Chapter 42 | Robin
After giving Alan-a-Dale a kiss and sending him scrambling toward my other mates to relay what we planned, I took off with Will.
I was brought back to my mad sprint for the Grinning Oak. That sunny day, when things hadn’t seemed so bad. When I gladly took a rumble in the weeds with Will Scarlet, fighting back and fiending for his touch all the same.
Now, the sky was dark. The wind sliced me, drying my eyes much like it had that day. We ran like starving animals, tearing through the trees, spurning each other on. Though we were both injured and exhausted, we now had a singular purpose driving us forward: Protect the Merry Men’s escape.
Draw eyes away from John, Tuck, Robert, Briggs, and Uncle Gregory, and cast them upon me and Will.
Our diversion worked immediately. We didn’t run stealthily—we made as much noise as we could as we careened through Sherwood Forest.
Once the torches reached the base of the hill and became actual soldiers, we heard the shouted voices, the baying of the hounds:
“There! I see a silhouette in the trees!”
“Bring light! They’re getting away!”
The enemy was much closer than we would have preferred.
Yet, in some sick way, we took it as a challenge. Our injuries, too, were motivations for us to outdo the other.
In my twisted mind, I thought, I don’t have to be faster than everyone. I just have to be faster than Will.
If I took that thought further, into the depths of darkness, then I would have realized that running faster than Will meant sacrificing him to our adversaries, which was the last thing I wanted.
It was the idea that fueled me and helped churn my legs incessantly. The spirit of competition—the notion of a race to safety.
My heart was frozen in my chest. My pulse had spiked so drastically that it was a constant thrum of noise in my ears.
Arrows whizzed harmlessly around us from our pursuers, catching tree limbs and bushes and undergrowth. Soldiers cursed as they ran through the trees after us, total strangers to the difficult terrain.
Will and I navigated it with an ease borne from spending countless months in the woods, and calling the forest home. It was almost like the branches and brambles parted to make our passage easier, before closing up to make our trackers’ more difficult.
Of course that was mere fantasy, which, as we all knew, was Alan-a-Dale’s jurisdiction.
I separated from Will for a split second, spreading from him like a parted river around a thick oak tree, before realigning on the other side.
He shot me a wolfish grin, and I returned the expression.
I felt like a child again. The monsters at my back were very real, this time. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill me and my mate—not after assumedly finding Sheriff George and Sir Guy’s corpses at the top of the southern hill.
The voices were closing in. The rustling of the woods became a cacophony of slashing swords across vines, and vicious shouting.
When Will and I began to tire, fresh legs behind us kept pace. We were outrunning them, perhaps, but not outpacing them.
It drove me further. I reached deep down to funnel all the energy I could muster into my legs.
Then I struck a gnarled branch with the tip of my boot.
Abruptly, the world was spinning and the ground was reaching up to smash against my face.
With a gasp, I caught myself and rolled awkwardly through leaves and bushes.
“Robin!” Will shouted. He stalled, pumping dust and dirt into the air as he slid to a stop. He wheeled around, backtracking, to help me up. His hands bit into my shoulders, hauling me to my feet. “Come on, thorn, we can’t stop.”
I winced as pain lanced up my leg when I put weight on my left foot. For all that talk of “being the forest,” Mother Nature had just reminded me that no one could claim her as an equal.
She kicked my ass, shoved me to the dirt, and now the voices of our enemies were even louder as they drew ever closer.
“Fuck, it’s twisted,” I grumbled, hobbling along in a mad dash with Will’s arm draped under mine.
I put my weight on his shoulder as we ran together.
“There, there!” came a shrieking voice.
“We’ve got ‘em!” shouted another.
I could see the bodies now—the silhouettes in the woods, hemming in to surround us. The rasping of steel being drawn from sheaths made my stomach plummet.
We had failed. And now we would be killed, or worse, captured. We would be tortured and hanged for all of Nottingham to see, to make an example of us.
This time, our deaths would be deserved. The claim that we had killed Sheriff George would be answered with cries of incredulity and anger from the populace, because we were guilty.
Like him or not, people didn’t appreciate when you killed their Sheriff. It brought a sense of lawlessness to the region that was impossible to ignore.
Still, we wouldn’t go down without a fight. Will was already drawing his wicked blades. I was reaching for mine, as boots stepped onto twigs and crunched dry leaves in every direction.
