The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest by Melanie Dickerson Page A

nodded.

    Odette’s heart beat quick and her hands shook that night as she clutched her bow and arrows to her chest underneath the black cloak she used to conceal them. She would never be able to keep her aim steady if she didn’t control her nervousness. Why was she so afraid?
    It was that foolish dream. She had dozed off after the eveningmeal, so tired after sleeping so little the last day and night, and dreamed once again that Jorgen was dragging her off to Thornbeck Castle’s dungeon and locking her inside. His reproachful stare had sent a physical pain through her chest. How he would despise her for deceiving him, for making him think she was a merchant’s daughter instead of a law-breaking poacher. How he would hate her for letting him tell her about the stags going missing, and all the while she was the one who had stolen them.
    But it was only a dream. Only a dream, she chanted to herself.
    Besides, who would help the starving children if she didn’t? The margrave sat inside his majestic castle enjoying every luxury, while not far from his castle, beside the wall of the very city he proposed to protect, children were going hungry. Was he trying to feed them? No.
    But Jorgen might not see this with the same view that she did. In fact, he seemed quite loyal to the margrave. Foolish men were always loyal to the wealthy and powerful, but was Jorgen foolish?
    She and the young men made their way toward the cover of the trees. She would feel better when she was in the dense darkness of the forest. Jorgen would be asleep in his bed right now, not looking for poachers. But what if he was not in bed? What if he was indeed out looking for poachers—looking for her?
    She had to cease this kind of thinking. It was making her hands shake.
    They made it to the cover of the trees. Odette hid her old cloak in a bush and slung her quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She moved with stealth through the leaves toward one of her favored hunting sites. Squatting and peering through the leaves, she nocked an arrow to her bowstring and waited. Several deep breaths later, her hands were steady when a large stag with enormous antlers moved into view.
    She wasted no time but raised the bow, pulled back on the string, and sent the arrow flying toward the buck. But as soon as the arrow left her fingers, the hart moved. Then it jerked sideways and leapt away, disappearing as the normally silent creature crashed through the bushes.
    Odette gasped and almost dropped her bow. Had the animal been wounded? Or had she missed him?
    She ran forward, still hearing the animal crashing through the undergrowth. She tried to follow him, but the sound was growing faint. He was gone.
    She arrived at the place where the hart had been when she shot her arrow. There was no sign of it. She walked farther away, searching the ground, inside and under the bushes, kicking the leaves, but she still did not see the arrow.
    Getting down on her hands and knees, with the three young men also searching near her, she combed through the thick layer of cool, loamy, decomposing leaves.
    God, help me. I have to find that arrow. Her hands were shaking again. She couldn’t give Jorgen more evidence of her poaching.
    She went on searching until her hand touched something warm and wet and sticky on the leaves. She raised it to her face and sniffed. The coppery smell of blood. Her arrow must have wounded him.
    Her stomach churned. Bad enough to injure the animal without killing it, but now he would be carrying the evidence of her poaching with him.
    Feeling sick, her stomach threatening to throw up her dinner on the forest floor, she sucked in one deep breath after another. I must stay calm. She was sorry for the deer, but there was naught she could do for him. She must not think about his suffering.
    Odette forced her mind to conjure up the faces of the children she fed with her poached meat. Most of them did not know themeat came from her, or because of her, but they were the