The Lost Stories (14 page)

The pirates were only a few meters away, the boat coming on fast. The pirate leader crouched, ready to spring up onto the raft. The boat struck them at an angle, grating against the rough timber of the riverboat and swinging around to lie parallel to her. As they touched, the pirate leader leapt onto the decking, shouting to his men to follow. Half a dozen of them surged behind him, waiting their turn to leap onto the raft.

“They're boarding,” the skipper shouted. As he did so, a section of the tarpaulin covering the cargo was thrown aside and two green-and-gray-clad figures emerged from their hiding place beneath it.

Each of them had a massive longbow, with an arrow nocked and ready to draw.

“King's Rangers!” shouted the one on the left. “Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

For a moment, the pirate leader was stunned. The sudden appearance of the two Rangers stopped him in his tracks. Then his mind worked rapidly. He and his men had been caught in an act of piracy. The penalty was hanging—certainly for him as their leader. There was only one possible course he could follow. He snarled incoherently in rage, then turned to yell at his men.

“Come on! Kill them! Kill them all!” He started down the raft at the two cloaked figures.

“Not the answer I wanted,” Halt said quietly. He drew, sighted and shot before the pirate could take a second step.

The heavy, black-shafted arrow struck the man in the center of his chest, hurling him backward. He crashed off the edge of the raft into the mass of men trying to follow him aboard. The narrow pirate boat rocked dangerously as men scattered and fell. One of them went overboard. Others crashed backward into the rowers. The result was pandemonium.

Then one of them took charge. The idea of facing two Rangers, with their fabled skill for fast, accurate shooting, was a different matter from killing helpless riverboat men.

“Let's get out of here!” he yelled at the helmsman. Then he screamed at the oarsmen, who were trying to extricate themselves from under the fallen bodies of their companions, “Row, blast you! Row! Get us out of here!”

Slowly, order began to prevail in the pirates' boat. Halt turned to the two riverboat oarsmen and jerked his thumb toward the pirate craft.

“Grapple her! Quickly!”

The two boats were beginning to drift apart, as the pirate helmsman worked his tiller back and forth to swing his boat away. Oswald and Ryan dropped their cudgels, seeing no further need for them, and raced forward. Oswald grabbed up a three-pronged grappling iron that had been left ready, whirled it around his head and released it.

It soared across the widening gap, trailing a stout hemp line behind it. It clattered into the stern bulwark of the pirate boat and immediately Oswald hauled back on it, setting the sharp barbs into the timber. He began to haul the pirate boat back toward the raft.

In the meantime, Ryan had snatched one of the long oars from its rowlock. As his brother heaved the pirate boat in, he set the oar against it, pushing it out so that the pirates were trapped, three meters from the raft.

Halt and Will had made their way to the prow of the riverboat. Now they stood, their longbows threatening the pirates.

“Cut that rope!” screamed the pirate helmsman. Seeing none of his men willing to move under the threat of those bows, he drew a heavy dirk from his belt and let go of the tiller, moving toward the grapnel.

Will's bow thrummed. There was the familiar whip of the limbs and the scraping sound of the arrow passing across the bow, then the helmsman reared up, an arrow in his side. Will had shot to wound him in the arm. But at the last moment, the man had moved, exposing his ribs.

He looked up at the young Ranger in horror as he realized what had just happened to him. The dirk clattered onto the floorboards of the boat, then the helmsman fell sideways. His legs were trapped as his body went over the bulwark and the boat took on a sudden, dangerous list. Then one of his crewmen freed the dead man's legs and tossed them overboard. The boat came back upright and the body of the helmsman drifted away with the current. The water around him was slowly turning red.

“Throw your weapons overboard!” Halt ordered. For a second, nobody responded. Then he raised his bow and suddenly knives, clubs, hand axes and swords all splashed over into the brown river water.

“Oswald, tie off that rope,” Halt ordered, and the river trader quickly looped the grapnel rope around a bollard. Halt's attention had never wavered from the pirates. Now he gestured toward the sand spit on the left bank of the river.

