Chapter One
It was still raining in Sherwood Forest. Still. After three whole days straight of raining, it was still raining. Water splashed through the trees in a steady, miserable downpour what made the ground thick with mud that clung to cloaks and boots, and ran down the soggy tree trunks and dripped down everyone's necks.
Much was standing around complaining, as usual.
'I cannot see why we can't just go somewhere warm and dry, with food, somewhere where we have friends that will hide us, somewhere where my feet aren't, aren't swimming in my boots!'
John, sat stoically with his staff across his shoulders and water dripping off his nose, said nothing, but gave Much a long, grave look. Much lifted his nose imperiously.
'We haven't eaten anything cooked in three days. I haven't eaten anything cooked in three days. All we've had is sodden bread and that is gone now too, and if I wasn't so hungry I would say good riddance.'
Djaq was sitting, shivering, on a fallen tree. She had given them all some sort of potion, made from crushed green berries and what seemed like a lot of water, that she claimed would protect them from the worst effects of the cold and wet. Much didn't think it could have done much good; he was still freezing and wet and chafing in uncomfortable places.
She rolled her eyes at him.
'What I wouldn't give for a little of that bread now,' Much continued. 'What I wouldn't give for a little warmth and, and dryness, which we could probably get if we went and found someone who'd put us up for just a night.'
'We've no friends in Locksley today,' said John quietly.
'And whose fault is that?' asked Much, glaring at him. 'Whose fault is it that we have to sit out here like, sit out here like animals? Even pigs get brought inside in weather like this. I am starving and freezing, and completely soaked. And why are they not back yet? They have been gone far too long.'
'Not being funny, but if he doesn't shut up, I'm gonna stick an arrow through his head.'
'I have never been this cold. At least in the Holy Lands it was dry.'
'Shut up, Much!' said Allan vehemently. He was without a cloak, having given it to Djaq, and his jerkin was filled with water. She had looked rather offended when he had offered it, but not even she could deny the fact that she was the most affected by the unkind weather.
Much was still talking. 'Well, it was not always dry. Of course it rained sometimes, in four years, though never like this.'
Someone flicked a pebble; it hit Much on the forehead. Slapping a terribly offended hand to his head, he cried out, 'Ouch! Who did that? Who did that? Allan, it was you, wasn't it?'
Allan flicked another pebble, quite unrepentant. Much dodged it with a squeak.
'Do not do that!'
'Gonna stop me?'
Much spluttered. 'How dare you!'
Allan raised his eyebrows. 'Like, how dare I chuck stones at Lord Much? Yeah, that's rich.'
Much kicked a bundle of drenched leaves at him, missed, and had to duck again as Djaq threw them back at him. She didn't miss.
'This is…! John, would you help? They're attacking me!'
John rumbled a laugh as Much leapt back from a double leaf assault.
'Fine!' declared Much, raising his hands in exasperation and wounded pride. 'Fine! Fine. Seeing as I and my views are clearly not respected, I will take myself and my views elsewhere.' He grabbed his pack from the ground and began stuffing his things into it. 'Fine!'
Allan threw another stone at him, and Much stood and drew a great breath.
'This is the last straw! I am going now!'
'Oh, sit down,' said Allan.
'No, I am going, and I shall find somewhere where there is shelter from this infernal rain and fewer fools like you, and… and stay there and laugh at you. Yes,' he added as if to himself. 'Yes. Someone in this waterlogged country must be willing to take me in.'
'Don't be thick, Much,' said Allan. 'It'll be dark in a couple of hours. You'll get lost - and then you'll be sorry.'
'I shall not!' Much set his face determinedly and shouldered his pack. 'You're the ones who shall be sorry, when I am warm, dry and fed and you are not. Good day!' He turned to go, then turned back and said, 'And when Robin and Will come back, tell them… tell them that I am much cleverer than them going off trying to make peace in weather like this. If they haven't gotten themselves killed already. Good riddance to all of you.'
The others stared as Much disappeared between the rain-soaked trees, his cloak winking out in the gloom.
'He'll be back soon,' said John, leaning back against a dripping tree.
'Yeah, well,' said Allan. He glanced at Djaq. 'I bet Robin and Will are fine.'
'They will be back soon too,' said Djaq reassuringly, patting him on the shoulder.
