Ranger's Apprentice 12: The Royal Ranger

by John Flanagan

  Fernald mouthed the word ‘yes’. But no sound came. Rangers, he thought. You should never mess with Rangers.

  ‘What’s more,’ Will continued, ‘I will keep you there for the next five years, and in the meantime, I’ll have your licence as an innkeeper revoked.’ He saw a flicker of doubt in Fernald’s eyes. The innkeeper wasn’t sure what the word meant. ‘Cancelled,’ Will clarified. ‘Taken away.’

  Understanding and fear dawned in Fernald’s eyes, as he envisioned a future where he was penniless, unable to earn a living. Running an inn was all he knew. Without The Tubby Duck, what would he do? Will’s next words made the possible future even bleaker.

  ‘Then I will come back here and have this building torn down, brick by brick, plank by plank, and ploughed under. So when you do finally get out of prison, there will be nothing here for you. Do you doubt I have the authority to do all that?’

  Fernald shook his head. Rangers could do anything they wanted to, he knew. It would be nothing to a Ranger to have him thrown into a dungeon and his inn, his lovely inn, razed to the ground.

  ‘No, sir,’ he managed, in a small voice.

  ‘Then remember what I’ve said.’

  Fernald didn’t trust himself to speak. He could feel tears welling up at the thought that his beautiful inn might be destroyed at the whim of this implacable, pitiless figure.

  Will glared at him for several seconds. In fact, he hated to bully the man like this. But it was essential that there should be no word of Will’s presence, or of his questions, being bandied around the village. Even now, the Stealer might have men watching Willow Vale, listening for the slightest hint of danger. After all, somehow they had known that Maddie had been asking questions. If he could maintain secrecy for a few days by frightening Fernald, then he was willing to do so.

  For a moment, he wondered if he would be willing to carry out his threat if the innkeeper talked about his visit. He decided that, all things considered, he would.

  It was past midnight. Will sat comfortably in the long grass behind the Carter house. As Fernald had told him, the rear yard was littered with broken carts and their fittings. They made weird shapes in the light of a low sickle moon.

  Maddie was across the high street, watching the front of the house. Will expected that if the Stealer made an appearance, he would do so from the fields behind the village, where the surrounding trees would give him a convenient, concealed approach and escape route. He was hardly likely to come down the main street itself. But it was as well to make sure, and Maddie was positioned where she could see the part of the street that was hidden from Will’s view.

  He leaned his back against a tree stump. His cowl was up so that his face was in shadow, and his cloak was gathered around him. He remained motionless, knowing that the cloak and absolute stillness were his sureties against being seen. From anything further than three metres away, he was totally invisible. Even close to, he blended into the tree stump itself, appearing like a pile of fallen branches, or a large, irregular bush.

  This was the second night they had kept a vigil over the Carter house. By day, they had stayed back in the trees, hidden from sight. After the first night, Maddie had been impatient, fretting at the long hours of inactivity.

  ‘He’s not coming,’ she said. ‘We’ve missed him.’

  Will shook his head. ‘This is a large part of what we do,’ he told her. ‘Watching and waiting. Be patient. It’s only been one night. He could come tomorrow. Or the next night. But he’s coming.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Maddie asked.

  He considered the question in silence for a few moments, then gave her an unblinking look.

  ‘I don’t know. I just am. It’s a hunter’s instinct, I suppose.’

  Now as he sat here waiting, that instinct was telling him that tonight would be the night.

  HE HEARD THEM before he saw them.

  There was a faint sound of movement through the long grass and low-lying bushes behind him. Instantly, he froze. He lowered his breathing rate so that no movement or sound was perceptible.

  He resisted the almost overpowering temptation to turn and look. Instead, he strained his ears, listening to the faint rustling and swishing of clothes through the grass. Two of them, he thought. He couldn’t say how he knew that. It was just the result of years of experience, years of stalking and waiting for prey.

