Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix by Aminah Mae Safi

Author:Aminah Mae Safi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Born to Run

I take off like a shot before anyone can argue.

I’m hoping that I pull most of the notice, that all of the men will chase me and let everyone else get through in the confusion. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t. I would certainly chase a madwoman running through my secret tunnels.

It’s the least I can do, after getting everyone into the mess in the first place.

I never should have come to Haifa. I never should have hoodwinked those knights from the tavern. Never should have stolen from them. Never should have given the goods away. Never should have befriended one of the knights—no, a chaplain—and let him guide us out of this city.

Never should have come to defend this part of the world from those infernal crusaders.

So I know that it’s my job to take the heat for this. If I’m captured, then I’m captured. At least I kept Zeena from dying behind the walls of Akko. At least I’ve given her and Viva a chance to get out of these godforsaken tunnels.

My legacy. My claim to fame. Here races Rahma al-Hud, who could only barely keep her sister alive, and did so by the skin of her teeth and at great personal cost to herself.

Not that anyone in this tunnel would afford me a tombstone, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Ahead of me I can make out all of the men. They’ve got several torches and there’s four of them, each taking one side of a coffer. Looks like they’re carrying all the wealth of the sultanate of Rum, honestly, by the way they’re lugging those chests.

I know I have but a moment. I run past them, creating my own kind of breeze with my movements. I look over my shoulder and I see this startles them. They don’t drop their chests, but all eyes swivel toward me. At first their expressions carry alarm—surprise that I made it down here. But the faces quickly turn menacing.

“Hello, boys!” I cry out. My voice reverberates through the tunnels, echoing out like a beautiful taunt.

Hello, boys—

Hello, boys

—Hello

Hello—

Hello

Boys

—boys

Boys—

I hear the sound of one chest dropping and I don’t look behind me again. I pick up speed and I run like the Devil himself chases me.

“You stay behind,” I hear a gruff voice call out to the others. “The rest of you follow me.”

Then another coffer thumps onto the floor and footsteps echo behind me.

Most of the men are chasing me; I don’t need to turn around to know it. My sense of hearing has been sharpened by the darkness. I can tell each footfall from the other. One is heavy and plodding. Another long and measured. And the final one, swift and smooth.

It’s the final one I’m the most worried for. I’m quite sure I can outpace the other two. Ah, but the third. The third could catch me by.

Their advantage is knowing this underground labyrinth better than I ever could. My advantage is speed and a head start.

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