The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (6 page)

Which made the vicious kick she landed to the arrow protruding from his leg a complete, and utter shock.

A howl of agony spilled from Robin’s mouth as he collapsed to the ground, hands fluttering around his leg, wanting to stop the pain, but afraid to make it worse. Marian’s steps grew lighter in the wake of his torment and she flitted about the clearing, plucking gold coins from the grass like a merry child gathering wild flowers.

Robin frowned. “Are you…
humming
?”

Marian ignored him, but she continued to
hum
. A jaunty little tune completely at odds with the macabre appearance of Robin’s mutilated leg.

His frown worsened. “I could kill you, you know.”

The happy tune didn’t stutter, nor did Marian’s movements lose their newfound pep. The world greyed at the edges, eaten by pain and his brain’s desire to part from reality until his body had the sense to heal the gory damage. He blinked at his leg, some corner of his mind holding the awareness that he needed to remove the arrow so he could heal. But that seemed like it would hurt even more. Wouldn’t it? His thoughts grew sluggish and he lolled to the side, barely catching himself on one hand to keep his face from planting in the grass.

Will ambled across the clearing, giving Marian an exaggerated berth. The
spriggan
had stopped laughing, but his eyes were still bright, the corners of his mouth twitching up every moment or so—which considering the extra wide character of his mouth meant it nearly touched his ears. Robin couldn’t help but notice the bloated creature didn’t meet his eyes as he knelt to examine the leg.

“You could,” Marian acknowledged.

Robin closed his eyes as he lay back on the grass, letting Will do what he would with the wound. “Could what?”

“Kill me.”

I should kill you. Why didn’t I kill you?

“But if you kill me, you’ll be bored again. And isn’t that a fate worse than death?”

Bloody nosey female. Eavesdropping. Rude, that’s what it is.

Will snorted, then pressed his lips together. Robin opened his eyes, a hot retort ready on his lips, but before he could comment on his companion’s loyalty, the half-goblin
spriggan
grasped the arrow and gently broke the tail off. With more care than anticipated, the bestial creature slid the arrow out of his leg.

Holding his breath, Robin lowered his leg so the grass touched the wound, letting the earth lend its energy to his own recuperative abilities. A pleasant, tingling energy licked at his skin, easing the pain and sending warm pulses of healing through the jagged wound. Will winked at him, then settled back on the grass like a spectator at a public joust. His body shuddered, then shrank, muscles tightening and growing more compact, the majority of his bulk melting away. His smile melted to a more normal width, though it was still wider than any human’s. A moment later he was once again a scrawny young man wearing clothes far too loose for him, beady black eyes greedily watching the events unfolding before him.

Little John’s black nose twitched as he snuffled again, a dismissive huff that seemed to encompass everyone in the clearing. He rolled his girth to the side, lumbering off into the woods, probably to hunt for dinner. It didn’t take long for the shadows of the trees to close around him, blending his dark brown fur to black before swallowing him completely.

I hope he catches something besides fish. I’m tired of fish.

Robin sat up to better see his attacker gathering her ill gotten coins. “You think you know me so well after your little bout of eavesdropping. But I would caution you against growing too comfortable. Killing you would bring me just as much excitement as sitting down to dinner with you.” He leaned forward, careful not to break his leg’s healing contact with the ground. “And I could make it last much longer.”

Marian didn’t take her attention from the gold filling the folds of her skirt she was using as a makeshift bowl. The teal material bulged in an uneven pattern as the weight strained the cloth, but it held. “You do not strike me as being overly complicated. You are a child in a man’s body, whining about boredom as you play about in the forest. I heard Little John’s lament about your attention span. Even your companions have no faith in your staying power.”

Now that the pain from his leg was fading into the background, Robin couldn’t help but notice Marian’s voice held a sexy rasp—an intriguing side effect from his impromptu strangulation. His earlier thoughts of seeing her laid out beneath him in the grass flitted through his mind. “If it’s my staying power that interests you—”

“It doesn’t.”

