Free Merlin by Jane Yolen Page B

particular ravine, he was soaking wet, part perspiration, part rain, for a fine mist had formed around the ravine's edge, showering down on anything in it. The mist obscured how far he had to climb, how far he had already come.
    When he finally crested through the mist, he found himself on a flat piece of land in which grass—such a deep green it looked like an ocean—spread out as far as he could see.
    He laughed out loud. If he had been younger, he might have believed he had discovered the land of fairies, for everything seemed jewel-like and perfect. There were blossoms everywhere, as if autumn had been banished from this land and only summer remained. The place was patch-worked with pink stitchwort and rosebay willow herb, yellow spikes of agrimony, and blue and purple thistles. Over all was the buzz of summer insects, broad-bodied dragonflies and the longlegged crane fly. He waded through the grass and flowers, the sweet, soft smell almost making him light-headed. Then the sun broke through and everything shimmered as though touched by a magician's wand.
    "This ... this ... this..." he whispered wildly, intoxicated by it all. A cuckoo called out to him and, in his joy, he answered it back.
    His voice echoed over and over and, with it, came another sound: the baying of a hound.
    Fowler,
came his immediate thought,
and his awful dog.
Could they have tracked him so easily and so far?
    But then a second and a third hound's voice joined in and he knew the truth of it. There was a pack of wild dogs on his trail and here he was, stuck in the middle of a meadow with no idea in which direction safety lay. Even at eight, he would not have become so beguiled as to forget all danger and stray from the safety of the trees.
    He forced himself to remain calm. "Do not," he whispered, "rise to the lure." Turning carefully about, he noted that the closest line of trees lay ahead of him rather than behind. Without another thought, he began to plunge through the high grass toward them.
    What had seemed so beautiful and jewel-like moments before now proved stubborn and treacherous. He could make little time through the grass, and the sound of the dogs' bellings seemed closer and closer with each difficult step. But the cries only forced him into greater effort; he swam agonizingly, through the pinks and yellows and purples and blues that topped the green waves.
    He was about twenty steps away from the safety of the trees when he heard the dogs close at his heels, no longer baying but snarling. Not being the kind of lad to give up, he kept on running, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps, an awful red-hot ache in his chest.
    And then something burst through the grass in front of him, something shaggy and hairy and big as a bear. It reached out and grabbed him up, and though he had not the breath to scream, he screamed.

4. CREATURE
    THE CREATURE TOOK FIVE STEPS , NO more, and leaped up into an old oak, the boy now snugged under its arm. Behind it, the dogs were snarling and yelping in equal measure, but they were too late. The creature was already into the tree, scrambling upward with such quickness, it reached the third branching of the tree trunk before the pack had ringed the oak below.
    All the while the boy kept screaming, a high, horrible sound that he had not known he could make. At each scream, the dogs set up an echoing wail.
    The creature set the boy down next to its side and put a shaggy finger over his mouth.
    "Hush ye," it said.
    And the boy realized all at once that it was not in fact a creature that had rescued him, but a man. An enormous, ugly, hairy, one-eyed man. A wild man, a
wodewose.
    The boy stopped screaming.
    The two sat across from one another on the thick branch in silence while below, the dogs—now equally silenced—circled and circled. The boy was still hot and cold with fright; the wild man's ugly, ridged, scarred face with its bulbous nose and one blind eye did nothing to reassure him.