TW01 The Ivanhoe Gambit NEW by Simon Hawke Read Free Book Online Page A

break," said Finn. He ran a beefy hand through his thick red hair. "This isn't funny.
    He wasn't kidding about giving you a whipping. You think they'll stop with just tearing some skin off your back? These bastards will keep at it till you croak!"
    "That's assuming I lose this contest," Bobby said.
    "Who do you think you are, Robin Hood?"
    Bobby stared at him in astonishment, then broke up.
    "Okay, very funny," Finn said, frowning. "But what if any of these characters are better than you?"
    "Then I guess we'll be in trouble."
    "We?"
    "Thanks, Finn. I knew you'd stand by me."
    "Jesus, you could at least have called him Sire or Your Majesty or something. You had to go and piss him off. What was the point?"
    Bobby handed him his cloak and hat. "You're supposed to be Little John," he said, "and I'm supposed to be the fastest gun in Sherwood Forest, remember? If I win this shoot-out, they'll be talking about it all over the place. Can you think of a better way of establishing our credentials?"
    "Give me a minute, I'm sure I can come up with something."
    "Well, think fast, because they're about to get this show on the road."
    The trumpets blared again and the herald announced that each man would have three flights of arrows at a distance of seventy-five paces. The moment that had been announced, seven of the competitors dropped out. That left only nine, including Bobby. Each man shot at will, taking as much time as he wished to shoot three arrows in succession. Bobby hit the gold with every shot with no apparent difficulty and, to most of the people in the stands, it looked like he hardly even aimed. Only two archers did as well, which eliminated everybody else.
    "That wasn't bad," said Finn.
    "I had to make harder shots in training," Bobby said. "Besides, this isn't entirely new to me, you know. Remind me to tell you about the time I took archery lessons from Ulysses."
    They moved the targets farther back, to a distance of about one hundred yards. They shot again and this time one man was eliminated. That left Bobby and Hubert, John's champion archer.
    "If Hubert doesn't beat this insolent braggart," John said, "I'll have his guts for garters."
    The targets were now moved back to a distance of some hundred and twenty yards.
    "You sure about this?" whispered Finn.
    "Piece of cake."
    Hubert was to have the first shot. He drew his long bow back to his right ear, aimed carefully, waited for the breeze to die down and then let fly. The arrow described a graceful arc in the air and landed directly dead center in the gold. A cheer went up from the stands.
    "Hah!" John exclaimed, jubilant at Hubert's shot. "Let's see the Saxon bastard beat that shot! It can't be done!"
    Finn's heart sank.
    "Hell of a shot," Bobby said. "I'd give my left nut for a laminated Browning recurve with stabilizers right about now."
    "What are we going to do?"
    "The only thing we
can
do."
    "Resign and run for it?"
    "No, cheat."
    He turned his back to the stands, taking a position so that Hubert couldn't see what he was doing. He removed an arrow from the quiver that was colored differently from all the others. He fitted the black arrow to his bow.
    "A little something the ordnance boys whipped up for me, just in case," he said to Finn.
    "What's the gimmick?"
    "Look inside the quiver and you'll find a little black box. When I nock my arrow, the bowstring depresses the arming trigger. The moment I let fly, you hit the button on that box. Inside the shaft, there's integrated microcircuitry coupling a ferrous metal detector inside the bronze arrowhead with a limited trim system on the fletching."
    Finn grinned widely. "Now that's
style,"
he said.
    "I don't know about style," said Bobby, "but I've got a strong sense of self-preservation. The black arrows have shaped charges in the heads. Just stand between me and Hubert while I remove that, I don't want to blow up my target."
    The whispered conversation with Finn was taken for hesitation on Bobby's part by Hubert, who