Rowan Hood Returns Read Online Free PDF

growled Rook, several paces ahead of the rest of them, looking back over his shoulder. There was no fear that Lord Marcus’s men-at-arms would hear them talking; the soldiers were making a great deal of noise on their own account, and that commotion was already fading far behind. Still, Rook looked not nearly as tranquil as Etty.
    â€œGoodness gracious, my dear little lad...” Lionel strode forward to join Rook. Rowan hitched herself into motion and walked, feeling stiff, limping.
    Strolling beside Rowan, Etty continued her tale. “Beau jammed my helm onto her head, jumped onto Dove and galloped off while I slipped into the bushes. She’ll lead my uncle’s men in a merry chase. If they catch sight of her whatsoever, all they’ll see is her white pony and her shiny helm and her tunic, and they’ll think she’s me. She was wearing another of these dreadful archil tunics—”
    Trust Etty to know the correct name for the purplish color made with dye from lichens. And trust her to remember it even now.
    Even though Beau was in peril.
    Rowan blurted, “But what if they catch her?”
    â€œThey won’t.” Yet, like a roe deer testing the air for the scent or sound of danger, Ettarde lifted her elegant head and turned it from side to side, hearkening.
    Rowan listened also, with dread in her heart. But she heard no one screaming, no one crying out. Only soft forest sounds. Only wagtail birds twittering, and a west wind soughing in the tall oak trees.
    â€œBeau rides like a spirit of the wind,” Etty added.
    Rowan trudged on without answering.
    â€œAt the very worst,” Etty said, “she will let Dove gallop onward while she climbs a tree. You know Beau climbs like a squirrel.”
    For one who sounded not at all concerned, Rowan thought, Etty was talking a great deal.
    â€œBeau thought out the plan,” Etty chatted on. “She told us where to meet her.”
    But what had happened to send them scheming and scrambling to help her, Rowan, while she slept? All of them Beau, Etty, Lionel, Rook, putting themselves in harm’s way for her sake? Rowan felt—
    From farther ahead Rook called, “Rowan.” In his low voice, worry spoke plainer than it did in Etty’s. “Rowan, can you walk faster?”
    â€œYes.” Quickening her pace, Rowan managed a painful trot for a few moments, struggling to catch up with the others.
    â€œMy dear little lass,” Lionel offered in his most cheerfully annoying courtly tone, “let me give you a lift.”
    Rowan felt like a useless fool. “Stop it, Lionel,” she told him between clenched teeth. “I can walk.”

    But she couldn’t.
    Within the short span of what was left of the morning, she learned that she couldn’t accomplish even such a simple thing as walking.
    The sun bloomed like a golden flower never bowed by the wind, straight up in the apex of the sky; day had not even passed into afternoon, yet Rowan staggered as if battling her way through a stormy night. Perhaps for her sake, Rook and Lionel had led the way to the easiest ground in Sherwood, a grassy forest path made by deer along the soft bottom of a valley. And they had slowed the pace almost to a shuffle, glancing back over their shoulders at her. Yet Rowan could barely keep up.
    With a “Wuff!” of greeting, Tykell trotted out of a thorn thicket to join Rowan, nosing her hand. Rowan felt something tighten like a bowstring inside her throat. Placing her hand on the wolf-dog’s thickly furred back, she leaned sideward, resting her weight on Ty for a moment. Her aching legs—they had never felt this weak before.
    Her friends stopped and watched her, waiting for her to move on, their silence bespeaking their worry for her more plainly than words.
    Letting go of Ty, Rowan focused all the force of her mind and will upon making her faltering legs move and walk. With her gaze fixed on the ground under