saw them too, his body tensing where he lay against Marian.
“But sir, if he’s found a horse, he could be—”
“The boy is not without wits, to have eluded us so far.” Gisborne’s voice was as calm and collected as it had been when he spoke to Marian of marriage, hours before. “If I were a clever criminal, I would use whatever resources I could find to mislead my pursuers. If I found a horse, and the law was so close on my heels, I would use the beast for distraction.”
Marian longed to close her eyes but would not dare. Gisborne was so close she could have lunged forward and pulled him down into the hollow, were there not five other men with whom to contend.
Gisborne halted, boots turning against the leaves. “Fan out.”
Marian gulped air, trying to make no sound, certain her every breath sounded like a death rattle. Her throat throbbed and ached where Will had hit her, and her muscles were quivering with prolonged strain.
Damn Gisborne. Her thoughts were scattered, fractured, useless—exhaustion kept focus at bay, mind circling again and again, pacing like a cornered animal.
Mislead your pursuers. Robin’s voice echoed Gisborne in Marian’s mind, overtaking the frantic slivers of thought. Be clever. Use distraction. . . .
She did not question the voice this time, only listened, recognizing the wisdom in his words.
Marian lifted her head, steeling herself against the skittering thing still crawling down her neck, drawn to the warmth of her skin. Gisborne’s not wrong, she thought, taking a bracing, deep breath of the damp, chilly air. If they light torches, if they conduct a true search, they’ll find us immediately. Will is wounded—confused from the head wound, most likely—and I’m in no shape to fight. He cannot run, and I cannot stay hidden. . . .
She could not know where Gisborne’s men were—she could only see Gisborne himself, his boots and the tip of his sword. She could not know where their horses were, or how spread out they’d become. But while a man on horseback can easily outpace one on foot over a long distance, it takes time to mount, to turn the beast in the right direction, to get up to speed. . . .
She hesitated, playing out the scene in her head. If all of Gisborne’s men had dismounted, she’d have twenty, maybe thirty seconds of a head start even if they were standing by their mounts.
Enough to disappear into the fog—if nothing goes wrong.
Marian glanced down at Will, who was shaking and shooting glances at the ring hanging a finger’s breadth from his eyes. She moved, squeezing his shoulder and slowly, very slowly, releasing his arm from behind his back. She could tell what he was thinking—that Robin was alive, certainly, and that he had come to Will’s rescue.
And he has, Marian thought grimly. She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for his voice urging her on. Except that Robin would never have gotten on the wrong side of the Sheriff’s forces, never would have found himself in a position that would earn him the hangman’s noose. Robin would have stopped all this somehow.
Marian squeezed again and felt Will shift in response. She eased away from him, first pressing her finger to her lips and then holding up her hand, palm outward. Stay.
Will hesitated but nodded, the dark silhouette of him barely more than a shadow.
Marian retrieved the makeshift club Will had been using, a rotten branch he must’ve picked up from the forest floor. She watched Gisborne, waited for his boots to turn as he oversaw his men searching for his quarry—then heaved the cudgel as hard as she could.
The crash it made in the undergrowth was a cacophony, and Gisborne’s boots jerked toward it, then started to run.
Marian wasted no time and took up her bow. She left her sword, for it would only hamper her as she ran, and slipped out of the hollow on the far edge, opposite the direction she’d thrown the branch. She spared one backward glance—long enough to see Will still crouched in the shadows, Gisborne striding toward a dense thicket, sword raised, his men converging upon it—and then broke into a sprint.
She made no effort to quiet the noise she made as shouts erupted behind her. Just now, she needed speed, not stealth. She needed them to follow her, so that Will could escape once she’d led them away. Her lungs were already on fire, still shredded from her hard ride, her fall,