What A Scoundrel Wants (35 page)

Little John grinned. “If that be a castle, Robin needs to call his pittance as much.”

“Not big enough for you?” Will asked.

“Just right for our purposes, I wager.”

“Agreed.”

Although hidden at the base of the mound, Will felt the stir of countless eyes on him, from above, from behind. He kept his back low, legs pulling him up and up. Bow, sword, and daggers hung ready for use. The nearer they could get without initiating a fight, the farther they could push with full quivers and limbs unburdened by fatigue.

Watching for movement, he skipped his gaze across the parapets. The strengthening rains made walls of granite appear to move. Specters and shadows trembled in the murky evening light, concealing their stealthy advance but shielding any enemy threat.

Will signaled his entourage to hold fast. Twenty yards away, up the hill, two armored men stood guarding the half-drawn portcullis, pikestaffs crossed.

“So few defenses?” Jacob whispered. Crossbow at his back, he shifted black eyes in a nervous pattern: walls, palisades, gate. And again. “Like they expect us to take sup with them.”

“Likely a trap.”

“You’re not wrong,” John said, joining them. “But Robin has our backs. If you trust him and your woman’s potion, I say we push on.”

Will nodded and pulled an arrow from his quiver. Little John did the same, his large frame belying the grace with which he handled his weapon. Though the rain made a misty mess of aiming, they drew back their bowstrings, silently counted to three, and fired in unison. Both men at the portcullis dropped.

“Now!”

They raced up the mound, closing the remaining distance in a matter of seconds. High above the gate, wooden hoardings opened. A score of archers appeared from under the galleries, bows trained on the advancing party. Someone inside the gate struck the release rope for the portcullis, for the raised grating screeched in a plummeting descent to the ground.

“Inside!”

Will ran and rolled beneath the falling portcullis. John, Jacob, and a half dozen others heeded his urgent command. But trapped between the gate and a hail of arrows from the hoardings, men on the outside huddled into tight corners.

“Come now,” John said. “Robin will do his job, right sure. We do ours.”

Will shook his attention from the trapped men and charged into the courtyard.

The delay set her on edge. She could not shake the outrage she harbored since that day in Nottingham. When offered the choice between Ada and Will Scarlet, that vile wag, her sister had wavered and waited. If history was any indication, he held Meg under some manner of delusion, as Hugo had. Every day spent separated from her would make their reconciliation more difficult. Until then, she dwelled on her aversion to Scarlet.

But worries about her sister came to an abrupt end that afternoon. Following the midday meal, a pair of his guards dragged her from the dining hall, tying her to a heavy oaken bench.

A mistake, surely—her first thought. Ada screamed for Dryden until her voice lost its luster and the echoes threatened to destroy her hearing.

A punishment, perhaps—her second thought. But what had she done?

After fighting the restraints with no success, she calmed to conserve her strength. The chamber was empty. While not as bleak, the circular chapel with its high ceilings and tall, narrow stained glass windows may as well have been a cell in Nottingham’s dungeon. It offered no more freedom. She sat at its center, bound, frightened. And angry.

Behind the locked door, guards began to shout. Their weapons rattled but they did not turn toward her place of captivity. Sounding ready for an encounter, the men ran through the halls and bellowed confused orders. Had the sheriff grown bolder, having decided on an open confrontation with Dryden?

A key chafed the rusty lock and turned.

Clad in his customary black, Sheriff Peter Finch stood in the doorway. Daylight matched his eyes and nondescript brown hair. In his hand, he held the jewel-encrusted dagger.

She screamed.

Robin pulled a special arrow from his quiver. Instead of barbed metal, the head was made of tightly wound and knotted wool. More like a slender torch than an arrow, he drenched it in the gelatinous solution. The man in charge of that barrel quickly dropped the leather cover back in place, keeping it clear of the rain.

He marveled at the magic he witnessed. Each drop of water landed upon the coated shaft and sizzled. When he dipped the saturated wool into the open drum of rainwater, it burst into flames. The downpour did nothing to extinguish the fire and, in fact, strengthened its mysterious heat. All around him, he heard his men—sound men of long experience in battle—wonder and fret about the unnatural blaze.

But then the hoardings opened. Dryden’s archers began their assault of Will’s team.

He watched the trap unfold, neither surprised nor discouraged. At least Will and a few of his accomplices made it inside the gate. “Archers! On me!”

