John Flanagan - The Royal Ranger

One of his henchman, the dark-cloaked man who had accompanied Ruhl on the raid at Willow Vale, hurried over.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Ruhl turned on him furiously. “That blasted archer has tricked us! He’s led us on and then backtracked in another direction, curse him!”

The cloaked man looked around uncertainly. “Are you sure?” he said, and instantly suffered the penalty for doubting Jory Ruhl. The Stealer swung his fist backhanded and struck the man, sending him staggering.

“Of course I’m not sure, you fool! If I was sure, I’d know where to find him!” he screamed, flecks of spittle flying from his lips. Instinctively, his follower backed away. He’d seen what Ruhl could do in a rage like this.

“All right, Jory, take it easy,” he pleaded, his hands up in a placating gesture. But Ruhl was beyond any calming down.

“Why am I surrounded by incompetents?” he demanded. “Didn’t any of you think he might have slipped away? Didn’t anyone notice that we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him for over an hour?”

Didn’t you? the cloaked man thought. But he was wise enough not to voice the question.

Ruhl looked around his followers and realised one was missing. There was no sign of the Storyman.

“And where the blazes is Victor? I’ll wager he’s skived off to the camp and is sitting around drinking ale and doing nothing! That’s just what the lazy swine would do! Typical of him! Typical of all of you, you useless bunch of incompetents.”

Nobody could tell him what had become of the Storyman, and Ruhl stormed up and down, screaming abuse and insults at his men, cursing them for not noticing his absence, and for not realising that their quarry had given them the slip. They had all seen how unpredictable Ruhl could be in this sort of mood. They all gave him room, moving away from him. And they all avoided making eye contact.

All except one—one of the Iberian sailors who had joined their group when La Bruja had slipped out on the ebbing tide. He stepped forward, meeting Jory’s gaze steadily.

“ Jefe , I think you may be right,” he said.

Ruhl turned on him with withering scorn. “Oh, you do, do you? How very perceptive of you. And what do you propose to do about it?”

The man shrugged, ignoring the sarcasm and the rage. “In my country, before I was sailor, I was hunter.”

“Well, let’s give three cheers for you, you ignorant Iberian peasant!” Ruhl replied. He went to turn away angrily, but the man raised his voice a little and continued.

“I was a perseguidor , a—” he searched for the Araluan word, then found it “—a tracker. I could follow the tracks animals made.” He indicated his feet, then the ground below them. “And men,” he added.

Ruhl’s rage dissipated as quickly as it had begun. He turned back, looking at the man with narrowed eyes.

“Are you a good… perseguidor?” he asked carefully.

The man shrugged. “I was the best in my province,” he said simply. “I think I can find where this man has gone.”

Slowly, very slowly, a smile began to broaden over Ruhl’s face.

The dark-cloaked man shook his head. The smile was possibly more unpleasant than the red-faced screaming, spitting bout of rage that had preceded it. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering about his leader’s sudden changes of mood, the way he could go from screaming fury to total calm in a blink of an eye—and back again.

There was something very wrong in that mind, he thought.

“I’m going to have to give them a real rest soon,” Maddie muttered to herself.

She’d just called a ten-minute break, and the children sank wearily and gratefully to the ground on the side of the road. Maddie helped Rob down from the saddle. He thanked her and limped to the roadside, sitting down carefully to avoid jolting his throbbing leg.

Even he was exhausted and he’d been riding the entire time. The others were silent, almost catatonic. For hours, they’d concentrated on placing one foot in front of another, until it seemed there was nothing else in their lives. Maddie went to unhook the water skin from Bumper’s saddle. Suddenly, the effort seemed too much for her and she leaned her head against the black and white coat for a few precious seconds. Her legs ached. Her feet were sore. There was a blister forming on her right heel and, for the moment, she could go no further.

Why don’t you ride for a while?

She looked up. Bumper had turned his head to look at her. His big brown eye was full of sympathy and concern for her wellbeing. She shook her head.

Can’t. I have to keep going or they’ll think they can stop.

Bumper trembled the skin and muscles of his shoulder, as horses do. To Maddie, it looked suspiciously like a shrug—and she knew horses couldn’t shrug. Once again, she reached up for the water skin. It was less than half full by now, even though she had been doling it out as sparingly as she could manage since they’d been on the road. There was another skin hanging from Tug’s saddle, but she’d used that first and it was virtually empty.

She took a swig of the lukewarm, leather-flavoured water, then slung the skin over her shoulder and began moving among the exhausted children, passing the skin to them, making sure that nobody took more than his or her fair share.

She’d just taken the skin back from one of the youngest girls when Tim Stoker, who was standing in the middle of the road, at its highest point, called softly to her.

“Maddie. Someone’s coming.”

Her heart missed a beat and she hurried to stand beside him. He was shading his eyes with his right hand, peering away to the south, and she began searching in the same direction.

There was a figure just cresting the horizon. That would be the direction she could expect Ruhl and his gang to come from—if they had given up the chase after Will.

It would also be the direction from which she might expect Will. But she was conscious of his teaching— always expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.

She looked at the children. None of them, aside from Tim, showed any interest in the distant figure. They sat on the roadside, heads down, elbows cradled on knees.

They were at the end of their tether, she knew. If that figure in the distance was a forward scout, if Ruhl’s men were just over the horizon, she would never get them moving fast enough to avoid recapture.

She scanned the horizon again. There was no sign of any other men following the first and hope began to grow in her heart. Nevertheless, she unslung her bow and eased the string in and out a few times to stretch her muscles. And she pushed back the flap in her cape that protected her arrows from bad weather.

“Who is it?” Tim asked.

She squinted, trying to see the figure more clearly. He was bare headed, she saw, and that wasn’t a good sign. Will would normally have the cowl of his cloak up. Her hand moved in an automatic gesture and selected an arrow from her quiver, nocking it to the string of her bow with practised ease.

“I don’t know,” she said. But as the figure came closer, she could make out more detail. He was carrying a massive longbow and she could see the fletching of a sheaf of arrows visible above his right shoulder. The knot that had formed in her stomach began to unravel and, as the figure stopped and waved, holding the longbow above his head, she started to laugh.

“It’s Will,” she said, with a huge sense of relief. She called to the children. “It’s Will Treaty. He’s here to take you home!”

Most of them were too exhausted to show any reaction. One or two looked up at the word “home’. But Tim was grinning at her, the relief obvious on his face. He alone had been aware of her fear that they might be followed by the kidnappers and he shared her sense of relief as she recognised the figure striding towards them.