The Royal Ranger: The Missing Prince

by John F. Flanagan

  Will watched her work and smiled. “I’ve taught you well,” he said. It was a matter of some pride among the Rangers that they could all cook nourishing, tasty meals over a campfire, and Will and Halt were two of the best camp cooks in the Corps. Knowing this, Maddie was quietly pleased at Will’s words of praise.

  The trees around their small campsite were swaying more and more as the wind freshened, seeming to be almost alive as they moved from side to side in a stately unison. They grew close together and the branches and trunks groaned as they rubbed against each other with the movement. Maddie looked up at the sky, where roiling clouds were quickly blanking out the stars.

  “That rain’s not too far off,” she said.

  Will studied the sky as well. The wind was strengthening with each moment and he could smell the rain in it. He rose from his comfortable spot in front of the fire. “I’ll get the rain blankets on Tug and Bumper,” he said.

  The rain blankets were waterproof tarpaulins, lined with woolen material, that went over the little horses’ backs and kept them warm and dry in bad weather. Of course, they could manage quite well with their natural coats, but there was no sense in making them suffer discomfort if it could be avoided.

  With their heightened senses, the horses could smell the coming rain as well, and they submitted readily to having the blankets put in place. Even Bumper, who was inclined to turn such an exercise into a game, only dodged and skipped away two or three times before standing, head lowered, while Will slipped the cover over his head and strapped it under his belly.

  They ate quickly. While Will was boiling a pan of water to clean the platters, the first big raindrops began to hammer down. Then a spear of lightning split the sky and a massive reverberation of thunder boomed out.

  A second later, the rain hit them, driven by a sudden, ferocious wind and sheeting down on the campsite.

  “We’ll leave these for the morning,” Will said, dumping their platters and spoons in the boiling water and leaving the pan over the fire. It would be extinguished within a few minutes, he knew. Maddie quickly packed up the cooking utensils, seized the coffeepot, half full of fresh coffee, and their mugs and clambered into the back of the cart, where the rain was drumming down on the canvas roof. Will led the two horses round to the lee side of the cart, where it would shield them from the worst of the wind and rain. They nosed up against it, grumbling and nickering. Then Will clambered into the cart as well.

  Normally, when they camped, he rolled his bedding out on the grass under the cart. Tonight, the ground there was already centimeters deep in rain.

  There was another vicious crack and lightning flared, lighting the sky around them. Will made himself comfortable in the cart. It was cramped, but not unbearably so. Maddie passed him a mug of coffee and he sipped at it gratefully. In the few minutes it had taken him to organize the horses, he had been quite drenched and the hot drink was most welcome.

  It was the mother of all storms. The cart shuddered with the constant booming of thunder and fierce wind and rain that slammed into it—the wind driving the rain almost horizontally in solid sheets of water. The lightning was vicious and intense. Each jagged fork lit up the interior of the cart, so that the canvas roof showed bright white, with the dark outline of the frame seared across it. The image was left burned onto their vision for several seconds after the light had faded.

  Maddie felt Bumper shoving his muzzle against the canvas close by her. She wriggled her hand under the point where the canvas hood met the timber side of the cart and stroked his velvety nose with her fingertips.

  “Nothing to worry about, boy. Just a little thunder and lightning,” she crooned softly.

  “He’s frightened of storms?” Will asked.

  She shook her head. “Not frightened. He doesn’t like the sudden noises and flashing of lights. He’s okay if he knows I’m close by.”

  The end of her sleeve was soaked with the icy rain and she withdrew her hand, tucking it under her blanket and pulling the warm, soft wool up to her chin. She quite enjoyed sleeping while it rained—even when it was a savage storm like this one. She felt warm and safe under her blanket and the noise and flaring lightning only added to the sensation of being dry and secure in the cart.

  Then a trickle of water found its way through a seam in the canvas cover and ran down into her ear, and the spell was broken.

  The storm gradually rolled over them and over the mountains to the west. The rain persisted, as did the wind, for a few hours more. Around four in the morning, it died away to a gentle patter. An hour before daybreak, something woke her. She lay in her warm blanket for a few seconds, wondering what it had been. Then she realized: The rain had stopped.

  The sun rose on a bright, clear day, with not a breath of wind.

  25

  Will awoke stiff and cramped. The cart was small and, with Maddie’s target wheel and their other paraphernalia packed inside, the space left for sleeping was cramped. Maddie, of course, had her usual sleeping space where she could stretch out comfortably. But Will had been confined between the target wheel and the side of the cart and had lain awkwardly. When he awoke, his back ached and his neck was stiff.

  He stretched and groaned. His neck would be stiff for some hours, he knew. Still, there was nothing for it. If he hadn’t slept in the cart, he would have been drenched. He untied the flap at the back of the cart and peered out. The sky was blue, with a few puffs of white cloud sliding slowly across it—a far cry from the brutal weather the night before.

  “You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth,” he said to himself.

