Dieselpunk Adventure
Date Published: March 9, 2021
Publisher: Ink & Magick
What is the price of justice?
As a ward of the Lacklands, Robyn Loxley has lived a privileged life. Even now, in 1942, when another war ravages the world and people on the home front must do without, her adopted family is not affected by the rations and shortages.
That’s not to say she hasn’t been affected by the war personally. As Robyn hits yet another roadblock in her quest to see her best friend Will, trapped in a Japanese-American concentration camp, she stumbles onto the people of Sherwood.
With dark truths revealed about the Lacklands and what really goes on in Midshire, Robyn must answer what justice means to her and what she’s willing to do to exact it.
Robyn and the merry band get an update in this dieselpunk sci-fi adventure.
Excerpts:
But the moment she stepped onto the bridge, a deep voice demanded, “state your business, stranger.”
“My business is my own,” Robyn snapped, glad her surprise didn’t show in her voice.
A giant man, seven feet in height and nearly twice her breadth, stepped out from behind a crumbling wall. “Not just anyone is allowed in Sherwood. State your business or turn back,” the man said, hopping onto the other side of the bridge, a long staff in his hand.
Robyn glared at him. “Step aside, or I’ll knock you into the canal,” she threatened.
The large man raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Are you angling for a fight?”
“Only if you won’t move out of my way.”
He nodded good-humoredly. “All right then. Much!” he called over his shoulder.
A young boy of eight or nine appeared from behind the wall carrying a staff nearly twice his height. Much handed the staff to the man, who stepped forward and offered it to Robyn.
She took the solid wood in her grip, testing its weight and wishing she and Will had trained more with the staff than the bow.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” the man asked.
“Giving me a weapon was your biggest mistake,” Robyn spat.
He grinned again. “I won’t go easy on you.”
“Neither will I,” she growled.
The Blue Boar Inn had been a very popular pub at the turn of the century. It was the sturdy sort of tavern you’d likely find in an English village. It had a thick wooden bar, scratched and marked from decades of use; there was even a deep gouge where an overzealous prohibitionist had taken an axe to it. Tall stools surrounded the counter, and mismatched farm tables lined the walls. The rafters of the short, seven-foot ceiling were exposed but clean, without even the wispy strands of a cobweb.
The glory days of the inn may have been bygone, but it still held its own. And like every good pub, there were the same loyal customers, though it wasn’t unusual to see a new face every day.
The bartender, Eadom, smiled at Robyn as she entered. “It’s been a bit, Robyn. I was beginning to think you’d found a new place to grab a pint,” he greeted.
Robyn returned his smile as she bent to pat Brian, the Saint Bernard, on his giant head where he slept near the door. The dog peeked through heavy lids at being pet and gave a sleepy wag of the tail before drifting off again. “Aw, come on, Eadom. You know I’d never abandon you like that. Where else can I sit on my favorite stool and have a chat with my favorite bartender?”
He leaned over the bar toward her and smirked. “Try to charm me all you like, you still got to pay.”
“When have I ever stiffed you, Eadom?”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Other than that one time, but that was forever ago. Besides, I paid you back.”
He slid over to the beer engine and pulled the handle three times, pumping dark, clear beer with a bright, fluffy head into a pint glass. Then, he handed it to her over the bar.
“You’re a gentleman, Eadom. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said.
Robyn drank deep; it was smooth with the slightest hint of a bite. She sighed in contentment and set her glass on the counter. “Now then,” she called, clapping her hands together. “Who wants to challenge me to a round of darts?”
The other patrons avoided eye contact as she looked around the room. “Oh, come on, you cowards. No one wants to try to take on the champ?”
“Looks like they’ve all learned their lesson,” Eadomsnickered.
Just then, the front door opened and a newcomer straggled in. He wore a long, black overcoat, a charcoal fedora, and a scarf over his nose and mouth to keep the toxins at bay. Hanging up his things on a coat-rack near the door, he revealed longish, dark brown hair, tousled from his hat and curled at the tips.
“You,” Robyn called to the stranger.
He looked up from eyeing Brian, his dark gaze meeting hers. Her stomach fluttered slightly. Robyn grinned at him, but he just stared blandly back.
“Want to play darts with me?”
He paused as though thinking over her offer, but his expression still gave nothing away. “All right,” he agreed in a steady baritone.
