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“And the way we change that?” I smiled wickedly, and drew a box with wheels in the dirt, so everyone could see. “We steal from more people like me.”
A few of them sputtered questions. Confused looks on their faces.
“Like you?” Alan asked.
“Wealthy. Rich. Like I once was. We steal from the nobility, exclusively, and we take Tuck’s strategy of giving to the orphans and the poor and destitute one step further. That is how we’re going to build an army capable of taking on the Sheriff of Nottingham—no, Prince John himself!”
The Merry Men were taken aback by that admission, by my loud voice.
I slammed the butt of the staff into the dirt. “We steal from the rich and give to the poor.”
“Christ above,” Will said, laughing incredulously. “I didn’t think you had that kind of nerve and grit in you, girl.”
“You know I do,” I shot back. We matched grins.
“That is what you want us to do?” Alan asked. “Build an army? I . . . didn’t know that was an option.”
“And why not? The Sheriff of Nottingham will never stop searching for us. He has a vendetta. Guy of Gisborne is his attack hound. I’m convinced we need to meet them with force.”
“Bloodthirsty,” Tuck murmured. “And dangerous.” He grinned. “I love it.”
I had made my decision to stay with the Merry Men. Now I needed it to mean something. We couldn’t just keep surviving. We needed to thrive.
“There are bandits and peasants aplenty struggling in these harsh times put on us by Prince John. The younglings we have in our ranks here are proof of that. So we gather more. If we rob the wealthy and give to the needy, we might be able to convince enough of them to join us to actually make a difference. We can topple the tyranny of Prince John and his ilk forever.”
It was grand talk. Perhaps delusional. Alan claimed I was “ambitious beyond expectation.”
But the Merry Men wanted a speech? They wanted a path forward? I gave them one. They had stuck with me, and I would stick with them.
This plan hadn’t sprouted out of nowhere. I had been assembling it, keeping it to myself. I knew attacking the nobility was a dangerous gambit . . .
But dangerous gambles reaped the largest rewards.
First, we needed to find Little John. He was instrumental to our success, and I couldn’t fathom him being dead—I wouldn’t accept it until I saw his cold body with my own eyes.
I faced the men, one by one—new, young, old, veteran alike. They had high expectations and gazed up at me with renewed hope.
I didn’t want to let them down anymore.
“I ran from my home,” I said, smacking the staff against my palm as I listed off my cowardly acts. “I ran from the Merry Men. From Peter Fisher. From my uncle. From Guy of Gisborne. From my own flesh and blood!”
I bared my teeth. “I am tired of running.”
I slammed the end of the staff into the ground again.
“Now I fight.”
The Merry Men jumped to their feet, cheering. They hugged each other and embraced me.
I had found my family. In the strangest, most unexpected of places. In the freedom of the forest, they had come to me like specters in the night. I had found my Merry Men . . . and as I gazed around the fire at their wicked gazes, the hungry glint in Will and Alan and Tuck’s orbs, the men who only saw me . . . I amended my statement.
I had found my Merciless Men.
And we would change the world.
To Be Continued!
