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was diminishing. She cast a hopeful glance over her shoulder. The troop was still hard on their heels, although a little farther back; they had merely become tired of shouting. That was too bad. Adam would be warned by the pounding hooves and probably he had scouts out, but the warning would come late. The sound of voices would carry much farther and communicate far more urgency. Joanna herself could not cry a warning to her brother because that would betray his presence to the pursuers. However, there was more than one way to skin a hare. |
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''Leave us be!" she screamed at the men who followed. "We have done no one any harm. We are peaceful travelers only." |
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Naturally, that brought a spate of new threats of what would befall them if they did not stop and assurances of safety and freedom if they did. Joanna was staring anxiously ahead, looking for a familiar sign along the wooded area of the road they were passing. Fear almost dominated her again. This was the place, yet the woods seemed empty. In the moment she thought that, she was nearly startled into losing her reins and her seat by a roar of voices which burst out alongside and just behind her small party. Surprised into irrationality, she cried her brother's name aloud before she realized that it must be he and his men who had charged out of the wood, lances set. |
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The unexpected ambush was a complete success. The pursuers had not even drawn their weapons, so little did they expect danger or resistance from Joanna's few men. Adam's lance spitted three before it broke and he cast it down. The first wave of his men were nearly as successful as their powerful leader, most of them taking two victims before they needed to draw swords. Of course the advantage lasted only for the first half minute of contact. The screams of the wounded and the cries of warning of those who managed to avoid injury alerted the men who followed. |
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Adam's force was by far the larger, but that was of no immediate advantage because the narrow road was the only space clear enough to fight in. It was necessary for his men to make their way through the wood to come upon the tail of |
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