The Outlaws of Sherwood (36 page)

Will was the last of them to leave the neighbourhood of the little clearing and the earthwork; he would rather have put his sister inside the latter, although he knew the time it would take to rearrange the turf and the brush over the entrance would be dangerously long. He had felt his shoulder-blades prickling with dreadful anticipation while he had only had a little disarranged brush to attend to. But still he hesitated; and then stooped, and picked up the sword belonging to the man whom Cecily had killed—the sword still red with Cecily's blood. It was a little light for him, but the balance of it was good, and the hilt felt strong and familiar in his hand. And he was running out of arrows. They must all be running out of arrows—and he was the only one of them who knew how to handle a sword. He turned to follow Little John and Tuck.

And one of Guy's men almost ran into him. The man's quiver was empty, and his sword was out, and his eyes were wild. He attacked at once; and Will was glad to find that he still remembered what to do with a sword, borrowed as this one was. His attacker was dismayed to find that his opponent not only carried a sword but knew how to wield it; and during the first exchange of blows Will believed he would win out soon. But a branch caught fiendishly at his elbow, and he had to give way, blocking with the enemy sword that had cut his sister's shoulder open just minutes before, while another enemy sword engaged him, and threw him back another step. Will was tired, and the man facing him had the strength of desperation, for he knew that no ordinary folk could defeat Guy of Gisbourne and so this Robin Hood must be a demon, and his company demons too. Who ever had heard of a common outlaw who knew how to use a sword? This man fought like an aristocrat—and it was Thomas' blade he carried, which told him what had become of Thomas.…

Will stepped backward again as the man thrashed forward, for he had not regained his initial balance—and then stepped on an unseen knob of root, thrusting treacherously upward through the soft leaf-mould; and he stumbled. He might have recovered from the stumble, and he hurled his sword clumsily sideways in a gesture his old teacher would have spanked him with the flat of it for, and blocked his attacker—barely—once again. But as he straightened and turned, a green branch, half-broken by the violence of some other contest this day, whipped free of the ivy that had caught it, and slashed Will across the eyes.

He knew then that his time was up, for he could not see where the next sword-stroke might come from; only that it would come and, because he could not defend himself, that it would kill him.

But his sore and weeping eyes instead saw a small explosion from the undergrowth to his left. His opponent saw it too—but too late; and Marjorie's short staff caught the man under the chin. Good stroke! thought Will, amazed. Who's been teaching her? The man crashed into a tree, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he crumpled. Marjorie stood over him, shivering.

“Thank you,” said Will.

“I—you are welcome,” said Marjorie. “Have I—have I killed him?”

“No,” said Will.

“I took the staff from the hoard, you know,” said Marjorie. “Eva has shown me—a little—how to use one. I think—I think we must all be here now. Bartlemey and I were the last.” She looked around a little wildly. “All here somewhere. There are”—she took a deep breath—“several bodies in the chapel clearing.”

“But none of them ours,” said Will encouragingly.

Marjorie almost smiled. “No, none of them ours.” She glanced down at the man at her feet and then jerked her eyes up again. “Has anyone sent for Sir Richard?”

Will looked surprised. “Sir Richard? No, I should think not.”

“Well, someone should,” said Marjorie. “You great idiots, by how many do Guy's men outnumber us? I am no good for this work. I thought—as I had already thought no one else would have—that I would go for him.” She gave a little grunt that was not quite a chuckle. “I even know the way from here.”

Will looked at her with respect. “Godspeed to you, lady.”

Marjorie recognised both the surprise and the respect, and said with a sharpness that surprised Will even more, “Try to keep a few of us alive till I get back, will you?”

“I will try,” said Will; and he waited several minutes, till she was well away, before he ran his sword through the heart of the man she had prevented from killing him.

Tuck jogged uncomfortably in Little John's long-legged wake. He heard Sweetheart bay, and a lump rose in his throat in the unexpected happiness of knowing that one of his dogs yet lived, and in fear for what might happen at any moment; but he shook his head as he jogged on. There were too many of his two-legged friends to worry about. Why had he come so far anyway? His place was at his chapel. He was no good at fighting—and the noise, ever nearer, told him that it was not yet time for his little satchel and his skills.

