John Flanagan: The Kings of Clonmel

They were vague because this wild stretch of coastline was one of the few areas in the country that was under the jurisdiction of none of the fifty fiefs. It was a patch of land that had slipped through the cracks when the fief boundaries had been drawn up, many years ago. Possession of the area had been disputed, with a group of displaced Hibernians claiming it for their own. The Araluan king at the time took a quick look at the rugged, inhospitable coastal area and decided they were welcome to it. He had bigger problems on his mind as he tried to weld fifty recalcitrant, bickering barons into a cohesive governing structure for the country as a whole.

So this twenty-kilometre section of coastline was left to its own devices. Of course, had the king realised that he was ceding control of one of the best natural harbours within a hundred kilometres, he might have acted differently. But the existence of this little cove was a well-kept secret. So the little fishing settlement had prospered quietly over the years, beholden to no one and answerable to no king.

Yet it lay close to the extreme western border of Redmont Fief, so in recent years Halt had taken to keeping an occasional eye on the area – unnoticed by the local inhabitants.

In the past few months he had heard rumours about a religious cult whose behaviour sounded disturbingly familiar. People spoke of newcomers who would arrive in a village or hamlet with a simple message of friendship. They would bring toys for the children and small gifts for the leaders of the community.

In return, they asked for nothing but a place to worship their benevolent and all-loving deity, the Golden God Alseiass. They made no attempt to convert the locals to their religion. Alseiass was a tolerant god who respected the rights of other gods to attract and hold their own adherents.

So the Outsiders, the name adopted by the followers of Alseiass, would live in harmony with the locals for several weeks.

Then things would start to go wrong. Cattle would die mysteriously. Sheep and household animals would be found crippled. Crops and homes would be burnt; wells and streams were contaminated. Armed brigands and bandits would appear in the area, attacking and robbing travellers and farmers in remote farms. As days passed, their attacks would become bolder and more vicious. A reign of terror would begin and the villagers would go in fear of their lives. The village would become a village under siege, with nobody knowing where the next attack might fall.

Then the Outsiders would come forward with a solution. The outlaws surrounding the village were followers of the evil god Balsennis – a dark god who hated Alseiass and all he stood for. The Outsiders had seen this before, they would claim. Balsennis in his jealousy would try to bring ruin to any community where Alseiass and his followers found happiness. But Alseiass was the stronger of the two, they said, and he could help them. Alseiass could cast out the followers of his dark brother and make the village safe once more.

Of course, there was a price. To cast out Balsennis, special prayers and invocations would be required. Alseiass could do it, but they would need to construct a special shrine and altar for the casting-out ceremonies. It would need to be of the purest materials: white marble; perfectly formed cedar, without knots or kinks… and gold.

Alseiass was the Golden God. He would draw strength from the precious metal; gold would give him the power he needed to win this contest against Balsennis.

Sooner or later, the villagers would agree. In the face of increasingly fierce attacks and disasters, they would delve into their savings and hidden assets to provide the gold that was needed. The longer they hesitated, the worse the attacks would become. Where originally animals had been slaughtered, now people would become the targets. Leaders of the community would be found murdered in their beds. Once that happened, the villagers would hand over their treasures. The shrine would be built. The Outsiders would pray and chant and fast.

And the attacks would begin to lessen. The 'accidents' would cease to happen. The outlaws would be seen less and less and life would begin to return to normal.

Until one day, when they had stripped the village bare and there was nothing more to plunder, the Outsiders would disappear. The villagers would awake to find them gone – taking with them the gold and treasure that had been accumulated and saved over the years.

The Outsiders would move on to another village, another community. And the same cycle would begin again.

Halt had arrived in the latter part of the cycle, where the Outsiders were praying desperately to protect the village from the onslaught of Balsennis. He had watched the chanting and mock fasting that was going on. He had also seen the secret supplies of food that the Outsiders kept hidden. The 'fasting' was as false as their religion, he thought grimly.

And he had reconnoitred into the surrounding countryside and discovered the base where the Outsiders' accomplices were camped. These were the ones who carried out the dirty work – burning barns, mutilating animals, kidnapping and murdering local officials. The cult couldn't work without them but they remained unseen by the villagers.

It was a well-organised operation. He had seen it all many years before. Now it was back.

He frowned as a figure emerged from the large marquee that served as a headquarters for the cultists. It was pitched on the edge of the beach, close to where the fishing boats were drawn up beyond the tide.

The man was tall and heavily built. His grey hair was long and parted in the middle to fall either side of his face. From this distance, Halt couldn't make out his features but he knew from previous observation that the man's face was heavily pockmarked. Apparently Alseiass hadn't protected him from that problem, Halt thought grimly.

He carried a staff that marked him as the leader of the group. It was a plain, untrimmed branch topped with a stone plaque that bore the Outsiders' symbol – a rune-inscribed ring with an embossed orb at its centre, joined by a thin shaft of stone to another, smaller hemisphere outside the ring. As Halt watched, the elder strode purposefully towards the largest of the houses that comprised the village.

'Off to ask for more gold, are you?' Halt muttered. 'We'll see what we can do about that.'

The leader of the Outsiders met with a group of the villagers – obviously the senior members of the community – and they began an animated conversation. Halt had seen it all before. The Outsiders' leader would be reluctantly informing them that more valuables would be required. Alseiass needed extra strength to defeat his old enemy and only extra supplies of gold and jewellery would give it to him. It was a cunning ploy, Halt thought. By appearing reluctant to ask for more gold, and by not insisting when the village refused, the Outsiders deflected any charge that they were seeking the gold for themselves.

Halt watched as the elder shrugged his shoulders theatrically, seeming to be convinced that no more wealth was forthcoming. He spread his hands in a gesture of friendship and understanding and turned sadly away from the villagers' delegation. If he held true to well-established Outsider methods, he was promising that he and his people would continue to do their utmost to help, fasting and praying unselfishly to protect the village and its inhabitants.

'And tonight,' Halt muttered to himself, 'one of those houses will go up in flames.'

The three apprentices sat in a quiet glade, their assignment folders and pages of notes on their knees, watching Will expectantly.

'Very well,' he began. He was a little disconcerted by the three unwavering gazes that were trained on him. He realised the boys probably assumed that he had already come up with the perfect solution to the problem they'd been set. But that wasn't his role.