  He swung his legs over the tailgate of the cart and dropped lightly to the ground—right into a shin-deep puddle of rainwater that lay there. He cursed quietly and picked his way to a dry piece of ground. Inside the cart, Maddie laughed, guessing what had happened.

  “You said we’d be getting our feet wet,” she said, reminding him of his prediction of what would happen at the ford. As her comment brought that thought to his mind, a worried frown crossed his face. He looked up and down the road, and at the cleared space to either side. Vast sheets of rainwater lay everywhere, pooled in the depressions in the roadway and the soft ground to either side. There had been so much rain the night before that it had been unable to drain away.

  “We may have a problem,” he said. He moved around to the side of the cart where Tug and Bumper were still standing. They had found a slightly higher patch of ground, where the rain hadn’t collected. They nickered good-naturedly to him as he unstrapped the tarpaulin blankets and laid them over the shafts at the front of the cart to dry. The two horses wandered a few paces, looking for fresh grass to crop and bending their necks to drink at some of the deeper puddles.

  He walked back to the rear of the cart, looking for a dry approach. But there was none and he shrugged fatalistically. His feet and leggings were soaked now anyway. He waded through the rainwater and pulled the canvas flap aside. Their saddles and tack were stacked on the left-hand side of the cart. He took his saddle, saddle blanket and bridle and backed away. Maddie watched him going and scrambled to the back of the cart, finally forsaking the warmth of her blankets.

  “Going somewhere?” she asked as he moved to a dry patch of ground and whistled for Tug to join him.

  “I’m going to take a look at that ford,” he said as he quickly saddled Tug. “All that rain last night could mean it’s not there anymore.”

  She frowned. That thought hadn’t occurred to her. “What do we do if it’s flooded?”

  He nodded toward the mountains looming above them in the west. “According to the map, there’s a track across the mountains. It’s a long way around, but we may have to go that way.”

  He swung up into the saddle and wheeled Tug toward the roadway. Maddie watched as they cantered off, splashing through the pooled water on the road. Will called back to her.

  “Y
ou can get breakfast ready while I’m gone.”

  Holding Tug to a steady canter, and without the cart to slow them down, he reached the ford in fifteen minutes. He brought Tug to a halt on the high ground of the bank, before it sloped down to the river’s surface where the ford should have been.

  “Damn,” he said quietly to himself.

  Tug’s ears pricked at the sound of his voice. Are you talking to me?

  He sighed. “Not really. Just annoyed. We should have crossed last night.”

  He took the map from under his jerkin and unfolded it, studying the notations at the site of the ford. They indicated that the river at this point was fifty meters wide and a meter deep—easily passable for the cart and the two horses. What he now saw was something entirely different. The ford, as such, had simply disappeared, obliterated by the surging waters that flooded the riverbed.

  The crossing was now at least one hundred and fifty meters wide. And while the first few meters might be a meter deep, it rapidly dropped away, so that there was no sign of the riverbed beneath the brown, surging waters.

  Clicking his tongue, he urged Tug down the bank and into the edge of the water. He was instantly aware, as the sturdy little horse arranged his footing and set himself more securely, of the power of the running current. He glanced down to where the water was lapping against Tug’s belly and could see the water piling up against his upstream legs. Tug snorted as Will urged him forward. He stepped carefully, feeling out the uneven bottom, scoured into a series of ridges and channels by the fast-running water, as he went. Within a few paces, the water was up to his shoulders, well over the indicated depth of one meter. And with each pace, it rose higher.

  And the far bank was still at least one hundred and forty meters away.

  “We’ll never do it,” Will said bitterly.

  I could make it. Even if I have to swim. Bumper too.

  “Not with the cart,” Will said. “And we can’t leave that behind.”

  Tug’s ears twitched and he shook his mane. He hadn’t thought of that.

  Wary of the fierce current battering against his horse, Will carefully turned him around and rode back out of the river. On dry land once more, Tug paused to shake himself, sending a brilliant fan of silver spray in all directions. Will turned back in the saddle to study the river. Of course, the water would recede in a day or two and the ford would be passable again. But that left the bridge farther along. Chances were, with flooding as violent as this, it could have been swept away, and that couldn’t be rectified in a day or two.

  “We’re going to have to take the mountain road,” Will said, and he urged Tug into a canter back toward their campsite. Aware that the mountain track would take a lot longer to negotiate, he was tempted to set the little horse to a gallop. But he desisted. It would only save him five or ten minutes at the most.

  And Tug was going to need all his strength for the mountain track.

  * * *

  • • •

  The track was a nightmare. In fine weather, it would have been difficult. But after the heavy rain, it was a mass of slippery, steep and unstable mud that wound its way up the side of the mountains.

  Will and Maddie dismounted from the cart and took it in turns leading the horses as they struggled up the path, pulling the cart behind them. Their usual practice had been to let each horse pull the cart for an hour, changing them over at the end of that time. Now Will reduced that to half an hour, keeping a watchful eye on the willing little beasts as they fought their way upward in the gluey, uneven mud.

