The Two Torcs (11 page)

To her bosom.

The thought of it brought a body memory of something that had never occurred. It hit her full force, and for a brief moment—a split second—she could
feel
him pressed against her. His lithe body, firm in its strength, touching against her from thigh, to hip, to stomach, to chest.

Her breath caught, and deep in the most intimate part of herself she felt a longing she’d never experienced before.

Oh, Robin.

“Yes?”

His voice startled her and she realized she had spoken his name out loud without meaning to.

“Uh, oh, carry on, I’m listening.”

His head tilted sideways, cocking at an angle as he studied her.

“These men gathered here are from my family’s land,” he said. “Some I’ve known my whole life. When my father left,
I
was responsible for their well-being, but I hated it. Every minute spent working that damned farmland was torture. It’s why I joined our rebellion.”

“The rebellion is needed…”

He put up his hand. “I’m not saying otherwise, but that’s just not why I joined it. I wanted away from Longstride Manor, and fighting against John with you was a way I could justify it to myself. So I ran with you and the others, fighting his corruption but not because it was corrupt. If I had wanted that, I could have gone to court, joined the other nobles and made a stand. Instead I ran through these woods and fought fat merchants with good friends.” He paused for the briefest moment, not looking at her, then added, “And a beautiful woman.”

She caught the words.

Robin continued. “My hatred of my father, the idea that I was better than digging a field, and the thrill of fighting in our rebellion is why I allowed Locksley to take my family’s holding. It was selfish, completely selfish.” He looked up at her. “Because of me, those men lost their homes and families. None of them will lose their life as well. We fight this fight alone.”

Her resistance broke. “Then we will rescue the children ourselves.”

He nodded. “As it should be.”

The ship rocked gently under their feet, bobbing slightly. The ice rimming the hull had been broken, smashed by the crew so that the ship could sail freely from the southern harbor.

It crunched and chafed, covering any noise they might make.

Wind blasted over the water, ripping across the deck and cutting them to the bone. For stealth and fighting they had worn as little as possible, leaving behind layers of clothing in favor of simple wool pants and tunics, dyed black, and wool cloaks only big enough to cover them.

The moonlight poured down from the clear winter sky, bathing everything in a weird silver glow. It had allowed them to watch from the edge of Sherwood as a regiment of soldiers had escorted three wagons to the harbor. In its light they watched the soldiers open the wagons and drag out huddled figures covered in blankets. In the crisp air the sound of weeping was clear.

The southern harbor was old, small, and rarely used. It was more treacherous to sail from there than the one King Richard and his men had used. Perfect for things that needed to be done away from prying eyes.

They had watched as the huddled figures were walked up the gangplank, taken aboard, and put into the hold of the ship. Once they were secured, a portion of soldiers with them, the crew had begun their preparations as the rest of the regiment turned the wagons and headed back toward the castle.

The sailors went to quarters, and the rebellion made its move.

* * *

Robin’s hand held the hatch’s rope handle. He nodded at Will and Marian.

“Once I drop down, you follow,” he whispered. “We can deal with the guards if we move quickly.” He looked past at Friar Tuck and Alan-a-Dale. “You two watch for sailors.”

One by one they returned his nod, each of them gripping a weapon. Will had his rapier and Marian held Raleigh’s saber. The fat friar carried an axe handle with no blade, just a stout stick of wood, its business end blackened from being fire hardened. Alan brandished two Scottish dirks each the length of his forearm. Their blades were nicked and notched from use, proof that they were of sturdy construction. “Wait.” Marian held out her hand.

Robin turned to her.

“Something doesn’t feel right.” The moment his hand closed on the hatch handle, her skin had begun itching. Not the dry-winter-skin-against-wool itch, to which she had become accustomed, but the feeling that something with too many legs crawled across the bends and folds of her body.

“We don’t have time for this,” Will hissed.

Robin glanced at his cousin, then back at Marian. He raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
What feels so wrong?
Her mind turned. Perhaps it was just the winter and the wool, after all, that made her itch under her clothes. Maybe her sense of unease was worry about the mission. They were about to attack soldiers. They had surprise on their side. Their chances were good.

She looked at her compatriots, capable fighters all. In Robin, one more than capable.

A small sound came through the wood of the hatch. A cry from a young throat, cut short before it could really start.

Gripping her sword tighter, she nodded to Robin. He took a deep breath, and pulled the hatch up.

Light blasted out, scouring the vision from Marian’s eyes.

The world went black-red, her vision only saved by the fact that Robin took the brunt of it. Raw force slapped the front of her body, making her step back. Immediately her mouth filled with the acrid taste of spoiled milk, and all she could smell was sulfur. Tears streamed down, freezing to her face as she blinked to clear her eyes.

Behind her Will, Tuck, and Alan all cried out. Only Robin in front of her stayed silent. Black fog replaced the glare, and swelled around them from the open hatch making Robin hard to see, even though he was only a foot in front of her, and moonlight still poured from the open sky above.

* * *

A sword punched out of the swirling dark, and Robin barely had time to knock it aside with his own blade, the cut so close it sliced the hem of his cloak.

He fell back, pushing Will and Marian with him. Everything was darker than it should be. He would be blind if he hadn’t jerked back just in time for the edge of his hood to shield his eyes from most of the blast.

Someone yelled behind him, a male voice but he couldn’t tell who. His attention was focused on the people spilling out of the hold.

There were soldiers, armed to the teeth with long swords, and among them were men and women, some older, some younger, dressed in strange clothing that looked nothing like uniforms.

