Outlaw Guy

Trapped

Trapped

“He’s in here,” Guy hears Robin tell whoever it is who is with him.

“Are you sure?” Much asks, clearly fearful about entering the cave.

“Yes,” Robin says. “See this. That’s blood, human blood.”

Guy tucks his long hair behind his ears and sits, aching bones and ripped flesh protesting at the sudden movement. Despite the pain in his injured leg, the numbing cold and the image of Djaq pressing her small hand to her slashed stomach dancing in front of his tired, tear-scratchy eyes, Guy had fallen asleep. The dry firewood he had collected the evening before lies scattered about the cave floor, hurled there in a fit of fury when he had been unable to find a flint with which to light it and no amount of stick rubbing had produced a spark.

Two pairs of boots crunch on the rock-strewn floor of the cave. Guy glances at his stockinged feet, which he can just make out in the gloom. The big toe of his right foot is black with congealed blood, the result of stubbing it on an exposed tree root and tearing off the nail as he fled the camp.

He hears the creak of a bowstring: Robin nocking an arrow.

A small sob escapes Guy’s mouth. Last evening, having found the cave, he had thought he might still make it out of the forest alive, that come the morning he might find his way back to Nottingham. Once there, he planned to concoct a story about the outlaws mistrusting him, especially after he had failed to maim a single guard during the ambush on the Great North Road. He was going to tell the sheriff that the outlaws had taken him hostage, intending to use him for their own ends, but that he had escaped. Guy had also planned to tell Marian that his stabbing Djaq had been nothing more than a terrible accident and that, supposing Robin would not believe his story, he had panicked and run.

What he would do after that, he had no idea. The thought of being under Vaisey’s thumb once again made him shudder. Somehow, he would find a way of dealing with that particular problem. And when Robin was dead – for surely the outlaw’s luck had to run out sometime – Guy would set about winning Marian; not with baubles and trinkets and fine horses, but with a promise that he will become the better man she desires him to be.

Unhappily, Hood has found him, snuffing out that particular glimmer of hope. All Guy can hope for now is a swift and merciful death, though he doubts Robin will grant him either.

A flaming torch casts flickering shadows on the cave wall. As it nears, its orange light pierces the gloom in the farthest reaches of the cave where the morning sun struggles to throw any light.

Guy sits and waits. There is nowhere to hide and a feel along the damp, rocky walls of the cave last night revealed there are no negotiable tunnels through which to make an escape. He doubts he can walk in any case; his wounded leg is numb, the other one nearly so.

Robin rounds the bend in the cave’s shallow entrance and comes into view, bow held out in front of him. Behind him is Much, sword in one hand, flaming torch in the other.

Guy closes his eyes. Through chattering teeth he says, “Do it.”

The bowstring creaks as Robin draws back the arrow.

Despite his determination to die with a modicum of dignity, a wet warmth floods the seat of his leathers. Guy lets out a short bark of hysterical laughter. He should have done this last night when he was freezing his arse off instead of trying to light a fire.

A warm tear tracks down his cold face. When someone eventually stumbles upon his dead body, will they find nothing but putrid flesh rotting inside his bloodied, soiled leathers, or will those leathers have collapsed onto the cave floor as his dry skeleton topples over with the weight of his thick padded doublet?