Ranger's Apprentice 12: The Royal Ranger (49 page)

Some sixth sense warned him of danger and he turned back to the centre of the line, where three men were advancing at a run.

He snapped off an arrow, missed as the man he had targeted sidestepped unexpectedly. Almost immediately, he had another shaft on the way. This time there was a cry and the man stumbled back as the heavy arrow hit him. But then he rose again and came on. The shot had wounded him, no more.

There was no time to try again. The man out on the right was up and running and already he had bypassed Will’s position. Will hesitated, glanced left and saw another had taken the left flanker’s place. He too was running, then he dropped into the grass and was lost to sight.

‘Time I wasn’t here,’ Will muttered. He looked north. Maddie and the children were disappearing over the distant skyline. They were several kilometres away, which gave him a little room to move.

He turned and ran full speed down the road, stopping after a hundred and fifty metres to play the game out again. He had a sinking feeling that it was a losing game,
but he planned to spin it out as long as he could. And if he could infuriate Ruhl sufficiently, perhaps the slaver might forget about recapturing the children. His thirst for vengeance over Will might let them escape.

He stopped and turned to face the enemy. Three shots. One left, one right, one slightly left of middle.

The first two did no more than scare the out-flankers, sending them diving for cover once more. The third hit Ruhl’s dark-cloaked henchman squarely in the neck. He stared wide eyed at the feathered shaft that protruded below his chin, looked at Ruhl, cowering in the long grass, and tried to speak.

The only sound he could make was a choking gurgle. Then his legs collapsed under him and he crashed to the earth.

Will saw him fall.

I’m improving the odds, he thought. But I’m not doing it fast enough.

They were running left and right now, but before he could react, they had gone to ground in the long grass again. The men in the middle of the line were advancing more slowly, staying low and under cover. But things were getting out of hand as the men on either end of the extended line moved past Will’s position. He had to pin them down. His hand brushed the feathered ends of the arrows in his quiver as he assessed how many he had left. There were about a dozen, maybe one or two more.

He decided it might be time to sacrifice accuracy for volume. The left flankers were up again and he loosed three arrows at them in rapid succession. Then he spun on his heel and let another three go in the general direction of
the men on the right flank. By chance, one of them came to his feet just as the first arrow thudded into the ground, several metres from him. He promptly dropped back into cover, shouting a warning to his companions. Will checked the left flank again. The sudden rapid volley had had the desired effect. The men there were nervous about committing themselves again too soon.

He nodded, satisfied. ‘Time to move,’ he said and took off running down the road again.

Cowering in the long grass at the side of the road, Jory Ruhl looked at the still body of his henchman. They had been together for two years now, and if Ruhl could be said to have a friend, this man had been one. Looking at the grey-shafted arrow lodged in his throat, Ruhl tried to remember how many the Ranger had shot so far. He had been shooting at a prodigious rate. Sooner or later, he must run out of arrows.

Staying down and out of sight, he yelled to those around him.

‘I want that man alive! Don’t kill him. Take him alive!’

THE SUN HAD
sunk below the western horizon and dusk was rolling across the landscape.

Maddie plodded on, herding the children ahead of her. She had long ago given up the attempt to keep them running. They couldn’t manage it. She laughed sardonically as she had the thought.
She
couldn’t manage it, let alone them.

She looked up, counting them. She had developed a morbid fear that one of them would drop out, falling onto the long grass beside the road, and she would not notice. They were all here, she thought. Then she hesitated. Had she counted ten, or nine?

Her mind was playing tricks on her, she realised. She was too exhausted to think straight. And if she was in such a bad way, how were the children managing? She recalled Will’s words:
If you’re still ahead of them at sunset, look for a good hiding place off the road.

Easier said than done, she thought. Where could they
hide in this open country? She turned and looked down the road behind them. There was no sign of any pursuit. Neither was there any sign of Will. Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered how she had left him to face Ruhl and his men alone.

‘I should have stayed with you,’ she said softly, even though she knew he would never have allowed her to do so. In her mind’s eye, she could see the slavers spreading out in a long line to encircle Will, possibly waiting till his supply of arrows was exhausted then moving in and killing him.

Or would it be as simple as that, she wondered. From what the children had told her, Jory Ruhl was capable of savage acts of vengeance against those he thought had thwarted him. And Will had certainly done that.

Possibly they had tortured him before killing him. Maybe they were still doing so.

She looked to her left and saw the low line of cliffs she had noticed when they had first passed this way. She stopped, trying to force her mind to think clearly. She had noticed something about those cliffs, but what was it? It had to do with Will’s instruction to her – something about hiding. She realised she was swaying with exhaustion. The children had stopped too. Several of them sank to the road and fell instantly asleep on the hard-packed earth and fine gravel. Tug and Bumper halted in place, looking at her curiously for instructions.

