Chapter 33
Robin followed Brother Fletcher through the tunnel from the caves to the monastery. From her years of working with the monks, she knew this cave as well as she knew the one near the port city.
But, in all her time working with the monks, she had never ascended the stairs to the interior of the monastery.
To protect their place of prayer and quiet, the men had kept a comfortable guest house—which Robin had frequented—attached to the front courtyard for visitors who needed to stay with them.
As someone who valued her own quiet life, Robin had never begrudged the monks for this rule.
She respected them all the more for it, as she had seen them break it several times.
Often, the Majis who traveled through the monastery were ill and exhausted.
If they could benefit from a long rest within the private walls of the monastery, the monks invited them up to stay for as long as needed.
They would have done the same for Robin had she needed it, so she was content with staying in the guest house and respecting their peace.
At the moment, a part of her wished she had a better knowledge of the building they were about to invade, but she had spent several hours poring over the map with both Elias and Fletcher, so she was as prepared as she could be.
Robin inhaled the damp, salty air of the cave.
She forced her breath to be long and slow, letting the air seep deep into her lungs.
The attack they were about to begin could get messy, and there was always the chance that one of them could be hurt, or worse.
As a rule, they tried to not outright kill anyone, and today would be no exception.
Disarm and overpower, yes. But not kill.
However, they could not expect the enemy to afford them the same luxury.
In fact, they expected the opposite. Robin breathed in again deeply.
She trusted her team to defend themselves well, no matter how outnumbered they might find themselves.
Aden walked behind her, a tall and quiet presence that felt not unlike Ulli.
For a moment, she wished it was Ian at her side instead of his brother.
But then she reminded herself that Ian would be safely outside during the thick of the fight.
And she would hate for him to be injured.
Just as she would hate for anyone on her team to be injured, she reminded herself.
The smuggler’s tunnel ended in a steep staircase carved up the sandstone rock. Brother Fletcher stepped aside, letting Robin take the lead up the stairs so she would be the first one to enter the monastery as they had planned.
Robin passed around the monk and made her way quickly up the stairs. At the top, she came to a stop behind a small wooden door.
Grasping the handle, she tested it gently for squeaking. There was none. She slowly pulled the door back toward herself, revealing a heavy tapestry hung in front of it.
She turned around. “Douse the torches,” she whispered to Aden.
Aden passed on her command down the stairs.
Robin waited for several moments, listening intently for footsteps in the hallway, which she could not see through the tapestry. Hearing nothing, she pushed forward the heavy fabric and stepped through the doorway. Slipping between the tapestry and the wall, she moved into an empty stone hallway.
Slowly, quietly, the others followed her.
Fletcher and Sarah—the Lockwood smithy who was handy with a hammer in several types of situations—immediately moved down the hall to her left. They would search out the library turned weapons room to lock it off from access.
The soldiers they encountered would still be armed with the smaller weapons they kept on their person, but hopefully none would have time to go for full armor or heavy swords.
Robin moved down the hall to her right, stepping silently on the smooth stone floor. She counted each wooden door that she passed, exactly as Fletcher had described. The hallway ended at an open courtyard.
Hugging the wall as her only cover, Robin approached the open space. In the distance, she heard faint voices, the first sign of life in the monastery. She dropped to a crouch, getting her first view of the open space.
The courtyard itself held remnants of the peaceful garden it had once been, but its current state showed overgrown plants bowed under windswept sand.
There.
Across the way, two soldiers walked down a hall. They moved casually, wearing no visible armor or weapons.
Robin waited for them to disappear down the far side of the courtyard. This was not the place to make their first contact. She wanted to get deeper into the building, to start at the back and then fight their way to the front courtyard to slowly force the soldiers out.
After the last of the footsteps had faded, Robin led the nine bandits behind her in a quick, quiet, crouched dash across the inner courtyard.
A few more doors down the far hallway and they would make their first attack.
Once she was safely in the hallway, she again hugged the wall, moving quickly into the space so all the bandits could join her.
She had moved past the first door of this hall, counting it in her head as Fletcher had instructed, when she sensed something was wrong. Trusting her instincts, she spun around, looking at the door. It opened in front of her, revealing the unshaven face of a young man.
He looked at her in surprise, then turned his head to catch sight of the nine men frozen in step behind her.
“Hey!” he yelled, surprise turning into aggression. He reached for the dagger at his belt and lunged toward her.