A line of men stood ready, wielding the flaming arrows no water could douse.

“On the hoardings! Ready! Fire!”

Curving over the shallow glade, blazing arrows glowed against the deep gloom of the evening storm. While a few flew wide in the wind, most of the points met their mark and imbedded in the wooden galleries that shielded the opposing archers. The arrows burned and burned. No amount of water quenched their hunger, until even the rain-soaked wood fell victim to the tremendous heat and caught fire.

“Again!”

Another round of arrows like torches found Bainbridge’s fortifications. From beneath their shields, the remaining men trapped by the portcullis fired up with standard arrows. Men fell from the hoardings, some of them ablaze, all of them screaming as they plunged earthward.

“Look, Robin! As if the rain weren’t doing the job already!”

He looked where Hargrave pointed. Dryden’s soldiers threw buckets of water on the hoardings. The flames increased. He grinned, amazed. Never had he seen a marvel so contrary to nature.

“Your directions, Lord Loxley?”

“Some of the men outside the gate yet stand,” Robin said. “Likely, they are not being attacked with arrows from the other side of the portcullis. Will and John must have pushed through. Continue the assault.”

But from the left of the line came a fierce roar of pain. Robin whipped around his head to see two men engulfed by flames.

“I’m here to help you,” he said.

“Where is Dryden?”

“Doing battle with Robin of Loxley.” A slow, serpent’s smile curved his lips. “He has little time for you now. Does that upset you?”

“
You
upset me.” Tears lumped in her throat. She could not look away from that nightmare blade.

Finch eased forward—no sudden advance, but every stealthy movement liquefied her courage. It seeped through her pores, evaporating into air thick with rain.

“Dryden has no further use for you, not now that your sister has found allies with teeth.”

Meg?

“Dryden took care of me,” she said, sounding as feeble as she felt.

“You were of use to us, but no longer.”

“Us? You were in league?”

Shrugging with grace enough to suit a woman, Finch knelt at her bound feet and lifted her skirts. He petted the length of one calf, rhythmically, gently. Ada wanted to scream, but her voice died in her mouth. Terror soaked up the sound.

“Yes, my dear, and now he wants me to kill you. Can you imagine? He wants to have done with you, as if you have no further value.” Beads of sweat dotted his brows and temples. His hand at her calf became bolder, sliding past her knee. Bile collected on the back of her tongue. “But you and I have become attached, haven’t we? Dryden, for all his ambition, never had the opportunity to know you as I did.”

“Get away from me!”

He gripped her cheeks in a slender hand. Soulless brown eyes drifted nearer, swirling as if she had consumed too much ale. “Understand this, Ada: Dryden wants you dead. I want you for myself. And despite how intimately involved you are in the outcome, you have no say.”

Finch sliced through the ropes at her ankle. With the tenderness of a lover, he straightened her knee and touched her sole, smoothing bare skin against bare skin. Ada shuddered.

He smiled gently. “Has Dryden helped to heal your wounds? What a generous sort. Other than his lack of regard for your life, we should be pleased by that turn. Such a gift to start anew, you and me. How we began.”

He brought the dagger to her sole. The world of circular walls and decorated shards of light swam in a hazy pool, coating her eyes. The gleam of metal sapped her sanity. He petted and stroked, never cutting. She could not turn her eyes, mesmerized by the sick rhythm of his caress and awaiting the inevitable pain.

A crash of fire shattered the windows. Flames and stained glass fragments like slivers of colored ice pelted the chamber. His body between Ada and the windows, Finch turned in time to catch the shards with his eyes and cheeks.

She screamed, her terror finally let loose.

The sheriff leapt to his feet and staggered around the room. He clutched his ruined face, a blinded and bellowing animal. Echoes chased around the chamber. Wild flashes of lightning stitched the night sky. Silhouetted against the dark and the unnatural light, he ran headlong into a wall. His body hit the marble with a heavy thud.

The rain persisted. Ada breathed and breathed. She watched where Finch slumped against the wall to her right, but she did no trust that he was dead. The flaming torch that splintered the window lay burning a few feet away.

Using the foot Finch had cut free, Ada pushed the floor with her heel. Her newly healed sole protested. Pain coiled into her skin. She pushed again, budging the heavy bench back toward the lingering flame. Another push, another few inches. Sweat covered her forehead. Her heart beat like the wings of a bird trapped inside a satchel.