Another bout of snickering poured from Will. Robin glared at him, but the
spriggan
remained largely recalcitrant, mouth curved into a sickle-shaped smile. Robin drummed his fingers against his knee and studied the mouthy female. Not overly complicated. A child in a man’s body. Her incessant insults were growing tiresome.

Dropping his hand from his knee to the ground, Robin waved his fingers over the grass. Power rolled over him like a wave, energy crystallizing like frost and spilling out to coat the clearing with another glamour. A circle of fluffy white snow bloomed up around Marian in a three foot circle, startling her into withdrawing her hand, fingers brushing her chest as she stared at the now frozen ground with its buried coins. A muscle tightened in her jaw and she stomped through the circle aiming for a patch of still green grass with unburied gold. The snow moved with her like a wintry skirt, covering her boots and hiding the ground beneath an icy blanket. Robin propped his elbow on his knee as Marian blinked and then scooped up a handful of snow.

“It’s cold.”

Robin arched an eyebrow. “Yes. It’s snow.”

Marian shook her head, lifting her hand to her face and sniffing the icy layer of white. “It
smells
like snow.”

“Yes.” He tilted his head. “I thought you were eavesdropping.”

Marian’s brow knitted in confusion.

“There is no one better than me at glamour.” He grinned. “Go ahead, you can tell me how amazing I am.”

She pressed her lips together, no doubt holding back the praise he deserved, and huffed out a breath before resolutely returning to her gathering. Satisfaction eased the rest of the ebbing pain in his leg as her hands turned red from the cold, her body shivering despite her obvious attempts to stop it. He was just working up something mocking to say when he noticed Marian’s nostrils flaring as she bent to slide her hand over the ground.

Now what does she remind me of?

Realization struck and Robin leapt to his feet, pitching to the side as his leg protested the interruption to its healing process. He shifted the majority of his weight to his other foot in time to keep from toppling over and pointed at Will. “Stay here with our guest, I’m going to check on Little John and see what’s keeping dinner.”

The
spriggan
rolled his eyes. “Yes, because he so enjoys your help when he’s trying to hunt. Try not to fall in the river this time.”

Robin ignored the jibe and bounded off into the forest, brushing away tree branches that welcomed him like long lost friends, leaves caressing him as he passed. It didn’t take long to find his friend. Little John was predictable in his hunting ground, favoring the area around a small waterfall even when he was hunting for meat other than fish.

Robin caught up with him not more than thirty yards from said waterfall. Little John was just heading back toward the clearing, once again in human form, though his clothes were mere tatters now that he’d shifted in them. He carried a deer over his back, barely hunched under what had to be considerable weight. The gentle giant’s brown eyes didn’t exactly light up to see Robin coming toward him, but he gave a good-natured sigh and slowed to let Robin match his pace.

“If you’re here to help me hunt, you can see I’ve alr—”

“What is she?”

Little John hefted the carcass a little higher on his shoulders, but didn’t stop walking. “What?”

“What is she? The woman—Marian.”

A bushy brown eyebrow rose. “She’s a woman.”

Robin pressed his lips together and pivoted to stand in front of Little John, forcing him to stop walking or risk trampling him. Little John hesitated with his foot in the air, hovering between stopping and taking another heavy step. His weight rocked precariously then settled back as he put his foot down and visibly resigned himself to finishing the conversation.

“Your senses are keen, Little John, more so than my own. It is one of the few ways in which you are superior to me—the only way, in fact. Are you telling me that Marian has played you and your senses for a fool? Did you truly believe she was merely human?”

“Your arrogance aside, I feel no shame in telling you that my superior senses did not betray your guest as anything but human.” The deer sagged in his grip and he absently heaved it higher again, jostling the weight until it was balanced more securely on his shoulders. “Though she does wear a little too much perfume. Rosemary, I think. What is it that makes you so certain she’s not human?”

“Humans don’t sniff for gold coins under a layer of snow.”

It was a tribute to the longevity of their acquaintanceship that Little John didn’t seem at all surprised at the mention of snow in midsummer. Instead he stared off into the forest, eyes growing hazy with thought. “Did the snow show up before or after you scattered the coins?”

