The Lost Stories (38 page)

Many of the older Rangers had quit in disgust. Some of the more vocal, like Pritchard, were forced to leave the Kingdom. Although the Corps had a theoretical strength of fifty members, training and appointment of new Rangers under the old system had fallen off in recent years. There had barely been thirty properly trained Rangers when Crowley received his appointment. He estimated that there might be ten or twelve of these still serving, but they were scattered in remote parts of the Kingdom.

The key to the problem was King Oswald. He had been a good king in his younger days, energetic and fair-minded. But now he was old and weak and his mind was going. He had accepted a group of ambitious barons as his ruling council. Initially, they were appointed to take care of the day-to-day matters of ruling the Kingdom and to relieve him of the repetitive, annoying minutiae that came across his desk every day. But as time went on, they encroached more and more into the important decisions, until Oswald was little more than a rubber stamp to their rulings.

Prince Duncan might have prevented this by taking over as Regent in the King's place. But the council, led by a charismatic and scheming baron named Morgarath, had undermined his position with his father. Oswald became convinced that his son was unready to rule. His council told him that the Prince was too impulsive and too inexperienced for the job. Believing them, Oswald had posted his son to a fief in the far northeast of the Kingdom. There, isolated from the seat of power in Castle Araluen, and without any organized support, Duncan languished, frustrated and ineffectual, unable to resist the changes that were being imposed on what would be his Kingdom.

All in all, thought Crowley, it wasn't the life he had imagined himself leading. He leaned forward and patted Cropper's neck.

“Still, it could be worse,” he said, trying to raise his own spirits. Cropper's ears pricked up and his head rose as he heard the more positive note in his master's voice—a note that had been missing for some days now.

“Well, no sense in moping,” Crowley said, forcing the dark thoughts aside.

“Give credit where it's due. I may have been moping for three days, but I'm over it now.”

In spite of his recent gloom, Crowley found himself smiling. He wondered if he'd ever get the last word with his horse.

“I didn't say that out loud!” he said, a little surprised. Cropper shook his mane.

They crested a rise and Crowley could see a building beside the road, a few hundred meters ahead. It was small, but larger than the general run of farmhouses in the area. And there was a signboard swinging from a beam in front of the porticoed doorway.

“That's what we need!” he said brightly. “An inn. And it's just about lunchtime.”

“You always hope there are apples.”

As they rode closer, a slight frown returned to Crowley's forehead. He could hear raised voices from the inn, and loud laughter. Usually, that sort of sound indicated that someone had taken too much liquor. And these days, with no firm hand ruling the Kingdom, drunkenness was all too often accompanied by meaningless violence. Unconsciously, he loosened the big saxe knife in its scabbard.

Another burst of raucous laughter greeted him as he swung down from the saddle and led Cropper into the fenced-off yard beside the inn. There were feed bins and water troughs set along the fence at intervals. He found a full feed bin and left Cropper before it, filling a bucket with fresh water from a pump and pouring it into the water trough. He glanced around. There were four other horses in the yard. Three of them were long-legged cavalry mounts and their saddle cloths and tack were military pattern. The fourth was a nondescript gray, tethered a little apart from the others. All four of them turned their heads curiously to view the newcomer, then, seeing nothing to hold their interest, they returned to the feed bins in front of them, their jaws moving in that strange rolling, grinding motion that horses use. Crowley made a hand signal to Cropper.

“Wait here.”

Sighing, Crowley reached into his jacket packet and produced an apple, holding it out on his flattened palm for the horse. Cropper took it gently and crunched happily, his eyes closing as the juices spurted inside his mouth. Crowley loosened the saddle girth a few notches and turned toward the inn.

After the bright sunshine outside, it took his eyes some time to adjust to the dimness inside. But as he opened the door and entered, a loud male voice stopped in midsentence and, for a moment, silence hung over the room.

“And what do we have here?” the male voice began again. Now that Crowley's eyes had adjusted, he could see it belonged to a beefy soldier lounging against the bar. He wore a surcoat and mail shirt and was armed with a sword and a heavy-bladed dagger.

He had two companions, similarly dressed and equipped. One sat at a long bench by a table close to the bar. He was turned around away from the table, facing the bar. The other was sitting on the table itself, his feet perched on the bench. Behind the bar, Crowley saw the innkeeper, a smallish man in his fifties, and a young serving girl who looked to be around twenty. Both of them cast nervous glances at the three soldiers.

As the speaker turned slightly to face Crowley, the Ranger made out the blazon on his surcoat—a sword with a lightning bolt for a blade. They were members of Morgarath's Gorlan garrison, he thought.

He glanced around the room. There was one other occupant. A man sat at the rear of the room, dressed in a dark green cloak. His hair and beard were black and he was spooning food from a bowl on the table in front of him, seemingly ignoring the other customers.

“I said,
what do we have here
?” the man at the bar repeated. There was an unpleasant edge in his voice now. As Crowley moved closer, he could see that the man was flushed and his heavy-jowled face was damp with perspiration. Too much to drink, he thought. The man's two companions chuckled quietly as he pushed himself up from the bar and stood straight, glaring at Crowley. There was an air of expectation about them. Crowley stopped about two meters away from him. The man was taller than Crowley, and heavily built. He was carrying a lot of fat, Crowley thought.

He spoke evenly in return, allowing no sense of the wariness he felt to enter his voice.

“Name of Crowley,” he said. “King's Ranger to Hogarth Fief.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed a movement at the back of the room. The solitary diner had raised his head at the words
King's Ranger
.

The heavily built soldier reacted to it as well. His eyes widened in mock admiration. “A
King's Ranger
!” he said. “Oooooooooooh my! How very impressive!”

More laughter from his friends. He turned his head and grinned at them, then turned back to Crowley, resuming the expression of fake admiration.

