The Eagles Have Flown by Henry Treece

Author:Henry Treece
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Childrens
ISBN: 9780340039953
Published: 1954-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

5. The Moonlit Glade

At first his purpose had been to find Wulf, to vent his sudden anger and grief upon him when he had ridden him down. But as he plunged further and further among the dark thickets, his horse now foam-flecked and tiring, his rage and sorrow seemed to wear itself out, leaving behind only a weakness of spirit. He tried to retrace his haphazard path through the woods, for he had gone in many directions that night, wherever he had imagined he heard the sound of Wulf’s horse. Now, with the green darkness settling heavily round him on every side, he realised with despair that he was lost, and dismounted for a spell to rest his fatigued charger.

At length, casting this way and that for tracks of his own earlier riding, he came to an unfamiliar glade, full on to which the strong moon threw a weird and silver light. Here he sat down on a moss-covered boulder, now cursing himself for a fool, and wondering how he should make his peace with Artos the Bear, whose strict order it was that none of his armed men should leave camp once the night-trumpet had sounded.

It was while he was battling with this problem that his horse suddenly stopped cropping the dark turf and raised its head, listening. Festus, hardly breathing, listened too; it was the sound of a frantic and urgent running, which seemed to come from the direction in which he himself had galloped. In alarm, Festus rose quickly and led the horse back from the glade and into the blackest shadows of the trees, throwing his cloak over its head so that it might not whinny in fear and so give away their hiding-place.

Hardly had he crouched down among the brushwood, when

a squat, dark-haired man in a ragged green tunic staggered from among the trees at the far side of the glade into the bright moonlight. Festus could see the fear and exhaustion in his face and the long cut that ran across his shoulders, as though he had been slashed at from behind. Out of sheer sympathy, Festus felt for his own sword, so that should the occasion arise, he might go to the aid of this hunted creature. But with something like a start of alarm, Festus suddenly realised that he had left his own weapon behind by the camp-fire, when he had rushed away so precipitately after his friend.

Then there was no time for thought, for there was a great pattering of feet and a party of men broke through the woods on the heels of the fugitive, perhaps half a dozen of them, led by a tall fair-haired youth, who ran, loping like a young wolf on the trail, at the head of his men, a long-handled axe in his right hand. He ran slightly ahead of his followers, a smile on his face, as though this was just another sort of game. Occasionally he gave a shout, not loudly, but with just enough force to reach the shambling creature who had passed through the glade a little earlier.

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