John Flanagan - The Burning Bridge

Carney sank to his knees, sweat pouring off him and running into his eyes, chest heaving with exertion, waiting for the final stroke that would end it all.

"Don't kill him, Horace!" called Gilan. "I'd like to ask him some questions."

Horace looked up, surprised to see the tall Ranger standing there. He shrugged. He wasn't really the type to kill an opponent in cold blood anyway. He flicked Carney's sword to one side, way out of reach. Then, setting one boot against the defeated bandit's shoulder, he shoved him over in the dust on his side.

Carney lay there, sobbing, unable to move. Terrified. Worn-out. Physically and mentally defeated.

"Where did you come from?" Horace asked Gilan indignantly. "And why didn't you give me a hand?"

Gilan grinned at him. "You didn't seem to need one, from what I could see," he replied. Then he gestured behind Horace to where Bart was slowly rising from his kneeling position, shaking his head as the effect of the hilt strike began to wear off.

"I think your other friend needs a little attention," he suggested. Horace turned and casually raised his sword, swinging it to clang, flat-bladed, against Bart's skull.

Another small moan and Bart went facedown in the sand.

"I really think you might have said something," Horace said.

"I would have if you were in trouble," Gilan said. Then he moved across the clearing to stand over Carney. He seized the bandit by the arm and dragged him upright, frog-marching him across the clearing to throw him, none too gently, against the rock face at the far side. As Carney began to sag forward, there was a hiss of steel on leather and Gilan's saxe knife appeared at his throat, keeping him upright.

"It seems these two caught you napping?" Gilan asked Will.

The boy nodded, shamefaced. Then, as the full import of the comment sank in, he asked: "Just how long have you been here?"

"Since they arrived," Gilan said. "I hadn't gone far when I saw them skulking through the rocks. So I left Blaze and doubled back here, trailing them. Obviously they were up to no good."

"Why didn't you say something then?" Will asked incredulously.

For a moment, Gilan's eyes hardened. "Because you two needed a lesson. You're in dangerous territory, the population seems to have mysteriously disappeared and you stand around practicing sword craft for all the world to see and hear."

"But," Will stammered, "I thought we were supposed to practice?"

"Not when there's no one else to keep an eye on things," Gilan pointed out reasonably. "Once you start practicing like that, your attention is completely distracted. These two made enough noise to alert a deaf old granny. Tug even gave you a warning call twice and you missed it."

Will was totally crestfallen. "I did?" he said, and Gilan nodded. For a moment, his gaze held Will's, until he was sure the lesson had been driven home and the point taken. Then he nodded slightly, signifying that the matter was closed. Will nodded in return. It wouldn't happen again.

"Now," said Gilan, "let's find out what these two beauties know about the price of coal."

He turned back to Carney, who was now going quite cross-eyed as he tried to watch the gleaming saxe knife pressed against his throat.

"How long have you been in Celtica?" Gilan asked him. Carney looked up at him, then back to the heavy knife.

"Tuh-tuh-tuh-ten or eleven days, my lord," he stammered eventually.

Gilan made a pained face. "Don't call me 'my lord,'" he said, adding as an aside to the two boys, "These people always try to flatter you when they realize they're in trouble. Now:" He returned his gaze to Carney. "What brought you here?"

Carney hesitated, his eyes sliding away from Gilan's direct gaze so that the Ranger knew he was going to lie even before the bandit spoke.

"Just:wanted to see the sights, my:sir," he amended, remembering at the last moment Gilan's instruction not to call him "my lord." Gilan sighed and shook his head with exasperation.

"Look, I'd just as soon lop your head off here and now. I really doubt that you have anything useful to tell me. But I'll give you one last chance. Now let's have THE TRUTH!"

He shouted the last two words angrily, his face suddenly only a few inches away from Carney's. The sudden transition from the languid, joking manner he had been using came as a shock to the bandit. Just for a few seconds, Gilan let his good-natured shield slip and Carney saw through to the white-hot anger that was just below the surface. In that instant, he was afraid. Like most people, he was nervous of Rangers. Rangers were not people to make angry. And this one seemed to be very, very angry.

"We heard there were good pickings down here!" he answered immediately.

"Good pickings?" Gilan asked, and Carney nodded dutifully, the floodgates of conversation now well and truly open.

"All the towns and cities deserted. Nobody there to guard them, and all their valuables left lying around for us'n to take as we chose. We didn't harm nobody though," he concluded, a little defensively.

"Oh, no. You didn't harm them. You just crept in while they were gone and stole everything of value that they owned," Gilan told him. "I should think they'd be almost grateful for your contribution!"

"It was Bart's idea, not mine," Carney tried, and Gilan shook his head sadly.

"Gilan?" Will said tentatively, and the Ranger turned to look at him. "How would they have heard that the towns were deserted? We didn't hear a thing."

"Thieves' grapevine," Gilan told the two boys. "It's like the way vultures gather whenever an animal is in trouble. The intelligence network between thieves and robbers and brigands is incredibly fast. Once a place is in trouble, word spreads like wildfire and they come down on it in their scores. I should imagine there are plenty more of them through these hills."

He turned back to Carney as he said it, prodding the saxe knife a little deeper into the flesh of his neck, just holding it back so that it didn't draw blood.

"Aren't there?" he asked. Carney went to nod, realized what might happen if his neck moved, gulped instead and whispered:

"Yes, sir."

"And I should imagine you've got a cave somewhere, or a deserted mine tunnel, where you've stowed the loot you've stolen so far?"

He eased the pressure on the knife and this time Carney was able to manage a nod. His fingers fluttered toward the belt pouch that he wore at his waist, then stopped as he realized what he was doing. But Gilan had caught the gesture. With his free hand, he ripped open the pouch and fumbled inside it, finally withdrawing a grubby sheet of paper, folded in quarters. He passed it to Will.

"Take a look," he said briefly, and Will unfolded the paper, revealing a clumsily drawn map with reference points, directions and distances all indicated.

"They've buried their loot, by the look of this," he said, and Gilan nodded, smiling thinly.

"Good. Then without their map, they won't be able to find it again," he said, and Carney's eyes shot wide open in protest.

"But that's ours:" he began, stopping as he saw the dangerous glint in Gilan's eyes.

"It was stolen," the Ranger said, in a very low voice. "You crept in like jackals and stole it from people who are obviously in deep trouble. It's not yours. It's theirs. Or their family's, if they're still alive."

"They're still alive," said a new voice from behind them. "They've run from Morgarath-those he hasn't already captured."

deigning to receive her.

Halt and Alyss waited in the anteroom to Montague's office. Halt stood to one side, leaning impassively on his longbow. Montague was an oaf, he thought. As a Courier on official business Alyss should have been greeted without delay. Obviously aware of her youth, the Master of Cobram Keep was attempting to assert his own importance by treating her as an everyday messenger.