narrow flap of sinew at the nape. Head and shoulder split apart in a fount of blood, and as the body fell, it sprayed the leaves with a crimson fan.
Eduard ran over to where Ariel was standing. The bow was still raised to shoulder height, the string was still humming in the sudden, dead silence. Eduard followed her gaze and saw where her third arrow had taken the crossbowman high in the chest, the tip punching through the bullhide armour like a knife through cheese.
She looked up at FitzRandwulf, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. She had lost her hat somewhere in the excitement and her hair lay uncoiled over her shoulder in a thick, sleek braid.
With her heart pounding in her throat, she watched him reach up and unhook the scaled pennyplate camail. His breath had caused spickets of moisture to become trapped in the hammered links and as he lowered the flap, it glittered in folds of burnished silver beneath his jaw. The iced gray coldness of his eyes combined with the harsh, uncompromising lines of his mouth sent the blood rushing through her veins with enough force to bring on a moment of dizziness.
“The next time I give you an order and you do not obey it,” he snarled, “I will strip a six-foot willow lash and flay such a pattern on your arse, you will be unable to sit for a month.”
Two stormy spots of colour darkened Ariel’s cheeks. “You are very welcome, my lord. And the next time I see you in ambush, I will indeed sit by and take pleasure in seeing you laid to ground.”
His eyes narrowed but his retort was lost under the thundering beat of horses’ hooves churning through the woods. Henry and Robin were the first to arrive in the gully. They brought their beasts to a skidding, rearing halt when they saw Ariel and FitzRandwulf standing unhurt by the river, then drew abreast at a slower pace, their swords in their hands, their heads swivelling as they appraised the carnage on the forest floor.
“Well,” said Henry, “it seems we did not have to hurry back after all.”
“The four Sparrow counted were dead,” Robin explained breathlessly. “And not too long.”
“Aye,” Henry nodded grimly. “We must have surprised these curs before they could finish their grisly work. Christ’s blood, how many—?”
While he took a silent count, moving lips and gauntleted fingers, Sedrick and Lord Dafydd came riding around the bend in the gully, herding the injured forester in front of them.
He was young for an outlaw, not more than sixteen or seventeen years of age. Long and lanky, his legs accounted for nigh on most of his seven feet of height. Sparrow stalked in his shadow, taking four steps to every one of his, in danger of putting a crimp in his neck from trying to see above the bony shoulders. There was not much to see. The makings of a sparse beard were sprouting over the lower half of his face; the upper was dominated by a pair of deep-set eyes as dark a blue as the midnight sky. His clothes were threadbare, not improved by a vest of matted hare’s fur that stank as badly as it was stitched together.
The shaft of Eduard’s arrow was stuck through his arm, splintered near the fletching where he must have fallen in his efforts to evade the two pursuing knights.
Eduard went to each body in turn, checking for signs of life and salvaging the valuable steel arrowheads. At the first body, because the shaft had met no resistance from bullhide or armour, he nudged the corpse onto its side and used his boot to snap the protruding arrowhead free. The next two men were as dead as the first, the eyes wide and staring, offering no protest as Eduard twisted and pried his arrows from their bodies. Robin had already ridden down the gully to retrieve the arrow intact from the trunk of a tree, leaving only Ariel’s last kill for inspection. The arrow was too deeply wedged in flesh and gristle to pull free, and while Eduard debated digging for it, Sedrick and Dafydd arrived by his side.
Their prisoner had stopped as well, his face grim through the layers of filth, his mouth curled in a sneer as he looked down at his slain comrade.
“Greedy bastards,” he spat. “I warned them no good would come from ambushing men who wore the Holy Cross. Show me a pilgrim with two coins to