Then I heard a different kind of rustling in the bushes. Something natural, not manmade.
I shared a confused look with Will, both of our foreheads deepening with grooves.
Was my whimsical take on Mother Nature less than a fantasy? What is that sound?
“W-What the hell?” came a voice, just as the soldier appeared ten feet to my right. “You hear that?”
Other soldiers stepped into my view, coming in from all directions. At least ten of them.
The bushes around us shivered. Nightbirds cawed from the safety of their nests, darkening the bruised sky.
A low growl filled the night. Followed by another.
A chorus of growling, snarling, and . . .
Howling.
The forlorn, drawn-out howls brought gooseflesh snaking along my skin. The sounds echoed, bouncing off every branch and lifting high into the sky, to the moon. Filling the entire night.
My heart lodged in my throat as I turned to Will. “Keep running,” I hissed.
With a nod, he sheathed his blades and dragged me along with him. I fought against the pain and ran, the trees around me beginning to swirl by as we charged.
Something else flashed through those trees, alive and ancient and dangerous.
Feral.
I saw the blurs of darkness—four-legged silhouettes streaming across our peripheral vision faster than Will or I could ever hope to run.
Soldiers around us shrieked in fear.
The growls became the sounds of ripping flesh. Grunting and crying out. Blood showering the leaves.
I caught sight of a pair of yellow eyes, staring into our path at us. Then three more pairs of eyes. Within moments, it seemed like the entire forest had come alive with creatures of the night, in every bush and shrub.
A pack of wolves, protecting our escape, baring their jagged, dripping jaws.
I only had one answer for where they’d come from, and why they weren’t attacking us.
“Fuck!” shouted a soldier I couldn’t see. “Retreat! Fuck this! Ahhh!”
The sound of boots started to recede into the darkness. It was replaced completely by the pitter-pattering of paws on the soil.
Will and I made it to a landmark oak tree we both recognized. We peeled around it to head east.
Behind us, the howling continued, chilling my blood.
A black face stepped into our path, white braids bobbing. “Lady Robin! Scarlet!”
Wulfric ambled into view, his face stricken and coated in perspiration, like the older man had been running as fast as we had.
“Wulfy!” I cried out, using Bess’ sobriquet for the healer.
Whinnying filled my ears.
The healer pulled two horses along by their reins, one in either hand: Mercy and Will’s mare.
“You came for us,” I said to Wulfric, breathless and ready to collapse to the ground. I just needed to get on Mercy’s saddle, first.
Wulfric nodded sternly. “Of course. I followed your tracks, lass. Once everyone found out where you had gone, we prepared. The entire camp is armed and ready for battle, should it come.”
Will said, “It won’t come tonight, healer.”
Wulfric pursed his lips and nodded. “Very well. Then shall we return you two home?”
“What about the others?” I asked. “Have you caught sight of—”
“Aye, Lady Robin. Little John and the others arrived at the location of your stashed horses just minutes ago. Seemed you two took the long way around.” He smiled that white-toothed grin for a moment, before faltering and staring at the ground with a sinking face. “Your mates carried the body of your uncle between them. My condolences, lass.”
Pain tugged my heart, threatening to close in and shut me down.
Steeling myself, I said, “We mourn later, Wulfric. Let us be off. Thank you for bringing our steeds to us.”
“Of course, Lady Robin.”
He handed off Mercy’s bit to me, and the strap of Will’s steed to him.
As we mounted, I noticed Wulfric wasn’t getting on a horse. “What about you? Where’s your steed, Wulfric?”
The man waved us on. “Go. I have to check on my children, lass. I’ll be all right.”
His children. The wolves.
I didn’t like it. I’d seen too much death tonight.
When I opened my mouth to argue, Wulfric held up a palm. “I will be fine. I will return, because now I have something to return to.” He winked. “Bess would flay my hide if she learned I got myself into trouble.”
He snickered and turned to vanish into the woods.
“Healer,” Will called out, leaning forward in his saddle.
Wulfric looked at us over his shoulder, brow raised.
“How did you find out?” Will asked. “You said you followed our tracks . . . but who told everyone where we were going?”
He quirked a smile. “It was Madam Marian, sir. I suppose she feared for your safety more than she was letting on.”