And then an arrow split the air and struck Edmund’s neck.
* * *
Quickly, silently, Marian, Robin, and Will moved through the forest, looking for some trail to follow, some sign that a group of armed men had passed. Weren’t too many places such a group could hide, and Little John had set them on the right track. Marian kept the lantern low and shuttered. The moon gave enough light to see by here.
Giles had been all but a child when he’d run with Robin’s outlaws. Now he had a child of his own and worked for Locksley as a forester. He’d kept up his woodcraft, and Marian was pleased with Robin for recognizing that he’d gone a bit soft and would do better with a guide.
Near midnight, Giles returned to report on their prey. “Seven of them, as John said. They’ve made a camp. They seem sure of themselves, which makes me think they might be meeting others come morning.”
“No doubt. And the children?”
“Alive,” Giles said with a firm nod. “But they’ve taken blows.”
“I will kill them all,” Robin said.
“Yes, my lord.” Giles’ eyes lit at the prospect. He pointed the way to go, then continued back to bring news to Much and his troop.
And then the kidnappers came to them.
It was an odd thing. A human scream of terror echoed, followed by the sound of crashing, of branches breaking and a body falling, picking itself up, falling again. Robin gestured, and Will and Marian spread out to wait.
A young man plunged around shrubs and trees, screaming like a pig, and stumbled to his knees when confronted with the three figures, two of whom held arrows nocked.
He drew back, his face in a rictus, as if demons of hell had appeared before him.
“Who are you?” Will called.
Then, strangely, the terrified man laughed. “You are mortal men! Oh, God be praised, you must help me!” Robin lifted his bow, and the look of horror returned. “You’re him! It’s true, you’ve come to kill us all! Oh, God have mercy, please have mercy, I didn’t know, I didn’t know!” He wept like a child.
“What’s got into him?” Will asked.
“I will shoot him just to silence him,” Robin muttered.
Marian approached, lifting the lantern and opening its light just enough to show her face so that she would appear as a vision in the dark woods. Smiled sweetly. He would think an angel spoke to him.
“Do you know where the children are?” she asked softly. “The children you took?”
His attention caught, he gazed on her, and his look of wonder turned to anguish. “Oh, Holy Mary in Heaven forgive me, please forgive me, I didn’t know!” He clasped his hands in prayer, his whole body shaking.
“Well, that’s something,” Robin said, baffled.
The man went on. “Do not make me go back to the woods, do not make me go!”
“Something has happened,” Marian murmured, looking ahead to the darkness, to the forest’s secret depths. The old instincts came back quickly and she ran, without need of light, ducking branches, taking quick and careful steps among roots and moss.
“Marian!” Robin called after her, but there was no time.
Soon enough, she could tell exactly where the kidnappers were, because of all the shouting.
A spring formed a pool, a place where deer watered in the mornings. The men made camp around it, but now the lot of them were in chaos, shouting at each other, pointing out to the woods where faint torches burned. John had said there were seven, but Marian only counted four—five, with the young man who had run into them headlong. Robin and Will finally came up next to her.
“We trussed the poor lad up,” Will said. “We’ll have to remember to go back for him. Or not.”
“I don’t see the children,” Marian murmured.
Robin held his bow, white-knuckled. “I know that man.” He nodded to the one with the ruddy beard who harangued the others to get their wits about them, there were no ghosts in Sherwood, it was all a trick—
Robin drew his bow and let the arrow fly.