The cliffs. Hiding after sunset. What was it? Then she remembered. She had seen what looked like caves at the base of the cliffs. Caves and tumbled rocks where they could hide and find shelter and rest for the night. In the
dark, they’d be invisible from the road if Ruhl and his men passed by.

Suddenly, she was re-energised and she strode among the children, shaking and prodding those who had lain down.

‘Get up! Wake up! We’ve got to get off the road!’ she shouted at them. Predictably, Julia had been one of those to collapse and fall asleep. She whined now as Maddie poked her behind with the tip of her bow.

‘Stop it! That hurts! Leave me alone!’

‘It’ll hurt more if I use an arrow,’ Maddie told her grimly. ‘Now get up!’ She emphasised the order by kicking Julia lightly in the side of the knee – not enough to injure her, just enough to cause pain. Julia howled in protest. But she clambered to her feet, as did the others.

Maddie pointed to the line of cliffs. ‘There are caves over there and we can spend the night in them,’ she said. ‘You can sleep all you want once we get there. But for now you have to make one last effort. Now come on!’

She started off the road and they shambled after her. Suddenly mindful that Ruhl’s tracker might still be alive, she stopped them. Ten of them walking one behind the other would leave an unmistakable trail through the grass, visible even in the dark.

‘Spread out,’ she told them. ‘Don’t all walk behind me. Spread out to the sides.’

They obeyed numbly. The promise that they could soon rest lifted them for one last effort and they pushed their way through the grass towards the dark line of cliffs, stumbling, occasionally falling full length, but managing somehow to keep going.

At last, they reached the shelter of the tumbled rocks at the foot of the cliffs. Maddie had picked out one opening in the cliff face – a large hole that promised to open into a sizeable cave. But it turned out to be nothing more than a shallow depression, no more than two metres deep. She had a moment of panic. What if all the cave entrances proved to be like this one? She tried another and was equally disappointed. The cave was barely four metres deep and very narrow. There wasn’t enough room for ten children, two horses and an exhausted apprentice Ranger.

She inspected another three with similar results. Oddly enough, it was one of the smaller holes that proved to be the right choice. It was little more than a narrow slit in the cliff face, just over two metres high. But inside, it opened into a wide, high space. The floor was covered in soft sand and there was room for all of them. Bumper and Tug had a difficult time squeezing through the entrance, but they made it. Maddie looked around, satisfied. There was even a chance that pursuers, if there were any, having checked the larger caves, would ignore this insignificant opening altogether.

‘I’m sorry we’ve got nothing to eat,’ she said. Then she realised she was talking to herself. Her companions weren’t interested in food. They had each picked a spot and they were lying sprawled on the sand, sleeping the sleep of the totally exhausted.

‘I suppose I should set a watch,’ she said, knowing there was nobody to keep it but herself. Bumper snorted at her.

Sleep. We’ll warn you if anyone’s coming.

‘I suppose you will,’ she said. She took off her cloak, folded it and used it as a pillow. She lay back on the sand
and sighed contentedly. Before the sigh had died away, she was asleep.

There were no more arrows.

Will watched as the men who encircled him began to move closer, gradually becoming bolder as they realised that he wasn’t shooting – that he had nothing left to shoot.

He shook his head hopelessly. He’d played the game out as long as he could, hoping to give Maddie enough time to get away. Now it was over, ending the way he had known it would. They had outflanked him, then begun to close in from all sides. He’d kept them at bay as long as he could, snapping off shots at them whenever he saw a chance to do so. And now there were eight men surrounding him, slowly moving in. Two of them had arrow wounds, but they were still capable of fighting. All he had left were his saxe and his throwing knife.

He slipped his bow into the leather loop at the back of his boot and bent forward, using his body and back muscles to unstring it. He’d crafted the bow himself and it was one of the best he had ever made. Somehow, he didn’t want such a fine weapon to fall into the slavers’ hands. He tossed it away, into the long grass.

Ruhl was facing him, barely fifteen metres away. He could make out the man’s features in the gathering dusk, could see the anger there, and the hatred.

Come a little closer, Jory, he thought. His hand hovered over the throwing knife in its scabbard. The men around him all carried spears and one of them had a crossbow
trained on him. Ruhl, aware of his own limitations as a marksman, had passed it over to him. His own favoured long-distance weapon was the javelin, and he had three of the light spears in a leather tube on his back. A sword was in his hand as he moved closer.

Just another step, Will thought. His muscles tensed as he prepared to draw the throwing knife and send it spinning into Ruhl’s heart.

He heard a slight noise behind him. Something flicked past his eyes and suddenly a noose of rope tightened round his arms, pinning them at the elbows. He turned, furious that he had waited too long and the chance to kill Ruhl was gone.