Page 95 of Queen of Sherwood

Then the man was gone from camp, careening into the road, and I had to look away because there were more pressing matters.

The young Meddler woman terrorized screaming girls with her short dagger—

And then Maid Marian leapt out of nowhere and charged at the woman barehanded. She screeched and tackled the girl to the ground.

Rosco, Tick, and Jimmy were right behind Marian. They watched for a moment as the two women rolled on the ground, wrestling for dominance, until Rosco found an opening.

He pounced, shoving Marian away, and held the Meddler woman down by straddling her chest and pinning her arms above her head on the muddy ground. Tick jumped on her next, ripping the dagger from her hand. He stabbed into her over and over again—five, ten times—until she was spurting blood and coughing and dying.

Jimmy hugged Tick from behind and ripped the crying, sniffling lad off the dead woman.

The orphan girls looked at them in awe.

I didn’t look at them in awe. No, I looked at Maid Marian in awe, as she sat heaving, her mane of red curls tumbling like a raging fire all around her head.

She seemed to feel my stare and looked over, giving me a small nod as Rosco helped her to her feet.

“Ada!” Gracie cried out, and chased off after the orphans, where her lover was huddled. Emma went after her sister.

I panted and heaved. Marian . . . saved those girls.

Slowly, I turned away and surveyed the camp for more danger.

Robert placed a well-timed strike into a straggler’s leg, and the man went to his knees. Robert ducked, Uncle Gregory charged in behind him, and decapitated the ailing Meddler with a huge swing from his giant greatsword.

I jolted with a start at the sudden sight of a rolling head on the ground, the geyser of blood that erupted from the hole in the dead man’s neck.

I blinked away the shock, coughing from the thick, choking smoke.

“We have to move,” Tuck ordered, wrapping a hand over my shoulder.

Garbled laughter from behind me made my feet freeze to the ground. I looked over my shoulder.

Armison was on his side, blood leaking from both sides of his lips. He gave me a gory grin, his body broken from Tuck’s punishment.

I stormed over to the man, crouched, and grabbed him by the collar of his filthy tunic. “Why?!” I screamed in his face. “We let you into our camp, Armison! Why did your people do this?”

His grin widened, eyes unfocused and rolling. “Courtesy of the Sheriff of Nottingham, you silly whore.”

He reached for the handle of a sword next to him.

I dragged an arrow out of my back-quiver first, faster, and slammed it into his neck.

Armison coughed red, his entire chin coated.

Rage swelled inside me. Unfiltered and unstoppable. I pulled the arrow and stabbed it again and again into his dying body, until I was jabbing the arrow fletching-deep into a pulpy, soft corpse.

Tuck yelled, “Robin, he’s dead!”

I snapped to and gritted my teeth, barely able to recognize the Muddy Meddler from all the blood.

The Sheriff of Nottingham. Of course.

“I heard what he said,” Tuck growled as we made our way deeper into camp, where it seemed the fighting had stopped.

Nearby, others were tossing buckets of river water onto the burning tents.

“This is the Sheriff’s doing,” I said. “He planted those fucking Meddlers.”

---