  The men, assuming they were men, were only a few metres behind him now, and several metres off to one side. Their attention would be focused on the Carter house, he knew. The odds were well against their seeing him, sitting huddled in the cloak. The wind was sending clouds scudding across the sky, alternately concealing then revealing the moon.

  The men paused for a few seconds, presumably studying the house and the village itself.

  ‘No one around,’ said a voice. It was startlingly close to Will, and only his discipline and training stopped him from starting in surprise. The voice couldn’t be more than two metres away.

  They were on the move again and they slid past him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. There were two of them, as he had guessed. One was wearing a dark cloak. The other was all in black. As he moved, Will saw that there were long, uneven strips of diaphanous black cloth trailing from his arms and shoulders. They swirled and stirred in the wind, giving him the appearance of a tattered, unearthly being – a creature from the graveyard.

  As the cloaked man crouched, the tattered figure produced a tight-fitting hood and pulled it over his head. He glanced sidelong at his companion and Will could see that the mask covered his face and was marked with lines of white paint, delineating what looked like a skull. Finally, he donned a wide-brimmed, floppy black hat, looking for all the world like some tattered, ghostly scarecrow. He bent low and began moving through the long grass towards the house. He would be a terrifying sight to any child who woke and saw him. Will imagined the throat-closing fear that would assail young Violet in the next few minutes. He was tempted to stop this abduction, and save her the horror of it all. But he knew that if he caught these two, the rest of the gang would fade away – with the children they had already abducted. Much as he hated the idea, he had to let poor Violet endure the next few hours. The slaving gang must have a hideout somewhere. If he could track them to it, he and Maddie could release all the captives and destroy the gang once and for all.

  The black figure was by the house now, almost lost in the shadows. Will wondered if Maddie had seen the two men and hoped that if she had, she wouldn’t try to signal him. They had devised a simple signalling method, but it could only be used when the kidnappers were not placed where they could see Will or Maddie. The evil-looking intruder was standing at the side window of the house. Mentally, Will nodded, although there was no actual movement of his head. He had reconnoitred the house the previous evening, looking for possible points of entry. The side window was the most suitable. Its lock was weak and primitive and the window itself was shielded from the sight of any passer-by in the village high street.

  The cloaked man, crouched only five metres away from Will, moved nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Obviously, he was keyed up, watching and waiting for something to go wrong.

  The black tattered figure eased the window open. He put one leg over the sill and slipped inside the house. Again, his companion shifted nervously, waiting for a shout, a scream of fright, an uproar from the darkened house. But there was nothing.

  Minutes passed. Will focused on the open window – now a dark square hole in the side of the house. Then he saw movement. A small figure in a white nightshirt clambered over the sill, followed by the black, predatory scarecrow. He held her by one arm, never letting her loose. As they made their way across the field to where Will and the Stealer’s companion waited, Will saw her stumble. Her abductor heaved her to her feet and Will could see she had a sack over her head.

  The cloaked man stood to greet them. He uttered a low laugh as he saw the frightened girl
stumbling awkwardly in the grip of the tattered figure.

  ‘Get that sack off her head,’ the Stealer told him. ‘We’ll move faster if she can see where she’s going.’

  ‘How did it go?’ his friend asked.

  The black figure shrugged. ‘She had a brother who woke up as I went into the room. But once he saw who I was, he shut up quick smart and pretended to go back to sleep. I told him if he raised the alarm, or told anyone what he’d seen tonight, I’d come back for him and cut out his eyes. Scared the living daylights out of him.’

  The cloaked man was busy undoing the sack and removing it from Violet’s head. She was a pinch-faced little girl, with badly cut brown hair. She was gagged with a thick piece of cloth and Will could see tears running down her face. But she remained silent, her large, frightened eyes moving from one man to the other.

  The Stealer was dragging off his skull mask now. He let out a sigh of relief as he shook his head to loosen his hair, which had been matted down under the tight mask.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I must say, Victor does a good job getting those kids scared of the Stealer. That’s the third time I’ve had one wake up and just freeze in terror.’ He laughed softly.

