Robin had been squatting outside the front door and reached in to grab his quiver and bow as Clare moved back upstairs.
Then Robin closed in, hoping to surprise Gisborne when he reached the kitchen. But he had to act sooner when Little John threw his punch.
‘You haven’t got the guts to kill me,’ Gisborne taunted, as he stared down Robin’s arrow. ‘And when you surrender, I’ll have you strapped to a door and given a thousand lashes!’
‘I don’t know if I’m a killer,’ Robin admitted, as he lowered his aim. He did a good job keeping fear out of his voice. ‘But a shot through your knee will keep you limping for a few months.’
Gisborne smiled, admiring strength even when he was on the wrong end of it.
‘So how do I walk out of here, little boy?’ he asked, as he cast a wary glance back to see Little John standing passively by the sink, holding his wounded shoulder.
Robin wished he’d thought further than trying to save Little John from getting his face sliced open, as Gisborne daringly took a step closer.
‘I need your whip, your wallet and your car keys,’ Robin said firmly.
‘Where can you go?’ Gisborne taunted. ‘You can’t hide from me.’
‘Your people don’t control the forest.’
Gisborne laughed noisily. ‘A city kid in Sherwood Forest? If the snakes don’t get you, the outlaws will.’
Robin backed down the hallway as Gisborne closed in again. His bow felt heavy.
‘I’m not debating with you,’ Robin said. ‘If I let go, this arrow splits your kneecap and comes out the other side.’
Gisborne gestured towards the bottom of the stairs. Robin flinched as he saw a shift in the light above. Clare had made herself known to her father by signalling in a mirror at the bottom of the stairs and now she’d vaulted the stair rail on the first landing.
She crashed down on Robin’s back, but not before he’d fired.
‘Hell!’ Gisborne bawled, doubling over in pain as he crashed backwards into the kitchen table. He was stunned and weakened by the arrow, but still went for his whip. As he lashed out, Little John grabbed a microwave off the kitchen cabinet, snapping the plug out of the socket.
The microwave weighed nothing in Little John’s immense arms. As its door flew open and the glass turntable dropped out, John thrust the end of the microwave into Gisborne’s head, making him stagger sideways in a daze.
For all his running, judo and climbing, Robin was helpless under Clare’s bulk. A palm thrust to the underside of her chin bought half a second, but Clare had trained with her father and his bodyguards since she was six years old.
She easily flipped Robin onto his belly and snapped him into a brutal chokehold between her thighs.
Using her legs left Clare free to pull a small throwing knife from her tactical belt. Little John made a huge target as he charged fearlessly down the hallway.
Robin’s eyes blurred with tears of pain. He was turning blue and shards from the broken vase dug into his chest. But the thought of Little John catching an expertly thrown knife brought out superhuman strength. Robin bucked, freeing his head enough to turn and bite into Clare’s trousers.
As Clare yelped, the knife dropped out of her hand. Little John dived, like he was going after a loose ball on a rugby pitch. Robin blacked out for an instant and Little John’s bulk crashed into Clare.
Robin’s neck crunched and his brother’s knee smashing his nose was no less painful for being an accident. Then he wriggled free, gasping and blurry-eyed, as Little John threatened Clare with his clublike fist.
‘One move and I’ll knock you cold.’
Blinking and bloody-nosed, Robin stumbled into the kitchen to check on Gisborne. Little John’s swing with the microwave had knocked him out and he was slumped against a kitchen cabinet, with an arrow sticking out of his …
Robin raised hands to his face and gasped. He’d been aiming to shatter Gisborne’s kneecap, but Clare’s leap had knocked off his aim and his arrow now stuck out of Gisborne’s black leather trousers. Deeply embedded in the place where no man wants to get shot.