Robin Hood | Thief of Skandia

Chapter 8

Song: Model Buses by Lovejoy

Robin had been right. It was a close-run race. The leading riders of the Temujai party swept into sight on the flat ground between the hills. They were barely two hundred metres away. Halt dragged Erak's horse around brutally, and sent the two horses galloping back along the track they had followed earlier in the day. On clearer ground now, Robin could look behind her more easily. She made out at least a dozen riders in the party that was chasing them.

'HALT, I'll distract them. You keep that blithering idiot in his saddle.' Robin yelled to the ranger.

'HEY.' Erak replied angrily.

'What are you going to do.'

'Have some faith.'

Now he eased Abelard fractionally, allowing the other horse to come level with them, and tossed the reins to the Skandian Jarl, who bumped and lurched in the saddle beside him. Surprisingly, Erak caught them. There was nothing wrong with his reflexes, at any rate, Halt thought.

'Keep going!' he yelled at the Skandian.

'What ... you ... got ... in ... mind?' Erak replied jerkily, the words lurching out of him as he was tossed and bumped in the saddle.

'Going to help her out,' Halt replied briefly. 'Don't stop to watch. Just keep going as hard as you can!'

Erak gritted his teeth as he came down heavily on the saddle. 'This is as hard ... as ... I can!' he replied. But Halt was already shaking his head. The Ranger had unslung his longbow from across his shoulders and was brandishing it in his right hand. Erak saw what was coming, a moment too late to do anything about it.

'No!' he began. 'Don't you ...!'

But then the bow whipped down across his horse's rump with a resounding crack and the beast leapt forward as if it had been stung. In a way, of course, it had.

The profanity that Erak was preparing for Halt was lost in his drawn-out howl as he grabbed at the saddle bow once more to keep his seat. For a second or two he was furious. Then he realised that he was still in the saddle, that he could keep his seat even at this accelerated pace. So, when the horse began to slow down to a more comfortable speed, he slapped his big hand across its backside several times, driving it on.

Halt watched in satisfaction as his companion went on ahead, urging the horse on to greater efforts. In a few seconds, Erak swept around a curve in the trail that was formed between two of the hills and was out of sight.

Then, in response to a well-learned knee signal, Abelard reared and pirouetted on his hind legs, spinning in a half circle so that he came to a stop, at right angles to the direction they had been following.

In an instant, the horse had gone from a dead run to a full stop. Now he stood rock steady as his master stood in the stirrups, an arrow nocked to the string of his massive longbow. Robin looked to her side to see the ranger perched with his bow drawn next to her.

'What happened to a little faith?' Robin laughed.

'Thought you might want a hand.'

'How's the sea wolf gonna keep in his saddle?'

Halt grunted in reply.

Robin knew that the bows they had outranged the smaller, flat shooting recurve bows of the Temujai. She allowed them to close in a little further, gauging the pace at which they were eating up the distance between her and Halt and them, estimating when she would need to release so as to have the arrow arrive at a given point just as the lead rider did. She did this without thinking, allowing the ingrained instincts and habits of years of endless practice to take over for her. Almost without her realising it, she released, and the arrow sped away, sailing in a shallow arc towards the pursuers. Beside her she saw Halt do the same.