before he could respond, a shout rose above the rumble of voices below. Gisborne had hurled Little John’s staff to the ground and thrown his head back, and was turning in a slow circle, scanning the forest around him. “I know you’re out there,” he bellowed. “In the shadows, hiding like the criminal you are. Robin of—but you are not Robin of Locksley. You are Robin of the Hood now, forsaking your right to live free so you can masquerade as nobility. I have your man, Robin—and if you will not show yourself at the sound of my voice, perhaps you will do so at the sound of his scream.”
His sword scraped from its sheath. I will never grow used to that sound, Marian thought distantly, watching the dappled sunlight glint off the blade’s edge. He has a way of drawing it such that the very scrape of steel is a threat worse than death.
She looked up and found that Alan had gone—he must have crept away through the branches as Gisborne spoke. Good. For their plan to work, he needed to start some distance away, on the opposite side of the clearing. She scanned the treetops, but could not distinguish the rustle of leaves at his passage from that of the wind.
Marian turned and lowered herself so that she could wedge one foot in the crook of a branch and brace the other behind her against the trunk. She tested the draw of the bow and inspected the fletching of the arrows Alan had given her. I’m sure I won’t hit John. She echoed her promise to Alan in her mind, trying to still the sudden doubts that came crawling over her. An unfamiliar bow, arrows she hadn’t fletched herself . . . Marian swallowed, her throat dry as dust.
She waited, watching as Gisborne stalked back and forth before Little John. She had to give Alan as much time to get into position as possible, but at any moment Gisborne might lose patience and harm John.
Harm him more than he already has, Robin corrected her grimly, as John’s bruised head drooped toward the ground.
Gisborne waited too, but when there was no answer to his challenge, he turned toward Little John with a mocking tilt of his head. “What say you about loyalty now?” he said, barely loud enough for Marian to hear.
Little John seemed to consider the question, then spat onto the ground at his side.
Marian didn’t hesitate a moment longer. She nocked an arrow and drew, not bothering to take a steadying breath first. This was one of the more battered arrows, and it buzzed through the air between two of Gisborne’s men and thudded into the earth, making them swear and leap away. The bow still felt strange in her hand, but it was getting easier to shoot with abandon, to dismiss the tangle of fears and worries that made her hands tremble.
She let two more arrows fly, sending them to the men’s feet as well. Half a dozen more swords slid out of their sheaths, and every one of the Sheriff’s men stood alert now, jumping to their feet, scanning the canopy.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen!” Alan’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, genial, almost amused.
Gisborne’s eyes shot skyward and he stood turning and turning, confounded in his attempts to locate the source by the fact that the voice and the arrows had come from two different places.
“I am, as you so graciously named me, Robin of the Hood. And you, gents, are trespassing.”
Gisborne continued to look around in a slow circle, his black eyes roving across the canopy, devouring every detail with an intensity he’d never shown when he gazed at Marian. “How merry,” he said in a low, carrying voice. “I suppose that would make this your forest.”
“It is mine,” came the voice of Robin of the Hood, bright and cheerful. “That is my stone your crossbowman just kicked, and those are my leaves you tread under your boots.”
Marian fingered the fletching of the fourth arrow she’d nocked to the string. Alan was enjoying his role—so much so that she felt a thread of unease tease at the nape of her neck. And it was making the men below nervous. They had the advantage, and yet their unseen quarry was laughing at them, mocking them.
All nervous—except for Gisborne. Gisborne was cool as iron. “This land belongs to the King.” The point of his sword moved as he turned, inscribing a deadly circle as Marian watched from