[WATTYS2023 - GERMAN WINNER/Most Engaging World] ** Marian, a thieving nobleman's daughter with too big a heart, meets Robin Hood, a daring thief with a huge ego. Will they be able to overcome pain, longing, and, finally the cruel Sheriff of Notting...
Trigger Warning: This chapter contains depictions of war & violence, soft gore, physical violence, and the suggestion of rape. It can be skipped if someone can't stand this topic.
At the end of the chapter, it contains a song recommendation to listen to while reading.
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Ghostly clouds and thick fog lay all around him and drew an eerie veil around the crescent moon in the sky. Its otherwise silvery-white light was drenched in a bloody red and shrouded stick and stone in the ominous glow of doom and death.
Robin averted his eyes and closed them. The stench of decay lingered in the air, so thick he could barely breathe. The stifling sweet smell mingled with sweat and leather, dust and ash. It clung to him and invisibly branded him a sinner. He had seen so many men, women, and children die that this horror was enough for more than one life and eternity in damnation.
Somewhere a man was screaming in agony, and not far from him, something was scratching in the ash-covered ground. There was snorting and growling, cracking, and then a loud munching. He turned his head, even though he didn't want to. A dog was tearing at the carcass of a man. The mutt was skin and bones, starved and obviously desperate to venture so close to the fires raging everywhere. Its mouth was smeared with blood as the dog pulled and tugged at one arm.
A cawing interrupted him as a vulture came to fight for its prey. As if there were too few carcasses here. You could hardly walk down a street without tripping over dead bodies. But the vultures and the wild dogs gave each other no quarter. Barking mingled with wild screeching, then again the horror-awakening cracking. Flesh and sinew tore, a heaped mountain of empty eye sockets and bodies.
Robin gagged as the images overtook him. Quickly he turned away and pressed his hands to his ears to muffle the screams and the terrible breaking and tearing of bodies. The sound was horrific, and he wished himself back in Sherwood Forest. To the chirping of the birds, the rustling of the leaves. He missed the English rain and... his Marian.
He gasped under the weight of his regrets. They would be heroes; they'd been told, luring young hearts with false promises. For their country and king, for God and their faith, they would go forth and return as saints. Glorious and celebrated... but there was nothing heroic about this. Everywhere was rubble and death; under collapsed buildings, soldiers rotted in the heat beside the enemy. Dust, dirt, sand, and blood. Lots and lots of blood.
Robin saw the distorted grimaces of disgust, hatred, and deep despair. Tears in the eyes of the mothers, screams in the narrow alleys and shadowy houses. Moans and groans. How many women and even children had been violated, and how many innocents slaughtered for God and the king?
Why did he doubt it? Why did it disgust him so? Why did it break him?
His desperate gaze clung to his left arm. His hands were filthy; ash and blood had crusted under his fingernails and stained his fingertips blackish. The bracers were scuffed and stained. His heart was heavy and numb as his fingertips brushed over the dark blue silk ribbon he had used instead of a sturdy leather strap to pull his splint together since it had broken long ago. He wanted to keep the ribbon close to him. His heart pounded in his chest with regret and longing as he closed his eyes.
