Fox O' Nine Tales: Larissa Of Foxwood

Chapter Fourteen : A Desperate Escape

A Fox O'Nine Tale

By R.W. Slavin

Book One: Larissa of Foxwood

Chapter Fourteen : A Desperate Escape

Commander Ravenel and his savage howling host of wolfen invaders flooded through the burst asunder oaken door into Winston's hideaway haven, the wolves' angrily twitching ears nearly scraping the low ceiling of the fox-sized abode.

Winston, Larissa, Timothy and Faerie Evangeline were no longer standing frozen in their pose of brave defiance. The front sitting room was now empty.

"Find them!" snarled Ravenel.

Growling, howling wolfen guards fairly leapt through the velvety curtains that were pulled across the doorways of the several rooms in the rear of the apartment, eager to seize their targeted prey. These wolves' howls diminished and abated entirely within a few moments of their assaults upon the darkened rooms. They emerged one by one from their profitless searches, every one of them empty-handed.

Ravenel, enraged, looked as if he were about to burst into flames, so intense burned the fire in his cruel yellow eyes. He struggled for a moment to bring his anger under control. He then took one deep breath and his cruel eyes narrowed as he slowly turned his head, taking in every detail of Winston's now empty home. His gaze finally locked upon a most ordinary looking chest of drawers against the wall in the short hallway separating the front and rear rooms of the foxy apartment. The wolfen commander stepped over to the clothing chest and seized hold of it with his mighty arms, lifting it into the air. Cords of rope were attached to the back of the chest. They disappeared into the rug on the floor upon which the chest had rested. Ravenel hurled the chest across the sitting room, snapping the cords like they were strings. He then grabbed the rug with his clawed paw-like hand and pulled it clear – revealing the trap door in the floor.

The duped wolfen guards howled in their murderous fury as their commander opened the trap door and ripped at the cords of the pulley device that clever (and ever prepared) Winston had used to cover over his desperate escape with his young friends and faerie confederate.

One of Ravenel's wolves pulled a jeweled dagger from his leather bandolier of many jeweled daggers and made a move toward jumping through the escape hatch to pursue the fugitives. Ravenel raised his clawed hand to stop him.

"Let them run," said Commander Ravenel. "There may be bobby-traps in the darkness below and, in any case, by the time we've found and ignited torches, they'll be long gone into the maze of sewers running beneath the seven great moats. That filthy trickster fox has bought himself some time tonight...

"But," sneered the fuming wolf, his hungry eyes burning into those of each of his vengeance-starved guards as he now addressed them, one by one and snout to snout, "this vile fox has, in so doing, earned the top spot on my secret list of incorrigible criminal reprobates who will soon be subject to my special attentions."

A guttural murmur of frightful wolfen baying had begun to rise in the room as Ravenel spoke to his loyal personal detachment of marauder wolves. The muted howl grew louder and louder.

Ravenel's vocal volume rose apace that of his wolfen guards.

"This Kingdom of ours is about to finally be righted back onto its true and proper course, led by a true and proper leadership. The new dawn will soon split the heavens and illuminate our natural and sacred righteousness, my dear brothers! Heroes will rise! Traitors will fall!"