The Other Locksley

Chapter 1:

'I've been thinking,' said Robin, as the outlaws strolled towards the next village to distribute food. 'What if, next time, one of the sheriff's men gets lucky and I pop my clogs, eh? What would you lot do?' The others looked round at him in surprise, Much in particular looking shocked. 'What would we do? You aren't going to die soon, are you?'

Robin laughed 'I hope not, but that's not the point! You have to be prepared.'

'I suppose we'd just go back to living in the forest like normal outlaws' muttered Will Scarlet, surprising the group to a standstill by actually talking for once. 'Yeah,' chipped in Roy, 'I mean, what's the point in being Robin Hood's men with no Robin Hood?'

'The point is, Roy,' said Robin, flaring up at once, 'that you are here to help the poor as much as I am – they need your help.'

'Do we care?' retorted Roy, 'We don't care! How do you think we'd look, traipsing 'round villages handing out money saying "here's a gift from Robin Hood. Where is he? Oops, sorry, he's dead!"' Robin rolled his eyes, walked a few paces ahead and turned to face them. 'I just want to be sure that you could manage it - without me.'

Alan a Dale sniggered and looked at Robin incredulously. 'I'm not being funny, but aren't we just pulling the thug trick? Stand and deliver; that kind of thing? I reckon we could handle that alright.'

Robin smiled back at Alan. 'Alright, if that is true, you lot won't mind handling the next ambush by yourselves?'

Little John grunted 'Robin is right. We need to know.' John felt reasonably confident; he and Roy had previously been the ringleaders of a small group of outlaws, and they had managed perfectly well before Robin, so a simple ambush shouldn't pose too much of a threat. Much however, did not seem so sure.

'But what if it's a whole battalion of soldiers or something?' Robin grinned reassuringly at Much, pointing to a silhouette approaching them slowly along the forest track. 'Does that look like a battalion to you?'

Eleanor glanced up at the speckled green canopy ahead. She had always felt most at ease with nature, having spent her entire life living close to it. Thinking back, she could not remember a time where she had lived in a stone building for more than a couple of weeks. Wrenching her thoughts away from her slightly tainted memories, she bent to pat her horse gently as she rode along the track. A rustle, a clink of metal on metal. She pulled her horse up short, staring suspiciously into the forest around her.

Suddenly a young man in slightly tatty clothes, with startlingly blue eyes and a cheeky grin strode out from a clump of bushes and said cheerfully 'Afternoon miss, this is an ambush!' Before she had time to do more than roll her eyes, four other men, all shabbily clad, had appeared, blocking off all her exits.

Eleanor's mind raced as she appraised the gang around her, adopting a façade of 'the helpless female'. There was a small, ginger-ish man with wide round eyes, a grumpy looking blonde, a tall, thin black haired man twirling an axe, and what seemed to be either a very large man, or a relatively small giant, armed only with a quarterstaff and his (probably rather large) muscles. Grumpy shouted up at her 'tell us how much you've got, and we'll take a tenth.'

'Lie or resist,' said the axe man quietly, 'and we take it all'.

'So what's it going to be?' asked the man with the blue eyes, folding his arms across his chest, still grinning. Eleanor fingered the handles of the twin swords under her cloak, assessing her options.

Alan looked at the girl on the horse as she gazed around, a frightened and cautious look on her face. This was too easy. She was small and slight, with a long mane of loosely-plaited auburn hair, sea green eyes and cherry lips. She was wearing a dark red dress mostly covered by her cloak, and she looked as though there wasn't a bit of fight in her. Smirking slightly, he asked again 'So, how much have you got?'

She furrowed her eyebrows and replied 'how do I know you won't just take it all, and more?'

He sighed and said 'We are Robin Hood's men – we take from the rich to give to the poor and all that stuff. Besides, I don't see you have much choice.' Taking another furtive glance around at the outlaws, she slid off her horse and approached him slowly, holding a full moneybag in her outstretched hand.

'Very well then. I haven't much, but there you go.' She passed the bag to Alan, and he looked down at it. He knew something was wrong for a fraction of a second, as he sensed her move quickly. The girl's two fists hit either side of his head, and all was blackness.

The other outlaws watched in shock as Alan fell, unconscious onto the leafy earth. The girl was moving like lightning between them, felling Roy before the others recovered from the surprise.

Much ran towards her, drawing his sword. She grabbed his arm and his force and speed carried him over her head and back down, straight onto the forest floor.

Will raised his axe as she targeted him next, but paused. She was, after all, a woman. His moment of indecision gave Eleanor the chance she needed, swinging her fist around and hitting Will hard on the side of his head. He collapsed too.

Little John roared in rage at this unexpected reversal of the ambush, and charged at Eleanor with the force of an oncoming Bull. She stepped aside just in time, and John charged, headfirst, into a tree, stumbled confusedly, and sank to the ground. As darkness clouded his vision, he saw the young woman walking back towards him, a serene smile on her beautiful face.