Chapter 37 | Friar Tuck
Alan-a-Dale was getting his ass kicked. Robin was missing. I sported a thousand cuts and bruises from my bare-knuckles form of fighting. Luckily, most the blood splotched on my habit wasn’t mine.
Some of it was, though, and I limped toward the tree line, trying to gather my breath.
Things were not boding well for the Merry Men. I had no idea how to turn the tide of battle, and I gave a futile pray to God to see us through this.
If we escaped this melee with our lives, I’d be sure to exact some punishment on Robin’s round behind after this. Perhaps a spanking or three.
I held my palm against a tree, above my head, ducking to take in deep lungfuls of air. My hands trembled, not from fear or pain, but from the number of times I’d smashed Discipline and Atonement into bodies. Blood, dirt, and grime caked my swelling knuckles.
I gritted my teeth, looked up, and saw double. When I focused, I noticed Alan backpedaling frantically as he tried to fend off a militiaman. Another soldier was heading for our minstrel, and I couldn’t allow that.
I pushed off the tree, waylaying into battle with a bellow. The soldiers glanced over at the sound of me tearing through the branches. Alan’s eyes widened when he watched me charge, as if seeing a holy ghost.
I cracked a bloody grin at my brother, fighting past the limp in my left leg. Somewhere along the way, a sword had found flesh there.
I was used to flesh wounds. Every battle, I seemed to come away with them. A life of drinking and whoring had made me a bit rotund, surely, and that hadn’t helped my martial prowess.
Only Will Scarlet seemed able to escape battles as fresh as when he’d entered them. That damn whelp, always showing up the rest of us with his singular focus.
My knuckles crunched into a soldier’s side, and I felt something snap where I hit. The man grunted, spun with his blade, and I ducked—if I’d had hair, it would have cut a few inches off.
Next punch landed in the man’s kidney, and if he didn’t die within the next few minutes, he would be pissing blood for weeks.
He choked on his own spit, falling back with rolling eyes.
I landed two more punches into his cheek, breaking skin and slashing blood across the rest of him. The second punch from Atonement took him in the temple, and he dropped like a sack of grain.
Alan hammered at his opponent with overhand strikes, completely uncoordinated and inept.
The soldier he fought kicked out, caught Alan in the chest, and sent him sprawling.
I entered the fray, not appreciating watching the pretty minstrel get lambasted like that.
The soldier was quick, and did a back-cut that caught me in the forearm.
I seethed, hissing, and he swung again, facing me full-on. Alan scrambled to his hands and knees, found his sword on the ground, and then jumped up to his feet to engage.
At least he was trying, though he often provided more of a distraction than help.
The soldier bared his teeth at me, spitting, and I screwed my face up and wrinkled my nose as his nasty saliva landed on my face.
I did him one better, lunging at the man and catching his blade with a sparking shot from Discipline. With his blade turning wide, I stepped into the man’s guard, my bigger belly rubbing up against him.
I could see the darks of his eyes, and then I held onto the collar of his chainshirt. With numb hands, I grabbed at his neck, leaned forward, and bit into him.
My teeth embedded into soft, flexed skin. I clamped harder, eliciting a howl of shock and pain from the soldier, growling like a feral beast as I punctured cartilage and muscle.
Don’t enter a mouth contest you can’t win, heathen.
I tore away a bit of his neck with my teeth, and blood bubbled. He pushed me back, and then big arms wrapped around mine from behind, pinning my bulky arms behind me.
My eyes widened. I hadn’t noticed the second soldier coming up behind me while I was lost in a strange fervor somewhere between cannibalism and survival.
With my arms barred, my belly protruded.
The soldier in front reeled back with his hand, cruel blade fisted at the base, and he stabbed toward my vulnerable stomach—
But the sword abruptly dropped to the ground when Alan-a-Dale’s sword came down and took his hand off at the wrist.
The neckless bastard screamed in agony as he stared down at his nubby wrist. He inadvertently spewed blood onto my face and torso.
I roared in his face, tensed my body, and pulled forward, forcing the man holding me to fly onto my back.
The weight of him and his armor brought me to my knees as I tried to flip him over me, fruitlessly. His legs kicked in the air, arms tangled with mine, and he tried to wrap an arm around my throat to strangle me.
Choking, my vision dimmed. I brought my palms up, fell completely to my hands and knees, and wrapped them around his wrists to try and dislodge his hold.
It was no use. I was going to pass out.
Alan cried out and hacked his blade into the man on my back over and over—not stabbing, in case he impaled him and stabbed into me—but rather slashing. His crude attempt worked, and I was quickly showered by the dying soldier’s gore and stink.
He slid off my back and I panted. The deep breath of air I took whistled raggedly in my throat.
“Are you all right, dear chaplain?” Alan asked, crouching near me with a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded, croaking, “Robin. We need to find the little heathen.”
“I’m on it. Up the hill?”
I grimaced. It was hard to speak. We needed help here, too. How was I supposed to tell Alan-a-Dale, that courageous, foolish, gorgeous man . . . that we needed someone who could protect Robin once they found her? What was Alan supposed to do if he ran into soldiers of his own heading up that hill? Die a needless death?
He could just as easily do that here, beside his brothers.
“Tuck?” Alan pressed.
“We have to finish this first. Make sure we get out alive. We can’t keep scattering.” A pit formed in my stomach. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I needed a better fighter to find Robin. “There are still more soldiers to kill.”
Alan clenched his jaw. He studied me hard, finally giving me a firm nod. It was a nod of understanding. We’d known each other too long for him to not pick up what I couldn’t bring myself to say.
“Then we will kill them,” he said simply.
I nodded and swayed to my feet, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Like knights of old, Alan. Thank you for saving me. You’re a better fighter than I gave you credit for.”
He snorted. “You tell such pretty lies, dear Tuck. We both know I’m shit at this whole thing.”
I tossed him a wicked grin, then looked over and watched Sir Gregory fight the Templar Knight. They danced in circles, the arcs of their greatswords huge, mighty, and violent. Their blows rang out through the forest.
John, Will, Robert, and Briggs needed our help. They were trying to fend off the soldiers who remained, stepping into the glade.
With a wince and a grunt, I pushed myself onto my feet. I wobbled for a moment in place, then clanked my knuckles together and headed forward, trying desperately to get to my men.
They needed me.
Worse than that, Robin needed me.
How were we supposed to get to her?