Chapter 34 | Little John
The soldiers in front of us were amassed in an uneven wall of humanity, a mere twenty paces ahead.
There was no way around them—only through them.
And the wall marched forward.
Heavy boots thudded toward us.
I cursed us for not being more aware. Even Will and Robert had missed them in our excitement to make it to the hill past the glade. They had been well-hidden and prepared for our rear approach.
“Back break,” I hissed for my people to hear.
Everyone I traveled with knew the command: a slow retreat back into the woods, and a scatter that spilled east to west. The idea was to hide ourselves and circle around, even though I knew we wouldn’t be circling around this wall.
It was twenty against seven.
I hated the idea of separating from my men—from Robin most of all—even if that separation was only a few feet away. Yet the necessity was there: If we simply mashed our group against theirs in a shield wall, the sheer numbers of their force would overwhelm us and swallow us whole. We had no one to protect our flank, because we were so few in number.
We needed to be precise, and give each man on our side—and woman—a chance to pick their particular fight that would be well-suited to their strengths.
Our seven could not take out twenty.
But individually? Maybe each man could take out three.
The worn, fortified wood of my quarterstaff felt like an old friend as I gripped it loosely at the base and middle. My staff was an extension of me. Ever since I’d lost my finger in the Nottingham jail I’d been retraining myself and adjusting my approach.
Now, so many months removed from that hellscape, I was back in the prime of my fighting life. A little older, less springy, but all there.
I staggered my position in front and to the side of Robin, to let her drift slowly back into the woods as she drew her bow and arrows from her shoulder.
As long as she was behind me, and I didn’t let the enemy behind me, then she was safe. I needed to always keep that in the forefront of my mind, because if we lost Robin, we lost everything.
There was no retreating. I could tell by the severe expressions on my friends’ faces that it wasn’t even a question. We would make our stand here, in this nameless glade beneath a sloping hillside.
My eyes danced left to right. I dug my back heel into the soft earth, bracing myself, and became as large as possible to try and draw as many of the bastards to me as I could.
Will was to my left. Tuck to my right. Alan somewhere near Robin, a bow in his hand, too. I wouldn’t have rather had any other men by my side. These were my brothers.
My muscles flexed as the guards approached wordlessly. None of them had retreat on their minds, either. These looked like well-trained militiamen from Nottingham—not Knights Templar—so at least that was a relief.
Still, I didn’t notice a hairless chin on any of the grisly men in front of me. Beards, scars, and bulky frames for each of them. No mere novices here, or boys who would wet themselves when the fighting got tough and the blood spilled.
My closest enemy was fifteen paces away.
I bent my knees into a defensive stance, staff held in front of me with both hands. Will slid his blades together like a cook ready to make mincemeat of these fuckers. Tuck clanked his iron fists together and put himself in a boxing stance.
I calculated an invisible line in front of me, somewhere between a patch of soft mud and the first boots of the soldiers. It was a line I would not let these bastards cross.
Ten paces.
My heart thrummed, battle-lust singing in my brain. It was a deadly, ugly song, and one I had been crooning a lot lately.
Eight paces, and I could see the whites of the soldier’s eyes beneath his helm, nose protected by a cross-guard. He looped his sword in a circle, eyeing me and me only.
Problem was, there were five other men eyeing me and me only, too.
It wasn’t a problem for me, though. It was a problem for them.
Six paces—
And I lunged. Unexpectedly, swiftly, faster than a man my size should be able to.
Shifting from my defensive stance on my back foot to an offensive charge startled the first soldier and made him hesitate.
He steadied himself on his back boot, shield up—
And my quarterstaff cracked over it with a wooden crash.
Shouts split the night once I opened up the skirmish.
The soldier shoved his shield toward me, trying to slam into my chest.
I pivoted, loosened my hold with my left hand, and speared my staff around him, clubbing the dull end against his chest.
He let out a grunt. Rib broken, smashed. Began to double over before realizing the mortal danger he was in and trying to push forward.
I didn’t relent or give him time to recover. As his sword came up to meet my descending staff, I kicked with my right boot, hard as I could, and caught the fucker square in the shield.
It shoved him back, out of range of his sword—
But not out of range of my quarterstaff, with my long arms.
I spun in a full circle, wielding the staff like a cudgel, side-stepping at the same time.
