Hooded Man (92 page)

Then came the open attack. He’d only just managed to dodge the vicious charge – and as it was he’d been whipped sideways, a sudden pain in his side causing him to wince. He’d glanced down to see blood seeping from a tear in his clothes caused by the animal’s antlers.

Rising slowly, he’d found himself facing a large stag. Shadow stared at it, losing himself momentarily in those black eyes. When he hadn’t listened to what the forest was telling him, this creature had been sent to encourage him to leave.

He wasn’t about to.

The stag charged again. Shadow dove out of its way, but crouched on his knee this time, ready with his bow – nocking an arrow in seconds. But his aim was off – impossible, his aim was never off! – and the arrow flew wide. Thankfully, when the stag came by for another pass, Shadow was able to draw his hawk axe and deliver a blow to the back of the animal’s neck with the blunt side. Crouching next to the felled beast, he placed a hand on its side and felt the rhythm, the pumping of its heart.

He is you and you are him
, Shadow said to himself.

His true quarry was linked to this animal somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain.

Show me
, he said to the creature.
Show me this place’s true heart.

It defied him, of course, but the sudden flash Shadow saw in his mind was enough. He’d recognise the location even if it took weeks to find it.

In the end, it didn’t. He stumbled upon it by accident, a clearing he doubted whether he’d find if he’d been actively looking for it. And sincerely doubted he would ever leave again if this didn’t work.

After stitching up his wound, Shadow set to work; time was growing short. This forest was attempting to expel him, like a body fighting a disease. But he wasn’t going to be defeated.

First he built his fire pit. Then he placed wood – logs he chopped with his axe – in the bottom of the hole. By the time he’d completed the pit, it was a good five foot by seven, the sides forming a kind of semi-circle and strengthened by rocks.

Next he chopped more fire wood, ignoring what sounded like screams in his head. Lies, tricks. Telling him this wasn’t his to cut, to burn. It belonged to Hood. Only he could use it. Shadow was trying to evict the guardians, or at the very least subdue them, as he had done with the stag. It wasn’t theirs at all; it belonged to the universe, to the Great Spirit. He would show them that.

He kept on ignoring the screams as he chopped wood for the framework of the small lodge: facing the fire pit, with an opening at the front. He covered it with hides he’d brought with him, stitched together in the traditional way and weighted down with rocks. Tied inside the lodge were pouches filled with tobacco as offerings. Using some of the longest logs he’d cut, Shadow built a box about three feet square, which he then built up, filling it with kindling, before building up a dome of rocks – then more wood until the pile was quite high. He had problems getting the fire to light, the wood refusing to respond to the spark of rock, the kindling unwilling to burn, but finally nature took its course as he knew it would. Soon a roaring fire was going.

It took some time for the rocks in the pit to grow hot enough for his purpose. Shadow removed anything metal from his person. He also made sure he had the bottles of water he’d brought with him, for drinking and for wetting the rocks he’d be using.

He also set up an altar made from dirt found in the hole. On this he placed several items personal to him as offerings, including ashes from previous sweats – through which his mission had been imparted.

Shadow stripped to the waist and began his spirit calling ceremony. He started by chanting words known only to him, the lodge preparing him for his journey to another plane of existence. Once there, he would call forth those who watched over
him
, to do battle with the ancients of this place. The prize would be the forest, for he needed to sever the link with Hood before he could defeat the man. Sherwood’s favourite son fought with old gods on his side, but so did Shadow. It was just a question of which were the strongest this day.

To help him on his way, Shadow smoked the pipe he had prepared. While it was in his hands, it represented a conduit through which the universe and the creator’s power could flow. It would help him to commune with those he sought.

Shadow felt it flowing through him, felt the rhythms of this place just as surely as he had the stag’s heartbeat. He begged the spirits he worshipped to come: to cleanse not only him, but the forest.

They appeared in a miasma of colourful scenes, taking on shapes: wolf, the bear, the buffalo. The creatures of this forest were pitted against them, led by the stag, not felled as its body was, but strong and majestic, a symbol of the old god’s power and dominance. For now. It was a battlefield unlike any other, way beyond anything ordinary humans had ever witnessed. Beyond guns, tanks and helicopters.

Mighty hawks swooped and fought with owls, spinning over and over in the technicoloured clouds. The stag rammed its antlers into the bear, just as it had done with Shadow, only for the wolf to leap on its back and begin tearing at it. Even the smaller animals, like badgers and foxes, fought – pitting themselves against the creatures of the desert, like the rattlesnake.

Shadow marvelled at the complexity of it, then at the simplicity: a glorious contradiction. The fight seemed to rage for hours, but there was no telling the passage of time. The only way Shadow realised it was over was when the bear picked up the stag and held it aloft, delivering it to him.

Shadow gave thanks to the Great Spirit, just before the connection was severed. He managed to crawl out of the lodge – staggering a few yards with a bottle of water he’d grabbed – before collapsing.

But he knew that no harm would come to him now. He was protected by the new keepers of Sherwood. And Hood was soon to find out exactly what it was like to be the prey instead of the predator.

A trap would be set before long, and as Shadow drifted off into unconsciousness, he realised exactly where he would find the bait.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
OMETHING WAS VERY
wrong.

It had started with the dreams. It sounded crazy, but he’d accepted that the forest was giving them to him. They hadn’t begun until he’d moved to Sherwood. Then he’d moved out of the forest and into the castle to run the Rangers, and the dreams had deserted him for a spell – which had almost cost all their lives. The forest had also – and this sounded even crazier when he thought about it –
healed
him at least a couple of times, even brought him back from the brink of death.