“Get on those oars!” he ordered. “And tow us ashore on that sandbank!”

Under the force of six of the oars the pirate boat began to swing toward the shore. As the strain came onto the rope, she moved more slowly, dragging the heavily laden raft in her wake. At a signal from Halt, Oswald and Ryan resumed their place at their own oars and helped propel the raft toward the sand.

When Halt felt the raft grate against the sandbar, he leapt down in knee-deep water, Will beside him. The two longbows continued to threaten the pirates.

“Out of the boat,” Halt ordered. “Facedown on the sand. First man to make a move I don't like, I'll shoot.”

For a moment, the boat's crew hesitated. After all, there were only two archers facing them. Then common sense reasserted itself. They were unarmed and those two archers were Rangers. In the space of ten seconds, they could unleash four or five arrows each. With two of their members already dead, none of them liked those odds. Slowly, reluctantly, they stepped ashore, then lay facedown in the sand.

“Put your hands behind your backs,” Halt ordered, and when the pirates did so, he called to the riverboat crew. “Ryan, Oswald, tie them up, please.”

The two brothers were happy to oblige. They moved quickly among the prone figures, carrying short lengths of cord that they had prepared earlier in the day. They tied them firmly and, being boatmen, they knew how to tie a knot that wouldn't loosen.

“Now tie them all to one long rope,” Halt said. “We wouldn't want any of them to make a run for it.”

The riverboat skipper tossed them a long, heavy cable and the brothers quickly attached the bound men to it. Then they hauled them on board the riverboat and deposited them, none too gently, on the planking.

“There's a garrison town about three kilometers down the river,” Halt said. “We'll deposit these beauties there for trial. In the meantime, we can all relax and enjoy a leisurely boating trip down the Tarbus.”

“Except for us,” Ryan said as he returned to his place at the oar. But he was smiling. He was delighted to see these pirates out of action. The riverboat community was a small one and he'd lost several friends to pirates in recent days.

“Yes,” said Halt, smiling in return. “Except for you.”

“I WISH ALL OUR MISSIONS WERE OVER AS QUICKLY AS THAT ONE,” Halt said.

It was the following day. They had deposited the pirates with the garrison of Claradon, then hired rowers to bring them back upriver in the pirates' boat. They had reclaimed Tug and Abelard where they had left them stabled at the start of their river journey and were riding home.

“I have to say, I expected we'd be going up and down the river for weeks before the pirates took the bait,” Will said. “Not just four days. What a stroke of luck.”

“Yes. I didn't fancy the idea of hiding under that stuffy tarpaulin for the next few weeks,” Halt said. “But I guess sometimes the luck falls our way.”

They rode slowly up the main street of Wensley, nodding to the people who greeted them as they passed. Most of the greetings were friendly. But Will noticed several townsfolk who reacted with surprise at the sight of the two Rangers, then hurried away. He grinned.

“Looks like some people are surprised to see us back so soon,” he said. “I wonder what they've been up to.”

Halt raised an eyebrow. “I'm sure we'll find out in the next few days. There are always people waiting to take advantage of our being absent.”

As the affair with the pirates was an internal Redmont Fief matter, they hadn't bothered to ask Gilan to fill in for them. But Halt had been a Ranger long enough to know that even a peaceful village like Wensley had its share of petty thieves, gamblers and confidence tricksters who would be ever ready to take advantage of his and Will's absence.

They reached the turnoff to the little cabin in the trees and Will nodded toward the castle, dominating the landscape on the hill above them.

“Are you heading up to the castle straightaway?”

Halt hesitated, looked at the sun and saw there were still several hours of daylight left. “No. I'll come to the cabin. I can get started on my report for Crowley.”

“Better you than me,” Will said cheerfully. There were some advantages to being the junior Ranger, he thought. Halt turned an unsmiling gaze on him for several seconds. Will shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. It was never a good sign when Halt looked at him like that.

