The Uncatchable. That's what they called him. The women of high society quivered at the thought of him. A menace that plagued the forest roads that connected the cities of the holy roman empire. Lawmen scoured the countryside fervently for him, coachmen and their escorts crossed themselves in fear of him, whilst drunkards and gentlemen alike quietly wondered what it was to be him.
God, how delicious it was! To leave angry, entitled old men wheezing with rage and young ladies of gentle birth fearful, awestruck, sometimes both as they were parted from their money with a one-liner and a loaded gun. He found himself smirking beneath the red scarf that obscured his mouth.
He bent low, his hand slipping through the looping root of the yew tree, retrieving the second pistol, careful to keep the barrel level. He could hear the carriage's wheels rolling along the road, close now. He stalked towards the crest that overlooked the bend in the dirt road, raising the stashed flintlock, praying to whatever god of ne'er-do-wells existed that the powder was dry. His keen eyes found the carriage quickly enough. It rattled around a copse of trees, dutifully following the road. Neither driver nor the two guards had noticed him.
He didn't feel especial regret for what he was about to do. The guards were forewarned and forearmed, and knew what they had signed up for.
It took less than a second for him to point and shoot before he slid down the bank of the rise. The driver's hat spun into the air, stained with blood.
The uncatchable highwayman didn't bother to assess the damage, dropping the expended flintlock and pulling the next from his belt as he strode through the dying forest. The second guard held his nerve, aiming his weapon from the roof even as the carriage bounced off-road.
Another bang, and the guard fell from the carriage's roof, the musket slipping from his hands and skittering into the mud as his comrade's boots splashed into the damp earth.
The highwayman holstered his pistol, his other hand viciously yanking his blade from its sheath as he bounded forward, fearing a musket ball blowing through him – but no, the guard had reached for a dirk, a panicked expression in his eyes.
A clumsy thrust from his adversary, and the highwayman had the coachman by the neck. The blade swept in with a sound of tearing flesh, before it sailed away with a trail of blood and a gurgled gasp in the unfortunate's throat.
The uncatchable let a sigh escape him as he redrew his pistol, loading it with all haste.
It was a long, painful twenty seconds, but he had been just quick enough. He heard a creak from the coach. Instincts did the rest. He moved faster than thought, firing the handgun at the sound.
And then nothing. Only the horses whinnied in terror as he stood as still as stone, adrenaline thundering through him.
Something was off. At this point, the occupants would be screaming.
That… hadn't been a coachman.
The uncatchable thief, sword at the ready, hesitantly approached the shattered window of the coach, and-
No.
The mother sat with the babe slumped in her arms, the both of them languid and still. The musketball had-
Christ, no, this wasn't-
deformed the child's head, looking as though it had been split down from the crown. It had gone on to
I never meant for this to happen, I didn't know-
burrow a hole of red ruin into the mother's chest.
He rode into Nuremburg in a daze, his fingers lightly wrapped in the reins, his mouth a small 'o' beneath his red scarf. He did not glance upon the quiet river as the hooves clopped on the bridge's cobbles, nor did he pay any heed to the way the common folk pointed at him, or the murmur that rose up from the gathering faces. He slid from the saddle, wandering through the parting crowd to the tavern.
He had barely touched his first flagon when the town watch came for him.
He awoke to the sound of a priest's laughter.
The uncatchable, he would be out of this place by now. He would be waiting for his moment.
Tears stung his eyes, a weary smile breaking upon the highwayman's face as the morning sunlight poured into his cell. "Bollocks." he murmured. He was clad in a woollen scrap of clothing that failed to protect his decency or provide any warmth, the coarse material itching at his collar. It didn't bother him. The cackling however, did. It grew, closer and closer, until a jailor stepped into view from the stone columns, his expression hounded.
A few seconds later, the source of the guard's discomfort staggered into view – an old, hunched man in black with a clerical collar, with a tangled and bushy beard, with… mad, wild eyes, partially obscured by cracked, round glasses that perched on his aquiline nose.
"Open the door! We must have last rites!" The priest crowed as he slammed his head against the bars.
The highwayman slipped off of the slab of rock and stepped back from the door.
"Now! Now! Now now now now now!" The priest demanded in a wild shrieking voice, clanging against the bars with his face and his fists.
The jailor could not turn the keys fast enough.
The priest transformed. That bizarre, wild anger dissipated like morning mist, and he swept in to seize the highwayman's hands as though he were a beloved relative.
"It is truly you?! The Uncatchable? Do you hang this morning?! You do, don't you?!" The mad priest asked, feverish, a bead of drool sliding off one of the yellowed pegs in his mouth.
"I-I do, I hang today." The highwayman admitted, wincing at the smell of the priest's breath.
