They moved forward, together, fluid, in a dance. Their blades dipped in unison, sweeping in the same lines, returning and rejoining. They only barely even made contact, the two swords but kissing as they breathed through the air. Each man read the other’s move as it was made, sliding their feet in exact calculation, using the energy of each swing to feed into the next. They did not dodge each attack so much as slide out of its path, they did not parry an attack but rather suggest it go elsewhere.

Guy made his moves when Robin was slightly off balance or nursing his cheek, and Robin took a desperate lunge that sought to take advantage of Guy’s false limp. Guy riposted against Robin’s rhythm, and it worked. Robin panicked, the grace of his training wasting away. His swings became harder, born from anger rather than experience. Their swords stopped kissing. They clashed down upon each other, occasionally drawing a spark. At the perfect rare chance, Guy backhanded Robin across the face and came swinging down into him again, and Robin dropped to his knees to block. The strength of the blow was massive, and Robin’s sword smashed down and out of his hands.

It was, impossibly, over.

“Is this what you wanted?” Guy shouted, his voice gone, betraying his grief, low and grave. “There was no reason for anyone to die here. What have we done, what have you accomplished with this?”

“Don’t act as if you care,” Robin said, still at his knees. “You mean to burn down the forest.”

“You…” Guy stared him down, “… mean to burn down the country.”

Around him, shapes rose from the earth. Guardsmen. He recognized the faces of a few of his men, weary but mercifully alive. Silas, Quillen Peveril. Even Jacelyn was there. He did not see Simon, and prayed the Scotsman still breathed. He did not waste the same thought on FitzOdo or his men, who were nowhere in sight. The finest men Guy knew held no knighthood, they were those that lay now in the dirt, who had faced down the outlaws in the forest and—

“You don’t get to blather on,” Robin hissed, and Guy realized he had been speaking aloud, “about what is right. You don’t know the first thing about it. All you know is the power you have and the power you want.”

“You’re the definition of hypocrisy,” Guy called out. “Silas, you have anything to bind his hands?”

Silas nodded and limped forward. Robin flinched, but Guy elevated his sword’s tip toward his face. “You stay on your knees.”

“No argument there,” Robin moaned. “You’re not the sort of man I’d ever stand up for.”