John Flanagan - The Royal Ranger

She assessed the group now, selecting the youngest of the children.

“You three,” she said, pointing to a boy and two girls who looked to be about ten years old. “Do you want to ride on Will Treaty’s famous horse, Tug?”

Tug rattled his mane and looked approvingly at her. I always knew I liked you.

But of course, Maddie didn’t hear him. The three children stared round-eyed at the stocky grey and nodded their heads.

“Come on then.” She lifted the first girl to place her in the saddle. Then she had second thoughts. She set the girl down and moved to face Tug, searching her memory for the code phrase Will had told her so casually on the day she was given Bumper. Finally, it came to her.

“Do you mind?” she said softly. She hoped the phrase would be acceptable for a third party. Tug’s intelligent eyes met hers. His head went up and down two or three times.

She had been pretty sure he wouldn’t buck off a small child, but it paid to make certain.

She picked the girl up again and boosted her into the saddle. Maddie kept one hand on her arm as she looked warily at Tug.

“Don’t do anything silly, will you?” she said. Tug turned his head to look her in the eyes. She could almost swear that if he could have raised an eyebrow, he would have. But he didn’t buck or plunge. Heartened, she picked up the second child, a boy this time, and lifted him onto the horse’s back as well. Again, Tug stood steadily and she knew it was all right. She boosted the third child up. Even their combined weight was a light load for the hardy little horse, she knew. She nodded her thanks to Tug and moved to stand by Bumper.

“Do you want to ride this horse?” she asked another of the younger ones.

The little girl nodded, then asked, “Whose famous horse is this?”

Bumper neighed. The sound was amazingly like a snigger. She thought quickly.

“Have you heard of Will Treaty’s famous friend, Sir Horace, the Oakleaf Knight?”

The girl nodded.

“This is his horse.”

I most certainly am not! I wouldn’t want a big lump like him riding me.

She moved closer to Bumper and whispered, “Just go along with it, will you? And how do you know my dad is a big lump?”

He’s a knight. They’re all big lumps. But all right, hoist her up.

“Don’t break her, all right?” She wasn’t sure if Bumper needed to hear his code phrase as well but she said it anyway.

Oh really!

She lifted the little girl into the saddle and looked around for another small child. Tim Stoker raised a hand to catch her attention.

“Miss Maddie?”

She rolled her eyes. She felt positively ancient. “Maddie will do, Tim. What is it?”

“Rob here has a bad leg. The Storyman burnt him with a hot iron.”

He indicated another boy, around his own age. Rob was shorter than Tim, and a little stockier. If he rode on Bumper, she wouldn’t be able to put a third child on him as well. But she shrugged. The remaining children were all older and bigger. She gestured to Rob.

“Up you go then, Rob. Mind that leg.”

She helped him put his foot in the stirrup. His right leg, she saw now, was heavily bandaged. He swung gingerly up into the saddle, sitting behind the girl.

She turned to face the remaining five children.

“All right, we have to go now. And we have to go quickly. I know some of you aren’t feeling well and you haven’t been properly fed for days—or even weeks. But I want to ask this one effort from you. If you become too tired, let me know and you can ride one of the horses for a while. All right?”

Mutely, they all nodded.

“Then come on. We’re going to jog for ten minutes, then walk for twenty. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and we’ve got to do it as fast as possible. Ready? Let’s go.”

She led the way, jogging steadily, with Bumper on her right and Tug on his far side. The children hesitated, then followed in a ragged formation. Their feet rustled and shuffled through the coarse grass. Then they reached the high road and the going was easier. They had been badly treated and ill fed, she knew. But they were children and she knew that children were usually fit. They’d manage. They’d have to manage. She was aware of someone beside her on her left. She looked around and saw Tim jogging there. He was frowning.

“Maddie?” he said, his voice jerky and staccato as his feet hit the road.

“What is it, Tim?”

“If Will Treaty is chasing the Stealer, why do we have to get away from here?”

She opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated, looking round. None of the others seemed to have heard his question.

“Just keep that thought to yourself, will you?” she said.

She saw the understanding dawning in his eyes. He nodded once, then dropped back to his former place.

The night wore on, and Will continued his game of cat and mouse with the slavers, letting them get closer to him, tantalising them with a quick sight of him, then moving quietly and surreptitiously away. It was a fine line to tread, keeping them on the hook without letting Ruhl know that he was doing so intentionally. But once the pattern was set and Ruhl accepted it, there was no risk that he’d give up the pursuit.

He recalled all he knew about Ruhl. In the days following Alyss’s death, he had interviewed as many of his former victims as he could. And he’d interrogated the members of his gang that he’d caught.

He had built up a picture of a cruel, ruthless and pitiless man. Intelligent, but with a fatal flaw. He could not stand to be crossed or thwarted. If that ever happened, Ruhl would be overcome with a blind, unreasoning rage and desire for revenge.

“Much like I was,” he muttered to himself.

That rage would often cloud Ruhl’s judgement and lead him to hasty, ill-considered decisions.

This was how Will believed that if he could spoil Ruhl’s plan to get the children away, the slaver would pursue him unrelentingly and single-mindedly, intent only on revenge. And so it was proving.

As the dark hours slipped away, Will led the pursuit farther and farther south, knowing with grim satisfaction that Maddie was herding the children in the opposite direction as fast as their legs, and the two horses, could carry them.

He glanced at the sky to the east. The first vague fingers of light were stealing above the horizon. Here and there, an occasional bird began calling, predicting the coming dawn.

“Time to make myself scarce,” he said. Once daylight came, it would be more difficult, with the lack of real cover available in the area. He let himself be seen once more, hearing the shouts of his pursuers. Then he crouched, staying just below the long coarse grass, and turned hard to the right. He covered two hundred metres this way, then dropped to the ground, pulling the cloak around him. He drew the saxe from its sheath and held it ready, hearing the rustling blunder of the slavers off to his left. He’d done this so often before that he knew that they could pass within a few metres of him and never be aware of his presence. The only way they might discover him was if one of them chanced to tread on him. He gripped the saxe a little more firmly.

If that happened, it would be bad luck, slaver.

He listened as they trampled through the long grass and low bushes, passing him by. The nearest pursuer passed twenty metres away. He waited till the noise of their passage dwindled, then died. Then he rose, still in a crouch, and began to ghost his way back towards the north.

Dawn was several hours behind them and the children straggled wearily along the road. They walked with heads down and lowered eyes, looking only at the next metre of hard, dusty road that lay ahead of them.