The men gathered around him by the fire echoed his words. Some spoke with conviction, others seemed less sure, glancing about them nervously. He took a sip of the liquid and handed the beaker to Scarlet, who sat beside him. He watched as it was passed around the fire.
Numbers had increased to thirty now and he had split the group into two smaller camps, about a half-mile apart. Days were filled with endless training, punctuated by hunting forays and the occasional robbing of a merchant, fool enough to attempt a short cut through the forest. Most of the men who were joining them were local. They knew how to use a bow, how to hunt silently and how to track. These were the most useful recruits and their skills could be passed onto those less knowledgeable.
He was aware that the tenor of the silence over the group had changed. Men were looking past him, awed expressions on their faces. He turned. Through the trees he could see the antlered figure of Herne. The forest God raised his arm and beckoned and Robert rose and followed him, until they reached the lake that encircled Herne's cave. Herne pulled the Stag's head from his own, placed it reverently in the waiting boat and gestured for the outlaw to climb in. In silence they rowed under the overhang and into the smoky darkness of the cave, beaching the boat with a soft scrape against the shale.
Robert followed Herne to the small altar stone with its tiny fire, kept burning at all times. The smoke wove its way upwards to crawl along the stone ceiling in search of an outlet, choking the air around them. On the altar lay a curious object he had not seen before, but heard much about from the others.
"The Silver Arrow," he whispered. He put out a hand to touch it. With a cry Herne, knocked his arm away.
"You must not disturb the balance." His tone was harsh. "It is all that stands between me and those who seek to do us harm."
Herne passed a hand across his eyes in a weary gesture. "Evil threatens once more," he said. "I had hoped to avoid it, but to counter what you have seen in your visions, I must prepare myself to summon aid."
"The men are improving, with time they will be a strong force," Robert said.
The old man sighed. "You cannot face these enemies alone, my son. I will summon help for you, but it is a long process. In the time it takes, your enemies will have grown in power - maybe even beyond that which I can call upon."
Herne gestured for him to sit. Grey hair straggled over his shoulders and he looked tired and careworn. Robert realised suddenly that the burdens he bore, as Herne's son, were as nothing compared to the weight that the man himself carried on his shoulders. They sat facing each other across the altar.
Drink," Herne said, passing him a horn cup.
The liquid was bitter and he drained the cup, gagging as he swallowed the residue at the bottom. Silence fell on the two men as they sat facing each other across the flames. Robert's gaze was drawn into the heart of the fire. The blackening wood glowed orange. The flames danced their shadows on the walls around him. After some time he turned and looked back at the cave mouth, startled from his reverie to see moonlight flooding over the still waters of the lake. He could not see the moon from his position, only it's twin, pale and opalescent, reflected in the water, shimmering slightly as the wind disturbed it. He turned back to Herne, to say that it was late and that the potion had not bought on a vision, but Herne was not there.
In his place on the far side of the fire, her shoulders draped by her silvery hair, a woman sat before a loom. Her head was bent over her work and he could not see her face. Rising to catch a better view of her he skirted the fire. The threads from the spindle shivered from the motion of her foot upon the pedal hidden beneath the silver frame. The clack-clack of her work filled the cave. Great waves of cloth spilled over her lap, onto the floor, acres of material covered by the rich colours that she wove into it. Moving nearer he saw movement over the cloth; people, men and women, a living breathing tapestry of life that the woman created.
A figure rose up behind her, a man in mail that spangled the firelight, blinding him. Robert's hand went to Albion's hilt: It was Gisburne. With a lazy familiarity his arm encircled the woman's neck and silver sparked as he drew up her hair in an intimate gesture, to fix the clasp of the finely wrought chain he held behind her neck. At the end of the chain a cross dangled. Unlike any cross Robert had seen it was looped at the top where the arm of a Christian cross would reach upwards. He felt the hum of its power as the woman took one hand from her weaving to touch it and the brightness of it hurt his eyes. She raised her head from her work and looked at him and her beauty was both wonderful and terrifying. With a sickening sensation in his stomach he was swept up and out of the cave and over the land.
Below him the ground shook. The force of it hit him in a concussive wave. In a direct line below him the trees separated and drew back, opening an ugly wound in the ground beneath. A great pack of hounds surged up from the crevice. Red eyes glowed, their tongues lolled, frenzied baying hammered his ears. Behind them came horsemen. The horses were black, grey or white, each uniform in its colour and the riders wore a cloak to match. They spilled upwards out of the ground after the fearsome pack and a hunting horn sounded, strident and clear across the roof of the forest. The heat of the dogs reached him, the decaying smell of their breath. He shivered as the great red eyes turned on him.
So must it be, Herne said. The Hunt must ride.
The terrible pack fanned out amongst the trees like locusts and he could not bear to watch as the land they covered turned brown, withered and died as they passed over it.
With a sense of falling he came back into his body, still disorientated by the drug. Herne watched him through the flames.
"What was that?" Robert said.
"The Cwn Annwn, Hounds of the Underworld," said Herne. He stood. "I had to be sure I was taking the right path. Did you see the horses they rode? Find me such a horse; all grey with no other colour on him, not a single hair."
Robert gave a derisive laugh. "Do you know how rare such a horse would be?"
"And a cloak, matching in colour and of the finest quality."
Robertrose, his legs unsteady from the potion. "You think things like that just walk into Sherwood?"
"There are other forces at work here," Herne said. "These things will come to you. Go back to your men. I have much to do." He turned away and shuffled into a corner of the cave where the firelight did not penetrate. Robert could hear him scraping among the things hidden there, searching for something. None the wiser about what he was to face, he turned and made his way back to the boat, deeply unsettled by all he had seen and not understood.