Robin Hood

  ROBIN HOOD

  A NOVEL BY DAN MONTY

  PROLOGUE COMIC DRAWN AND WRITTEN BY

  DAN MONTY

  First published in 2021 by Killer Mule Books

  Copyright 2021 all rights reserved

  Text written by Dan Monty

  Copyright 2021 all rights reserved

  Cover and comic illustrations by Dan Monty

  Copyright 2021 all rights reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any relation to any persons living or dead is coincidental. No part of this book should be copied, sold, hired out or reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  By the same author

  FROM THE DEPTHS

  THE OUTLAW MADRID

  WAY OF THE SWORD

  INTO THE DEPTHS

  Chapter one: Welcome to Sherwood

  Three months later...

  The rain came down from the skies in buckets, drenching the streets as a gang of punks in leather strode down the neon lit street, banging their heads to loud music. They were simple thugs, out on the town for the thrill – The next big rush they could get from chastising commuters.

  The planet Sherwood was just one in a group of planets in the Nomad system. Another was Loxley, which had once been a thriving planet of cities and businesses but it had fallen into ruin after the legendary crusades; a great war between the noble religious knights that were brave enough to rise against the threat, and the machines; great machinations designed by man that had been programmed to defend the planets of the Nomad system from alien threats and nuclear war. The machines had over time become self aware, turning on their creators and using their intelligence to build great weapons and giant fighting beasts in an attempt to overtake mankind, replace humanity’s primitive biological design with machinery and mechanical monsters.

  Thankfully, the attempts of the machines to overtake humanity failed, and on the battle-scarred planet of Loxley, a great war ensued. The towering structures were crippled in the destruction and now, Loxley stood as little more than a vast wasteland of city ruins and deserted homes. The cost of the crusades had been great.

  Survivors had fled Loxley with the help of the hooded knights with most of them retreating to the forest moon of Sherwood.

  The entire planet was a large forest, lush with thick wilderness. The centre of the forest had been excavated to allow the construction of a sprawling city – a giant metropolis of towering skyscrapers, flying jet cars and streets. The city was massive – thousands of towering skyscrapers lining the streets, creating a massive maze of steel and glass that stretched out as far as the eye could see and high into the sky.

  The city housed over three billion people, and due to over population, drug addiction and high rent and taxes, over 22,000 people slept rough on the streets at night. Homelessness ran rampant and the government did nothing.

  The ruler of the planet was King Edward the twenty fourth; a greedy and ruthless leader that cared more for the wealthy than the sick or the poor. The king was rarely ever seen, his work conducted in Nottingham castle at the very centre of the city. The castle resembled a giant tower of glass and steel, a fortified skyscraper surrounded by surveillance drones and patrolling Police cars which flew overhead.

  The King appointed a Sheriff to act as both his watchful eye over the city, and chief of Policing and order. The Sheriff of Nottingham was in charge of everything, from debt collection, to Police and criminal prosecution. One thing that Sherwood had plenty of since well after the crusades, was crime.

  The punks walked down the streets, placing their music speaker on a floating parked jet car. There were three of them; a muscular guy named Piggy, a short bald guy with tattoos named Chux and a female with a mechanical animal arm and a Face full of piercings named Candy, who picked up a pipe from the ground and strode over to a shop window, swinging the pipe in the air and shattering the glass.

  Alarms rang out into the night as Candy reached into the shop window, retrieving a golden chain necklace. She laughed like a hyena, dropping the necklace around her neck. Piggy looked at her with a shrug.

  “Ya gonna get the cops coming here! Dumbass broad!” Piggy said and Candy marched over to him, her hair in a crazy pink Mohawk. She seized piggy by the neck with her mechanical arm, lifting the man off his feet with ease.

  “Yeah? So what? Those fuckers wanna scrub us out? Let them try! We nasty as fuck! We cut ‘em easy!” Candy said chuckling.

