Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy by Champion of Sherwood Page A

heart had leaped to him without her leave. And now she carried a part of him with her, even as she had left a measure of her soul in his hands.
    “Come, hurry.” Lark, ever indefatigable, took off at a run. Falcon quickly followed. They were not far from Oakham—home—now, but the journey had been a long one, and Linnet felt a sudden weight of dread mingle with her weariness to hold her back. She suddenly knew she did not want to see. Yet she forced herself to follow her companions.
    The reek of burning intensified as they went. When they burst from the trees that sheltered the village, they dragged to a halt, one by one.
    Most of Oakham lay in a still-smoking heap, even though the disaster was clearly not new. Air heavy with ash hung beneath the sheltering boughs of the trees, along with a suffocating aura of oppression. Somewhere a dog barked and a child wailed, sounding tired and hungry.
    Linnet stared in disbelief, unable to make sense of what she saw. The west side of the village, where her own hut had stood, lay mostly ruined. On the east side, beyond the communal gardens, some buildings still stood.
    “Oh, God,” Falcon breathed: an invocation.
    Lark seized his arm with both hands. “Retaliation,” she seethed, “for the robbery and capture of that accursed Norman. It must be!”
    Gone, thought Linnet, stunned. All gone. Her wee hut and everything she owned inside it—precious little it might seem to some, but to her it meant independence. Herbs gathered and blended over weeks and months, her few treasures—the wooden stag her father had carved for her when she was ten, the silk charm bag Ma had passed down from the wise woman, Lil—irreplaceable keepsakes of her life.
    She struggled to pick out the particular pile of rubble that was her own, and her heart ached.
    Folk wandered the grounds looking as lost as Linnet suddenly felt. Catching sight of the new arrivals, they began to gather.
    Linnet glanced into Falcon’s face; he looked anguished, and he breathed but one word. “Pa.”
    “Surely he was safe in the ground before this happened,” Lark told him. “Surely. And if not, Fal, ’tis a hero’s funeral, as he deserved.”
    “I should have been here, not off haring about the forest.” Falcon’s voice sounded rough with pain. Linnet knew him to the heart and knew that, despite his habitual easy demeanor, he felt things deeply, and never more so than now.
    “What happened?” Lark addressed those who gathered to meet them. “When?”
    The smith, Yancy, spoke. “Two days past, now. They came with torches at daybreak.”
    “Who?”
    “Soldiers from Nottingham. Said they wanted those outlaws who held up the party on the York road and took the King’s taxes.”
    Lark and Falcon exchanged looks. Falcon spoke. “Did they ask after the captive?”
    “Nay. And they refused to believe us when we denied all knowledge of their lost riches. We found out yesterday they burned Held as well, and most of Elderdale.”
    “That means they do not know whence came the men who held them up on the road,” Lark murmured.
    “And so everyone pays,” cried a woman whose shocked eyes burned in her pale face. “My home is gone.”
    “We have three dead,” Yancy said gravely, “one a child who perished from the smoke, and many injured.” He looked at Linnet. “We need the skill in your hands, lass.”
    She gestured helplessly. “I have lost all.” The few healing supplies she had taken with her had been left with her mother, for Gareth. “Of course I will do what I can.”
    “My father,” Fal said brokenly, “had he already been buried?”
    Another of the men answered, “Aye, lad. But the things of his we had saved for you, his hood and his quiver, those arrows he kept for remembrances, are all gone. The shelter where they lay is burnt to cinders. Only his sword remains, and that badly damaged.”
    Grief twisted Falcon’s features. “I should have been here, to stand and fight.”
    Yancy’s eyes