Page 100 of Robin and Marian
Her hands loosened on the axe. “Robin!” The shock wiped everything else from her mind as she half-hobbled, half-ran, using the axe as her support to reach the wall where he’d disappeared. She searched for him in the black waters thirty feet below, seeing only the reflection of flames against the lake.
And then his hand broke free from the water, followed by his head. “Robin!” she screamed his name again and sank back in relief, only to feel Alan’s arm snake around her waist.
He lowered his head to hers to snarl against her ear. “You didn’t believe I’d let you live, did you?”
Alan tugged her viciously around, and she screamed, meeting Alan’s cold steely gaze just as the axe she held swung into his leg. He howled out in fury and pain, while she tripped and staggered blindly into the shadows, her progress nightmarishly slow with her dragging leg.
Breathing hard, she ducked into the alley between the mill and the shipping yard, landing against a fence. It was a dead end. Alan wasn’t far behind her. She heard his labored panting as he searched for her in the darkness. The dogs barked at her back and she felt them sliding down with their claws on the other side of the fence where they were caged up. Suddenly, she knew what to do. Swinging her axe again, she attacked the wood. It was much thinner than what she’d found at the door, and it split easily. She went at it again and again.
Alan was on her. His hands landed over hers where she gripped the axe and he twisted her back by her hair, shoving her up against the splintered gate to get the handle from her. The coarse wood scraped into her face as she felt the dogs rip through the fence. They poured out like black shadows into the night. Alan let out a panicked grunt and kicked as they launched at him. It was the wrong thing to do, since it only angered them, and they attacked him with snapping jaws.
She broke away from him and clawed her way to the front of the mill where she hacked at the door again, her hands vibrating at each swing of the axe. Her limbs were almost spent. Alan would figure out before long that these dogs wouldn’t kill him, and he’d be back for her.
The growl of an engine rumbled up behind her just as headlights shot her shadow across the door. Marian flinched instinctively, but turned to see Little John’s old Chevy truck.
He yelled through the open window, “Get away from there! Just let it burn.” His eyes were heavy with disappointment and pain, and he looked sick at the loss. “You’ll get hurt.”
“Scarlett’s in there!” Her voice felt raw from screaming. “She’s behind some boxes by the loft. She’s out cold.”
His expression turned from dismay to absolute horror, but he didn’t waste any time. He revved his engine. “Get out of the way!” He didn’t have to ask her twice, though it took some doing on her hurt leg. As soon as she’d cleared the way, he rammed his truck through the door and it crashed through as easily as tearing apart construction paper. Chains snapped and ripped from the door as black smoke billowed out. The fire was getting worse on the other side of the building, past the partition. It had spread the opposite way to the shipping yard beyond, but the fire sprinklers on the south side of the mill still kept the fire at bay where Scarlett had passed out.
John’s wheels squealed over the wreckage and screeched to a stop. He’d gone so far into the mill that he’d almost gone through the opposite wall. Marian sobbed out and shuffled after him as he pushed out of his truck. His door screeched loudly on its hinges. “Where is she?” he shouted in a panic, raising an arm to stave off the smoke.
Marian had to cover her mouth to keep it from her lungs. Water poured over her head from the sprinklers, though it was still blazing hot in there. She pointed to where Scarlett had fallen. Little John ran to her, his heart in his eyes as he tenderly scooped her up. Scarlett’s head dropped back, her long red hair dragging across the water as he gently lifted her head to rest against his heart. There was no mistaking how he felt about her as he carried her outside, cradling her into arms bulging with muscle.
Marian drooped in relief and started to follow until her attention was caught by what she saw through the back window. She gasped. Robin was out there. He’d somehow hooked his good arm into one of the spokes of the waterwheel and it tugged him out of the lake, the water dripping from his back, his dark shirt and jeans melted against his body as he rose across the deadly falls. He was coming for his sister, but she was already out.
“Robin!” she called to him.
And he wouldn’t hear her. Water streamed down the glass and she edged it open. The fire was worse on the north side of the building. If he was going up, he’d have to come her way to escape the inferno. She tried to wave through the window, not knowing how to get his attention.
She twisted to look back. Through the broken doors behind her, she saw Little John set Scarlett on the gravel outside. He looked half out of his mind as he worked to revive her.She knew the feeling.Leaning further out the window to Robin, Marian could scarcely breathe as she watched the wheel bring him closer to the danger of the fire.
A waterfall churned against the wheel from a wooden gutter that ran past the window. He’d have to catch the end of that wooden structure—and do it with a cast—to get up. It made her dizzy to watch. He shoved his knee into a deep pocket between the buckets and made a lunge for it. She swallowed a cry as his fingers clasped the sides of the wooden platform, his arm with the cast shoved against the sides of the gutter for leverage.
Water slid down his face as he hung precariously over the lake. Her heart froze in place as the wheel moved beneath him. There was nothing she could do as Robin began the laborious process of pulling himself up, the muscles on his neck straining. His arm gave out. She screamed as he kicked off the wheel again and threw himself onto the wooden platform with sheer stubbornness. She let out a breath. He only needed to cross the platform to get to her, but he had to come her way.
Marian shouted out to him again, “Robin!”
But someone else had heard her. “Marian.”
Her heart beat dully at the sound of Alan’s hoarse whisper behind her. None of this was over. She was afraid to turn. “I worked here when I was in high school,” he said, “while you and Robin were off touring Europe for your summer breaks.”
She’d never seen Europe, but she doubted he cared.
He flipped a switch and it started the conveyer belts; another switch started the saws. The sound was deafening. The horror of what he was about to do sickened her. She pressed her hands against the window sill and faced him.
Despite the work of John’s heavy-duty sprinkler system, the smoke had grown thicker behind him from the fire on the north side. He watched her with steely eyes, his hip thrust out as he leaned against the hydraulic log feeder. He shouted over the noise: “I was breaking my back. For what? To build rich men’s castles?”
He’d gotten his own and lost it all.He was out for revenge now, and he might’ve already finished off his wife. Little John knelt over her still body outside, doing his best to bring her back to life. His heartbroken cries tore at her. Robin would get here at any moment and he’d see Scarlett. He’d also see Alan.
Standing in front of the window, she tried to block it, hoping he didn’t know that Robin was still alive. Maybe then Robin would stay that way.
“Don’t be rude, Marian.” Alan drew forward and trapped her against the wall to shout against her ear. “Don’t crowd our guest. We’ve been waiting for the trickster all night.” He wrenched her arm back the same moment Robin threw himself over the windowsill and dropped onto the glistening cement floor. He was wet, bruised, and bloodied, his hair matted against his face.
Robin glared over at Alan. “I see you’re back to fighting women.”
“You were gone.” Alan’s fingers tightened over her arm. Marian’s eyes ran over the machinery behind her. Everything was mechanical, even down to the conveyor belt running the log through the saw and slicing it up like pieces of bread. “But I much prefer fighting you!” At that, Alan flung her backwards toward where the sawblade screeched its sound of death. She dug her fingernails into his arms before she fell into a pole and let him go. Her leg screamed out in agony beneath her and gave out as she bounced off the ground against chains piled on the floor. Her hip rammed into a metal hook.