***
Much stamped angrily through mud, piles of fallen leaves and deep puddles, as the downpour drummed a steady, heavy rhythm all around him. Water dripped off his eyebrows and chin and he pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.
'Good riddance,' he muttered to himself. 'If they want to sit around, in the wet, without any food, well then, fine, fine, let them do that. Let them just do that, then.'
It wasn't so much that night was falling as that the rain-induced gloom was becoming gloomier. Much was heading towards the path leading to Knighton – even in the soaked forest he knew the way – but found his route blocked by a flood spreading across a small gully. Going through it, even though his boots were already soaked, seemed like a bad idea.
Going around it, though, he lost his way. Somehow he was no longer sure of where he was, unable in the growing, wet dark to spot the usual markers or landmarks. He kept walking, cursing himself, the others, and whoever had thought up rain in the first place (then he realised it was probably God who had first thought up rain, and hastily took back the cursing with many apologies). He rounded a corner and began to slip and slide down the steep hillside, until he ran across one of the forest roads.
Or at least it had been a road. Now it was a streaming river of mud, which grew deeper every second with the incessant rain that poured from the open sky above it, and the water that ran off the hills to either side of it. Much, surprised at the sight, slipped over on the hillside and for a few terrifying seconds thought he might slither all the way into the deadly stream of earth and water, but was brought up short by a helpful tree. Covered in mud, he clung to its trunk and stared down at the streaming water.
It occurred to him then, chillingly, that if it carried on raining, all the low ground in the area would soon become flooded. The villages were probably in trouble, he thought. Locksley lay in low land, as did Dungworth and Bonchurch. His beloved Bonchurch, probably feet underwater by now. Deliberately not thinking about Bonchurch was probably the best thing to do if he wanted to get out of this alive.
He began to struggle back up the hill, and was reaching for a tree ahead when he remembered that Robin was in Locksley right now. When his hands completely missed the tree and he slid several feet back down, he decided that deliberately not thinking about Locksley was also an important thing to do.
He was still struggling, loudly and distractingly trying to remember all the words to Two Lovely Apples, when he spotted something unusual.
'Aaand I said to her, what a rosy one's this, thy something something for just a kiss, you've two lovely apples, something la la and something something in the staaaaa-ble…'
The mud became a face of rock further up, on which clung straggly moss and half-dead bushes that wept with the rain. In the dimness, the pale rock stood out, and the dark opening of a cave stood out even more. Much, after a moment's hesitation, began to head for it. At the very least it might be a shade better than the open, rain-filled air.
'Aaand I suppose it could do, something a slice… and I'll lala lala whatever the price, I've two lovely apples and something right here and something is quite aaaaa-ble…'
He trailed off as he stared into what definitely looked like a large, dry cave. Maybe, finally, Much had found a little luck. Tentatively, slowly, quietly, he began to enter the cave.
***
It was still raining. Djaq was collecting rainwater in her cupped hands, watching as the pool between her fingers slowly grew. Allan seemed to have gone into a doze; head lolled back onto the fallen tree she sat upon. John sat still and silent, as he had done since Much had stormed off. This morning they had chatted and joked about the rain and been hopeful about Robin and Will's prospects in Locksley, but as the day had drawn on without a sign of either of them the group had become sombre.
Allan jerked awake with a yelp just then, sitting up very sharply.
'What is wrong?' asked Djaq, putting out a hand to steady him.
'Uh, nothing, just sort of, weird dream thing. Nothing, really.' He began to get to his feet. 'Yeah, d'you mind if I go and just? You know, I need to erm.'
Djaq rolled her eyes. 'You are allowed to say the word 'urinate' in front of me, Allan.'
'Yeah, well, I wasn't gonna say that, exactly,' he said, shuffling off through the rain and trees.
John didn't even move during this incident, but remained still, gazing far from anywhere that Djaq could see. She began to hum to herself, a soft tune her mother had sung to her, a song about forgetting your troubles and laying them to rest. John shifted slightly, and glanced at her, but said nothing.
All of a sudden Allan was back, looking worried. 'Look, not being funny, but everything downhill from here's just like one giant mudslide or something. It's like a bloody river out there, seriously.'
'How bad is it?' she asked.
'Pretty nasty. I went down quite a bit to have a look, and the road down there's flooded, bad flooded, you know. Reckon I saw bits of wood and stuff floating downhill, probably a cart what's been done in by the water. The whole hill's a death trap, I tell you.'
