The Two Torcs (21 page)

* * *

Lungs burning and legs trembling, Friar Tuck reached the monastery.

It was a column of red flame and black smoke. Back at the chapel, when he had turned back from the doorway to accuse the Sheriff, he found himself alone.

The man had vanished. So he did the only thing he could.

He ran.

Soldiers were milling about, blades and firebrands in their hands. The flames trailed from the ends, as if not wanting to separate from the inferno inside the walls. Despair washed over him. This was his home—had been since his family had delivered him to the service of the Lord, the fourth son and one too many mouths to feed. He bore no malice for them. At this point in life he didn’t know them any longer. Any pain that came from their abandonment had been lost in his love for priesthood.
This
was his family.

The brothers here his kin and kith.

To see it destroyed left him gutted.

Knees weak, he began to fall to the ground before a sharp thought drew him upright.

“Lenore!” he shouted as he ran around the burning structure. The heat was nearly unbearable, beating at him through his coarse robes. Every doorway was blocked by flames. He could see no way in. Hanging out of one of the windows was the body of a monk on fire. He ran to help, but backed away when he realized the man, his brother in the Lord, was already dead.

The villagers milled about and he could hear the horror in their words. Their cries echoed in his heart.

Something had changed. As recently as a week ago, the Sheriff would
never
have done something this bold. Could it be true? Had he really made a deal with the Dark One? Or was there something he knew that the rest of them didn’t?

Fear clenched his guts.

Has King Richard been killed? Is John now our ruler, and the Sheriff free to do as he wills?
As he passed the well house a low, bitter sobbing caught his attention. All around him people wept openly, but this was quiet, muffled, as though someone didn’t want to be heard. Listening closely, he followed the sound. A few feet away, behind the woodpile, he found Lenore—huddled in terror, bitter tears streaking down her face.

“Thank God,” he whispered, sinking to his knees next to her. “Praise be to Jesus, you weren’t in there, child.”

“It was the Sheriff’s men,” she croaked, her voice raw. “They taunted the monks, wouldn’t let them escape, and told them that all men of God had the same fate coming to them, or worse.” Her words struck him like a fist.

Or worse? What could be worse than this?

He shuddered at the very thought.

As he looked again at the flaming structure, at the body of his dead brother monk smoldering in the window, he couldn’t imagine what worse would look like. Lenore’s trembling hand caught his sleeve and he looked down.

Eyes wide and unblinking in shock the girl spoke, voice thin and thready.

“One of the soldiers tried to…” she began, and her words trailed off.

Fear caught in his throat. “What is it child? Are you hurt?”

“He saved me. The man with the harp. But…” She turned her head. “I’m sorry I ran away.”

“Alan-a-Dale?” Snatches of his vision flashed in his mind. He lifted her to her feet. “Where, child? Show me!” Lenore shook herself and took a deep breath. In her face he saw the determination he had seen before. The girl had a fierce spirit and it was coming to the surface now. She nodded once sharply and turned away, moving around the flame-torn monastery. Friar Tuck started after her, offering a prayer that they would not be too late.

* * *

The fire was glorious.

The Sheriff of Nottingham reveled in its destructive beauty.

Flames spit high in the air, smoke rolled across the ground seasoned with the roasted meat of holy men, and the air was spiced with fear, confusion, and agony.

It felt like home.

Soon it
would
be.

He swung down from his mount, sliding one hand on the sleek skin of the nightmare. The hell-horse nickered and stepped aside. Black-armored soldiers gathered behind it, forming rank. The inhabitants of the monastery were done for. Dumb villagers stood in a herd of mooing humanity, joined by a sorry lot of soldiers left from the Lionheart’s retinue.

He glared at them. Slaves to be subjugated, all of them. Terrorized into obedience. Fodder and food for the engine of King John’s reign under Hell’s authority.

Under
his
authority.

Soon and very soon.

On the ground the bard pulled himself to his knees.

This one could be a problem.

He stepped toward the fallen minstrel. The bard looked up at him, eyes still glassy from the kick that had knocked him flat. Even dazed, the man’s hands clutched the harp to his chest, holding it above his own heart. The sight filled the Sheriff with hot rage.

