Page 93 of Queen of Sherwood

I jumped to my feet, grabbed my bow from beside me, and moved for the flap.

“Wait for me, Robin!” Tuck growled, tying his habit completely closed. He reached into his pockets and came out with Atonement and Discipline strapped across his knuckles, then gave me a stern nod.

We barreled out of the tent, unprepared for whatever lay head in the darkness—

And it was madness.

The camp was in disarray, a complete state of bedlam. Thick black smoke choked the dark night sky from two burning tents. The tents were completely ablaze, and were dangerously close to creeping up toward hanging tree branches nearby.

I blinked in shock, mouth falling open, trying to get my bearings.

It was a nightmare scene: Merry Men running around like headless chickens, trying to find weapons, shouting and wailing. Someone screamed in a muffled voice and came shrieking out of the closest burning tent, his body completely engulfed in an inferno.

I didn’t even know who it was.

The sweet, sickly smell of burning flesh reached my nose and I wretched as I watched the man stagger two steps, lift a hand to the heavens, and crumple to the ground in a heap of ash and fire.

I drew my bow with shaking hands.

“Fuck!” Tuck yelled beside me, above the din of cries and madness. He pointed forward. “That’s your tent burning!”

He was right. The second tent that was aflame was certainly the one I’d been sleeping in. If I hadn’t come visited Tuck tonight to hash things out with him, I would have had a similar fate as the burning pile of a man near us. But who is doing this?

My eyes caught Will Scarlet out the corner, two swords drawn as he sprinted through camp and launched himself over an overturned sitting log. Alan-a-Dale was beside him, evidently returned from his scouting, and my heart slammed against my ribs with relief, knowing he was alive.

Yet none of us were safe.

My head moved on a swivel, taking in the rest of camp, trying to make my next move and make sense of the carnage.

Little John charged out of his tent with his quarterstaff in hand, and Robert and Uncle Gregory were near him.

My heart soared more, until it lodged firmly in my throat and refused to move. My mates are alive. And my family. Thank God.

“Robin!” came another scream, this one feminine.

I looked over as Emma came streaming toward me, dressed in a thin sleeping shift, pulling her younger sister Gracie behind her by the hand.

Gracie was disheveled—both of them were—and shocked into disbelief. “Where’s Ada?!” she wailed madly.

A groan and grunt filtered in, echoing across camp, and I spun around again to find Will Scarlet skewering a man through the chest and ripping both swords out in a spray of blood. Will shouted something unintelligible and moved on—clearly knowing who our enemies were, even if I didn’t.

Who was that man he stabbed? I don’t recognize him . . . or, wait, do I?

A newcomer. One of the—

“Enid!” cried a woman, and I twirled around, moving toward the voice.

It was Maria, one of the girls I’d been locked in the carriage with—the one who dared to help me escape with the key in her mouth. She lunged across a fire pit and shouldered a man out of the way, rescuing poor Enid, the rape victim from the carriage, from being sliced by the man’s sword.

My stomach plunged.

The man with the sword was one of the seven newly joined recruits. One of the Muddy Meddlers.

Maria caught my eye over the man’s shoulder.

“Maria!” I yelled, and drew an arrow from my quiver.

Maria shielded her body over Enid’s smaller frame, hands held out at her sides in a show of protection.

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