Djaq clutched her hands together. 'How long has it been like this?'
'I dunno, do I? We've been sat here all day, haven't we? Not like we went out looking for giant rivers of mud.' Then he understood her meaning. 'Here, you don't think Will and Robin… Or Much? Oh no.'
Taking a deep breath, Djaq asked, 'What should we do?'
'I dunno, what the hell can we do?'
'We go to Locksley.' John stood as he spoke, swinging his staff in a circle around himself.
'No way,' argued Allan as Djaq began to gather her things, heart in her mouth. 'We'd never get there alive, seriously! That mud's lethal.'
'We go to Locksley.'
'And even if we get there we've got to get past all the mad villagers who think we're all murderers, your fault by the way, and that's just assuming the whole town's not underwater which is a strong possibility-'
'You would just give up on Robin, on Will? Much?' asked Djaq, unfastening the extra cloak from her shoulders. 'They would not give up on you.'
'Well yeah, I know, but, and, Much did just walk out, thank you very much, har, and I told him not to go, and, and what the hell's this?'
'I am giving you back your cloak,' she said, fastening it around his neck. 'You are going to need it.'
***
The cave was very dark. In fact, it was extremely dark. Much kept his left hand on the wall beside him and the other just above his forehead, having already knocked himself on low ceiling twice. He could not tell how big the cave was, but a strange sensation of space and of cool air seemed to be around him. He stretched his right hand out as far as it would go, but could not reach any other-side.
'Hello?' he whispered into the darkness. It echoed, slightly. The effect was very, very eerie. He made a mental note not to talk aloud again.
Wrapping his arms around himself, Much slid down the cave wall to sit on the floor, not far from the entrance, where dark daylight could still be seen, and the rain heard. He would stay for the night, to dry off a little and rest, and then in the morning he would find the others and… not exactly apologise, exactly, but sort of just admit to feeling a bit bad for leaving them behind.
He felt sick, then, as Robin floated into his mind. Locksley could be engulfed in water, or maybe Robin had never gotten there in the first place, or else been swept away on his return, or anything could have happened, and Much was stuck here, quite helpless to do anything.
'This is very unfair,' he said to himself, ignoring the echoes. 'Robin at Locksley, Much – stuck in a cave. Well done, Much.'
Well done, Much.
Much jumped at the voice. 'Who's there?' he asked hurriedly. 'Who's- wait.' He listened, heart pounding, as this single syllable bounced around the cave. Wait wait wait wait… Breathing a sigh of relief, he said, 'It's only an echo.'
Only an echo echo?
He paused, but it did sound a lot like an echo. 'Yes. Yes, only an echo. Nothing to worry about. Nobody here but me…
Nobody here but you…
There was something not quite right about this. 'I'm going to stop talking now,' said Much, feeling foolish.
Now now now.
'I'll not sit here listening to talking shadows and imaginary ghosts. I'm a outlaw, you know.' He shivered. 'I really don't like this.'
Really don't like this this.
'I am one of Robin Hood's men. His closest man. …Assuming that Robin is all right…'
Robin is all right.
'I'm sure he will be. I'm sure he is. I'm sure.'
Sure?
'If I'd stayed with the others, I might know if they're safe, by now. But I'd also still be wet and cold, and well, I am still wet and cold, but that's not the point. The point is… the point is… There was a point in any case. In any case I was in the right.'
Right right right.
Much stared into the distance, his unease at the situation growing.
'Right.'
This time there was no echo. Much drummed his fingers on his boots and tried not to imagine any sort of demon, spirit or ghoul that may or may not be able to talk in shadowy whispers. Then he tried very hard to imagine any sort of demon, spirit or ghoul that may or may not have very large teeth.
'… not to get a gander, not to get a… not to get a gander of something something apples, you've two lovely apples… you've, er, you've two lovely apples, you've two lovely apples, and something la la this lovely table.'
Fable.
'I did not say that!' cried Much. 'I said table. It's table.'
It's fable.
'It's table! Table, it's, "and something… something this lovely table."'
It's, And he lived to tell this lovely fable.
'That's not how it goes, you can't just- I am arguing with an echo,' he realised.
You are arguing with an echo that knows the words better than you.
Much clutched himself, throat very dry all of a sudden. 'That's not an echo. That can't be an echo.'
Echo echo echo, said the echo, and it sounded a lot like it was laughing at him.
***