With a great leap he sprang forward, but his alarm had been triggered a split second too late. Though they made hardly a sound, the deer became aware of their presence and started to bolt. Slowly, and with the greatest of care and held breath, the men nocked arrows to their bows. When he finally took a hesitant step forward, there was a meaty ripple of the flesh on his haunches that brought a gush of saliva into the mouths of the waiting men. They were a broken mass of spikes, torn during battle in the recent rutting season. As he did so, his dappled shape glinted amongst the trunks of the trees, and his antlers could be seen. Sensing possible danger, the stag paused in mid-stride and lifted a quivering nose to investigate the air for any scent that would tell of an enemy nearby. The deer was a large one and male-perhaps a soar, in his fourth year. Their muscles were cramped, and eyes and ears sore from straining to catch some sign of the quarry they were after, but the desperate hunger in their bellies kept them in place.įinally a movement could be heard, just a gentle thud as a hoof touched bare earth. The trio had been in their places nearly two hours, since before dawn, for the track was one used by deer to water at a small stream some few hundred yards distant.
They, too, had arrows and bows at the ready. Below him, secreted in the thickness of the undergrowth, were two of his comrades, one on each side of a trail marked with the delicate hoofprints of deer and liberally scattered with droppings. Slung from his waist was a quiver of arrows and he held his bow loosely in his left hand, ready for use when his prey appeared. Dressed all in brown, and with a dark beard covering most of his face, he could hardly be seen as he kept close to the trunk of the tree. High in the branches of an oak tree a man crouched. The pale sun pushed tentative fingers through the remaining foliage, glistening on the dew that lay thick upon the ground. It was quiet, only the distant irritating call of a lone crow marring the silence. On the forest floor bracken still struggled with life, but dark and musty, full of dead insects and the remains of spiders’ webs. Those that remained were brown and curled, rattling with dry whispers when the wind blew. The trees in the forest were nearly denuded of leaves.
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