  Soon enough, a flying Police cruiser glided over the street, a flood light igniting from its chassis. The light fell on the group of leather wearing punks and a robotic voice came from a megaphone high above them.

  “This is the Sherwood Police Department. You have committed an act of property damage and theft under the theft and violence act, section 10435. This is unacceptable. Prepare for your arrest. Resistance will result in termination. Please raise your hands and get on your knees," the robotic voice instructed.

  Candy stepped in front of her two friends, glancing defiantly upward and into the light. There, looking up towards the robotic officers she stuck up her middle finger.

  “Fuck you, you metal pig squares!” Candy yelled, smiling at her own brave act of rebellion. In the hovering squad car, the two robotic police officers which actually looked quite harmless with their expressionless faces and shiny bodies, exchanged glances as if they were confused.

  On the ground, Candy laughed maniacally, turning and glancing at Piggy and Chux, who both still had their hands up and were now shaking their heads.

  “Your response is unacceptable,” the electronic voice from above finally responded, a whirring sound suddenly wiping the smile off Candy's face.

  The shots came from a cannon under the chassis of the hovering car – an eruption of gunfire so loud it could be heard for miles around. The bullets passed through Candy as her body slumped to the street, collapsing in a pool of blood. Piggy and Chux were frozen as they watched Candy die, exchanging glances and returning their attention upward towards the hovering patrol car.

  “Hold your positions and prepare for arrest and transportation. Failure to comply will result in instant execution," the robotic voice went on as a door slid open in the patrol car and one of the two robotic officers jumped down a hundred feet to the street below. The mechanical officer straightened, marching over to where the two punks stood, handcuffing both of them.

  “We didn’t do nothing! It was all her! She got all Clockwork Orange! We was just here!” Piggy pleaded, the expressionless machine glancing at him.

  “You are under arrest. Have a nice day," the robot said.

  ****

  From the towering rooftops, Robin watched. He had observed the criminals for weeks without getting involved. He couldn’t simply jump in and fight crime – he needed to observe. He wanted to learn the difference between crime and the thrill of the chase. Some people wanted to commit criminal acts for pleasure or to be malicious, whilst for others it was simply the means of survival. These were common street thugs, but not all crime in Sherwood was done by people that wanted to see the world burn – some criminals simply had no choice.

  Robin was dressed in a green suit with a hood and a black ski mask over his face beneath it. A quiver of various types of arrows was strapped to his back and a long bow over his shoulder. He wasn’t a young man, maybe late forties, his face weathered beneath his black ski mask. He had seen war, and nothing ages a man like battle, yet he was strong, fast and athletic – able to swiftly leap from rooftop to rooftop with ease and utter fearlessness. War had taught him much, but it was a small child that had taught him to move with such grace. How to hide in both shadows and plain sight and how to steal so quickly that he wouldn’t be seen.

  The child he simply knew as
“kid" had lost her family in the crusades on Loxley, and despite the war against monstrous machines, they had been killed when Robin had destroyed one of the Titans; great mechanical beasts with metal legs and fiery red eyes. One such creature had landed on the kid's home, no doubt crushing her parents. Robin had never forgotten Kid. He had promised to take her home to be with her parents, and after all the advice she had given him it was the least he could do. However, upon arriving at her home they found only death and rubble. She had looked at Robin like he was a murderer and fled. He never saw her after that.

  Robin Hood jumped a ship and returned to the planet Sherwood. That was three months ago and since his arrival he had trained, hunted and observed. He had visited his old friend Friar Tuck who had once been a monk, though he was caught stealing and cast out into the cold. Tuck and Robin had been friends before Robin was shanghaied into service by the Catholic knights and sent off to fight in the crusades. Then there was Marion..

  Marion and Robin had met in Sherwood forest, just outside the city. Robin had been walking when he had seen a woman running from a drunken hunter. The drunk man would surely have raped Marion in his stupor, but Robin had thrown him off her and the man had fled.

