Entering the Battle

 

A retelling of a classic fairy tale that takes a completely different path over the river and through the Wood...

An EXCERPT from

Ruby Hood, A Twistedly True Tale

By Aspen Hite

The darkest shadows stretched for miles. No moon. Not a spec of light anywhere. Just pitch blackness enveloping the Wood like a worn blanket, filling every corner and every crevice. The air was thin and cold. Sharp.

Ruby walked at the helm of a pack of Lycan, all shifted and ready to fight. Mayor Wolf, a lean, black wolf with tiny tufts of gray around his snout, and Kassandra Wolf, a petite, light, shaggy wolf, flanked Ruby as the pack followed. Their heads all hung low, swinging left to right, as they scanned and sniffed their surroundings.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby tried to feel more confident like them, but fear screamed within her soul. Reaching under her cloak, she caressed the new labradorite crystal that hung around her neck and willed her pulse to calm.

Alert and aware, she listened to the wind. Noise and doubt crept into the corners of her mind, like scurrying beetles, but she pulled her cloak tighter and picked up her pace. They were getting closer.

Blue power orbs tickled at the tips of her fingers, ready to be unleashed. Even though that wasn’t part of the Aarush Mage plan. Ruby had a back up plan of her own, just in case.

The ground shook and a wall erupted, sprouting up in front of them. Ruby stumbled backward. The trees inched toward them, closing in. Blocking even the faintest glimmer of seeable darkness.

A Lycan yelped, then poof he was gone, snatched up by one of the meanest gnarliest trees Ruby had ever seen. Startled, she stifled a scream as a different tree came to life and gobbled up another creature. Right in front of her. Was she next?

The space continued to close around them. This was it, Ruby shuddered at the thought of the trees chomping on her bones. The small group backed into one another. Wolves growled, hackles raised, ready to go down fighting if it came down to that.  Ruby hands tingled. Would her power orbs even make a dent?

Suddenly, snippets of light broke through the space between the branches. The trees squealed and withdrew several inches. Ruby took a deep breath, happy for any reprieve. The light grew and grew, until it shone brightly.

Bringing her hand up to block the blinding light coming at her, she couldn’t see, but she could hear. Trees thumped, grunted, groaned, and screamed. The light disappeared and the darkness blanketed them again, but the trees were gone. So were the walls around them.

Ruby’s eyes adjusted, as the Lycan pack spread out, sniffing up a storm. There sitting in the middle of the Wood, far from its normal spot in the clearing, was Ruby’s cabin. Broken, battered and dilapidated. Ruby opened her mouth to speak, but the cabin belched out its windows and exploded. BOOM.

They all stared, speechless, there was nothing left but tree limbs and broken glass. Had the cabin just saved them?

The mayor yipped at her as the rest of the pack filed in behind him. There was no time to worry about the cabin. The path was clear now. Ruby fell in line with her army and together they continued through the Wood, toward the river. 

Feel like your missing something?

Check out the beginning(ish): New Twist on an Iconic Tale