“On second thought,” the older Ranger said, “I might sit in the sun on the porch and let you write the report. I'll sign it—after I've made numerous corrections.”

“It might not need any corrections,” Will suggested tentatively, and Halt smiled at him.

“Oh, I'm sure I'll find lots of them.”

Will was about to answer when they heard the sound of galloping hoofbeats behind them. They both turned to see Alyss about a hundred meters away, coming from the village and closing on them fast.

“Someone's glad you're home early,” Halt observed, a slight smile touching the corner of his mouth. He liked Alyss and he was delighted with the relationship that had grown between her and Will.

Will smiled too at the sight of her. She sat on a horse beautifully, he thought, and her long blond hair streamed out behind her in a most attractive way. Then, as she grew closer, he could see no sign of a welcoming wave or smile, and the smile on his own face faded.

“Something's wrong,” he said. Halt had come to the same conclusion. They stopped and turned their horses back to face her as she slid her white mare to a stop.

“Will!” she cried, her voice anguished. “I'm so sorry! Ebony's missing!”

“MISSING? WHAT DO YOU MEAN MISSING?” WILL ASKED. EVEN AS he said the words, he realized how ridiculous they were. There could only be one meaning to Alyss's statement.

“She's gone. Three days ago. I left her by the cabin while I went to a meeting in the castle. I'm so sorry, Will. I should have taken her with me! But I thought . . .”

Will reached out and touched her hand to calm her. She was on the verge of tears, he could see.

“No reason why you should have,” he said. “I often leave her on her own at the cabin.”

When he and Halt had left to pursue the pirates, Alyss had moved to the cabin temporarily to keep the young dog company and to feed and water her each day. But of course, Will had known Alyss would have duties that would take her to the castle. Ebony wasn't a puppy. She would have appreciated Alyss's company, but she could be trusted to stay close to the cabin if Alyss was called away for an hour or two.

“Maybe she wandered off into the forest,” Halt suggested. But Will shook his head.

“She wouldn't do that. She's trained to stay where she's told.” He looked at Alyss again. “When did you last see her?”

“Three days ago, as I said. I'd given her her morning feed and walked her down to the village. Then I had a message that I was needed at the castle. I left her on the porch and told her to stay. I came back two hours later and she was gone. I thought at first that she might have chased something into the forest, so I went looking for her, calling her. But there was no sign of her.”

“What about the village?” Will asked. “Did anyone there see her?” If there was any chance that Ebony had wandered, she would have gone no farther than Wensley. She was a popular dog with the villagers and on a few occasions she had sought out their company.

Alyss shook her head. “I asked, but nobody had seen her. I'm so sorry!”

Now an insidious worm of concern began gnawing at Will. Initially, he had thought there would be some simple explanation for the dog's absence. But Alyss's agitated state was contagious. Alyss was usually calm and in control, even in the worst crisis. He was beginning to think there was more to this matter than he had heard so far—that there was something Alyss was yet to tell him.

Unless some accident had befallen Ebony, there was really only one reason for her continued absence.

“Someone must have taken her,” he said. One look at Alyss's face told him that this was what she feared. “What is it?”

Tears began to flow down her cheeks as she answered. “There was a band of travelers who came through the district—”

“Travelers?” Will interrupted. “What sort of travelers?” Although he had a suspicion that he already knew. Alyss's next words confirmed it.

“Roamers. They camped outside Wensley for a night, then moved on. I didn't even know they were there until I started asking about Ebony. They were here the day she disappeared.”

Roamers were itinerant travelers who made their way about the country in horse-drawn caravans. They had no permanent home but would camp for a day or two near villages, until such time as the village people moved them on. Roamers usually traveled in extended family groups—mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts and children roaming together. They were musicians and performers and would entertain villagers and farmers to earn their money. Usually, they seemed to be charming and romantic folk. And usually, when they were in an area for more than a day or two, things began to go missing—clothing, small valuables, the occasional chicken or duck.