“After.”

“Then she’ll have a tougher time of it. A scent over snow can be easier to track, with the cold preserving the scents and there being fewer scents to compete with it on the frosty ground. But fresh snow
over
a scent can make it—”

“I don’t care if she finds the coins or not.” Robin started to pace, then winced as his leg screamed in protest. He settled for drumming his fingers against his arm. “I care about the fact that the woman is scenting the ground for the coins—like a dog.”

“Or a bear,” Little John pointed out.

 “You think she’s a bear?”

“She doesn’t smell like a bear.”

Frustration plucked at his nerve endings and Robin rubbed a hand over his face. “You are trying my patience.”

That drew a snort from Little John and he resumed his procession to the clearing. “Not so funny when you’re on the other end, is it?”

Robin took a deep breath, barely resisting the urge to do something unpleasant to his ursine friend as he passed.  He skirted around his companion to limp in front of him, walking backward so he could keep looking at his large friend’s face. “If she isn’t human, what could be keeping you from smelling what she really is?”

“Obviously you’ve already considered a glamour.”

“Obviously.” Robin shook his head. “There are very few so good at glamour that they can create a scent that isn’t there, or hide a scent that is. I know of no one besides myself capable of such a feat. There are those who could hypnotize a creature into believing they smelled something—or didn’t—but actually creating a scent or hiding a scent from the world at large? That is another matter.”

“There are some herbs that would do it.” Little John’s brow furrowed. “There is the rosemary. I assumed it was a perfume—women are always rolling in something or another to smell nice—but it could be a means of masking a scent.”

“She’s hiding.” Robin breathed the word in a half-whisper, his heart pumping adrenaline through his system until his body vibrated with it.
Who are you hiding from, Marian?

“Robin, you don’t know that. Maybe she knew more about us than you thought and she simply wanted to sneak up on us.”

“She lives among the humans, she showed no magical or inhuman capabilities when the sheriff angered her. She killed Guy of Gisborne with her bow, not with teeth or fangs.”

“Sounds very human to me.”

Robin stared off into the woods but it was the image of Marian in his mind’s eye that held his full attention. He remembered her face, remembered the look in her eyes when she’d killed Guy. There had been no fear, no guilt, not even anger. She had been…eager.

“She is not human. I can feel it in my bones. And if she did not reveal her true nature when you and Will did, if she did not answer your inhuman threat with her own…”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, Robin. For once in your long life, just let it go.”

“I wonder who she’s hiding from? And what is she?”

Little John hung his head in resignation. “I don’t suppose it would do me any good to point out that if she is indeed hiding, then sticking your nose into the situation could have disastrous consequences—for her and for us.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone her secret,” Robin scoffed. “I just want to know what it is.”

“Yes. And you’re so subtle.” Little John sighed again. “This is not going to turn out well.”

Chapter Five

“I demand to know why I’ve been brought here.”

Mac Tyre, the sheriff of Nottingham, arched one black eyebrow at his…guest. The only light in the cottage was the fire burning steadily in the white stone hearth and the small oil lamp sitting on a work table that took up most of the center of the room. Despite the prevalence of shadows, Mac’s eyes had long ago adjusted to the dimness, and with the aid of the fire’s reddish glow, he was able to see the
far darrig
quite clearly.

Its small stature painted a dark silhouette against the fire, the smoke from its pipe rising to dance against the wooden rafters before dispersing in a foul smelling cloud. As it waited for Mac to answer its demand, it tapped the end of its pipe against yellowed teeth, beady blue eyes glaring from a wrinkled face almost completely hidden by a flushed bulbous nose. The chair it slouched in was close enough to the fireplace that there was a reasonable danger of its clothes catching fire. Given the state of his tattered red shirt and tobacco stained pants, Mac doubted even the fire would want them.

“You are here because I summoned you here.”

“Aye, you have. Your great beast of a wolf nearly took off my leg rousting me from my warm bed.” Blue eyes flashed, like moonlight on midnight blue water. “It’s a brave human you are, dragging me here. Did your parents never tell you of my kind?”