“So tell me,
King's Ranger,
what are you doing here in Gorlan Fief? Don't you have important things to do at Ranger headquarters—like getting drunk and gambling?”

Crowley ignored the jibe, reflecting sadly that it was a fairly accurate picture of how the newer members of the Ranger Corps spent their time. The other soldiers laughed again. Their laughter was becoming louder, he noticed.

“I've been at Castle Araluen for an assembly,” he said, maintaining a pleasant tone. “Now I'm heading back to my home fief. Just passing through Gorlan.”

“And we're honored to have you with us,” the soldier said with heavy sarcasm. “Perhaps we could buy you a drink?”

Crowley smiled. “I'll just have coffee,” he said, but the soldier shook his head vehemently.

“Coffee's no drink for such an honored guest. After all, you're a . . .
King's Ranger
.” He managed to make the words sound like an epithet. “I insist that we buy you a glass of wine. Or a brandy. Or a drink worthy of such an exalted person as yourself.”

One of the other soldiers snorted and chuckled drunkenly at his friend's wit. Crowley held his smile. There was nothing to be gained by causing a scene, he thought. Just suffer through the heavy-handed sarcasm, have a drink and leave.

“Well, perhaps a tankard of ale,” he said.

The soldier nodded approval. “Much better choice!” he said. He jerked a thumb at a small ale cask set on the bar. It would have been filled from a larger cask in the cellar. “We're drinking ale too. But sadly, this cask is
empty
!”

His face darkened with anger as he said the last word and he swept the small cask off the bar and onto the floor. It rolled under a table. The violent movement was unexpected and the girl behind the bar flinched and uttered a small cry of fright. She instinctively moved closer to her employer, as if seeking safety in numbers. The soldier ignored her. His eyes were fixed on Crowley, but he spoke to the innkeeper. “We're out of ale here, innkeeper. And my friend the King's Ranger would like a glass.”

“Forget it,” Crowley said. “I'll have a coffee.”

“No. You'll have an ale. Innkeeper?”

The small man behind the bar reached nervously for a large bunch of iron keys hanging on a peg behind him. “I'll fetch another cask from the cellar,” he said.

But the soldier, his eyes still fixed on Crowley, held up a hand to stop him. “Stay where you are. The girl can fetch it.”

The innkeeper nodded nervously. “Very well.” He handed the key ring to the girl. “Get another cask, Glyniss,” he said. She looked at him for a moment, unwilling to move from behind the meager shelter of the bar. He nodded at her.

“Go on. Do as I say,” he said curtly.“You'll need the bung starter.”

She picked up the bung starter, a heavy wooden mallet used to loosen the wooden plug in large casks. Reluctantly, she made her way out from behind the bar and edged past the two soldiers at the table. The one sitting on the bench laughed and pretended to lunge at her. She flinched away from him, with a cry of fright. Then, hurriedly, she went to move past the soldier who had been doing all the talking so far. But as she got within reach, his hand shot out and he grabbed the key ring from her. She hesitated and put her hand out for the keys.

“Please?” she said. But he laughed and held them at arm's length, to the side and out of her reach.

“What? You want these?” he said, and she nodded, biting her lip with fear. He smiled at her and held the keys out, dangling them in front of her face. “Then take them.”

As she reached for them, he flipped them quickly over her head to the soldier sitting backward on the bench. He caught them, laughed and stood up, swaying slightly as the girl moved to him.

“Please. I need the keys.”

“Of course.” He grinned and flipped them back to the soldier in front of Crowley. As she turned, her face showing her anguish, the soldier shoved her with his boot so that she stumbled forward, fetching up against his beefy companion.

“Oho! Think you can throw yourself at me and charm them from me, do you?” He tried to plant a kiss on her cheek, but she twisted her head away from him. He laughed again.

In the five years of Crowley's apprenticeship, his biggest struggle had been to overcome and control his too-quick temper. “It's that red hair of yours,” Pritchard used to say. “Never knew a redhead who didn't have a temper.”

Now, after listening to and accepting the mockery from the oafish soldier, he felt the familiar boiling-over sensation in his chest. He grabbed the man's arm and twisted it painfully, forcing his grip loose from the girl, who moved quickly to stand behind Crowley. The soldier's face blazed with rage now.

“Why, you pipsqueak! I'll break you in half!”

He swung a wild roundhouse blow at Crowley, who ducked easily under it. Then, putting all the force of his shoulder behind it, Crowley planted a short, power-laden jab into the man's soft belly.

There was an agonized grunt of escaping breath as the soldier doubled over. He clawed at the front of Crowley's jacket, trying to support himself, but the Ranger stepped back out of reach. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that one of the heavy timber columns that supported the ceiling beams was close behind him. He backed into it and stumbled, his concentration broken for a few seconds.

Before he could recover, the other two soldiers were upon him. One of them forced him back against the pillar with a heavy dagger at his throat. The other stripped the longbow from his shoulder and threw it across the room. It clattered off one of the tables onto the floor.

The first man had staggered to his feet again, still clutching his belly and wheezing painfully.

“You little sewer rat!” he spat at the Ranger. Then he nodded to the man who had thrown Crowley's longbow away. “Tie his hands!”

Crowley, the dagger still at his throat, could offer no resistance as his arms were dragged backward and his hands were tied behind the rough wooden pillar. He stood unmoving as the heavily built soldier stepped forward and took the dagger from his companion's hand. He moved it from its position against his throat until it was touching his nose.

“Now, what shall we do with you, King's Ranger?” he said. “I think we might just cut your nose off. That'll teach you not to stick it in our business.”

The girl gave another cry of fear at his words and his cruel smile widened slightly.

“Yes. I think that's what we'll do. What do you think, boys?”

Before either of them could reply, another voice responded.