She tried to hide her glee at finding a new challenger, and such a fox at that.
“Now you’re in for it,” Eadom chuckled. He poured the man a pint and told him it was “on the house.”
“Are you kidding me, Eadom?” Robyn whined.
“Hey, I don’t want to hear any of your moaning. Anyone who’s willing to attempt to take you down a peg deserves a reward.”
“You wound me, Eadom.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What’s your name, stranger?” Robyn asked her opponent as they made their way to the dartboard, noting his ringless left hand.
“Alaric Nottingham,” he answered.
Sitting down at her vanity, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Then, she looked at a photograph of Marian and her stuck in the mirror frame. Marian was a black-haired beauty with bright, green eyes, full lips, and a straight nose. If it wasn’t for the shape of their faces and the similarities when they smiled, Robyn would never have thought they were related.
The picture was taken at Robyn’s high school graduation. Marian and Robyn hugged each other, their smiling cheeks pressed together, Robyn’s cap tipped to one side. Marian had been so proud that day. For a long while, she had worried her sister would never graduate. Though Robyn was intelligent enough, she didn’t have much patience for book learning. She always preferred a more hands-on approach. But after all those sleepless nights of studying, she had made it. Her smile seemed to say, “I told you I could do it.” And Marian’s said, “I’d never a doubt.”
Below that photograph was another: a man, a woman, and two little girls. Their parents stood, grinning on the stoop of a short house, holding the girls in their arms. You could just see the edge of a porch swing in the background. Marian had told Robyn once that this was the day their parents had purchased their first house. Robyn had been far too young to remember the occasion, and they hadn’t lived there for long before the orphans had moved in with the Lacklands.
One other picture clung to the mirror. It was of a teenager drawing the tsuru on his yumi bow in his kyudo gi, obi, and hakama. That day, Will and Robyn had been the only occupants of the archery dojo. He smiled out at her from the photograph, not at all angry that she’d interrupted his concentration to take his likeness.
Robyn paused in her party preparations and reached into the drawer of her vanity. From under a canister of cold cream, beside a pair of twin daggers, she pulled out a folded letter. The paper was delicate from being overly handled, and it was ripped a little at the edges of the well-worn creases. She had no trouble recognizing Will’s calligraphic script.
August 12, 1942
Robyn,
The time has finally come. The evacuation order was posted, and we have only a few days to report to Midshire War Relocation Center. They told us we could bring one suitcase each, but after the temple and dojo were burned, we scarcely have that.
I’m sure I will already be there by the time you receive this letter. I would have called, but they are listening on the phone lines, and I don’t want to bring you into this.
I can picture your scowl at reading that last sentence, but let me protect you just this once.
I don’t know when I will be able to write to you again, so try not to fret if you don’t hear from me.
I know we will see each other again. Be patient, and try to stay out of trouble until then.
Your most loyal friend,
Will Sukaretto
The words of Will’s letter blurred, Robyn’s tears making the black strokes swim. She tilted her head back and fanned her eyes with her hand, glad she hadn’t put on eye makeup yet but not wanting to make her face unnecessarily puffy.
“You know patience is not something I’m good at,” she told Will’s photograph. “And we will see each other again, much sooner than you think.” She folded the letter carefully and put it back in her drawer. As soon as I can figure out how, she thought.
“Of course, Mother,” John agreed, lifting his coffee cup to his lips.
All of a sudden, John spit his coffee across the table with a loud sputter, the droplets marring the white table cloth as well as Marian’s and Isabella’s dresses. Marian squeaked, and Isabella gasped.
Everyone turned wide eyes to John, who looked equally astonished.
Robyn realized what had happened, and mirth bubbled up inside her. She burst out laughing, the sound stark in the hush of the dining room. John squinting at Robyn, his face turning red with rage. His reaction only made her laugh harder.
“Oh my God,” she said, heaving deep breaths. “I had almost forgotten. I did it weeks ago. Sarah must have finally had to replenish.”
“I’ve had just about enough of your pranks, Robyn,” John growled. “I have lost my patience. You are grown now. Hadn’t you better stop this childish behavior? Isn’t there something else you could be doing with your time?”
Robyn wiped the happy tears from her eyes. “Perhaps you’re right, John. It did take quite a bit of time to replace all the sugar in Sarah’s sack with salt. I’m sorry I ruined your coffee,” Robyn said in a tone that was clear she wasn’t sorry at all.