One of Guy's men fell at their feet with a dagger in his belly. Simon leaped after to retrieve it; the man screamed. Tuck closed his eyes and tried to remember how to pray. It seemed a very long time since he had said his morning prayers.

“Guy—Robin,” panted Simon.

“He is no demon, you fools,” snarled Guy's voice, very near at hand. “He merely was not the winner of the archery contest at Nottingham Fair yesterday.”

But Guy's remaining men had had their nerve badly shaken by the events of the last half hour, and while they still outnumbered the outlaws—barely—they were inclined to stay huddled behind their leader, with their heads pulled down and their shoulders hunched up. Guy roared at them: “What do you fear? You have swords, have you not? And have the arrows stopped flying? Are their quivers not empty?”

This was true. Despite the skill of Robin's folk, they had wasted or lost many arrows; and, perhaps, considering the terrain and the comparative numbers of the opposing force, it was not shaming that the outlaws had spent their arrows for a tally of only eighteen of Guy's men as result. But the tide of battle, with Guy to lash his men into rallying, was likely yet to swing to his side. Their numbers were almost even, but Guy's men now had the reach; for the outlaws carried only daggers. The mercenaries' swords were not so long as to be hopeless in a wood; nor were the woods here the tangle that the heart of Sherwood, and Greentree, was. For here were the ways that the foresters walked.

But rout was not yet. The outlaws had no swords; but they did carry staves. Robin stood lightly before Guy of Gisbourne, his bow and empty quiver discarded, his staff at half-ready, to flick up against any blow Guy might offer. Robin's longbows had caused the folk who knew of them to think only of the archery of the outlaws; and Little John's pre-eminence with the staff had cast a little in shadow Robin's own expertise—that, and Robin's stubborn insistence on his not being particularly good at any sort of fighting, which, as such insistence will, became its own prophecy. But Robin was smiling. His good staff would turn any sword cut but the most unlucky; and he was already choosing the place on Guy's face where brow and nose met, where he planned to drive the hardened end of his staff.

There was a scrambling at the rear of Guy's uneasy men, and then they spread out in some semblance of their former tight order, and the fighting became general. Dear God, prayed Friar Tuck. Dear God … What can I ask for? A bolt of lightning?

Robin gave back as Guy came on. The sword whistled through the air with a whine as deadly as any arrow, but Robin struck it aside. He gave back again, hoping to make Guy unwarily eager for a killing blow. He struck the sword aside a second time; thrice—but at the third meeting Robin caught the blade at slightly the wrong angle and a chip sprang away, its underside the pallor of raw wood. Guy grinned, but Robin caught the next stroke on one of the iron bands round his staff, and the force behind the blow was so great that the sword reeled back with its edge notched.

Robin almost finished it then. He dived forward, presenting the end of his staff as Guy recoiled to regain his grip; but one of Guy's men flung himself sideways, away from Jocelin, whom Robin caught a glimpse of at the edge of his sight; or against his master's enemy; Robin never knew. But the man fell on him, and bore the two of them to the ground. Guy made a sound of pure anger, and almost slashed his own man where he lay—and Jocelin, who had no staff, had time to leap clear. Robin shook himself free and took a descending sweep from Guy's sword with his staff over his head. He took a chance and rapped Guy's knees, but the blow was wrong; Guy staggered but did not fall, and Robin, recovering, had to duck and jump aside, off balance as he was, and if a convenient branch had not spoiled Guy's aim, that would have been the end of it. The other man did not move so quickly, and as Guy re-engaged Robin, Jocelin darted in behind, his dagger in his hand.

Tuck had drawn back behind a tree. There was no safe place as the men milled awkwardly around, striking and ducking away as they could; while the outlaws better knew the terrain, the swords were very fearsome even when their wielders could not get a clear swing. Tuck tried to see if any of Robin's folk were down; and he remembered that Will had said that there were at least two wounds that needed to be attended to. But if the wounded men were secreted anywhere, he did not know where—and he did not know where Will was to ask. He saw Robin fall, and held his breath—and saw him roll upright again; and closed his eyes when Jocelin's dagger descended.