  Scum, Will thought. Victor, he assumed, was the name of the Storyman, who sowed such terror in the hearts of the children of these villages.

  ‘Full marks to you. The Storyman idea was yours, after all. He’s just doing what you told him to do, Jory.’

  In spite of all his discipline and training, Will’s head snapped round at the name. Fortunately, the two men were facing away from him and the movement went unnoticed. But then the Stealer turned back, running his fingers through his hair and scratching his scalp. At the same moment, a cloud that had been obscuring the moon scudded away on the wind and the pale light fell on his face.

  It was a face Will had never forgotten. He had seen it only once before, as he stood, helpless with rage, on the edge of a river, and watched a punt slide away from the bank. But it was burned into his memory as if with a hot iron.

  The Stealer in the Night was Jory Ruhl.

  Beneath the concealing folds of the cloak, Will’s hand moved to the hilt of his saxe, closing around it. A savage rage filled his heart and he wanted to leap to his feet, throw back the cloak and strike at the man who had been responsible for Alyss’s death, but he held himself back with an enormous effort. Deliberately, he slowed his breathing and gained control of the blind, unreasoning fury that threatened to overwhelm him. He had finally found Ruhl – ironically, when he was no longer looking for him. And Ruhl had no idea that he had been discovered.

  But if Will killed Ruhl here and now, he would never find the missing children from Danvers Crossing, Boyletown, Esseldon, and who knew how many other villages in the fief. Will knew he could track the kidnapper back to his base. Presumably, it would be somewhere on the coast, where an Iberian ship could embark the captured children and take them off to the Socorro slave market.

  Will would follow Ruhl to the coast, release the children and, if possible, destroy the ship.

  Then he would kill Ruhl.

  As the red rage slowly abated, he became aware of what Ruhl and his assistant were saying.

  ‘Well, she’s the last one,’ Ruhl said, jerking his thumb at the weeping little girl. ‘That makes ten and that’s how many we contracted for with Eligio. We’ll collect the others and head for Hawkshead Bay. The ship is due in three days.’

  His companion nodded assent. ‘It’s been a successful month,’ he said. ‘We only drew a blank in two villages.’

  ‘It would have been a better month if that Ranger hadn’t started snooping. That wasted four days of our time.’ The Stealer produced a length of rope from his pocket, pulled the girl’s hands behind her back and began to tie her wrists together.

  Liam, Will thought. If he’d had any doubts that the slavers were the ones who had killed the young Ranger, they were dispelled by Ruhl’s words. That’s something else you’ll pay for, he promised.

  ‘And I still wonder what happened to Benito. He was supposed to scare off that girl but he’s disappeared,’ Ruhl continued.

  The cloaked man shrugged. ‘I always thought he was unreliable. He’s probably drunk somewhere, or in jail. He was always getting into trouble.’

  ‘Well, it’s one less to share the profits with,’ Ruhl said. He tugged the rope around Violet’s wrists, testing the knot. The girl gave a small cry of pain. ‘Be quiet,’ he ordered her. Then he continued to his companion: ‘Let’s go. We’ve stood here long enough.’

  He grabbed the young girl’s arm and dragged her along beside him as he jogged across the grassy field to the dark line of the trees. The other man followed.

  Will waited until they had disappeared into the forest. He’d have no trouble tracking them and besides, he knew they were heading for a place called Hawkshead Bay. He wondered briefly about the man they called Benito.

  ‘Probably the one who tried to kill Maddie,’ he said to himself.

  When he was sure they were gone, and he could no longer be seen, he stood up from his hiding place. His knees ached with the movement, having been bent in one position for several hours.

  ‘I’m getting too old for this,’ he muttered. He had no idea that he was repeating a sentiment that Halt had expressed many times.

  He took his flint and steel from his belt pouch. Turning his back to the direction Ruhl had taken, he spread his cloak wide to form a screen. Then he struck two sparks from the flint in quick succession.