The whites in his eyes grew large. His shield came up—
Too late, and my staff glided over the upper rim of his shield and smashed into the side of his head. His helmet crinkled like it was made of frail tin, and blood spurted from his eyes and ears as half of his head caved in.
I stepped forward into the guard of the next man in line, before the first had even swayed to his knees, dying.
Now I moved fast, the battle-lust taking over, everything else drowning away. The cries and shouts and clanging of steel around me vanished.
An arrow whizzed over my shoulder and struck the man’s lifted shield. Then another arrow thudded home, and he hid his face behind it.
A bad move. Because he lost sight of me as I ducked.
When his shield lowered, I was nowhere to be seen, low and crouched.
I swung my staff in an uppercut, skidding the end along the mud in a groove and sending a plume of dirt and grass into the air.
The man’s chin exploded, teeth lodging into the roof of his mouth and brain as it dislocated. Bits of bone and teeth sputtered out of his broken mouth.
He fell back with a heavy thud on the ground—
And a sizzling pain lanced across my left bicep.
I spun just as a flanking soldier reeled back to stab at me again—deeper this time.
Backpedaling, I smacked his blade away with my staff. He kept on the offensive, swinging his blade in quick strokes that kept me off-balance.
Growling, I kept pace, read his movements, and anticipated correctly. He didn’t score another hit, but I was useless when I wasn’t on the attack.
An arrow flew into the man’s lower side. My eyes darted left to see Alan-a-Dale drawing another arrow from where he hid in the trees, ten feet away.
The soldier grunted but didn’t relent, embracing the pain and continuing to bring me to heel.
I roared angrily, trying to match his movements, but he finally got another strike across the top of my hand and the pain burned to my bone. Though shallow, the hand was a horrible spot to get struck.
Luckily, I’d already lost a finger there. I was well-versed in the pain associated with little appendages.
Blood trickled down to my knuckles as I gripped my staff tighter. Alan’s next shot went wide, because he’d be the first to admit he was a shit shot.
Then a soldier was on him, too, and he threw his bow down and drew his sword to engage.
I bared my teeth at the soldier. He matched my ferocious look—he was a big man, and he could fight like hell through the agony of an arrow in his side.
He would tire, though. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
A bellow shivered the trees of the glade. Sir Gregory charged into the open air like something from a legend. A Knight of the Round Table, perhaps. His sword was giant—the height of him—and he swung in huge arcs that kept four separate soldiers at bay. He was not afraid to stick to the woods rimming the glade. He opted to run right into the fucking clearing, like a madman.
Gregory was like me. Experienced and patient, because he had to be with a greatsword like that. He was trying to draw as many people to him as he could, and while he did that, Robert and Briggs danced around his peripheries and struck little blows at soldiers, confusing their attack.
They didn’t know who to go for. Robert was quick with a blade, but even better with his bow. If I wasn’t occupied with this fiend of a soldier, I would have run over to help them, so Robert could get to where he was better suited: arrow nocked along his bowstring.
The arms of the soldier I fought flexed, veins popping. His biceps showed, and I finally found an opening.
Next swing, I spun my wrist, bringing my staff with it, and cracked it over his receding hand.
He dropped his shield, wringing his hand out, and stabbed with his short sword, his swings becoming more wild and frantic.
I spun, parried. I’d earned at least two dozen nicks across the hearty wood of my weapon. On his next attack, I sidestepped again, noticing my surroundings—
And his sword slashed into the bole of the tree right next to me.
My staff came down viciously, full force, before he could reel back or dislodge his blade. It cracked across both wrists and snapped them, the shards of bone glistening in the moonlight as they broke through the skin of his forearms.
The man howled as he stared down at his broken, useless hands, hanging limply in front of him.
I prepared to end his misery when a comrade of his came up beside him to fight me off. Gritting my teeth, I engaged, letting the other soldier keep wailing since he was incapacitated anyway.
Then a sharp blade jutted through the front of his open mouth, spraying blood across the tree where his sword was still stuck. His eyes rolled and he dropped—
Just as Will Scarlet yanked his blade free from the back of the man’s neck. He flicked the blood off his sword with a quick swish and then joined me to engage my attacker.
Three more came at us, trying to surround us.
I went back-to-back with Will, my greatest, most prized warrior. While I fought with strong movements, sometimes lumbering, Will was lithe and precise. My battle position was hulking, his was dancing on light feet.
And now he danced.
