“If it’s myth, mate, then why do you look ready to piss yourself? Hm?” Robin chuckled at John’s blustery features.
Snapping his jaws shut, the big brute crossed his thick arms and growled, “I do not find this at all humorous. It is bad form to risk our men for sport such as this.” He leaned forward, whispering the last words, as though afraid they might be overheard by any one of the fifty men now deep in slumber within the haunted forest of the South.
Robin’s lips twitched as he poked at the dying campfire flame with a dead stick. “You worry too much. Of course, you always worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough.” John’s brown eyes were like hard chunks of granite. His bristled jaw clenched twice before he finally sighed and said, “You won’t budge on this, will you?”
“Nope.” Robin popped the “p”. “I won’t. I want the lamp.”
“If I am to risk my neck—”
Shrugging, Robin dropped the twig and leaned back, enjoying the last bit of warmth from the dying flame. The sun would rise in an hour. He’d thought long and hard on this.
“I’m not asking you to come with me. In fact”—he eyed his man—“I’m going it alone.”
“Like the bloody blazes you are,” John snorted. “Ye can leave the rest of the men, and that’s fine, but I go where you go. That was the deal.”
Grunting, Robin scooted forward, crossing his elbows over his knees. “I release you from that bloody vow, mate. How many times do I have to tell you, the debt’s been paid.”
“Over my dead body, and only then.” John nodded decisively. “Where you go, I go. Period.”
Years ago, Robin had come across the tale of the dark genie in one of the out-of-the-way taverns he and his men frequented while in between their “gathering duties”—a nice way of saying stealing, if he wanted to break it down to its basest form—and the thought had simmered in his head like a slow-leaking poison for nearly three decades since. If that genie actually did exist, it would solve all his problems.
True, John was probably right—the legend was probably nothing more than mere fancy. Kingdom was rife with them, rarely was any story told in its entire truth.
Hell, around the universe he and his men were known as good little scouts stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Not bloody likely. But he’d lived long enough to know that to any fairy story there was always a small grain of truth.
Finding genies, of any kind, was near impossible. Aye, there were always stories of a pauper suddenly finding himself with a wealth of disposable income, and Robin had even seen a genie or two in his day, but they were rare and difficult to come by.
No sooner would he learn of a location than he’d find it was gone.
For years treasure hunters had sought out the location of the dark genie, which was always shrouded in mystery. Some said the lamp had been buried beneath the waves of the Seren Seas, others within the trenches of the cannibal dwarves’ stone caves, but never had the creature been found.
But now he might potentially have found a way with this finder spell.
The bottle only contained enough juice for one trip. If he allowed himself to be misled, he’d never find it. But his ability to peer beneath what the eyes saw to the reality beneath improved his odds of unearthing the genie tenfold.
If the stories about the dark genie were true, and with Baba making an appearance, more and more he began to believe it might be so, then this long-fought war with Crispin might finally come to an end.
Find her and make her his and then the king’s realm would finally be Robin’s by right and might. The bloody bastard—his molars clenched whenever he thought of the officious man.
“In the morning we tell the men to make their way back to Sherwood Forest. It’ll take us a week, maybe a week and a half, and then we’ll meet up, just in time for Crispin’s ball.”
John tilted his head. “I hear the shivers of retribution in your words, Robin.” And as if to punctuate his words, John rubbed at the fine hairs standing up on his muscular forearms. “But I doubt we’ll find that genie in a day, hell, not even in two days, more like a week, I don’t doubt. Which means we could be gone two weeks or more. We’ll need more than just the two of us. I say we bring a group of five all total, that should do us well.”
“Five.” Robin snorted. “Not likely.”
“Then it’s settled. Four.” John clapped his hands to his knees, gave Robin a no-nonsense look, and then stood, marching off to rouse two other men.
Unable to help the chuckle from escaping his lips, Robin merely shook his head. Smart man. If he’d stayed, Robin would have demanded they bring only one other and John would have had no choice but to agree. Because that’s what John did. He agreed with anything Robin demanded, even if he didn’t want to.