Page 74 of Peregrine's Call
But when she began to walk away to harvest the firewood they’d need for the night, Tav intercepted her. “Stay here and mind the horses…and Pierce.”
“I’m not going to try anything,” Pierce protested from where he stood, spreading his hands wide in a gesture of innocence.
Tav just raised an eyebrow. “Nevertheless, Robin can send an arrow to stop you. I’ll be back soon.” He said to Robin, in a lower tone, “I’ll stay within shouting distance.”
“There’s no need,” she said. “Anything Pierce may try, I can counter it perfectly well on my own.”
“So you can,” he said, “but why should you have to? Call for me and I’ll take care of it. Meanwhile, rest. You’re tired from all this travel—I can tell.”
She was tired, but she didn’t want to make a fuss about it. While Tav was off getting fuel, she sat against the rock face and instructed Pierce on how to build a fire, despite his initial protests.
“You should thank me,” she said. “A grown man who can’t keep himself warm is pathetic.”
“I keep myself warm in other ways,” he said, looking at her with a frankly comic leer.
She rolled her eyes. “You need a woman or a cat to make it through the night indoors, and you act like you know anything? What if you had to flee Willesden alone? You’d have died the first night.”
“I’d have gone to a town immediately,” he countered.
“And been captured because your weaknesses are so predictable. Put that big stick down. You need to lay the tinder and kindling first.”
“This is servants’ work.”
“You have no servants here, my lord. That’s too much tinder. You’ll kill the fire before you light it. It needs air to breathe. Pack the tinder too tight and it will never catch. It will smolder, and smoke chokes the flame.”
Pierce made a face, but did as she directed. Perhaps he wasn’t completely foolish.
A short while later, the first flames were licking greedily at the tinder, and Pierce was grinning as if he’d accomplished a much greater task.
Tav returned with a supply of wood more than sufficient to get them through the night.
“Aha,” Pierce said. “See, sir knight, a fire worthy of all your hard work gathering fuel.Imade it.”
Tav looked amused. “About time.”
Aside from eating the food they’d bought from the innkeeper, there was little to do that evening. Leaning against the rocky hill, her feet poking out from under her monk’s robe, Robin relaxed as the heat of the fire warmed her. In fact, she could barely keep her eyes open, even though the sun only set a while ago, the sky not yet full dark.
The snap of a twig was the only warning of the attack.
At the sound, Robin whipped her head around to see men rushing out of the forest toward them, their blades gleaming.
Tav lunged to his feet, his sword somehow already in his hand. He moved to block the attackers’ path to Robin, and yelled for Pierce to draw.
Robin scrambled for her bow while trying to keep her eyes on the chaos breaking out all around her.
The three of them were badly outnumbered. She thought she counted eight or ten men, but everyone moved fast, and the leaping flames made it hard to see clearly.
“Kill the soldier! And get that monk before he can run off with the horses!” one of the attackers ordered.
“I’m not running,” she said, knowing no one could hear her.
The force split into two groups, each trying to surround Tav and Pierce.
One man broke off and advanced toward Robin with a grin on his bearded, almost jolly face. “Forgive us, brother! We know not what we do!”
Robin raised the bow and shot before he could get any closer. He looked surprised at the arrow shaft protruding from his chest, and then slid slowly to the ground.
Her heart pounding, Robin focused next on the group going after Pierce.