Blades blurred as he took on two soldiers at a time. If they hadn’t had their shields ready, each of them would have taken at least five wounds across their flesh within seconds.
As it was, they fended off Will’s initial onslaught, but I knew he was unstoppable. Unlike most men, Will Scarlet did not get slower when he tired. He got quicker.
The rasping of his blades crashing against enemy swords rang out like rapid-fire tapping against a jail cell bar. Sparks flew as his swords slid along guards and steel edges.
He took two men on at once, the ambidextrous fucker scoring precise hits and maneuvering with his left and right hands independent of one another.
Meanwhile, I felt the heat of the battle getting to me. I was bleeding in two spots—no, three spots now, as I felt my right calf trickling warmth.
Wonder how that got there.
I briefly scanned over my shorter opponent, keeping him occupied while I tried to gather my strength. My arms burned, my legs churned, and yet my heart kept a steady, slow beat.
This soldier was not as skilled as the one whose wrists I’d snapped. I let him think he was doing well, but it was only so I could recover, playing defensively.
Tuck came flying in, punched the man in the arm, and then had to bounce away to fight other soldiers who careened toward us.
The arrows had stopped flying in from behind, and I briefly wondered about that.
Across the way, Gregory had just cut a damn man nearly in half with the force of his swing. The soldier on the wrong end of his sword sagged, grabbed at his guts spilling out of the cavernous wound in his side, and quickly started convulsing as he went into shock and dropped.
Robert and Briggs each fought two men apiece.
All of us were completely guarded, nearly overwhelmed.
Will let out a sound—a grunt of frustration—which was rare for him in these moments. He saw the same thing I did: futility, if we kept at this pace.
We had easily cut down a third of these bastards, yet they had fresh arms waiting in the wings. They still outnumbered us, and our entire group was growing tired. The glade and the trees beyond stank of iron, coppery blood, and pine sap. A sulfuric smell of a nearby moor wafted across my nose.
I kicked the guard in front of me and he backpedaled. My staff came up and smashed his shield and sword aside in a swift one-two, opening up his center.
I slammed down into his chest with the haft and he coughed blood across my face. I wrinkled my nose, punched him in the jaw, and wrapped an arm around his neck.
With a firm twist, it snapped, and I dropped him and took a second to recover, breathing heavily now.
Something caught the corner of my eye, and I noticed a newcomer to the fray, walking at a measured pace toward us from the base of the hill.
He was huge, dressed in white, with the telltale red cross splayed across his chest, bright as the moon. His cloak billowed ominously, and I bared my teeth.
He had graying hair, and was nearly as huge and imposing as I was. Maybe more imposing because of his righteous armor, whereas I dressed like a goddamn beggar.
A true warrior, I thought, instinctively moving toward him, stepping into the glade.
The Knight Templar drew a sword from his back that rivaled the size of Sir Gregory’s. He found me through the fray, beyond the soldiers in front of him.
His eyes narrowed, his lips firmed.
I stepped forward—
Then Gregory made himself known, finishing another soldier and taking my place in the glade, across from me.
My eyes flicked over to Gregory.
The Templar’s eyes moved, too.
They locked with each other. Two graying warriors, past the prime of their soldiering days, perhaps, but neither willing to admit it. Incredibly authoritative on the battlefield, still, and I would be the first to admit it.
I had an idea who this man was. He was not a mere initiate like Brandt. His red-on-white outfit looked more ornate than other Templars I’d seen.
This was Sir Amadeus Montford. I was nearly certain of it.
He faced Gregory, gave a small nod of his head, then tilted the front of his helmet to close it completely. I lost sight of his grizzled beard, his salty hair, and could only see into the dark eye-slits of his boxy helmet.
Gregory tucked his billowing black cloak out of his way and stepped forward, matching the knight’s nod. He leveled his huge blade and struck a fierce stance, and I was reminded that this man, once upon a time, had been one of the most feared soldiers in the king’s army.
I blinked rapidly, drawn away from the two combatants with a sinking feeling in my heart.
No arrows in a while, I remembered, and spun a look over my shoulder. Just long enough to quickly investigate, before two more Nottingham soldiers were upon me.
My eyes widened. The space in the back, near the trees where I’d left her, was vacant.
I called out to Will, Tuck, Alan, anyone:
“Where the fuck is Robin?!”
Then Sir Gregory and Sir Montford charged at each other with ferocious battle cries that made my blood run cold.