She knew it an instant before the burlap covering the wagon shifted. She knew before she saw his face who was beneath its concealing folds, along with a handful of additional men, which meant they were outnumbered now more than two to one. She knew before Gisborne’s boots hit the ground that either he would die, or she would.
“Go!” she shouted, her voice high and cracking. In the chaos of battle, no one noticed that she sounded like a woman in her urgency—one of the guards screamed a moment later as he fell, bleeding from a shallow gash across his face, and Marian realized that in fear and pain, it was impossible to tell the difference between a man’s scream and a woman’s. “Run!”
Little John’s head swiveled toward her, then ducked away from one of his assailants. Much’s familiar form emerged from the tangle of fighting, then vanished again from her sight. She hadn’t seen Will or Alan, but there were shouts from beyond the wagon on the other side, and she knew they were there.
“Run, damn it!” she screamed.
Little John responded first, swinging his staff in a mighty arc with a roar that made Jonquille falter. He swept a handful of men aside, shoved Much behind him, and shouted, “Aye, Robin! Retreat!”
Then a blade hissed through the air and Jonquille screamed, her legs giving way beneath her, and Marian was falling.
THIRTY-NINE
MARIAN HIT THE GROUND with a breath-shattering thud. Instinct took over and she rolled as something hit the leaf litter next to her—another body, or a blade, or even Jonquille, she could not tell. Momentum carried her to her feet, and her sword leaped from its sheath into her hand in time to parry a blow that reverberated all the way up to her shoulder.
She parried another blow and then dodged, her attacker moving so quickly she could not find firm footing. Her attacker’s face was so transformed by rage that she’d been fighting him for a dozen pounding heartbeats before she recognized Gisborne beneath the mask of fury. She thought she’d seen hatred in that icy stare of his as they grappled outside Nottingham.
But she hadn’t seen this.
In the distance she could hear shouts and pounding feet, and somewhere nearby a horse cried out, and near the wagons a yelp of pain rose above the other sounds of battle as something familiar. Whose voice it was she could not tell in her confusion, but that it was an ally, she was certain.
Run, damn you.
She swung hard, with the momentum of her whole body, as Gisborne’s next blow came down at her. The force of her parry knocked him back a step, and Marian scrambled back. They stood, panting, tense, staring.
“Go after them,” Gisborne bellowed without taking his eyes from his opponent. “Leave Hood to me.”
Marian wanted to turn, to seek out the scattered forms of her people fleeing back up the gully. She wanted to call out too, to learn if the cry she’d heard meant one of her allies had fallen. But one movement would bring Gisborne down upon her, and a moment’s wasted breath in speech could mean her life.
Gisborne circled, each step as silent and deliberate as a cat’s against the padding of leaf litter. Marian turned to keep him in the center of her vision, wishing she could tear the mask from her face. She had not realized how well the cloth mask had absorbed sweat from her brow—the leather did not, and her eyes stung and blurred with perspiration. She kept her breathing slow, for all that she longed to gasp for air.
Gisborne continued to move, one step at a time, round and round. When he spoke again, his voice was harsh and unrecognizable. “Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
His face showed little reaction, but the steady pace of his steps faltered and he came to a stop, only the point of his sword weaving slowly with each breath he took.
“There never was any gold, was there?” Marian spoke softly, trusting distance and intensity to disguise her voice. “You told her there was to lure me here.”
Gisborne’s rage had smoothed, becoming not so much icy now as molten. “I knew she would pass along the message.”
“And taking her prisoner? What purpose in that deception, if you knew what she would do, and that I would be here?”
“There was a chance she hadn’t told you.” His voice lacked the stiff formality that usually constrained