Teeth clenched, he reached for the handle of the sword that hung off his narrow hip.

The bard’s eyes sharpened and grew wide as wicked steel slid from its scabbard with the sinister chime of metal on metal.

The Sheriff smiled. He was going to enjoy gutting this one, using his sword to carve the lungs from the bard’s chest. There would be no more song then. He would use the dark arts to keep the man alive, leaving only a mewling piece of meat when he was done.

He raised his sword.

“Stop! In the name of Christ Almighty, stop!”

Pain slammed into him from the left, crackling along the nerves under his skin. He whirled, looking for the one who would dare order him in
that
name. A friar ran toward him, wobbling on thick, stumpy legs. It was the one they called Tuck. The scrawny girl dressed as a boy was running beside him.

He swung his sword around, a wolf-grin appearing on his face.

“Fat friar, how do you like the hearth I stoked for you?” he said. “I made sure to laden it with the finest meat in the land.”

Friar Tuck stumbled to a stop, legs kicking along the scorched grass.

“You dare mock the deaths of holy men?”

“I dared to kill them,” he said, and he shrugged. “Mocking the act seems well within my rights.”

“Blasphemer!” the priest screamed, anger running down red cheeks in the form of tears.

“By my very nature,” he agreed, and he stalked toward Friar Tuck. “How does it feel to be the last priest in all of Avalon, fat man?”

The soldiers began to form a circle around them, eyes glittering red under black iron helmets.

* * *

The last priest.
He blinked.
Francis.
Francis had been going to try to see Marian. What had they done to him?

“You won’t destroy the word of God,” Tuck managed to say around the lump in his throat.

“Mayhap not, little friar.” The Sheriff stepped close enough to touch the priest. “But I will destroy every mother’s son who speaks it.”

“I’m not afraid of you, devil-spawn.” Friar Tuck’s hands clenched into fists. “
Get thee behind me.
”

Pain flared across the Sheriff’s skin, a cold ache of righteousness. He snarled at it, shaking his head to clear it away. Then he leaned forward.

“Fool! My men are already behind you.”

Friar Tuck’s eyes widened as Lenore screamed. He turned to see a soldier clamp hands on her arms and lift her from the ground. She thrashed and kicked, trying to fight free, but his grip was steel and she only dangled, helpless. While he was turned, more hands closed on him. The Sheriff’s men had him and he could do nothing.

The Sheriff lifted his sword.

“I will cut off the body of Christ at the head, priest.”

The sword swung back over his head.

“And I shall enjoy every pulse of blood from the stump of your fat neck!”

The blade flashed like unholy lightning.

Two arm-length arrows punched through his chest, sinking to the feathers and bursting out the back of him in a spray of gore.

The Sheriff looked down.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

* * *

Much couldn’t believe his eyes. The Sheriff didn’t fall!

Instead he jerked around, the sword in his gauntleted fist thrown wide from the impact of Robin’s arrows, but he stood on his own feet.

Friar Tuck pulled away and ran over to scoop up a boy and carry him to the bard, who had staggered to his feet. The soldiers that once held them turned and drew weapons.

Much ran after Robin, trailing behind as they crossed the field. His eyes drank it in as Robin pulled arrows from his quiver and shot in smooth motion. The shafts flew faster than he could follow, streaking through the air to magically reappear, embedded in the bodies of the dog soldiers. By the time Much had run ten steps, Robin had dropped as many of the Sheriff’s men.

People ran past, finally having seen too much. They fled to their villages to huddle and hide and see how things happened. One man knocked into Much and fell down. He tried to help him but the man scrambled away with a curse. Much looked up and saw that Robin had left him far behind.

The hooded archer fired three arrows into the faces of three dog soldiers. Much could hear the hollow melon
thunks
as arrowheads sank to the back of iron helmets. Another black-clad soldier, this one too close for Robin to shoot, swung a mace. Rusted iron blades swirled off the hardwood bat, jutting like the poison teeth of a basilisk.

