The Two Torcs Read Free Page B

soldiers,” he said, turning to look. “Let’s see what else Locksley has provided for the poor.”
    Together they walked to the open door. Will stood back, letting Robin go first. He was startled when his friend jumped back with a sharp, harsh curse.
    “What is it?”
    Robin didn’t answer, continuing to curse Locksley’s name, his parents, and his ancestors.
    Will stepped up and looked inside.
    Eight men, bound, gagged, and blindfolded turned their faces toward him from inside the wagon.
    “Locksley, you son of a bitch,” he said.
    * * *
    The huge stone was warm under Glynna Longstride’s palms, the surface smoothly rippled as she caressed it. Her fingers sought out the marks carved into it, slipping along edges worn soft by untold years of weather.
    Rain and wind, snow and ice, heat and dust had beaten this stone for a thousand lifetimes, yet it stood resolute, defiant of all the efforts of the elements to wear it to nothing. It loomed above her head, leaning slightly to the east, pointed accusingly at the sun.
    She moved closer, pressing her cheek to the surface. Her stomach brushed against it, and some energy passed through her, rambling and knocking low down to tickle the nether of her womanhood before spiraling up her spine to the base of her skull. She shivered as if touched by a familiar lover, one who knew her body as a musician knew his instrument.
    Witchstone.
    “Peel yourself away from there.”
    The voice pushed through her pleasure, separating her from it. She turned, lifting her face but keeping her stomach and hands firmly on the stone. The field around her lay white. Striding across the stark plain came a man cut from the night. His armor stood out sharply. Each plate, every link of mail, even the long-bristled fur of the collar was a light-drinking darkness, a black as pure and uncut as expensive ink.
    The only color showing on him was a gleaming sigil upon his chest, a symbol cut in lines and swirls of heart’s-blood red. She did not know what the symbol stood for, but when she touched it her fingers burned for hours.
    His pale skin and white hair became lost in the haze of light reflected off the snow, and as he drew closer it appeared as if he were only a pair of wide ebon eyes and a sinister mouth of ruddy lips floating above a cruel carapace.
    He dragged something with him as he walked, so that his footprints were wiped clean in a swath of smeared snow. He stopped a few feet from her.
    The smile twitched her mouth.
    “You didn’t bring the little prince?”
    The man snorted. “It’s cold.”
    “I noticed.”
    “However, I brought you a present.”
    He turned, dragging his burden around from behind him.
    It was a man.
    A monk.
    Bound hand and foot, he had a knotted piece of rope cinched around his head for a gag.
    The man was young, not much older than Robin.
    Her heart twisted at the thought of him, and she felt it in her face. She stepped away from the witchstone, toward the captive. The moment she broke contact the winter cold howled against her exposed skin, drawing it taut across her face and hands. She pulled her cloak tighter around her.
    The monk looked up at her, eyes wide. They were set a bit deep in his skull but pretty, curving down at their corners. They were the eyes of a poet, a man who could talk a summer girl out of her dress, though only if he had been born first. Second sons went to the monastery, became monks. Only God wanted the castoffs, taking them in from the poor, putting them to purpose. Denying them even the chance to talk to girls, much less talk them into bed.
    She squatted, holding her stomach as she did. Immediately the pressure on her lower back eased. She wouldn’t be able to stay down very long, but it would feel good while she did.
    She touched the monk’s face. It was cold, feeling like wax except where his short stubble scratched her palm. Spittle had frozen in the corners of his mouth, cracking on the surface of lips gone dark blue.
    “He’s