Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (40 page)

“Because they’re not priests at all!” Rosa hissed at him and she walked forth bravely, leaving him behind.

They decided to follow from a safe distance, and see where the retinue of fake monks was going. It was possible that whoever they were, they had disguised themselves for fear of the thieves, but it was even more possible that they were the enemy.

It soon became more than obvious that their cheap disguises hid unshaven heads, and the ‘monks’ stopped with every few steps to gaze around, searching for hidden attackers. In a second, Julian too had seen the way their habits bulged around the waist, concealing weapons, and his brows had met in concern.

“This isn’t good,” he frowned.

“It’s the opposite of good.” Rosa replied.

In about two hours the monks stopped to rest. Rosa and Julian silently moved to a bush directly behind two broad-shouldered men who, after consuming the entire contents of a flask one of them had hidden in his habit, began laughing incessantly. Soon enough, the entire story spilled out. Rosa listened in horrified silence, Julian clutching her hand frantically, his lips forming a silent ‘no’.

Then, as silently and quickly as they had approached, Julian and Rosa left again, and stood panting at a safe distance, where they wouldn’t be heard.

“We can’t let this happen,” Rosa whispered in horror.

“There is nothing we can do,” Julian replied, his voice sounding broken and close to tears.

“There is,” Rosa looked him directly in the eye, her own gaze bright and determined. “We’ll be separated and-”

“No,” he said immediately.

Rosa simply raised an eyebrow, and Julian cursed heavily in frustration, kicking up a storm of dead leaves with his boot. “I will
not
,” he said in a strangled voice, which seemed to be screaming, although he kept it low, “leave you alone. Not now.”

“They’ll all die,” Rosa told him, her eyes serious and sad. “They’ll kill them all.”

Julian’s jaw twitched.

“What if…” he had to stop to steady his voice. “What if they kill
you
?”

Rosa didn’t reassure him. She didn’t tell him that his worries were unfounded, nor did she promise not to die. Instead she hugged him fiercely, his arms coming powerfully around her, and kissed his cheek tenderly.

Then she ran like the wind.

Robin Hood had been betrayed.

Rosa didn’t know who the culprit was, nor had she been able to discern any incriminating clue from the false monks’ talk. She suspected that maybe during her absence the outlaws had been somewhat careless and desperate, but she couldn’t think of Robin or Little John ever revealing the secret passage to anyone who hadn’t first earned their complete trust.

The fact remained, however, she thought as she ran, light on her feet and swift as a deer, for she had dressed herself as Stuart before venturing forth this morning. The wound on her shoulder was beginning to throb slightly, but she gritted her teeth against the pain and determined to forget about it. The fact remained that this was it.

This was the plan that could finally defeat Robin’s Merry Men.

The ‘monks’ were, as she had suspected, a legion of the most select and highly-trained of the Sheriff’s men. And right now, as she ran wildly towards a lake to the west fringes of the forest, a pack of wild dogs was attacking Robin’s thieves, chasing them further and further away from the vicinity of the camp.

She had a small hope that Robin wouldn’t be among his trusted men as they went on their daily routs through the forest, but this was never the case. Robin always accompanied them, whether they were out for patrolling, hunting or robbing.

And that could only mean one thing. The camp was mostly deserted. All the warriors but two being with Robin, only old and untrained men would be left back at the security of the camp. Which was where the retinue of Sheriff’s men, dressed like monks, was headed, to ambush them through the secret passage.

Then they’d set fire to the camp.

Rosa’s breath caught in her throat, and she stumbled over a root that rose sharply off the ground. She fell to her knees and a sob escaped her.

Get up
, she commanded herself.
Run
.

She’d try to lead the dogs to the water, and away from Robin and his men, and Julian would run to the camp to try to warn everyone. Or she’d try to warn Robin himself, is she reached him before the dogs did, however unlikely that was. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

Come on!
Rosa inwardly screamed at herself, trying to overcome the panic that threatened to swallow her. If she failed in this…
No! Get up! Get up!

Her courage finally triumphing over her fear, she picked herself off the ground, and ran.

…

They sounded like a thunderstorm at first, and she looked up at the clear blue skies in surprise, but then, as they drew closer, small sounds started to become individual and for a moment she was frozen to the spot by sheer terror.

The dogs; she’d found them. Or rather they had found
her
. It was a pack of wild war dogs, a pack -a herd of them, running at full speed towards her. She had wondered, as she ran, whether the dogs would present a real danger to Robin Hood and his small band of warriors, but now that she could actually see the size of these beasts and their numbers reaching as far as the eye could see, she knew that if she didn’t start moving now, she was dead.

She started running again, but it was getting dark and she was exhausted. After tripping for the third time and feeling the stings of the branches on her arms and face, she realized she would have to climb.

That was when she suddenly found herself in a clearing. All this time she had looked for one, and now she had found it. But it wasn’t the one she wanted, for there was no sign of a body of water here, and she was now exposed to the rapidly oncoming dogs, with nowhere to hide. She was trapped between them and an abrupt drop into the void.

She had never seen this part of the forest before, although she had heard Robin’s men talk about a deep, round lake that they went for a swim in the summer, and had supposed that this might be the correct direction. The distance between the beasts and herself was closing, they were gaining on her. She turned toward the cliff, and to her surprise she saw that it dropped into the lake she had been looking for. The drop, however, was quite steep and she hardly knew how to manage it without injuring herself seriously.