He clung to the tree he stood behind, for his knees shook under him. He could feel the stiff cold length of his own dagger against the skin of his leg, but he would do no good if he drew it now. He could not even remember strapping it on—after he had cut the throat of the man uncovering the earthwork's entrance. He rested his forehead against the bark of his tree and thought of nothing; but something struck his ribs and he staggered aside, biting back a cry. “Look out, man!” said Will, who had struck him with the hilt of his sword. “Do you think you are invisible? Do you trust that Guy's men will not strike you where you stand because you are a friar?” And then he moved quickly around another tree after the silvery twinkle of another sword gleaming in the green shadows, and Tuck lost him but for the noise of his passage.

Again he felt like a bit of flotsam in a storm, for the sound of battle went on all around him and while his heart beat fast in fear, he could see nothing to run from—or toward. He thought, this is just as it was half an hour ago—has it been half an hour, a day, a year?—perhaps this hour never happened, or has happened many times; perhaps we must go on killing Guy's men, and they us, for all eternity.… He thought of Marian, and wondered what she might be guessing in her darkness; he wondered about Cecily, clinging to her tree; and he wondered about his dogs.

The noise around him was moving a little away—moving back toward the clearing by the earthwork and the chapel. He hesitantly let go of his tree, for he had paid little attention to Will after all, and had only crept a little way round the tree he was clutching; and moved to follow. There was a thrashing, low down to one side, and he looked fearfully there and saw one of Guy's men, his breath bubbling pink; Tuck turned away, for there was nothing he could do for him. Even had it been one of Robin's folk he could have done nothing; he knew what he saw in the man's face, and in the spittle upon his lips.

He almost tripped over Simon. He lay motionless, and Tuck knelt despairingly beside him, guessing what he would find. Simon's eyes opened slowly, and his breath whistled between his teeth. “My—staff,” he said, and moved one red arm. Tuck thought he wanted to hold it, and groped a little way among the leaves to find it, but when he laid it against Simon's fingers, the fingers curled away. “No,” he said. “You—take it.” He smiled a ghostly smile. “If you hit someone on the back of the head with it, he will fall down, even if he carries a sword.” His voice was so faint Tuck had to lean close to hear him; when his eyes closed again, Tuck saw that the whole of his tunic was stained red, and the leaves upon which he lay.

Tuck picked up the staff and went on.

Sibyl was barely a sword's-length away when Eva fell, but she came too late; she killed the man who had killed her friend, and then she wept, heedless of who might find her still living, with Eva in her arms. But Fate is a curious thing, and no one did find her, though she heard the crashing of other fighting near the place where she knelt, and wiped her friend's damp face with her own dirty sleeve. It took Eva some little time to die, and she wandered in her mind. Sibyl said, “Hush; you will be stronger soon, and I have told Robin to send others for our spell of duty, that you might rest and I might take care of you.”

“Thank you,” murmured Eva; “It is good to have you here.” And Sibyl stayed till the end.

Fate also set Alan-a-dale and Much to fighting side by side. Alan knew the rudiments of sword-play, for he had been a lord's son before he was a bard; and when the last of Robin's outlaws had arrived at the chapel and found the bodies of three dead mercenaries and nothing else, Alan had paused long enough to pick up one of the swords, and thrust it through his belt. Harald and Gilbert ran on ahead, notching their arrows, toward the confused sounds of battle, while Alan was making sure that the blade was not going to cut into his own side by accident, and biting his lip. He knew nothing of battle but the many verses of many ballads, all composed after it was over; he had learnt to shoot, because Robin insisted, but he had rarely shot anything for the cooking fire; the bow over his shoulder felt almost as strange as the sword. He had never struck a man in anger in his life; the one time he had come close, Robin had stopped him, and he knew that Robin had been right, and that he would have died.… He thought of Marjorie, back at Greentree with Bartlemey, whose wound was still sore, and who could not walk far or quickly; and he hoped that he was going to see her again soon.