The Tales of Robin Hood

Chapter 20 - Robin

I don’t know what happened; I just felt pain blast through me.

There was so much blood, so much of my blood, I could barely take it.  I was numb, yet I was in so much pain.

But it wasn’t in my chest, it was in my shoulder.

My gut had taken hold of me, instinct making me turn away.  The mace had busted my shoulder, but it hadn’t killed me.  My right arm was now useless, my left leg just as bloody.  How could I possibly defeat him?  I will keep my word; I refuse to use my Magics.  But I’m not left handed, and I can barely stand.  It’s impossible.

No, I told myself. You can win.

No matter how many times I repeated that, I didn’t believe it.

“Stop moving!” he commanded, bringing back the weapon to strike me again. “Let me kill you!”

I found saying that really stupid.  Am I the only one?

He swung and I threw my face to the ground, the mace whizzing over my head.  I dragged myself away from him and attempted to stand, putting all my weight on my right leg, my bow lying useless on the ground beside Him.  I took an arrow from my quiver and held it out in front of me, practically daring him to come closer.

He laughed. “Like you could even scratch me.”

“Say that to the hole in your side,” I retorted.

“Tell Death I said ‘hi,’” he snarled, taking two steps forward.

I stopped him there, flashing out the arrow when he swung his arm back.  I barely scraped his stomach, but it was enough to make him stumble back, getting angrier with each passing second.

“What?” I asked. “Afraid of an arrow?”

I wouldn’t blame him if he was; they are perfect in my eyes.  Mine are made of the best wood—yew—for arrows.  The owl feathers on mine made the flight a little more silent.  They were deadly weapons in the right hands, peacemakers in others.

“I am afraid of nothing!” he bellowed, snapping me out of my thoughts. “And I am certainly not afraid of a little girl who thinks she can beat me!”

He brought back his arm to swing the mace, and I put all the strength I could muster into stabbing him with the arrow.  It only made the hole in his side deeper, but it was enough to get to my bow.  I ignored the wound in my shoulder as best I could, grabbing my beautiful bow with my left hand to avoid flexing the ripped muscles.  I hobbled over away from him and grabbed another arrow from my quiver, in the position to fire, but the arrow pointing at the ground.

“You can’t shoot that,” he said. “Not with that shoulder I busted.”

“I don’t need all my strength to knock the arrow and fire,” I told him. “I don’t use my Magics to shoot; it won’t be that hard to put an arrow through your blackened heart.”

He laughed. “Who said I have a heart?”

“How could you live without one?” I asked.

“Who said I’m alive?”

The Evil One sent him, stupid! I said to myself, mentally face-palming. He isn’t alive…so how could you even kill him?

I had no answer to that burning question.

I did all this for nothing.

I’m going to die.

Well, then I’ve got nothing to lose.

I knocked the arrow in my bow, ignoring the piercing pain in my shoulder, and let it fly, hitting him exactly where I had aimed: where his heart should be.