Stone Rising (32 page)

***

Loxley ran, heart thumping within his chest. Hounds chased him down unending corridors; their faces pockmarked with scars, blackened stumps for fangs as they barked after him.

Toff, toff, toff.

Feeling their foetid breath on his neck, he rounded a corner, bursting through a door and slamming it shut behind him, hearing their frustrated scrabbling at the wood on the other side. The room he found himself in smelt of incense and perfumes and sent a shiver down his spine with its familiarity. A desk, behind which sat an ornate chair, a sword embedded point first within it. As he walked past, a bloodstain upon the stone floor caught his eye. It was still fresh, wet to the touch.

             
Hearing noises outside the window, he moved, past a burning fireplace, towards where the light streamed in from outside. Squinting his eyes against the bright sunlight, he looked down, to spy a cobbled street spread out before his vantage point.

             
A crowd had gathered, baying and jeering. Before them, a lonely figure, head resting upon the block as a masked executioner brought his axe down hard. The masked man grasped the severed head by the hair, lifting it upwards so that the crowd could see and cheer. Slowly, deliberately, the axe-man turned, lifting the head high that Loxley himself might see the victim from his window. With a gasp, he shuddered. For the face of the victim was so eerily familiar.

It was him.

No, wait. It wasn’t. There was something different. There was a maturity to the lines, a tanned, weather-beaten look to the skin. A hardness to the eyes, even now, their life drained away. With a sob, Loxley backed away from the window, legs trembling beneath him.

“The fate of your father is the fate that awaits all traitors, young Loxley.”

The voice came from behind him, cold, calculating. He turned. The Shiriff stood there, regal, resplendent in his finery. At his waist, a dagger, ornate and gilded as though there merely to complete the look.

“My father was never a traitor,” Loxley spat, though his words seemed to lack power.

The Shiriff merely laughed, sidling closer, a menacing look in his narrowed eyes.

“Mere semantics, my boy. He was loyal to Richard for sure, but what, pray tell me, the point of staying loyal to a far-off king, when there are powers closer to home that demand your fealty?” He grinned. “Life is about choices, Loxley. It’s about seeing what makes your life easier in the here and now and making that choice, being brave enough to make that decision.”

“Not when it costs innocent people their livelihoods,” Loxley retorted, though his voice was trembling as he spoke. The Shiriff grew nearer and, as he did, he seemed to loom larger, the shadows gathering all about him.

“Such weakness,” sighed the Shiriff, as he drew that ornate dagger from its scabbard at his belt. “Have you learned nothing from me, boy?”

With a lunge, he was upon Loxley, dagger driving up, deep, deep into his chest beneath his ribs, till he could feel the cold steel in his very heart. The Shiriff took a step backwards, wrenching the dagger out in a spray of lifeblood, a smile on his face as they parted.

Slowly, Loxley looked down, to spy the spreading shadow of crimson that soaked his leather jacket. He touched his fingers to the wound, feeling the warmth of his blood, smelling the coppery tang in the air.

So, he thought to himself, as a creeping warmth began to work its way across his skin. This is what it feels like to die? Strange, he mused; he would have imagined things to become blurry, limbs to become weak. Instead, as he looked up to see the Shiriff’s puzzled frown, things seemed to leap out at him with renewed clarity. The crackle of the fire in the hearth. The noise of the crowd outside in the streets. The sound of his heart, beating, strong and true.

Wait…

“What sorcery is this?” The Shiriff backed away a few steps, glancing down at the bloodied dagger in his hand as though it had betrayed him. “I… I stabbed you right in the heart. You are dead, man! Dead!”

A bright, warm light filled the room, causing both Loxley and the Shiriff to cover their eyes.

That is not one heart at which you stab with your pathetic pig-sticker, Shiriff. Rather, the hearts of every proud Englishman now and for the next thousand years. And they will not be defeated by the likes of you.

The voice boomed out, filling the room with such power that Loxley was amazed the very stones of the castle walls didn’t shatter before its might. There, next to the desk, a figure of blazing light now stood, taller than any man he had ever seen; taller, even, than John and twice as heavy, with power in his limbs, long brown hair and startlingly green eyes. On his handsome face, a playful smile, as if permanently amused, yet as the Shiriff rounded upon this new arrival, the eyes blazed with fearsome power, the steward vanishing in a cloud of smoke with a scream.

The titan turned to Loxley, gazing into his very soul, yet no fear did the Englishman feel. Merely awe. Merely reverence. He fell to his knees.

It’s time for you to awaken, Lo
xley,
the being told him.
Destiny is calling. And she doesn’t like to be kept waiting…

***

Will whirled, this way and that, trying his best to avoid the incoming blows. Already he bled from a score of minor cuts on his arms and chest. His limbs felt leaden, weary, as he lashed out with his twin daggers. The storm, which had opened up on them minutes before, didn’t help matters; the rain streaming into his eyes and obscuring his vision.

             
A snarling brute of a mercenary lunged towards him with a halberd. Will just managed to lean to one side, the sharp, axe-like head of the weapon clipping his leather jacket, but not piercing to the skin. He rushed forwards, closing the gap to his foe, leaping upon the man before he could react, bringing him crashing to the muddy ground. In a flurried exchange of desperate blows, one of his daggers managed to find the man’s exposed neck, his frenzied struggles beginning to cease as his lifeblood bled away into the sodden ground.