He blinked away the black on the rim of his vision and leaped forward, bringing the fight to the steel of the attackers.

* * *

Will watched Robin sweep his sword to parry two soldiers who struck in unison. His cousin, first to battle.

Then he reached out his hand, brushing Marian’s hip. She lurched toward him, eyes streaming tears down her cheeks, soaking into the black scarf she had covering her mouth. His own eyes hurt from the magic blast, but she had gotten worse than he.

“Get behind me,” he hissed. “I can still see, mostly.”

Soldiers not fighting Robin circled around toward her, and he did not like the look of the people in the robes. He pulled at Marian and stepped around her, rapier out and ready to strike blood.

* * *

Alan-a-Dale elbowed Friar Tuck. “Can you fight?”

“Always.” The big monk hefted his bludgeon.

“Then stop being lazy.” With that, the bard launched himself at the people in the robes.

* * *

Robin’s sword sang off the steel of the soldiers, slashing tabards into shreds and cleaving deep into the rough iron mail beneath. The rings held, too tough and too flexible for him to shear through, but he creased them, plowing them deep into muscles like a saw.

Two fell to his blows, then two more. He struck hard enough to feel each impact in his own chest, the thud of steel against bodies.

He cursed himself for leaving his bow and quiver with the horses, over the ridge and inside the forest. If he had his bow he could have made short shrift of these soldiers, even in such tight quarters. Instead he bashed and hacked until, one by one, each of them lay still on the ship’s deck.

Sucking air into burning lungs, he looked to find Marian and the others. They fought the cadre of robed people, swinging their weapons, which appeared to
clang
off empty air before striking. He took a step toward them when the sound of cracking wood made him turn back toward the hold.

Wooden planks that formed the deck, timber that had been cut and planed and slotted together, all of it now buckled, pulling apart and slapping back together into a haphazard pile. On the other side of the disruption stood a tall man in a monk’s robe with dark eyes full of insanity. He gestured with the over-knuckled hands of an arthritic, and shouted words in a language Robin didn’t recognize. Even so, they made his ears burn deep inside.

Witchcraft.

* * *

Agrona moved nearer the Mad Monk. The clash of battle around her was lovely—chaotic and exciting. She felt it between her thighs, warming her from the cold.

The clang of swordplay drew her attention and she turned. A slim, hooded figure parried with a soldier twice their size, yet their skill and determination set the soldier retreating. The hooded figure attacked with the ferocity of a starving wolf, swinging his heavy saber in sharp, chopping arcs.

Agrona murmured a spell, rolling it off her tongue and into her hand before slinging it toward the brave fighter. It was a minor magic, barely anything at all. Agrona was a priestess of the dead, though barely an acolyte when casting against the living, yet the spell struck true and the hooded figure faltered, just for a second.

Just long enough for a soldier to dart in and swipe the edge of his blade across the shoulder, black wool parting to flesh, pale in the moonlight for a split second before blossoming red.

The figure growled in pain, a hard animal sound, and lunged, his attack spinning the two off into the chaos and out of Agrona’s sight.

She turned back toward the Mad Monk.

His magic rolled against her as he gestured wildly and yelled in Northern Enochian, a language dead for centuries. The decking had ruptured, making a pyramid of splintered wood.

She moved closer as he changed his gestures and his voice dropped into an octave too low for a human throat.

Her skin flushed hot even in the cold winter air, and her mind processed the spell he now cast. It rolled through the gray folds of her mind like lamp oil, and lit hot and bright behind her eyeballs.

The gods-damned fool is going to set the whole ship on fire.

* * *

Robin took a step forward, dropping his shoulders, preparing to leap over the hole in the deck, to drive his sword into the sorcerer on the other side. Smoke began to curl from under the kindled wood and flame licked from the edges of it, catching as if the wood had been soaked in pitch.

The smoke burned his eyes, blurring his sight as he moved.

He tensed, body low and ready to spring, when a dark shape knocked the sorcerer aside and out of his sight.

With the smoke, he couldn’t tell who it was that took the man down. Another movement made him turn, and he found Marian fiercely fighting a soldier. She and Will were of similar size, and the cloaks they all wore were fashioned to make them indistinguishable for most people. Still, he would recognize Marian no matter what. Pluck out his eyes, and he’d still be able to see her.

Her shoulder was bleeding.

He pushed off, closing the gap, and slammed the pommel of his sword hilt against the soldier’s skull. The man’s knees buckled and he dropped to the deck, and then slumped forward.

He stepped over the man and moved to her.

“You are hurt.”

She shook her head. “It’s not bad.”

“Looks bad.”

“It’s fine.” She pointed with her saber. “The ship is on fire.”

He looked. The flames had grown, and were crackling in harsh snaps over the noise of fighting.

“There are no children here,” he said. “We have to get off this ship.”

“Get Will and Alan,” she responded. “I’ll get our Friar.”

* * *

“You bitch! What were you thinking?”

The Mad Monk climbed to his feet, brow creased and his dark eyes crackling with anger.

Agrona leaped up and shoved him.

“You fool,” she said, “you can’t call down banefire while we are still on board this damned ship. I love the dead, but I do not wish to join them—not yet.”

He looked at her as the smoke around them grew. His mouth had parted slightly, lips soft in the bristle of his beard.

“You love me.” There was awe in his voice.

She snorted. “You aren’t that good in bed.”

He smiled a wicked smile. “Oh, I will be now.”

“You’ll never get the chance, if we cannot get off this vessel. Your fire lies between us and the gangplank.”

His arm wrapped around her, scooping her up against his chest like a father with a child.