The Red Riders Ambush Tiuri and the Grey Knights

The Red Riders’ ambush turns a wary journey beside a narrow river into a fight for Tiuri’s life and the secret letter he carries. Although the Grey Knights repel the attack, Tiuri is wounded and nearly overcome before they can reach him; Ardanwen’s intervention proves decisive.

Approach and Assault

The danger gathers against a landscape that has begun to feel like a trap. The Grey Knights ride on despite pauses to ask after the Red Riders and search for their tracks. By afternoon, rocks line the road and break the river’s current into white splashes; on the far bank, a dark pine forest offers the attackers concealment. Tiuri watches the woods tensely. The road is empty, and the party rides in wary silence, hearing at times only the echo of hooves.

Late in the afternoon, a shout rises from the forest. Bendoe checks his horse and reaches for his sword; the others ready their weapons. Arwaut spots a man in red in a tree, while Ewijn sees movement among the trees. Bendoe rides into the shallow but fast-flowing river, followed by Arwaut and the squires. Arrows fly from the forest, but none finds its mark. The knights’ advance draws attention across the water just as another attack comes from the opposite side: a man jumps from a rock beside the road and lands on Tiuri.

The assault is aimed not merely at the party but at Tiuri and the letter. His attacker bears him to the ground and clamps hands around his neck. Ardanwen rears and neighs as Tiuri struggles to throw the man off; around them come shouts, pounding hooves, and the sound of more men jumping from the rocks. Tiuri cannot later give a precise account of those confused seconds. What he understands at once is that the man wants both his life and the letter. With no chance to reach a weapon, Tiuri wrestles until he pins his first attacker down and sees his face.

When that man cries out, Tiuri senses danger and springs up, drawing his sword. A second attacker seizes him from behind, but Tiuri anticipates the grip and drops backward, taking his assailant by surprise. The first man rises; another joins him. One tries to seize Tiuri’s hands while the other tugs at his clothes. Ristridin’s horn sounds as Tiuri calls for help, but an attacker stabs him in the upper left arm. His vision darkens. Still he fights, clinging to the one thing the attackers have not taken: the letter.

Rescue and the Attack’s Aftermath

Tiuri’s attackers let go only when the Grey Knights reach him; he loses consciousness before he can see how the struggle ends. Coming round in Ristridin’s hands, he instinctively checks for the letter. It is still there. The fighting has stopped, and Ristridin bends over him with a worried expression. Tiuri’s wound is a stab in the upper left arm, but Ristridin judges it not serious. He washes and binds it, helps Tiuri to a more comfortable place against a rock, and gives him a few sips of spiced wine. Ardanwen comes over and lowers its head to sniff him.

Ristridin explains that the horse has saved Tiuri’s life. One Red Rider had tried to attack him with an axe, but Ardanwen kicked the man with its hoof, killing him. The horse’s intervention completes what Tiuri’s own desperate resistance could not: the attackers fail to take either his life or the letter. Tiuri strokes Ardanwen’s nose as he tries to make sense of the confused encounter. Ristridin tells him that several men had overwhelmed him and that the Grey Knights arrived just in time; without the horse, they might have been too late.

The encounter does not end with the Red Riders’ first retreat. Ristridin gives Tiuri his horn in case danger returns, then stays with him rather than joining the pursuit. He says there were no more than twenty attackers and that five were dead, while Tiuri was the member of their party in greatest danger. The others ride after the fleeing men, but darkness makes it impossible to find them all. After more than an hour, the nine return with a captive. Bendoe reports that six Red Riders have been killed and one captured; the rest escaped. He asks after Tiuri, and, despite his usual gruff manner, his concern is evident.

The prisoner’s account gives the ambush a wider reach. Most of the Red Riders came from Eviellan, but he had joined them only after Knight Edwinem’s murder and had never seen the Red Shield Knight. He says the band had spies, including Leor, the servant at the Inn of the Sunset. Through another intermediary, Leor had warned them that the Grey Knights were approaching with the young man they had long sought: a rider on a black horse. The captive does not know why Tiuri is their target or what their further plans are, but he confirms that the ambush was informed by surveillance, not chance. Ristridin identifies the attack on travellers without cause as highway robbery and says the captive will be handed over to the lord governing the area, the Knight of Castle Westenaut, for punishment.

Interrogation and Jurisdiction

The fight’s aftermath also establishes how the Grey Knights distinguish pursuit from punishment. Bendoe reports that the Red Riders had clearly tried to avoid a battle; only when the Grey Knights caught up with them did fighting begin. Some of the riders then used the confusion to escape. As darkness made it impossible to track them, Bendoe and his companions returned, still resolved to pursue the fugitives another time. Their account makes the encounter more than a sudden attack: it is one phase of an ongoing chase in which the Red Riders’ retreat leaves the conflict unresolved.

Back at the roadside, the company tends to the practical consequences of the fighting. The horses are unsaddled and rubbed dry, while Arwaut and a squire have their injuries bound and food is prepared. The prisoner is questioned after the meal. He is initially unwilling to speak, but the Grey Knights’ threatening looks soon overcome his resistance. His testimony identifies the Red Riders’ network: most came from Eviellan, and their information about the approaching Grey Knights and the black-horse-riding youth had reached them through spies, including Leor, the servant at the Inn of the Sunset. The captive does not know why Tiuri is wanted or what his employers plan next, so the interrogation clarifies how the ambush was arranged without revealing the whole conspiracy.

The reports leave a small but notable uncertainty in the body count. Ristridin first tells Tiuri that five of the no more than twenty attackers are dead; after the pursuit, Bendoe reports six killed and one captured, with the rest escaped. The accounts are not reconciled, and the narrative preserves both figures. Ristridin nevertheless gives the prisoner’s fate a clear legal destination: attacking travellers without cause is robbery, and the captive will be handed over to the local ruler, the Knight of Castle Westenaut, to be dealt with as he deserves. The Grey Knights’ response thus moves from immediate rescue and pursuit toward an appeal to the authority governing the territory.

The Ambush’s Unfinished Resolution

The attack closes as a battlefield victory but not as a completed pursuit: the Grey Knights rescue Tiuri, recover him and the letter alive, and capture one attacker, yet the remaining Red Riders escape into the dark. Their prisoner can trace the warning to a network of spies and identify the black horse as the clue by which Tiuri was recognized, but cannot explain why his pursuers want him or disclose their wider plans. The encounter therefore sharpens the danger without resolving its source: the Grey Knights now know that Tiuri is being deliberately hunted, while the motive and the leaders behind the hunt remain beyond their reach.