Page 44 of Wench

Her hand moves before her mind fully agrees, pulling an arrow out of the quiver as silently as she can. She tries to imagine herself back in her practice glade, spine straight and breath measured. She nocks the arrow and draws the bowstring just enough to feel the tension hum against her palm.

But this isn’t a target in a field of hay. This is a man. Two men. Flesh and bone and consequence.

Could she do it?

The arrow trembles with doubt. She doesn’t know what she’d aim for. The shoulder, or maybe a thigh. Something that would hurt, not kill. Something to make them stagger, to give her just enough time to reach the bridle?—

A cold sting of steel presses between her shoulder blades. ‘Well now, what’s a little slip of a thing like you doing all alone in the woods with a bow in hand?’ His voice slithers into her ear, low and slick with cruelty.

Marian goes rigid. The arrow falls from her grasp, lost to the ferns.

The man behind her reeks of sweat and stale drink. His breath is sour against her neck. The point of the dagger shifts slightly, prodding her between the ribs.

‘Pretty thing like you ought to know better,’ he sneers. ‘You don’t belong out here.’

He jabs the blade harder, and she stumbles forward a step with a yelp. One of the men at the cart looks up, curiosity curling across his weathered face.

‘Look what I found,’ the drunk slurs, guiding her forward with the knife. ‘Stray wench with a fae bow. Might be the one they’re all whisperin’ about.’

The others laugh, but it’s a sound without mirth. ‘No, she don’t look noble,’ says the balding one.

‘Aye,’ the drunk scoffs, shoving her toward the clearing. ‘A lady like you shouldn’t be wearing trousers. Why don’t you let us help relieve you of them?’

‘Please,’ Marian begs, forcing her bottom lip to quiver despite the adrenaline pummelling through her body. ‘My horse threw a shoe not far back. I went looking for help, when I found that bow and figured it might scare off wolves. I meant no harm. Pray, I only want to get home. I don’t want any trouble.’

‘Ah, but trouble’s already found you,’ the balding one says, calloused fingers brushing her chin.

Marian jerks her head sideways and sinks her teeth into the meat of his palm with everything she has left. He wails as blood blooms between her lips, hot and metallic. The drunkard with the knife charges forward. Marian lashes out and kicks him square between the legs. He drops with a strangled yelp. But before she can turn to run, the third man’s hands close around her arms, wrenching them behind her.

She thrashes, but his grip only tightens.

One man grabs her left wrist, the other her right, pinning her between them as they drag her back toward the cart.

‘HELP!’ she screams.

The drunk is already pushing himself back upright, crimson-faced and panting. He stumbles toward her, fury boiling in every step.

‘You’re gonna regret that,’ he slurs, knife held out in warning.

‘I am the Sheriff’s bride,’ she cries out, ‘and he’ll have your head for this!’ The words tear from Marian’s throat before she can think, flung on like hastily donned armour. ‘Please!’

The thin one barks a laugh so sharp that it jostles her. ‘If you were his lost dove, you wouldn’t be out here chewing dirt with the rest of us.’

‘Aye.’ The balding one spits into the mud, still nursing his bitten hand. His eyes rake over her trousers, the wild tangle of her hair, the smudges of mud and blood on her skin. ‘The Sheriff’s bitch wouldn’t be some wild woman.’

The drunk staggers closer, knife point weaving, his grin wet with malice. ‘But I do like the sound of you begging.’

White-hot pain flashes across her chest as he slices through fabric and flesh alike. Not deep enough to kill – no, they want her conscious, pliant – but deep enough that a scream rips from her throat. Hot blood wells and trickles down her ribs, soaking into the linen of her borrowed tunic.

‘Saints,’ one of them moans, ‘that sound’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard in weeks.’

Marian wrenches against her captors, but her strength is no match for theirs. The wound across her chest pulses with agony until her vision blurs.

The drunk fumbles with the knot of his breeches, already licking his lips. ‘That scream of yours is going to echo through these woods. By dusk, you’ll be beggin’ for?—’

A wet, gurgling squelch splits the clearing.

A spray of something hot and dark hits Marian’s cheek.