  At the end of each half-hour shift, he praised and patted the horses as he unharnessed them. They were amazing animals, he thought, willing to give their all for their masters, never flinching or refusing or backing off from the task in hand. They simply put their shaggy heads down, braced themselves and heaved against the harness as they dragged the cart up the winding, steep path.

  At times, the track was so steep and slippery that Will and Maddie had to lend a hand, putting their shoulders against the rear wheels, or the back tray of the cart, and heaving and shoving while whichever horse was in the harness pulled. On one occasion, when Bumper was harnessed, they even had to rope Tug to the cart for extra purchase. Such was the training and dedication of the Ranger horses that Tug needed no urging or driving. Sensing what had to be done, he added his considerable strength to the task.

  Finally, after hours of hauling and heaving and shoving, covered in mud and panting heavily, they reached the top.

  The mountain here widened into a large plateau, where the descent was more gradual. The track led them across the plateau, angling north, then northeast as it slowly descended by gentle stages to the plain below. They could see the river curving away beneath them, and at one point Maddie plucked at Will’s sleeve and pointed.

  Following the direction she indicated, he could make out the wreckage of the bridge.

  “Even if we’d got across the ford, we’d never have made it past there,” she said.

  Will grunted in reply. His concern that the bridge might have been washed away was proven correct. That was some consolation, even though the mountain track had added kilometers to the distance they would have to travel.

  Halfway down to the plain, he saw smoke rising from among a grove of trees. He checked the map once more and pointed it out to Maddie.

  “There’s a village there, called Entente,” he said. “The map says there’s an inn. We might stop and clean up a little, and give the horses a break.”

  “That sounds agreeable,” Maddie said, and he looked suspiciously at her, wondering if she had just made an outrageous pun. She returned his look with such an air of innocence that he was sure she had.

  Mud spattered and bone weary, they rode into the village, a collection of around twenty buildings. They were mostly residences, although there was the usual selection of commercial businesses: a mill, a tannery and a smithy among them.

  And there was the inn. It was the largest building in the village and it was set at the far end as they rode in. It was the only two-story building, and it had the usual open space with tables and benches under an awning outside the main entrance, where customers could relax and eat and drink in fine weather.

  Not that there’d been too much of that lately, Will told himself, noting the preponderance of deep puddles along the road surface and in the stamped-down fine gravel that covered the open space outside the inn. He brought their distinctive cart to a halt outside the inn. A second or so later, the door opened and a man emerged, wiping his hands on a long apron tied around his waist—the standard badge of office of an innkeeper.

  “Good afternoon,” he said cheerfully. “Always glad to see jongleurs passing through. Were you planning to entertain us tonight?”

  Will grimaced. He was weary and muddy and didn’t feel like performing after their difficult day on the road.

  “I was planning more on a bath and a soft bed,” he said. “It’s been a difficult day.”

  The innkeeper nodded shrewdly. He gazed back down the road that had brought them here. “Came up the mountain, did you?” he asked.

  “That we did. The ford at the River Cygnes is washed out. And the bridge is washed away too.”

  “That would happen after that storm last night,” the innkeeper averred. He paused, then went on in a persuasive tone. “Still, if you’d agree to entertain the customers tonight, that hot bath and soft bed would be on the house.”

  Will considered the offer for a few seconds. His neck was still stiff after sleeping in the cramped interior of the cart the night before. The temptation to stretch out in a real bed, and the luxury of a hot bath, was too strong to resist.

  “You’ve just about talked me into it,” he said. “If there was a pot of good coffee included?” He let the sentence hang and the innkeeper smiled.

  “Of course. You can leave your wagon
there. It’ll let people know you’re in town.” He indicated a side alley. “There’s a stable behind the inn. You can put your horses in there. I’ll get one of the girls to start heating water for the bath. The bathhouse is in the back as well.”

  Will clambered down wearily and began unharnessing Bumper, whose turn it was between the shafts.

  “I’ll take the first bath,” he told Maddie.

  “I expected no less,” she replied, smiling.

  26

  The steaming-hot bath, followed by thirty minutes’ real sleep in a proper bed, did wonders for Will’s sense of well-being. There was only a vague memory of his stiff neck remaining as he washed out his mud-spattered clothes, ran them through a mangle, then spread them on a line in the stable yard to dry.

  He and Maddie ate an early supper—a fragrant vegetable stew with fresh, crusty bread and a jug of excellent coffee sweetened, as was their habit, with honey. The innkeeper eyed them curiously as they stirred the honey into the coffee.

  “Can’t say I’ve seen that done before,” he said.

  Will gestured to the coffee jug and honey pot. “Try it,” he said and the innkeeper complied. His face lit up with a gratified smile as he tasted the fragrant, sweet brew and he quickly took another sip.

  “Excellent!” he said. “I’ll be recommending that to my customers from now on.”

  “And charging them for the honey, I imagine,” Will said.

  The man grinned. “Of course. Have you been in the innkeeping trade then?”

  Will shook his head. “No. Just a lot of inns. Never knew an innkeeper who didn’t know how to squeeze a few extra coins out of his customers.”