  It was the signal he had devised with Maddie before they began their vigil. Even though the spark was tiny, it showed up clearly in the darkness. The spread cloak shielded it, in case Ruhl happened to still be in sight and glance back at the house.

  A few moments later, he saw a dark form slip out of the alley where Maddie had been concealed. Staying in the shadows cast by the eaves of the buildings on the far side of the street, she moved quickly to the left for about twenty metres. At that point, she became lost to his sight. Minutes later, she crept silently out of another alley, parallel to the one beside the Carter house. She made her way to where Will stood, waiting.

  ‘I saw them,’ she said. ‘Did they take the girl?’

  Will nodded. ‘Yes. And now they’re heading back to their lair. It’s at a place called Hawkshead Bay.’

  ‘Do you know where that is?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet. We’ll check the map and see if it’s marked there. If not, we’ll simply follow Ruhl’s tracks.’

  She looked at him, slightly puzzled, her head to one side. ‘Ruhl? Who’s Ruhl?’

  ‘He’s the Stealer,’ Will told her. But something in his voice caught her attention.

  ‘Do you know him?’ she asked.

  Will nodded grimly. ‘He’s the man who killed my wife.’

  DAWN WAS FOUR hours away and Will decided they should get a few hours’ sleep before they set out after Ruhl and his gang.

  ‘We can’t track them in the dark and we’ve been up for hours keeping watch the past two nights. We might as well get some sleep while we can,’ he said. ‘They won’t be moving too fast. Ruhl said they were going to collect the other children they’ve abducted. That’ll slow them down.’

  Maddie yawned. She didn’t disagree with his assessment of the situation.

  They returned to the clearing where they had hidden the horses and rolled out their blankets on the soft, springy grass. Maddie was asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes. The tension of the nights spent on watch, and the events of the previous few days, had left her emotionally and physically exhausted.

  She awoke to what she now considered to be the delightful smell of fresh coffee brewing. She sat up and saw Will sitting beside a small fire, the map of Trelleth Fief spread out on the ground beside him. He heard her moving and looked up, gesturing to the coffee pot in the coals at the edge of the fire.

  ‘Get yourself some coffee,’ he said. ‘And there’s bread
there to toast as well. No sense setting out on an empty stomach.’

  She propped a slab of bread up on a stick close to the heat of the coals, then poured a cup of coffee. They had no milk but by now she could drink it black, so long as it was sweetened with plenty of honey. She sipped it appreciatively, turned the toast as it was on the point of burning and hunkered down opposite him.

  ‘Did you find Hawkshead Bay?’ she asked.

  He nodded, jabbing a finger at the chart.

  ‘A little south of here,’ he said. ‘I can see why they called it Hawkshead Bay.’

  She peered at it, frowning. ‘Doesn’t look like a hawk’s head to me,’ she said, rubbing her eyes.

  Will raised an eyebrow in her direction. ‘That could be because you’re looking at it upside down,’ he said patiently. ‘By the way, your toast’s burning.’

  She grabbed at the toast and burnt her fingers, dropping the slightly blackened slice of bread onto the grass. She muttered a very unladylike oath. That sent both of Will’s eyebrows soaring.

  ‘Not the sort of language one expects from a princess,’ he said. ‘Where did you hear that particular expression?’

  ‘From my mother,’ she replied shortly.

  Will nodded. ‘That would explain it.’

  ‘Besides, I’m not a princess any more, as you’ve pointed out.’

  He glanced quickly at her. He was pleased to note that there was no bitterness in her tone and she seemed to be merely stating a fact, not complaining about it.

  She actually prefers this to her former life, he thought, mildly surprised by the realisation. Then he thought, why not? At least these days there was a sense of purpose to her life, and a sense of accomplishment that had been lacking in her time at Castle Araluen.

  She retrieved the toast and spread butter on it, crunching into it with gusto. There were a few blades of grass clinging to it but she picked them out of her mouth, craning her head around to view the chart from Will’s perspective.