Then she turned back to face the dogs, and her breath stopped. A large one, the king of the pack, was coming directly at her, lifting huge paws in the air and raising them to its jaw, its sharp teeth gleaming with saliva as he was nearing is prey.

She jumped.

The cold water took her breath away and she swallowed a good mouthful before her head broke the surface, her skin stinging with the impact. Her feet wouldn’t reach the bottom no matter how much she stretched and she decided her best option was to start swimming away from the bank. She had no time however for more than one stroke, before the beasts were upon her. As soon as she saw them all leap on top of her, she drew in a breath, and ducked in the water. Immediately the still waters of the lake became chaos. Bubbles everywhere, twirling debris, brown and black beasts panting around and below her.

She tried to swim between them as they were searching for the surface, panting and barking, demented, and she was making some progress, when pain exploded in her right angle.

She opened her mouth to scream, and water came in. She choked, trying to expel it, and kicked toward the surface, in spite of the pain, but then the animal that had grabbed her ankle decided to drag her further down the water.

She fought against the beast, tried to kick it with her other leg, tried to push it away with her hands, but it wouldn’t let go, its fangs biting into her flesh and its weight dragging her towards the bottom. Her lungs began to scream in protest, and her mouth opened involuntarily, swallowing more water. Red hair clouded in front of her, blocking her vision, and black, troubled water swirled around her.

She let herself fall.

…

The hounds were hot on the heels of Robin Hood, Little John, Much and Gilbert. It was them they had at their sights when Rosa happened to cross their path, for her worst fears had been realized, and the Sheriff’s Pack had indeed managed to chase them away from the camp’s vicinity.

The men, wondering what new trick the Sheriff was playing at this time, had climbed up the trees at the first sign of trouble. They had learned to recognize the signals the little animals of the forest sent out, when they started skittering and hiding in their holes, so they were alert to anything unusual. This was not the first time the Sheriff had sent his Pack on them either, and the men were used to staying in the trees for nights on end, when the stubborn beasts wouldn’t budge from the roots, and had come up with elaborate plans to outwit and escape them.

This time, however, was different.

As soon as Robin climbed the higher branch, he looked down at the dogs swarming beside the roots.

“Much, John, are you all safe?” he shouted.

“All here, chief,” shouted John in reply. “Where are the blasted beasts off to now?”

For the dogs, or most of them, were continuing their quest, instead of waiting for their prey below the trees as was their custom. And this time there was a multitude of them, a veritable army, bent on killing and destroying. Robin peered in the distance and he saw a small form running towards the lake. The dogs were almost upon the little figure, which looked like a child.

“Chief, no!” Much shouted, reading his thoughts.

But Robin was already running along the treetops, grasping at sturdy branches, a foot or so above the herd of dogs.

“Stay put, all of you,” he shouted back. “Come to me only if you absolutely have to.”

They all three knew what that meant.

He was on his own. Still, no one dared disobey him, unless they saw he was in immediate danger. His orders were clear.

Meanwhile, Robin was in for the shock of his life. For as he ran above the dogs, quickly overtaking them and reaching the clearing, he saw something that made him almost lose his footing. He managed to catch himself at the last moment, and then he was watching, helplessly, mouth agape, at the sight right below him.

He recognized the boy who was running; he’d seen this particular boy run a hundred times, he couldn’t possibly be mistaken.

“No,” he whispered to himself, “no, it can’t be.”

Then he watched in horror as the boy leapt in the air, landing with a mighty splash into the lake and the dogs after it. When the boy’s cap flew off and Rosa’s hair billowed in the water, Robin was already on the ground and running towards the water.

Behind him, the three men, seeing their leader leap into midst of the beasts, were doing the same.

He saw her head breaking the surface once and then submerging again, and he cursed loudly and colorfully. He dove in the water in the midst of the maddened beasts, not even feeling their sharp teeth that jagged at his skin, and swam powerfully towards her.

He dove twice among the wild animals before he found her.

The dog that had bit her had drowned, but its teeth were lodged firmly on her ankle and it was dragging her down like a rock.

Robin freed her boot from the monster’s teeth, cringing as the water around her turned red with blood and took her in his arms, swimming for the surface, trying to breathe air into her lips even before they reached it, for by his calculations she had been under for far too long.

When they broke into the air, the dogs around them were calming. They’d lost the scent of their hunt, and were now shaking droplets of water off their skin on the opposite bank.

Robin pressed his mouth onto Rosa’s as he lifted her head above the surface, and breathed air into her lungs. He stopped to catch his breath, panting, and then repeated the motion as his legs kicked the water mightily and propelled them to the shore. He gave her his lips again, desperately, and suddenly Rosa started coughing weakly, hacking and gasping for breath. He exhaled in relief.

He held her secure, keeping her head above water with a hand below her chin, as a torrent of lake water flowed from her lips. He grit his teeth and cursed savagely, lifting her to him, and then he started swimming towards the bank again, his strokes swift and powerful, even though he had only one arm free.

She was fully awake now, her body tense against his chest, but he did not relax his hold. Her eyes, wild, were searching for the dogs.

“They’re gone,” said a familiar voice at her ear.

She turned abruptly to look at her rescuer, her long hair draped over his wet arm, dripping, the twilight around them enveloping the forest in a cloud of stars. She opened her mouth to say something, but her words were cut short by a wrecking cough.