even so, Simon made no move to release Ariane.
    “I have some small training in wounds,”
Erik said. “Permit me to help your wife.”
    Painfully Simon shifted, but not enough to allow
Erik to see Ariane’s wounded side. The violet fabric of the
dress moved with Simon, covering both him and Ariane from the waist
down.
    “Release her,” Erik said in a low
voice.
    “Nay. She will die if I don’t hold her
next to me.”
    Simon’s eyes were black, savage.
    Erik’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he said
nothing. He simply looked to Dominic for help.
    After a single glance at his brother’s eyes,
the Glendruid Wolf shook his head, cautioning Erik. Erik
didn’t argue. He had seen enough battles to know that reason
was too often the first casualty.
    Slowly Dominic knelt by Simon’s side. A hand
wrapped in chain mail settled as delicately as a butterfly onto
Simon’s leg. Beneath the mail gauntlet, the fey dress rippled
and shivered with every breath of wind as though alive.
    “Simon,” Dominic said urgently.
“Let us help you.”
    A shudder coursed through Simon. Gradually the
wildness left his eyes. He moved aside just enough for Erik to
reach Ariane’s wounded side. The amethyst fabric moved with
Simon, clinging to his thigh. Absently he stroked the cloth as he
would have one of the keep’s cats.
    With great care, Erik’s fingers probed down
the side of Ariane’s dress.
    “I couldn’t find a wound,” Simon
said roughly.
    “The dress is binding it,” Erik
said.
    “Then make it bind more tightly. She bleeds
too much.”
    “The dress is only cloth,” Erik said.
“Very clever cloth, but still…cloth.”
    Delicately Erik began to run his fingertips down
Ariane’s side once more.
    “What happened?” Dominic asked Simon
quietly.
    “I was ahead of Ariane. Two outlaws and three
renegade knights struck. The knights were in armor and riding war
stallions.”
    “God’s wounds,” hissed
Dominic.
    “I killed the two who weren’t in
armor.”
    “You should have fled,” Dominic said
curtly. “Your horse was more than a match for war stallions
carrying fully armored knights.”
    “Ariane’s mare was not.”
    Dominic blew breath through clenched teeth, making
a hissing noise.
    “You are as fine a knight as I’ve ever
known,” Dominicsaid after a moment,
“but even you couldn’t defeat three knights in chain
mail riding war stallions. How did you survive?”
    “I had help.”
    “Who?” Dominic asked, looking
around.
    “A brave, foolish nightingale.”
    Dominic’s head snapped back around to his
brother.
    “Ariane?” Dominic asked, shocked.
    “Aye,” Simon said. “I sent one
knight running, but another was set to slice me in two. I was a
dead man. Then Ariane came out of the mist at a hard gallop and
slammed that blocky little mare right into the knight’s
stallion.”
    Dominic and Erik were too surprised to speak.
    “Before that tangle was sorted out,”
Simon said, “a peregrine came out of the sky like feathered
lightning and sent another stallion fleeing. I guess the remaining
knight decided that he had fought enough for one day and quit the
field.”
    “Was Ariane struck on the head?” Erik
asked.
    “I don’t know. All I saw was the dagger
blow. I would have killed the cursed knight, had not the blue-eyed
devil intervened.”
    No one interrupted the silence that came after
Simon’s bleak statement.
    “What of your wounds?” Dominic asked
finally.
    “I’ve taken worse during your endless
drills.”
    “You can thank those drills that you lived
long enough for help to arrive,” Dominic muttered.
    “That and the big renegade’s
bloodlust,” Simon agreed. “It made him too
eager.”
    Erik and Dominic exchanged a look.
    “Would you recognize this renegade if you saw
him again?” Erik asked Simon.
    “I think not. Thick-chested, blue-eyed
bastards are as common as rocks in the Disputed Lands.”
    “What insignia was on his shield?”
Dominic asked.
    “None,” Simon said succinctly.
    “Do—”
    “Enough,” Simon interrupted
impatiently. “’Tis Ariane who matters now, not the
misbegotten bastards who attacked us.”
    While he spoke, Simon’s hand