Not the smartest move, Robin admitted to herself. Through the open door she could see a bed, a desk, and a chair in the empty room behind him. The man was outnumbered ten to one but still chose to attack.
Typical of a Chendas soldier to assume superiority in combat.
Robin lifted her short sword with ease and blocked the man’s attempted stab. Throwing her weight into a small jump, she rammed into him with her opposite shoulder, shoving him backward into the empty room.
He stumbled, losing his balance and falling onto the floor, exactly where Robin wanted him.
Stepping nimbly backward, Robin grabbed the door handle and pulled it closed as she returned to the hallway.
“Find a way to lock this from the outside,” she said, transferring her grip on the closed door’s handle to Liam.
While the entire interaction had only taken a few moments, the soldier’s cry had been heard deeper in the monastery. Two of the doors further down the hallway opened up, revealing several concerned faces.
This would have to do. Their element of surprise had run its course.
Robin lifted her short sword and ran forward, hoping the intimidation would help before the surprise disappeared.
One of the soldiers, the nearest one two doors down, made the smart decision to slam a door in her face.
But the open door at the end of the hall, the one that was perpendicular to the hall itself, remained open.
That would be the makeshift barracks. Three men poured out of it, pushing the first man forward.
With no other choice, the man in front grabbed the dagger from his waist and dodged to the side as Robin attempted to hit his head with the pommel of her short sword.
She missed.
Her own men surged around her, meeting the other two soldiers in the cramped hallway.
Robin used her sword arm to block an underhanded stab of the dagger. Aden, reaching around her, landed his fist against the man’s chin. Her opponent stumbled backward, his head slamming against the stone wall. Cornered and hurt, he raised his dagger, swinging wildly.
Using the tight space to her advantage, Robin stomped on his foot, glad that he was wearing simple leather shoes and not fully outfitted in firm boots.
As he instinctively leaned forward at the pain in his foot, she hit the side of his head with the pommel of her sword as hard as she could.
He dropped to the ground.
When she turned to face the others, she found two more bodies on the ground and her men advancing into the barracks. Shouts came from within.
Robin ran the final few steps to the open door. Just as they had planned, her men moved as a single unit, skirting the perimeter of the room and forcing its five other inhabitants to circle up near the center. The two groups stared each other down, swords and daggers drawn.
When Robin stepped inside, she quickly slid off to the side, leaving the door open for the Chendas soldiers to escape through.
“We are under attack!” one of the soldiers yelled toward the open door. Robin could not tell if these were Chendas men or Iseldan soldiers. The room they were in now had several beds lining the wall. The soldier who had his own sleeping quarters was likely a higher rank.
Lane led the attack from her men, rushing toward the soldiers with a yell.
To their credit, the soldiers attempted to put up a good fight. Robin noted by their fighting style that these were Chendas men. When one of theirs was the first to fall, they quickly backed themselves out of the room into the hallway.
“We are under attack!” one of them yelled again.
Lane led the bandits in pursuit, with Robin falling into line after them back into the hallway.
More soldiers were pouring toward them through the inner courtyard, blocking them in the hallway.
Robin’s men kept pushing, but their progress slowed as only two or three men could fight in the narrow hallway at a time.
“Gautho is in the front courtyard!” a high voice called, loud enough to be heard above the rising shouts and grunts of the fight.
“To the general!” called a much deeper voice.
That would be Sarah and Fletcher, luring the soldiers to the front of the monastery.
The front of the monastery, where Ian was currently distracting the generals. She hoped he was safe, reminding herself that his part was far less dangerous than the fight currently happening here.
The lure must have worked, because Robin’s men were able to push more quickly down the hallway. However, as they entered the larger courtyard, the fight grew to include each of them.
The bandits formed a living wall, pressing out from the hallway to herd the surprised soldiers forward.
As they had discussed, she and her bandits yelled loudly as they moved, spreading out to take up as much space as possible while still protecting each other, giving the impression of being a larger group than they were.
Fletcher and Sarah continued to yell and lure from other areas of the side hallways, adding to the illusion.
They were definitely outnumbered, but it was not quite two to one. Knocking out a few of the defending soldiers as they went, they were able to successfully force them all out of the monastery and into the front courtyard.
The gate from the courtyard to the road was open, but Robin was too far back in the crowd of soldiers to see Ian and the generals beyond it.
“General! We are under attack!” one of the soldiers yelled again.
When the last soldier had been pushed across the threshold into the courtyard, Lane and Sol slammed the front door of the monastery shut behind them.