[Ealasaide]

Ulric, Withold, & Ghem

The blood rushed to Ulric’s head as Rowenna leaned her supple body into his, her familiar scent filling his nostrils as she purred, “Ulric, my dear, I would be so much more useful if you take your little knife from my throat.” She knew how to work his particular hungers well, having proven it many times in the past, but Ulric knew that now was no time for games. He had to keep his wits about him if he wished to live. The hand holding the tiny knife moved closer to her throat, rather than farther away. If she had indeed convinced the Eorl that she was a mere hostage, then that is what she would remain. He grabbed her roughly around the middle and jerked her against him as a booming voice exploded from just outside the kitchen door.

"Alarm! Everyone alarm! The outlaws are loose, in the kitchen!"

As the newcomer burst through the door, a knife in one hand, a throwing axe in the other, Withold made a lunge at the serving girl. Before she could make a move in her own defense, he had disarmed her and sent her knife skittering harmlessly across the floor toward the fire. Like Ulric with Rowenna, he spun around to face the newcomer, holding the girl’s slender figure between him and the threat that loomed in the doorway. He held the gleaming blade of his kitchen knife to her throat. A small bead of blood appeared against her pale skin as the knife grazed her just below the chin. Ghem, being the only one without a hostage, continued to brandish the meat cleaver he’d snatched from the wall only seconds earlier.

“Drop your knife and let her go!” ordered the young man, looking at Ulric.

Ulric laughed harshly. “Take it from me.”

As the man took a step in Ulric’s direction, looking as though he fully intended to carry out Ulric’s challenge, Ghem slipped behind him and slammed the door to the Alder yard shut, dropping the bolt solidly into place. The newcomer was surrounded.

“You shouldn’t have raised the alarm,” said Ulric. “That was a stupid thing. Now someone is going to die.”

“Yeh,” snarled Ghem at the newcomer. He reached down and picked up a piece of firewood from the pile just inside the door with his offhand. “Drop yer weapons unless ya want it to be you.” While the log he had picked up wasn’t much of a weapon, it could take a blow from the newcomer’s axe if need be and buy him enough time to counter anything his opponent threw with a swipe of the meat cleaver. Or it could make an admirable bludgeon if he got in close enough. Either way, it was better than nothing. Better than Ulric’s teeny little blade, anyway. He waited for the young man to make a move, his muscles coiled like a viper’s.

In the meantime, a great deal of shouting and pounding of feet sounded from the direction of the great hall. Ghem began to think of the door at his back and came to the abrupt realization that perhaps sliding the bolt had not been such a brilliant idea. It might be their only avenue to escape.

****************************************

Elián

“Alarm! Everyone alarm! The outlaws are loose, in the kitchen!”

Ah, blast, thought Elián as the call to arms echoed throughout the Great Hall. Ghem and the blasted lock picks. Neither wanting to take part in the recapture operation nor wanting to be accused of inaction during a time of danger, he reluctantly put his mead aside and trotted dutifully behind the Eorl to the armory where he had been forced to leave his weapons on the way in. He found his own sword and dagger where he had left them and, pulling both from their scabbards, followed the Eorl down the hallway toward the kitchen. Inside, he could hear a commotion, voices. Something about women.

Women?

Well, that wasn’t right. If Ghem and the boys wanted to menace the local gents, that was one thing, but if they were going to pick on the pretty little serving girls he’d seen earlier, that was too much. He was definitely going to have to throw in with the Eorl on this one.

“Sorry, Ghem, mate,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re on your own.”