The priest looked on at him, his expression seemingly awestruck.
Before it turned into a yellowed, gap-toothed smile. "You hang today." The priest said firmly, elated.
"Bring his last meal, guardsman!" The priest snapped.
The jailor shifted his weight, his expression nonplussed.
"Now now now now now!" The priest bellowed as he rounded on the guard, his face a rictus of anger.
The guard nodded and ran. The priest threw an encouraging chuckle over his sloped shoulder at the highwayman before he sat himself down, plucking a battered leather-bound book from his pocket, and began to read.
An awkward silence fell between the two occupants.
"…Is this the bit where the penitent criminal confesses his crimes?" The highwayman asked, wary.
"Oh, I don't think you have enough time to hear it all." The priest made a sound between a sob and a snigger.
"…I'm about to die, so perhaps I should unburden myse-" The highwayman fell silent as the gnarled priest started shaking his head so vigorously he looked as though he were suffering a fit.
"No, you'll wish you had, but no, no, no dying today, my poor boy. Oh, my poor boy." The priest scowled.
Soon enough, the guard had appeared with a bowl of gruel. The priest leapt to greet him, his book tumbling to the floor of the cell. The priest took the meal before urging the guard to leave. The highwayman heard a crack of something small and hollow. He heard the priest spit, much to his own distaste, before he heard the slimy, wooden sound of gruel being pushed around a bowl.
"Eat your food, or you die for real." The priest was suddenly in his face, his foetid breath making the highwayman recoil. "Do it, or I'll come to hell and ask for you by name! We're on first name terms, he and I!" The priest veered violently between a stern threat and sweet reminiscence.
"Who, Satan?" The highwayman asked, reluctantly taking the bowl. There was a blueish tinge to the meal now.
"Oh, he has half a hundred names, but I don't recognise that one." The priest murmured with wonder, before he clapped the highwayman on the shoulder and swept back out of the cell, his malevolent chuckle growing fainter and fainter.
It was only until the priest left that the highwayman noticed that he had left his book on the flagstones of the cell.
He picked it up, flicking from page to page, his brow furrowing. A bible, surely? The passages were heavily annotated, underscored and defaced with crude sketches and drawings. He noted one particular dog-eared passage, opening the book up to that. It spoke of Jesus upon the Cross, and his final moments.
He read as much as he could before it was his time to go.
He was marched to the gibbet to the howl of the mob, vegetables and rocks pelting him. He could no longer feel the rough hemp around his neck, or the wind on his face. This is how it feels to be a dead man.
"Any last words?" Came the question.
The crowd slowly grew quietly as the highwayman raised his hangdog expression, his lips quivering as he regarded the stern and hateful faces of the judge, the lawmen, the townsfolk and the tourists, every man and woman hanging on the final words of The Uncatchable.
So he laughed.
"You think this is it?! By all means," He slurred, "hang me high, Nuremburg, but I'll be back! I will haunt your roads, take your baubles, taste your wives and daughters and by god I'll make widows of 'em too!" He roared in defiance, the hangman tensing at the nod of a figure in the crowd, "Congratulations, you whoresons, this is the first and last time you apprehended the-"
The trap door fell open, and the rope snapped taut.
He awoke to the smell of ammonia, the scent stinging his nose. He tried to pull away, to recoil, but he could not. His body refused to.
He tried to shout, but only a moan broke out – but that soon died down when he took interest in the gabbling girl in the nurse's outfit hovering around him.
"I'm sorry that hurt you – hello, I am a doctor, you've been dosed with a paralytic agent to prevent you from wrenching your spine and shoulder, I assure you, you're quite safe!" The girl blurted out. He couldn't feel her hands on his shoulders. The highwayman stared up at her, slack-jawed, his eyes wide and his scowl firm.
"Wuh tha huhl awe weh?" He asked, his eyes flitting down as his mouth betrayed him.
"'Where are we?' That is what you ask?" Asked that delightful, French accent.
"Yeth." He murmured.
"Our employer's home. That's-assuming you'd take him up on his proposal, that is!" She said haltingly.
The highwayman's mouth closed, loathe to embarrass himself in front of the pretty young nurse.
She seemed to understand, and instead worked to ensure he was comfortable. When he finally had control of his limbs, she left him fresh clothes before going to inform the master of the house.
She returned a few minutes later, to inform the highwayman that a seat was prepared at his table.
The highwayman was almost timid, his hand carefully rubbing at the raw rope burns on his neck as he approached the end of the table, his black eyes cast towards the man who sat at the head of it. The master of the house gazed back at him, a hard-jawed man in his late thirties, his hair beginning to grey, his beard trimmed and hair cut short. The highwayman's eye flitted to the clothing he wore, appreciating the lace, the silver buttons, the gold watch, the maroon-dyed coat. Behind the master of the house, a whimpering old man was trying to get a flame going in the ornate fireplace; he realised he recognised the old man, though he now wore a studded and tattered coat.
