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“It’s always been all or nothing with us,” Alan-a-Dale said, crouching and warming his palms at the fire. “Just once, I’d love a leisurely stroll in the woods without the threat of death wafting through the air like an ominous cloud.”
The men sitting around the fire chuckled nervously.
“It’s just a couple rabbits, mate,” Friar Tuck quipped. “I thought it smelled rather lovely.”
The chuckling grew louder.
Leave it to these two to try raising spirits just before a nerve-wracking mission. Tuck and Alan were the best at calming the men’s anxieties.
The minstrel stared pointedly at the friar. “That’s not the death I’m talking about, my good chaplain, and you know it.”
“No one is going to die,” I interjected, stepping up to the fire to warm my weary limbs. “As long as we do things right. How we practiced.”
“Things never work out how we practice them, little thorn,” Will said. “You know that better than anyone.”
My scowl deepened on my face, which only made the disgustingly handsome young man grin wider, raising his brow as if to challenge me. I gave him a look, eyebrows threaded, that said I didn’t appreciate him undermining the authority he had agreed to give me.
Before I’d been voted as boss, it was Will Scarlet who’d been passed Little John’s quarterstaff as a symbol of leadership. He’d abdicated in favor of me . . . and now he seemed to do whatever he could to doubt my orders.
Just like he used to do with John, I thought. Maybe it doesn’t matter who it is—Will just needs a wall to push up against. It simplifies his antagonizing nature. He wouldn’t be Will Scarlet if he wasn’t an infuriating ass, now would he?
Bushes rustled behind the camp, forcing my mind back to the task at hand. We turned to meet an approaching scout—a wiry young man named Lewis we’d picked up a few days after Little John’s disappearance in one of the small parishes surrounding Nottingham.
I’d forgotten which parish it was. We’d been to so many recently, all the quaint cottages and villages were starting to blur together.
“What do you have for us, Lewis?” Will asked, a glare replacing his aggravating grin.
“They’re en-en-en r-r-rou—” Lewis shook his head, frustrated with himself.
I’d nearly forgotten Lewis had a bad stammer. Probably not the best quality for a scout to have, but as Merry Men, we didn’t judge. Or at least I didn’t.
Will, on the other hand, tapped his foot impatiently while Lewis kept sounding out the words “en route.” He growled, “Get it out, man.”
Lewis sighed. “They’re on the way. Less than an ow-ow-ow—”
“An hour out,” Tuck cut in, earning a relieved and thankful nod from the scout.
All eyes turned to me at the campfire, which wasn’t hot enough to thaw the anxiety inside us. The Merry Men looked worried. Not my guys, but the other dozen boys and young men who weren’t used to doing something of this magnitude.
Some of them gazed at me skeptically, with narrowed eyes and arched brows, as if distrusting my leadership skills and this job, which had dragged us nearly fifteen miles from our camp nestled in Sherwood Forest.
We needed a big score, though. This was it. I said the most succinct, logical thing I could—unworthy of heartfelt cheering, but trying to channel my inner Little John:
“Let’s dig our heels in and get ready, men. We’ve only got one shot at this.”
Chapter 2
Robin
My signal was Will Scarlet stepping purposefully from the trees into the center of the road, drawing his swords.
I loosed my arrow from the thicket off to the side.
It whistled through the air and struck true with a loud thud, embedding into the side of a passing carriage.
Woodchips billowed into the air.
The shot, coupled with the hooded specter in the middle of the road, caused the horses of the leading carriage to whinny and pull up short. Their abrupt slowdown made the other two carriages in the convoy halt, nearly crashing into one another. Wooden wheels squealed. The cacophony sent a nest of sleeping birds cawing into the air from the canopies surrounding the forested road.