             
Will used the brief pause to catch his laboured breath, to look about him and see how the battle fared. The men of the forest fought bravely; several of the Shiriff’s war-machines now stranded, burning, even as the storm  sought to extinguish them. But the numbers were beginning to tell; here and there, he could see the corpses of fellow outlaws. Rarer, but still evident amidst the maelstrom of battle, the lifeless bodies of Foresters, too, having given their lives to protect the Englanders’ homes and families.

             
The thought gave him a pang of grief in his heart, yet also pride. But pride could only carry them so far. Could they win this battle? Was it conceivable? Even now, hordes of Gisborne’s warriors clustered about the remaining machines, protecting them from the assaults of the outlaws.

             
Yet there was always the chance of victory. A flash of silver caught his eye. Yes, there was their chance. There was the inspiration that might drive them on to win against such odds.

             
The Woodsman carved his way through the enemy, like a ship parting the waves before it. Nothing could stand in his path. Nothing could defeat him. He was a one-man army; a storm of grim death that hew down all before him with impunity. Even as Will watched, Alann looked up, spying the form of Gisborne atop his steed, before powering on, slaughtering a path of destruction towards his foe.

             
Yes, thought Will. Yes, do it Alann. Take him out. Without the stern figurehead of their cruel leader, the Shiriff’s army would crumble and flee.

             
The Woodsman drew near his goal, Gisborne’s eyes widening in mounting fear as his foe approached, unsure whether to stand his ground and risk being butchered like all those before him, or whether to turn and flee, bringing upon himself shame, but living to fight another day.

             
Before his decision could even be revealed, a crash of booming thunder from above, louder than anything Will had ever heard, the battlefield whited out by the flash of lightning. He looked up into the dark, stormy thunderhead above them, squinting against the stinging rain, then the lightning flashed once more, bleaching his retinas with its fury.

             
The flash faded, and as he blinked, after-images on his eyes, of a winged and monstrous shape in the heavens, soaring through the clouds.

             
No, he frowned. Not possible. Eyes playing tricks.

             
The din of battle seemed to have lessened somewhat, following the thunder, then gasps from all about drew his eyes back down to ground level. As he gazed about, blinking away the pain from his eyes, the strange taste of tin on his tongue, his heart froze in his chest as he realised what had changed.

             
The Foresters, their allies; gone. The Woodsman, carving his bloody path towards the head of their enemy; gone.

             
A tremble of sudden fear passed through him at the realisation.

             
The outlaws were suddenly, inexplicably, alone against the foe.

***

No! It was just as he had remembered them appearing; a bright flash of light that bleached the very air about them, then that strange and persistent tang of tin on the mouth. All that time ago, John remembered, when they had been under threat of being crushed by the Shiriff’s forces, the Foresters had arrived in such a manner, just in the nick of time.

             
And now, it seemed, they had disappeared the same way, at the very worst possible moment.

             
Was this some trick of God? Some divine comedy that he couldn’t see the humour in? He snarled beneath his beard, sodden through with the onslaught of the rain. There was nothing funny here; the battle had dragged on too long; the element of surprise long since lost and the numbers of their foe beginning to tell. Perhaps if Alann could have reached Gisborne, taken him apart with a sweep of that flashing axe, then maybe they could have salvaged the day.

             
But now he was gone. And with him, a good portion of their force.

             
He roared in frustration and rage as he swung his staff in an arc about him, knocking two opponents flat to the ground in his wrath. Do they sell their lives dearly, he thought, fighting to the last man on this field?

             
No. If Alann had taught him anything, it was that there was a legacy to be left. Memories. Inspiration. No, that would not do, to die here. The forest would still burn, their families, women, children, would still die.

             
There was no honour in that. No sense.

             
No, better to fight like the Foresters had taught them over their time here. Hit and run. They had hit. Now they should run. He turned from his latest fallen foes, roaring out his orders above the din of battle, that all his bewildered men might hear his commands.

             
“Men of Sherwood – withdraw! Back to the trees!”

             
At his words, the men did their best to disengage from the battle, hurling their opponents back and turning, fleeing from the swords and halberds and making their way as fast as they could to the edge of the forest. As they ran to the jeers of their foes, hails of arrows followed, most missing, but some thudding into backs and sending outlaws skidding to the ground to die in pain.

             
John almost collapsed as he made it to the cover of the trees, his breathing hard from the strain of carrying his bulk at full pace. Yet worse than the pain in his chest, the feeling of abandonment. It was times like this, where defeat was looming, that he would turn to Alann, the younger man restoring his faith and courage with some words of wisdom.

             
No longer.

             
“Why… why would they be taken from us at a time like this?”

             
The gasped words came from Will, the youth stood nearby, hunched over as he sought to regain his breath. The glistening in his eyes and the pain the wracked his face echoed John’s own feelings. He shook his head.

             
“I don’t know, lad. Alann always said that they would be taken from us. I wasn’t sure I’d ever even believed him…”

             
Silence now, save the patter of the rain, the drawing of breath from tired outlaws, and the distant cheers of the enemy army. John looked out, weary, from between the trees, to the field beyond. The forces there were gathering their strength, regrouping. Though the warriors of the forest had wreaked a fearsome toll upon them, they still outnumbered the outlaws by many men to one.

             
“What do we do?” asked the quiet voice of Will.

             
John paused, thinking, knowing that not only Will, but all his men would be listening to the next words that came out of his mouth. He didn’t get a chance to speak, however; the second-in-command of the enemy army riding forth atop his barded steed, till he stood at the front of his force, facing the forest, two hundred yards distant.