Ranger's Apprentice 12: The Royal Ranger (39 page)

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.

‘Hmmmph,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘I suppose it’s a little like a hawk’s head now I look at it this way. How far away is it?’

‘It’s about a day’s ride on the main road,’ Will said. ‘The kidnappers will probably take longer. A day and a half, maybe two days. They’ll be moving on foot and they’ll have to avoid other travellers. Be a little hard to explain how you happen to be travelling with a group of young prisoners. By the same token, the highway runs through half a dozen towns and villages and they’ll have to bypass them.’

He pointed to a track marked on the map. ‘There’s a track here, running south. It’s a little bit of a diversion, but it links up with another road that runs east – and that road is a direct route, while the highway winds and twists and loops around to take in those other villages.’

‘Wouldn’t it make sense for the kidnappers to take that path?’ she asked.

But Will shook his head. ‘They were heading east when they left the village. That would indicate they’re taking the highway. As for this track, it may not even be on their maps. The Castle Trelleth cartographer is pretty painstaking. He puts in a lot of detail that other people would leave out.’

‘So if we take that path, we should make it to the coast before they do?’ Maddie said.

‘Yes. That way we can scout the area and see what’s what. There must be some sort of camp there and there may be other members of his gang waiting. Plus I heard him say he was expecting an Iberian slave ship in a few days. Always a good idea to get a look at the scene of the battle beforehand.’

She glanced up at him. ‘Is there going to be a battle?’

Will’s face was grim as he replied. ‘Oh, I think there might be.’

They finished their breakfast, rolled their blankets and tied them behind the saddles. Tug and Bumper were both restless and excited. They were keen to get moving again after days of enforced inactivity.

It was good to be in the saddle again and Maddie enjoyed the feeling of Bumper’s enthusiastic gambolling beneath her. Tug eyed the younger horse with a superior smirk.

‘You’re just as excited as he is,’ Will said softly. Tug tossed his head. In fact, both horses, sensitive to their riders’ mood, recognised the fact that whatever Will and Maddie had been searching for over the previous week, they seemed to have found it. Accordingly, they reacted to their riders’ new sense of purpose. They sensed that action
lay ahead of them – and Ranger horses were bred for action.

They cantered south and a little west until, an hour before noon, they reached the road that led east to the sea. Will stepped down from the saddle to inspect the ground, checking to make sure nobody had passed this way recently. It was one thing to assume that Ruhl and his men wouldn’t take this path. But it was wise to make sure.

‘A cow and a cowherd went through here,’ he said. ‘Maybe two days ago. Since then, there appears to be nothing.’

‘You didn’t think Ruhl would come this way,’ Maddie pointed out.

Will gave her a long look before replying. ‘And now I know he didn’t,’ he said. He swung up into the saddle and they cantered along the path, occasionally being forced to lie low over their horses’ necks to avoid overhanging trees.

‘Looks like not too many people use this track,’ Maddie commented.

Will said nothing.

Eventually, the path emerged from the thick forestland that comprised nearly two-thirds of its length. They found themselves cantering in open fields and past farmsteads, with occasional stands of timber dotted around. And before long, Maddie smelt that heady salt smell once more that told her they were nearing the sea.

In the midafternoon, they reached the coastal highway. The road was raised slightly above the surrounding terrain, with drainage ditches on either side. Will gestured for Maddie to remain on the lower ground off the road, out of sight. He dismounted and climbed up to the road, looking north and then south.