The one-armed Tibalt strove to mount and control his panicked horse at the same time. His strength failed him in the wet. He tumbled below its thrashing hooves, tried to roll clear but de Hayle had not yet calmed his own rearing horse. Tibalt screamed, his one arm raised to ward off the lethal iron-shod hooves. De Hayle paid him no heed and yanked the reins, the bit cutting his mount’s tongue and mouth as Tibalt’s head was crushed. De Hayle bellowed for his men to form up. Blackstone was fighting on foot and had so few men that horsemen could trample them to death. De Hayle’s twenty riders and those that were still fighting would, this time, overpower the arrogant Blackstone who must think himself invincible.

So what was it in those vital moments that stopped him from attacking? The lightning slashed across the sky. Boulders exploded on the distant hills. Burgos Castle loomed high on the escarpment, its turrets unyielding against the storm’s force. Velasquita’s words struck him again. He would know when the moment came. When Blackstone was so weakened, he could slay him. De Hayle saw Blackstone raise his head, shake free the blood and rain, bellowing over the howling wind, his words swept away but his intent as lethal as sheet lightning. De Hayle knew this was not the time.

He yanked the reins and galloped into the night followed by those who could. Leaving those who could not to their fate.

*

Velasquita stood at the open window in the high tower. Buttresses shielded her from the wind shear sweeping around the walls. A wailing banshee that was her friend. The rain soaked her linen shift; the wind moulded it to her body. She raised her face to the storm. She had seen the shadowed men in the distance once they had cleared the castle walls, soon to disappear into the night. So few of them. She let her mind ride the tempest. It showed her blood and death but little else. This was not the night Blackstone died. There was still work to do. They had not yet found the boy. The cold gave her gooseflesh. A shiver across her skin. No, not just the cold. Anticipation. The final killings had not taken place. She had yet to take him to her bed.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

The men were drenched and weary from the fight and the biting cold, but Blackstone had not lost a man. What wounds they sustained were not fatal and by the time they returned to the stables the enemy dead were food for wolves. The storm broke by dawn. The clear skies revealed the night’s snowfall on the high peaks blurred in part by the specks of mountain vultures circling over the place of death.