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I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. The girl’s face was pale, her eyes still open. Sightless and glassy.
I glanced over at Alan, who pouted with sunken shoulders. Then, while Emma and her friend wept over the dead girl, my gaze veered back to the minstrel, wide-eyed.
And I realized if that girl hadn’t been hoisted on his back, inadvertently acting as a human shield, Alan would have taken an arrow in the spine.
Chapter 16
Robin
Two Nottingham guards dead, and one servant girl. Three more additions to add to the tally. The death ledger was growing by the day, and it weighed heavily on me.
As we rode back to camp, I was sullen, sad, and silent. Whether from the night chill, the crash from the rushing blood dimming inside me, or the acknowledgement that all this death was on my hands, I couldn’t fight off my quivering hands as they gripped Mercy’s reins. Why does this keep happening? How can we make it stop?
My mind was starting to convince me we couldn’t make it stop, no matter what we did. We were outlaws, and the law was after us. That meant people were going to die.
I took each death so harshly. Every new loss of life pulled me deeper into despair—even the guards and soldiers of Nottingham, who were supposed to be our enemies. I couldn’t become cold like Will, or indifferent like Little John. Each death punctured my heart with another dagger. It was starting to look like a target filled with arrows.
On the way back to the camp, Tuck told me, “It wasn’t your fault, Robin. You can’t blame yourself.”
His soothing voice fell on deaf ears. I simply nodded, frowning, staring ahead with sagging shoulders. Of course it’s my fault. The reason this keeps happening is because I keep leading us on daring chases and missions.
Little John used to lead the Merry Men on bold missions, also, yet the death toll never became an issue against him. Is it because he had a better handle on the Merry Men themselves? They were more motivated to follow him, and more motivated to fight?
I couldn’t stop my circular thoughts. I wished I had Robert to speak some wisdom to me right now, yet I knew even if I did, he’d only chastise me and tell me all the reasons I had failed. First and foremost, my failure would lie with associating with the Merry Men, in his opinion.
Was he any better? Based on what Wulfric had told me, my brother appeared to have a band of his own. His voice in my head had been based on the Robert I knew—the boy I grew up with—not the man who had rescued me at the archery tournament.
Emma rode tandem with me, arms gripped around my waist, her cheek nestled against my shoulder. The other girl, Ada, rode with Alan, while the body of Liz was draped over Tuck’s steed. The scent of smoke and firewood caught my nose as we neared camp. Voices joined the smell—raised voices, carrying across the wind. They sounded angry.
I glanced at my men, who raised their brows.
Will, the only man without a second person on his steed, said, “I’ll see what’s going on,” and galloped off before I could answer.
The hooves of his horse receded down the road. The insects and nightbirds of Sherwood were strangely quiet, which only amplified the harried voices on the other side of the trees.
When we neared camp, I smelled something else on the breeze: the metallic tint of steel and blood. My heart leaped to my throat. We emerged from the tree line, into the glade where the main camp was set up.
A gasp hissed out of me.
Pandemonium had struck our hideaway.
Near a fire pit, six Merry Men lambasted Will Scarlet as he dismounted and rushed over, hands on the hilts of his swords. They pointed and snarled and yelled over each other, accusing him of something.
I couldn’t see the other men, no matter where I looked.
My eyes dropped to a strange sight next to the lit fire: A large white tarp—a canvas from one of the carriages—was draped lengthwise over something, hiding it.
Three pairs of boots and legs stuck out from under the tarp.
A wave of dizziness washed over me, nearly toppling me from my saddle. When I blinked, Tuck was beside me on his feet, hands outstretched to help me and Emma dismount.
Alan-a-Dale walked up beside Will. “What the hell happened here?” His eyes dropped to the tarp and the bodies underneath.
“What does it look like happened, minstrel?” growled a stout bandit standing over the tarp. We called him Crisp, because the ashen shade of his wavy hair made it look like it had been singed in a fire. I didn’t even know his real name—only that he was a middle-aged man, a former farmer, and certainly not one of the newer youths.
Crisp gestured at his feet. “A bevy of soldiers besieged us while you were gone.”
“Ambushed us like wraiths, more like,” said a reed-thin man beside him, named Tate. “Caught us unawares.”
