Faerie Tale Medley, Part the 3rd: Hounds in Sherwood

 Greetings bloggers,
Today, after long delay due to several setbacks in the writing stage, I am publishing the third installation in the Faerie Tale Medley "Hounds in Sherwood"
While this installation does not provide as much excitement as previous stories, it serves a vital role in the overall storyline. Without it, the story could not move on as it is.
So, anyway, read on if you are so inclined and tell me what you think of it.
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Birds sang, leaves rustled, Hood gnawed.

            Sitting cross-legged high in the branches of a grandfather oak, Hood attacked the small unripe crab-apple with her teeth. Sunlight pierced the heavy, spreading foliage of the oaks of Sherwood Forest, illuminating the dawn of a beautiful spring day. Blue Jays and Robin Red Breasts trilled to the dawn and a light breeze rustled the thick green leaves of the oaks.

            Hood was immune to it all. Hunger dominated her every thought.

            She sat cross-legged on a thick limb of an oak, her back against the coarse bark of the trunk, attempting to strip a morsel of fruit from the thoroughly disagreeable apple. She wore a green tunic, brown leggings and a pair of deerskin boots. Beside her, her pack hung from a branch containing the riding hood and crimson cloak that Hood dared not wear openly anymore. Propped up against the trunk of the oak on her other side was a small, beautiful bow and a leather quiver of brightly red-fletched arrows.

Hood wished now as her belly growled from hunger that she could afford to light a fire to cook game; then she might not be in this position, reduced to doing battle with this impenetrable apple.

Giving up on chewing at it, Hood drew the small hunting-knife from her belt and, with some difficulty, drove the tip into the apple. Having succeeded in carving out a ragged shred of fruit, Hood was about to test the quality of the apple when a noise sounded in the distance.

Hood’s entire body locked and she listened hard into the silence. Once again she heard the noise and now there was no mistaking its nature, or its proximity: hunting hounds. Close-by.

Hood moved without a moment’s hesitation, hastily sheathing her knife, she snatched both her pack and bow and arrows and began hastily swinging down through the branches of the oak.

By the time she reached the ground, the baying of the hounds was much closer, now constantly beating against her ears. Now the sound of hoof beats mingled with the hounds’ howling; a horseman, perhaps two. Too late Hood realized that she should have stayed in the treetops and began scaling a new tree; her breath catching in her throat for there could be only one man who would dare enter into Sherwood at this time.

As she swung herself up onto the third branch, she heard the dogs and the horse crashing through the underbrush. Closer and closer they came. Hood reached for a branch, missed, reached again and caught it, swinging herself higher. Now she was lost in the tangle of branches and foliage, invisible to the eyes of those below.

Hood huddled in the crook of two branches, listening as the horseman and his dogs entered the clearing. The dogs bayed and ran about below, their paws pounding the earth heavily. Big dogs. Lots of them.

Hood waited on baited breath, knowing what must soon come. Even so, when the hunting hound howled out its find it still came as a shock to her. They had found her scent.

The dog’s bark was followed a moment later by the sweet notes of a flute. Hood fought against the urge that the music instilled inside her to climb down from the tree and follow the hounds to the horseman down in the clearing.

Hood wadded up the edges of her tunic and stuffed them in her ears, battling against the music inside her head. Peeking out through the leaves of the oak tree, Hood looked down into the clearing to see a strange sight.

A dozen large hunting hounds stood gathered around a sleek black charger, like attentive children. Sitting atop the horse was a man clad in shaggy black furs. Wolf furs. IL Cané.

The Wolf was playing his flute to the dogs, even through the wool of her tunic, Hood could still faintly hear the music and bit her lip hard, the pain distracting her from the urge to go down and give herself up. Even as she watched the scene below, the dogs dispersed, noses to the ground, searching for a scent.

Hood breathed light and soft as she watched the hounds below. It would be only moments before one of them found her trail and alerted their foul master to her presence in the tree.

Think! She urged herself inwardly, think!

She clenched both hands in frustration, gritting her teeth and racking her brains for some idea, something, anything that could get her out of this. Then she noticed she was holding something in her left hand. She looked down and unclenched her fingers to find the small, hard crab-apple. An idea formed in Hood’s mind.

§§§

Down in the clearing, IL Cané heard a faint rustling off in one of the further oaks. Looking up quickly, his eyes caught a rustle of movement among the leaves.

            Drawing the flute from its sheath at his belt, the Wolf trilled a few short notes before sheathing it once more and spurring his charger into the tree line towards the tree, the hounds at his heels.

§§§

Back in the oak, Hood allowed herself a sigh of relief before slinging her pack over one shoulder and setting off along one of the branches of the tree. The Wolf would soon realize he had been led astray, and then she would be once more in dire peril.

            Reaching the termination of the branch the currently straddled, Hood crouched low on the swaying limb and leapt out into open space. Before her she saw her target, a long branch reaching out from a nearby oak, rushing up to meet her. The impact when it came, knocked the air from Hood’s lungs like a blow, but she quickly scrambled up onto the limb and scampered through the branches of the oak, leaping once more outwards and swinging into the next tree, finding her stride.

            By the time IL Cané discovered that the sound he had gone to investigate was nothing more than an accurately-thrown crab-apple, Hood intended to be long gone, swinging through the oaks of Sherwood Forest.

            As she leapt once again from one of the branches, a verse from an old Merry Men song came to mind and she murmured it under her breath as she moved:

“Catch me, catch me, Wolf-skin man,

Catch me, catch me if you can.

Run and chase and search and stare,

I live in here and not out there.

Come search for me in Sherwood here,

And I shall hunt you like a deer,
Play your flute all that you wish,
Sherwood's dry land and your the fish”