Robin fell to the ground and slid under the swing, death-blades cutting the air where he had been. He slid to a stop, pulled an arrow, notched it, and sank it under the soldier’s armpit. It jutted out the other side of his torso in a jolt of black gore, hitching up the arm that held the club and making it drop the thing. The soldier took two steps and tumbled to the ground.

Robin stood, his features still obscured.

Then the Sheriff faced him, fingers touching the feathers that sprouted from his breastplate. He looked the same as before, cold, icy, imperious—more frightening with his face pulled into a sneer.

His voice was smooth and fluid when he spoke.

“So you are the infamous Hood who has been interfering with my tax collecting.”

Robin said nothing.

The Sheriff began to pull on the end of an arrow. It drew out of him slowly, pulsing blood around the shaft as it slid.

“This hurts you know.”

“If you remove it, I will replace it.”

“I think you can see that it won’t matter. All you do is make me angry.” The shaft came out with a squelch. The Sheriff dropped it to the ground and moved his hand to the next. “Besides, you are out of arrows, archer.”

Robin slung the bow across his shoulders. “I have more. They worked fine enough on your men.”

“They will be lazy until sunset.” The Sheriff knelt, dropping the second arrow beside the first. He wiped his own blood off on the grass. Much could swear he saw it smoke and sizzle. His mailed hand closed on the hilt of the dropped sword and he stood. “If I let you live until then, they can join in your torture for the pain you put them through.” He shrugged. “Most likely I’ll carve your liver here, and have it for my reward.”

Robin drew the sword hanging from the baldric at his side. Much had seen it earlier, made note of it because Robin never carried a sword. It was a yard of shining steel, heavy and thick with a hilt the size of a man’s fist. Dark markings ran up the blade, but he couldn’t read them from where he was.

The Sheriff stalked forward, swinging his sword back and forth. It crackled in the air.

Robin spoke, jaw set in a clench.

“Help the others, lad,” he said to Much. “Get to the forest and run. I’ll catch up.” He glanced to the side. “Be brave!” He turned back to the Sheriff in time to raise his sword and block a thunderous blow that would have clove his head to the teeth. It drove Robin to the ground. He scrambled, swinging wildly with his own sword, seeking to get space.

“Go!” he bellowed at Much.

Much went.

He reached Friar Tuck, the bard, and the boy. His hands closed on the rough wool robes of the priest.

“Come on! We have to make it to the Forest. Robin said!”

Friar Tuck planted his feet, jerking Much to a stop. Shoving the boy and the bard toward him, the priest spoke.

“Take them,” he said. “I cannot leave Robin to face that devil alone.”

Much pulled hard on Friar Tuck, using the muscles he had earned hauling full sacks of meal. He felt guilty and breathed the hope this wasn’t a sin.

“Robin said we
all
should go.” Friar Tuck looked at him sharply. There was a black splatter of the Sheriff’s blood across his face. Much tugged again. “He
said
. He can beat the Sheriff, we have to run.”

The bard laid a hand on Friar Tuck’s arm. “We should go.”

The priest nodded and shouldered himself under the weakened minstrel.

“Help with the other side of him, lad.”

Much took the other arm across his shoulders. The bard clutched the harp in a white-knuckled fist. It banged against Much’s chest, making little humming chimes with each step as they began to cross the field to the forest.

The other boy picked up a short sword that lay on the ground. Behind them Much could hear clanging steel and shouted curses. He couldn’t look back with the Bard’s arm over his neck, couldn’t bear witness to the fate of the man he looked up to so desperately. He could only obey and run.

With each step, he prayed for Robin’s safety.

Robin was losing. The Sheriff was better with a sword than he was. He was faster, and possessed a strength unknown to mortal man.

He cursed himself for not having the black arrow with him. He had not expected his visit to the miller’s family to be anything other than pleasant. Thus the arrow was safely hidden, deep within the forest. He would never make the same mistake again. The weapon that could bring both life and death would never leave him—not if he survived this.

Still he swung his sword, blocking every blow as he kept losing ground, inch-by-inch. He was going to have to flee. That truth was a bitter taste in his mouth, a clawing in his stomach, but if he did not run, he would not live. The Sheriff wasn’t human, else the arrows would have killed him. If what the creature said was true, his men weren’t human either.