The Windkeeper

With his back still to the lurking innkeeper, the youth now had only one obvious opponent: the man who was within boxing distance of him, fist doubled. Confident that he could take the robber, that no actual threat was forthcoming from those arthritic-looking hands, the young man laughed.

He was still laughing as dirt was thrown into his face, effectively blinding him. He twisted away from hands that grabbed at his shirt and felt the material rip. Less concerned now with his clothing, he stumbled back, shook his head to clear the watery vision that blinded him to the men around him.

"Oh, no you don't!" The thief who had thrown the dirt laughed. "You ain't getting away from us, boy!" He made another attempt to grab the young man's shirt, then grunted as a lantern crashed down from the ceiling. He wobbled to the floor, unconscious, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Mouthing an obscenity, the innkeeper craned his head up to the loft. The dirty little bugger had an accomplice up there. With an intense scowl of hatred on his beefy face, he kicked out at the red-haired leader who was slowly, groggily coming awake. "Get that bastard in the loft, fool!" he shouted to the bowlegged man.

Hearing a voice so close behind him, the young man spun around, his blurring, stinging vision only able to make out the bulk of someone coming toward him. He shook his head once more to clear it and then his eyes flared as the tines of the pitchfork gleamed in a ray of sunlight peeking through the loft's planking. Losing his balance, he fell backward, sprawling to the ground at the mercy of the rapidly advancing pitchfork. Landing painfully on his tailbone--the stall in which his own steed was sequestered blocking his movement backwards and an upright keeping him from twisting to the left--he found himself wedged against the stall and a wheelbarrow filled with grain. His face paled with an unaccustomed look of fear and he swallowed hard. With a silent prayer on his taut lips, he took a deep breath and waited for the piercing agony he knew the tines would bring.

"You're a dead man!" the innkeeper said and chortled. He started toward the youth, the pitchfork aimed at the young man's chest.

With a suddenness that chilled the air, something hissed through the morning rays and the advancing innkeeper stilled, a look of astonishment on his pudgy features. He half-turned, rasping in a low breath, and raised his eyes to the ladder. He looked down at the youth sprawled at his feet and then cursed.

"You little bastard," he mumbled as he let go of the pitchfork, his knees giving way as he tumbled sideways, the handle of a black crystal dagger protruding from his chest.

The youth's blue eyes bulged; the sensuous lips parted as the pitchfork sprang forward with its own momentum, its sharp tines arcing downward. Light shone eerily on the lethal-looking spear; flashed in a bright sparkle of danger as the implement came down with a thud. The tines buried themselves in the hard-packed dirt between the youth's spread legs, just inches from his groin. The wooden handle bobbed back and forth.

"It missed you!" a voice spoke from the loft.

The young man's eyes were squeezed tightly shut. He could hear the handle squeaking as the pitchfork wobbled, but he didn't feel pain. He forced open one eye and swallowed loudly as he scanned the tool from top to handle, to tine, to the juncture of his open thighs. He didn't recognize his own voice as he let out a softly quivering, "Oh, shit!"

"Is the innkeeper dead?"

He opened his other eye and glanced at the innkeeper. One look told him all he needed to know. Frothy red foam had bubbled out of the innkeeper's slack mouth and was dripping to the ground beneath his head. The dead man was staring sightlessly at the loft as though in mute disapproval.

"Deader than a door nail," the young man whispered.

"Good! What about the others?" was the question from above.

Sweeping his attention to the man whose head had been dented by the lantern, the young man thought that robber no longer posed a threat, for blood poured from the wound in his greasy pate. Apparently the leader had awakened and fled when the innkeeper met his untimely end, for that one was nowhere in sight. That left only the bowlegged thief whose whereabouts were uncertain.

The youth pushed from the ground and cast a quick look around him.

"I don't know," the young man replied. He felt his shoulder nudged and absently reached over to pat his horse's nose. "I'm all right, boy," he said softly in answer to the steed's inquiring nicker. The youth gently pushed his stallion's inquisitive face from his own.

A muffled oath and a snarl of rage from the loft drew his attention upward and the blond lad leapt for the ladder. Just as he reached the wooden steps, the bowlegged robber came tumbling head over heels to the ground to land with a mighty thud at the young man's feet.

"Oh, there you are!" The youth laughed, smiling benevolently at his dazed enemy. Totally ignoring the man who was gasping for breath from his fall, the youth was about to climb the ladder to thank his accomplice when something sailed past his ear. He reacted with quick reflex by spinning around to the opposite side of the ladder, nearly breaking his ankle as he pivoted on the bottom rung.