  Robin and Marion had become friends. She was a simple singer who mostly sang in run down jazz clubs, not to make money or get famous but simply to serve the community by entertaining and cheering people up. She was a sweet girl and when she sang it was as though Robin could feel the planet spin. Marion developed feelings for Robin. They made love on the rooftop of a jazz bar and that was when Robin had decided to tell Marion he was leaving.

  “What? Why?” Marion had asked and Robin had sighed. He always sighed when something was difficult to say or do.

  “I am returning to Loxley with the knights. We are going to fight in the crusades against the machines. I’m sorry Marion, but I have to do this. Loxley was the planet of my birth. I can’t let it be taken over by metal monsters,” Robin had said.

  Marion had pleaded for him not to go, but he had gone. Seven years later he had returned to Sherwood and seen her singing in the Friar's bar. She had always sung so beautifully, but he had not returned to Sherwood simply to get back in Marion's good graces – he had come home to save Sherwood. He had already lost his home planet of Loxley, which now was virtually in ruins. Robin was not about to see the planet Sherwood fall into ruin as well.

  Robin would fight the corruption. Help the homeless and rob the corrupt criminal rich. People were starving in the streets of this massive city, while entire buildings were vacant – buildings that could easily shelter homeless men, women and children. The wealthy wasted unwanted food and clothing while homeless men and women were hunted by police for scrounging through trash cans for morsels of nourishment. The weak and the poor were hunted and executed, while the strong and the wealthy dealt drugs and made money off the unwise, the weak and the lost. In short, the poor stayed poor while the rich got more.

  The city had gotten sick. It choked on the misfortune caused by the selfish and the wicked. Thousands of people were homeless on a planet with enough housing to accommodate everyone, and meanwhile a greedy king sits on a throne in the centre of the city, guzzling expensive wine and stuffing his face with duck and gravy, whilst sending his sheriff out to do all of his work for him. A sheriff that didn’t care about the poor or the unfortunate. A sheriff that’s primary station in life was to keep the poor people out of the way so the rich and powerful could stay rich and powerful. The bums needed to be eradicated so that the city stayed strong and powerful. After all, if war came to the doorstep of Sherwood, strength would be needed – not scum.

  Robin had seen the sheriff only once. He was older than Robin by years, but had thick black lengthy hair and a cold, pale face. He had beaten a beggar in the street who’d had the nerve to ask the sheriff for a dollar to buy an apple. The sheriff had smiled, turning on his heel and delivered a powerful kick to the beggars jaw before ordering two robot police officers to kill him. Robin had taken note of this. In time, they would meet but for now, Robin needed to train – and train he would.

  Chapter two: An encounter in Sherwood Forest

  Robin hiked through the thick forest outside the city wearing no mask on his face nor hood over his head.

  Sherwood Forest was a place many city dwellers feared to tread, mostly because of rumours of wild men and cannibals... monstrous mountain men living in the wilderness that hunted people that stopped around the forest or that tried to flee the city. Robin had fought in the crusades. He had watched machines squash men with their metal hands, squeeze them with their metallic tentacles. He feared nothing anymore and had even built a small basic cabin in the wilderness to use as his hideaway. It was there that he would rest, but the wild would serve as his training ground.

  Robin trekked through an opening in the forest, stepping into the tall, dark of the towering trees. It was midday and he stepped onward through the dense wild toward the sound of rushing water – a stream, which could only be crossed by a narrow bridge. The walk was hot as sweat dripped from his brow, Robin wiping it away with his sleeve and as he approached the stream, he heard the sound of a group of men laughing.

  Robin froze, peering out from behind the trees and looking out. There were three men cooking over an open fire on the other side of the narrow bridge, the smell wafting over the stream made Robin's stomach grumble and he began to realise how hungry he was. Robin cautiously stepped out of hiding, stepping over to the bridge.

  No sooner had Robin placed a foot on the bridge, did the largest of the three men – a tall and tough looking gentleman with a beard call out to him in warning.