But Guy wasn’t the first dangerous man she’d met in her life. And the others, while polite, no doubt because of her affiliation with the Lacklands, were never so gentle. She’d seen the way dangerous men treated the women they desired. They were intense all right, just like Guy, and they may be generous with their money and their regard, but she never would have called them gentle.
Still, this tenderness didn’t draw her in so much as intrigue and disorient her. It was the feeling of wondering how far you could lean over a ledge without falling, the feeling of how close you could get to a flame without being burned.
It was nothing like the thrill Rick gave her. Rick was the thrill of discovery, adventure, that feeling that pulls you along the unknown path, ever seeking to mount the next hill, to turn the next bend. But not danger. Guy seemed to come with the promise of inevitable destruction.
I suppose some women are into that, trying to tame what’s wild, trying to redeem what’s corrupt, she thought. She glanced sideways at Guy, his gaze fixed on the road. Guy Gisbourne hurts people for money, kills people for money, she reminded herself. Is he redeemable? Does he even have a sense of moral justice?
"The Treason of Robyn Hood has suspense, drama, humor, romance, and action, all jam-packed in a tightly paced novel full of intrigue...I enjoyed it immensely and will highly recommend it to fans of fantasy and adventure. "
—Readers' Favorite®
"Connoisseurs of urban fantasy and offbeat romance will find this novel both a fun and fulfilling read. The clever characterizations and skillful melding of fantasy, adventure, and romance put a spotlight on sisterly devotion, oddball alliances, social conscience, and the human ability to rise above broken hearts and broken lives. "
—The US Review of Books
Teasers:
“Giving me a weapon was your biggest mistake,” Robyn spat.
Don’t give me an out, Alaric thought. Don’t give me a reason for you to be in my life, in my reach, when I can’t have you.
Eleanor levelled a stare at him. “Do not dismiss me, John.” She put a hard edge on her tone, and she could see its effect in his eyes. “I am not simply an old widow, too aged and senile to be taken lightly. Do not forget who I am.”
“They’re criminals. They have underground casinos. They intimidate people into paying them ‘protection money.’ They’ve even had people killed, and…and who knows what else.”
Robyn sighed, trying to release the anxiety tightening her chest. “Every day is a new adventure,” she murmured.
“I hope you find peace one day, Guy. I hope you can live without spreading fear and violence. Because even if you feel no guilt, even if you don’t know it, those transgressions are eating you alive. And every time you hurt someone, you become a little less human.”
“Did you ever hear about what happened to Sherwood Forest?” Tuck asked. She pointed past the once-lively city to the burnt earth beyond, charred sticks that were once lush, green trees still stood, ghosts with a tale to tell.
Standing sure-footed on the ledge of the theatre roof, her hood shadowing her face, Robyn pulled back her bowstring and shot a modified arrow; the attached ropes wiggled like tadpole tails as it soared through the air.
“When I say distraction, I refer to one that cannot be ignored.”
Robyn looked significantly at Gyl.
“How about of the explosive variety?” Gyl asked.
“Good will never win. Good will never win, Robyn, because bad is willing to do things we never will.”
Take heart and resist.
“You call this justice?” she spat, her anger flaring.
“No, not anarchy. Resistance. They need to know they can’t act however they want. That even if the establishment won’t do anything about it, the people will. Because there is a higher form of justice than what can be bought. People have the right to live freely and without fear. And when that right is threatened, they have the right to take it, to fight for it.”
“Good may not win by beating bad. Good wins when good survives. Good wins anytime someone protects someone weaker than her not because it benefits her, but because it’s the right thing to do.”
About the Author
D. Lieber has a wanderlust that would make a butterfly envious. When she isn’t planning her next physical adventure, she’s recklessly jumping from one fictional world to another. Her love of reading led her to earn a Bachelor’s in English from Wright State University.
Beyond her skeptic and slightly pessimistic mind, Lieber wants to believe. She has been many places—from Canada to England, France to Italy, Germany to Russia—believing that a better world comes from putting a face on “other.” She is a romantic idealist at heart, always fighting to keep her feet on the ground and her head in the clouds.
Lieber lives in Wisconsin with her husband (John) and cats (Yin and Nox).
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