"Priest?" The highwayman murmured.
The old man turned with poker and log in hand, freezing as he saw the highwayman.
And smiled.
"You're the uncatchable brigand that has been robbing coaches from Rheims to Prague." The master of the house said quietly.
"Yes." The highwayman nodded, his gaze sliding back to the noble in his chair.
"Would be tremendously inconvenient for me if I'd gone to such pains to help the wrong man slip the noose." The master added, smiling with his mouth and nothing more. "Call me mister Fenton."
The highwayman picked up the chair at the end of the table, repositioning it so he had a view to the doors behind him as well as this entitled unknown. He had his hands beneath the table, settled on his knees, his back hunched.
"How am I not dead, lord Fenton?" The highwayman asked, playing upon the nobility's need to talk about how bloody great they were.
"A bribe to the hangman and the coroner, a rare paralytic provided by Ms. Sabine, and delivered by mister Emory in your cell," Fenton explained with a dismissive wave of his hand, "Though a better question you should be asking is, 'why are you still alive?'."
That did catch the highwayman off-guard. "Maybe you fancy making a trophy of me?"
The nobleman shook his head, his eyes never leaving the highwayman. "I have need of you."
The highwayman half-shrugged. "You need a coach robbed?"
"I need them protected," Fenton spoke slowly, "as well as someone who can protect themselves, and doesn't mind a little skulduggery."
The highwayman frowned at that. "Security detail for a stagecoach business? How far the Uncatchable has fallen." He sighed, his knuckles rolling against his ear.
"We're in the business of putting right the wrongs, my dear highwayman. My ancestor's house has been in ruin for some time now, but the corruption there," Fenton continued over Emory's chuckling, "No one can travel to or from the hamlet. Villagers disappear into the woods, sometimes returning as brigandry and other unsavoury predators."
"COME UNTO THE FLOCK!" Emory warbled, recoiling as Fenton rounded on him with a fearsome glare.
For the mad old man's sake, the highwayman elected to speak up. "So besides 'righting wrongs', the pay is… substantial, I take it?"
Fenton raised a brow, his next words a hammer blow. "Do you honestly give a damn, at this stage?"
The silence yawned open, broken only by the clunking logs that the caretaker mishandled. The highwayman's eyes widened, feeling despair and fear rest over his heart. He can't know. He can't know it plagues me so.
The master's eyes gave nothing away. "We are more than certain that the site of our… excavations, will be fraught with gems, baubles and riches, a generous percentage of which will be set aside to pay you and others like you. Food, board, all of it will be paid for from my purse."
The highwayman looked on, tilting his head as he mulled over his next question. "If I were to say 'no'…"
"Then you'd have an especially hard time getting out of Nuremburg alive," Fenton shrugged his shoulders, "Though, if we fail, you'll live for several months, I'm sure – until whatever it is that consumes us comes hunting for you."
The highwayman scoffed. "I don't recall wronging 'em."
"Not 'them', 'it'," Fenton corrected, "What we fight cannot be reasoned with, cannot perceive threats from bystanders. It cannot be bought, or delayed, or cowed into submission. If it is allowed to grow, it will envelop the world we live in."
The highwayman leant back in his chair, realising only now that Fenton was on his feet. It seemed he had only just realised this himself, the radiance of determination replaced with slumped shoulders and a resigned sigh.
"Humour me. Tonight, I intend to ride to the hamlet and establish a base of operations. Come with me, and see for yourself the righteousness of our cause." Fenton proposed.
The highwayman sucked on his own bottom lip as he considered it. "Who will we be travelling with?"
"Miss Sabine will join us on the following day," Fenton replied quietly, "We will travel with mister Emory, and a soldier of the Order."
"Of the Flame?" The highwayman asked, feeling a shiver of apprehension.
"I'd have your name," Fenton asked by way of distraction, "If we're to be travelling companions."
"…Dismas." The highwayman decided.
"Your actual name?" Fenton insisted.
"Do you honestly give a damn?" Dismas fired back, the hint of a smile playing on his lips.
Fenton did not seem to share his amusement. "Before you go," He asked, relenting the name, "I'd like to know why you spoke the way you did, 'Dismas'."
The chair legs scraped on the flagstones of the hall as Dismas made to leave. "I am sorry for some I did," Dismas weighed his words with care, his eyes contrite as he regarded the master, "but I don't think that's what they wanted to hear."
Fenton's eyes shone, and Dismas could taste his desire to ask more questions.
Instead, the older man grunted, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.