  “You can’t cross here, lad!” The man yelled and Robin stepped away from the bridge, looking up at the giant, a bearded man across the bridge that was barking orders at him.

  “Oh? Why is that?” Robin called out to him and the three men laughed.

  “This is our bridge! You want to cross it? You need to pay a tax,” The man laughed.

  Robin smiled and shook his head. He had heard of men doing this type of thing in the city, but in the forest? Who did these guys think they were? Not only was Robin not paying to cross a bridge in this forest, but he certainly didn’t have any money on him.

  “Well, I have no money, kind sir... so if you'll kindly allow me the right of passage,” Robin started but the giant man cut him off, picking up a long wooden staff off the ground.

  “No money, ey? Well I guess you’re shit out of luck, my friend. For if you can’t pay me, you’ll need to fight me," the man yelled to him.

  Robin smiled. He had to admit, he was starting to like this guy. Perhaps he would humour the man, who was easily twice his size. Robin stepped onto the bridge, cautiously stepping closer to the giant. The man was easily six foot four, maybe taller. Robin was around five foot seven, so clearly already the tall man had the advantage of height. He watched as one of the other men threw the giant a second wooden staff and the giant stepped closer to Robin, tossing him one of them. Robin caught the staff in both hands, studying it.

  “I would seriously rather not fight you sir. I mean no one any harm," Robin said and the giant laughed, turning to his companions on the bank of the stream, who joined him in his laughter.

  “What’s your name, lad?” The giant asked and Robin sighed.

  “Robin Hood" Robin replied and the giant nodded his head.

  “Well, I’m John Little and if you want to cross our bridge, and you don’t have the credits to pay the fee... you’re going to have to fight me," John said.

  There was more laughter from the man’s companions and Robin Hood rolled his eyes, running a hand over his smooth, square jaw.

  “Oh very well,” Robin started, whirling the staff around and smacking John across the face. John's companions laughed as he rubbed the red Mark where Robin had struck. Robin grinned cheekily.

  “I’m sorry, I thought the fight had started... John Little. Cute name by the way! Can I call
you Little John?” Robin asked as John’s companions burst into laughter.

  “You might regret that little man!” John said, lashing out with his staff, the two weapons smacking together over and over as Robin parried his moves perfectly, stepping back along the bridge and avoiding each blow. John brought his staff up quickly, a swift attack which could have taken Robin’s head off, but he smacked the staff away with his own.

  “You’ve got some skill, Robin Hood. But I was born with a staff in my hand, lad!” John smiled, whirling his staff around so fast that Robin couldn’t even see it.

  Robin watched as the staff spun around and around, hypnotized by the spinning. John took full advantage, kicking Robin hard in the gut and sending him flying off the bridge, crashing into the water. John's companions erupted with laughter and John smiled, looking down into the stream at Robin, who stood up suddenly in the cold water, soaked to the skin. Robin looked up at John, spitting water out of his mouth.

  “You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to beat me, son. I’ve been doing this dance for years,” John said with a smug voice. Robin nodded his head, looking around for his staff but seeing it nowhere. Finally, he grabbed hold of John’s legs.

  “So have I," Robin said, pulling John off the bridge and sending him crashing into the water. Robin sighed as John splashed around in the cold water, gasping and panting.

  “The water’s bloody freezing!” John screamed and Robin laughed, helping the man out of the water and over to where his companions were waiting.

  “Bugger me!” John exclaimed as Robin helped him sit down by the fire. The two of them laughing as they struggled to get warm.

  “You are one determined little bastard! Why you out here anyway?” John asked with a laugh. Robin smiled, nodding his head.

  “I fought in the crusades on the planet Loxley. I’ve come back to make things right for the people of Sherwood. End homelessness and put a stop to the injustice," Robin said. John didn’t laugh, he simply exchanged glances with his companions and stared deep into Robin's eyes.