Daughter of Sherwood by Laura Strickland Read Free Book Online Page B

about her calves fit as if molded to them.
    Sparrow turned his eyes on Lil, who stood at the grave’s edge with Alric and Martin. Grief ravaged the woman’s face and added years to her appearance; no need to ask what she felt. Sparrow wondered at the love she and Geofrey had shared. He had rarely seen them do more than touch hands, yet she looked, now, like a woman whose heart had been torn from her.
    Magic shivered in the air; if Sparrow narrowed his eyes he could virtually see it, a shimmer of pure green that surrounded Lil, a haze of violet-silver around Alric, even radiant crimson dusting Martin’s outline. He could see the grief also, gray as smoke, linking soul to soul.
    And those others, the many who had lived and died in Sherwood—did they come as well, to take their leave of the honored dead? Robin, with his fierce kindness and vision, Scarlet, with his heedless courage and headstrong anger...Sparrow’s own Da, with his great laugh and even greater heart? All the others who had chosen freedom over safety and been willing to pay the required price for it, for an England they could call their own, this blessed ground—did they hover here also, like the light?
    “Know,” Alric said, “he is not gone from us, nor can ever be.”
    Suddenly, Lil’s head came up. Her nostrils flared even as Sparrow’s own senses unfurled.
    “Danger! Children!”
    Sparrow never knew who spoke the words. It might have been Lil, or Alric, or Sparrow himself. The warning came mere moments before horses crashed into the gathered crowd, and the peace shattered into chaos.
    Sparrow thought first of the woman at his side. Even as his eyes noted the dull glint of armor and the blazons that declared these were the Sheriff’s men, he realized her particular danger. She could not be caught. As screams and hollering erupted all around them, he seized her and thrust her to his back. It was the first time he had touched her, and his fingers tingled. A horde of sensations rushed upon him: terror, distress, and overwhelming anger. He could not think about that now. Her safety must be his one purpose.
    “Down!”
    The oak, standing more than a hundred feet high and with a spread of branches nearly as wide, created its own clearing. Now the Sheriff’s mounted guard seemed to fill it, swords flashing, hooves crushing everything in their path. Sparrow caught one glimpse of Lambert, on his coal-black steed, at their head. The man’s eyes were everywhere, and Sparrow hurried to move Wren to the edge of the open space.
    A stream ran just here, cloaked with sedges and bullrushes. He shoved Wren down its bank. Still she had not said a word nor cried out. He knew cover meant safety, and they must reach the trees at any cost.
    With a great splash, a horse came through the stream, and its rider filled Sparrow’s vision. His fingers reached for the bow on his shoulder without conscious thought. An arrow came to his hand just as swiftly.
    “Behind me,” he told Wren again.
    Sparrow wore a sword, but the bow would always be his first choice. He saw horseflesh, sword and shield all coming at him in a surge of power. He whispered a prayer and let his arrow fly.
    The soldier fell with a grunt nearly at Wren’s feet, and the horse shied away. Sparrow heard Wren gasp even as he seized her wrist, intent on pulling her on, but past the stream their way was blocked once more. Soldiers seemed to materialize out of the forest—how had they approached so quietly?—to surround the gathered mourners. Sparrow notched his second arrow.
    Behind him he heard screaming—high squeals of women and children, bellows from the throats of villagers and soldiers alike, someone shrieking in pain. Where was Martin? Could he defend Lil and Alric on his own? What was Lambert after? What did he know?
    Three horsemen converged upon him and Wren. An arrow to the throat felled the first, but the second came at Sparrow with a sweeping sword blow that nearly took off his head. The