she grabbed his arm. She ignored him, dragging him farther beneath the overhang, then pulled his body in against hers so she could twist his arm behind his back and wrap her left arm, throbbing from the shoulder down, around his neck. She covered his mouth with her hand.
He tried again to break free, his efforts increasing as he recovered from her blow to his head—and then a sharp whistle from the fog-shrouded wood made him go still.
The pounding hoofbeats of pursuit had stopped. Marian could not tell from her vantage point what sign had prompted Gisborne or his men to halt—perhaps her horse had left a visible trail as it fled—but they were close enough now that she could hear the crunch of leaves as someone dismounted.
She wanted to speak, to tell Will to be quiet, to trust her. But a whisper would cut through the stillness like a knife, and if she spoke, even beneath her breath, it would give her away. She might have the height of a man, the skills of a fighter, but she could not hope to change her voice—her higher timbre would carry in the quiet.
She could feel the violent thrashing of Will’s heart against her stomach, where she held him still. He had gone almost limp—recognizing, perhaps, that whoever he thought he was fighting, it wasn’t one of Gisborne’s men.
Marian resisted the urge to shrink back farther into the recesses of the hollow, her every nerve raw and tingling. Wet leaves had invaded the tops of her boots, and somewhere in the leaf mold an old, decomposing carcass made the air stink of death and decay. Something wriggled against the back of her neck, stirring her hair and crawling beneath the fabric of her shift.
Marian made herself stone.
Voices, indistinct, told her that the rest of Gisborne’s party had dismounted. They were moving away, but slowly—searching, not chasing.
Marian felt a touch against the arm around Will’s neck and looked down to find him tapping at her wrist. Let me go, the touch said. Marian hesitated—if he made a move, either against her or to flee, Gisborne’s men would hear it and find them. And they would kill Will.
The touch came again, and she could see the edge of Will’s face, no more than a silhouette in the blackness, as he strained to look up at his captor.
Marian took a few breaths, readying herself—and then eased her arm away from Will’s neck.
To her relief, he barely moved when released. His fighting instinct having faded, he seemed every bit as aware of the danger beyond the overhang as Marian was. He turned a little to look at her.
She could not see his face, only the dark outline of where he lay against her, his other arm still held behind him, against Marian’s stomach. But she could see the silhouette of his head move—his eyes went first to her face, as unidentifiable in the darkness as his, then slid downward. And caught.
For a moment, Marian wondered wildly if her clothing had torn in the struggle, if he could see that she was a woman. But when she looked down, she saw that the little ruby ring had slipped free of her kirtle during their fight and lay dangling from its lacing against the soft sweep of her cloak. It glinted, shifting as she breathed, in a spectral fragment of moonlight dripping through a gap in the rock.
She felt Will tense. She heard his breath suck in, tremble out, shudder in again.
“Robin?” he exhaled.
The sound of his name hit her harder than any of Will’s blows, harder than the tree roots against her shoulder, harder than her fall from the flighty gelding. She could not move, could not speak. If only, she thought. If I were Robin, we would both of us be safe.
And then a voice, deep and resonant and harsh, split the air.
“Surrender yourself,” the voice shouted, “and your death will be swift. Continue to flee, and your feet will be the first thing I remove when I find you.” The sound of Gisborne’s sword scraping against its sheath was like a gravedigger’s shovel striking bone.
SEVEN
“TRACKS,” CALLED ONE OF Gisborne’s men, the voice accompanied by the crunch of boots on leaves. “Fresh hoofprints—leading east.”
Marian’s breath caught. The cursed gelding, long gone now—perhaps he would be their salvation after all, leading the men away.
“Hold,” snapped Gisborne as a horse’s bridle jingled impatiently. More footsteps. Then a pair of boots appeared over the lip of the hollow—Will