Finally, she reached the torch and dangled the ends of the ropes binding her wrists. She waited for the rope to catch. Across the chamber, Finch stirred. His groan dragged her fears higher, leaving her lightheaded. Pulling, leaning as far as she could, she dipped the ropes nearer the fire.

The hemp sizzled and caught. Ada squeezed her eyelids shut, again awaiting an inevitable pain. She pulled hard on the ropes. Heat climbed ever closer until the fire touched her skin. Her eyes watered and the hairs on her forearms smoldered. She whimpered, her body shaking and rebelling against her mind’s steadfast purpose. The ropes gave a little. She pulled again, gaining momentum as she rocked. A final tug and a maddened scream threw her free of the restraints, sprawling on stone.

Ada flung the ropes away and checked her wrists. Charred hair and hemp, singed skin—they conspired to turn her stomach. She swallowed a heavy lump. But another smell caught her attention. Standing on shaky legs, she found the torch—an arrow, really—that had punctured the window. She gingerly sniffed the blazing wool at its head.

Naphtha. Greek fire. Meg’s doing, surely.

Meg had come for her after all.

Relief washed over her like the rainwater pouring through the ruined stained glass.

Finch stirred again, his groan a promise of future nightmares. Ada whirled on her captor. He turned his face to the ceiling. Glass perforated his skin. Blood flowed where his eyes had been. He called her name.

She found his jeweled dagger and drove it into the thick vein in his neck.

Able to roll clear, he swiveled on his heel and hurled a dagger, catching his opponent in the calf. The man fell, wailing. Will jumped atop his back and drove a second dagger into the base of his skull. The blade carved between bones to release a gurgle of blood. Although covered already in the offal of other slain combatants, he turned, doubled over, and retched.

“Are you well?” Jacob tugged at his belt, dragging him back to straight.

He wiped his mouth and nodded.

Little John simply laughed, a laugh like a growl. “I thought you’d have guts like a rock of late, Will.”

“I am not impervious to—”

“Look out!”

Jacob’s warning spiraled across the hall. Will dropped, rolling again, readying his bow and an arrow. He jerked his gaze up the stairs where Meg loomed over him, clutching a jeweled dagger of her own. Blood blackened the front of her gown.

“Ada! No!” Jacob yelled.

Will blinked. Not Meg.

Ada.

She launched forward. Too stunned and disoriented, Will let the arrow fall slack. He caught Meg’s sister around the waist and grabbed the hand with the dagger. Both fell to the floor. She snarled and screamed, struggling to free her hand.

“Ada,” he said, straining against her vicious attack. “Ada, we’re here to help you.”

“Liar! What have you done to my sister? Where is she?”

“She’s safe.” He grunted. Instinct demanded that he protect himself from the blade slashing near his face, but he could not hurt Ada—not and live with himself.

“I’ll kill you for what you’ve done!”

She bit the back of his hand. A spasm of pain jerked his fingers wide, freeing her. She reared back with the dagger, but a pair of monstrous arms yanked her clear.

Little John plucked the blade from her petite fingers like petals from a flower. He subdued her, his grumbling laugh still filtering through the cavernous hall. “Against an army, he is well good. Against a single female, he is useless.”

“And I know it,” he said, rubbing the teeth marks on his hand. He approached John’s flailing charge and caught her wild gaze—keen, wild eyes of a deeper blue than Meg’s. “We came to ’venge you against Finch and Dryden. We mean you no harm.”

“But I meant
you
harm, Will Scarlet.” She drew pale lips back in a gruesome smile. “And Finch is already dead.”

Will flinched, shocked by her vehemence. “Get from this place. Meg waits for you. Jacob, this woman is your responsibility now. Can you manage?”

The young Jew nodded. Taking Ada from John, he clasped her upper arms and repeated her name until she held his eyes. “Stay with me, Ada. Look here. Stay with me. We have to get clear. Can you listen?”

She dipped her face, the smallest acquiescence. Jacob looped an arm through hers and hoisted his crossbow, drawn and loaded. With a quick look back to Will, he pulled his addled charge toward the portcullis.

“The rest of you, on me,” Will said, retrieving his bow. “We must find Dryden.”

“Right here, Scarlet.”

At the top of a wide staircase, Dryden stood flanked by a trio of soldiers.