He’d come to realise that he needed to return there every now and again, to recharge. His excuse was the trips he took young Mark on to teach him hunting skills, but wasn’t the lad starting to feel the forest, as well? He’d certainly spoken to Robert about strange dreams he’d had while he’d been there.

More and more, though, over the last year especially, Robert had come to understand that he always carried a part of that special place with him wherever he went.

In fact, that was literally true these days, since he’d struck upon the idea of making himself a little reminder of home. His true, spiritual home. In the pouch he wore on his belt were twigs, earth, stones, grass, bark and leaves he’d gathered from Sherwood – and copying him in all things, Mark had insisted on making one as well. When travelling or on a mission, and in times of great stress, he’d find himself clutching the bag unconsciously. It eased his mind. And while he’d been carrying it, the dreams had never deserted him again.

Until now.

It had happened last night while he slept, out under the stars with Mary beside him. He’d refused the offer of staying at a hotel Bill had commandeered for himself and the rest of the Rangers. Instead, Robert and Mary had found a local park and bedded down there; she was more used to sleeping outdoors now, since the Christmas surprise he’d given her of a night out in Sherwood. So, falling asleep with the pouch in his hand, it hadn’t taken long for the dreams to visit Robert.

His eyes opened and at first he’d thought he was still in the park. But the sheer mass of trees and greenery soon told him otherwise. It had to be the dreamscape, and it had to be Sherwood. He was walking through familiar surroundings, enjoying being back once again, when there was a disturbance in the trees up ahead. At first he thought it was some kind of animal, but when the trees themselves began falling he realised it was something much bigger. Flashes of red appeared between the trunks, then the trees directly in front of him parted.

And he saw a monster.

It looked like a dinosaur, but was nothing so mundane. Robert recognised it from the tales he’d read as a kid. It was a dragon, its scaly crimson hide tough and impenetrable. And it was huge: as tall as the trees in Sherwood.

It breathed out fire, burning the trees.

But this wasn’t the only monster in Sherwood. Another parting of the trees and on Robert’s right was a giant black spider, its multitude of eyes bulbous and glassy, regarding him with both hatred and longing. The dragon saw the spider and roared; the arachnid, for its part, made a series of clicking noises and weird shrills. Somehow Robert instinctively knew it was female, and although he was no expert he would have bet his life on the fact that the species was a Black Widow.

These were the opponents he and his men were facing at the moment, or at least that’s what they represented. Gaining power, becoming bigger and stronger, they would take over soon unless something was done to stop them. No sooner had he thought this than Robert’s Rangers flooded the scene, loosing arrows at the two behemoths and swinging their swords. Robert looked on as the Dragon crushed a couple of his Rangers underfoot, while the Widow stopped others in their tracks with webs they couldn’t break. She then turned on one poor soul and began to eat him, starting with the head. Robert winced at the sight, but didn’t –
couldn’t
– move.

Faces he recognised now were tackling the threat: Dale and Jack on his left, leading the attack against the Dragon; Bill, Azhar and Mary on his right, trying to avoid those webs and deadly mandibles. Mary turned, urging him to join the fight. They couldn’t do this without him. Robert tried to move again, but still couldn’t.

Then he saw it. Something, some
one
striding out between the two creatures, ignoring them as if they didn’t matter. A man, but not quite a man – indistinct and shadowy, his body like fog. He was carrying something above his head. Something with antlers.

The stag. The thing Robert had often become himself in the dreamland. Was that meant to be him there, defeated? Dead, even? There was blood dripping from the body, he could see that now. As the man came closer, his features grew clearer. He looked Native American, but Robert didn’t have long to take in the sight of him.

Everything happened so quickly. The Dragon and the Widow shrank back, diminishing as something else was revealed behind them – an unclear shape, pushing, or manipulating, them. Next, the shadow man started to grow, becoming stronger, more significant. As he did so, the stag he was holding caught fire – perhaps from one of the Dragon’s blasts, Robert couldn’t tell. The stag burnt fiercely for a second or two before raining down on the ground as ash.

Robert thought something terrible might happen then. Often the dreams had shown him his own death, in an effort to try and prevent it. But what actually occurred was that everything went black. It was like a TV being put on standby, the picture telescoping away into nothing. At any second Robert thought he might wake up, but he didn’t. Nothing happened. He’d lost the connection somehow, the information out of reach.

He awoke not long after, Mary stirring when she heard him.

“What is it?” she asked, half mumbling.

“Nothing,” he lied.

She rolled over, snuggling up to him. “Good. Go back to sleep, love.”

It was good advice, and he tried, for a long time. He’d finally nodded off before dawn, long enough usually to bring back the dreams. But again there was nothing but darkness.

Over breakfast back at the hotel, Robert was agitated, but refused to discuss it with Mary. She’d come to understand that Sherwood was a special place for him, but still didn’t really get
how
special. Nor how much of a role it played in keeping them one step ahead of their enemies. When she looked hurt, Robert had given her hand a squeeze and told her not to worry; he didn’t want her thinking he was shutting her out again. But at the same time he wasn’t in the mood to talk about what was going on with his dreams.

“So,” Bill had asked, “any idea what we’re going t’do about the situation?”

They’d questioned the captured raiders and found out more about the Widow. The conclusion they’d drawn was that her men were devoted to the woman, fanatically so in fact. She was power hungry and, not to put too fine a point on it, completely insane. The raiders didn’t mind telling them about her, in fact they quite relished it, fuelling the rumour that she ate human flesh, that she was into black magic and that she could never die. They were less forthcoming about her defensive capabilities. Loyal even under pressure – if not the kind of pressure De Falaise and his goon Tanek put their prisoners under – they gave Robert and Bill nothing in the interrogation sessions, apart from the location of their base: Edinburgh Castle.