Chapter 3 – Out of the forest
Far away from Pirate's hideout, back in the heart of the forest, Monterey Jack came out from a thick underbrush. "Blimey! This place's got as dark as the devil's coat! Oi swear I cannot see beyond my mustache! Zipper, mate! Where are ye?"
The little fly in red leather armor appeared out of the darkness that lied ahead. "Right here, Monty! Sorry, I got this smell and…"
"Smell? There ain't no fragrance of interest around us besides those of dirt, bark and rotting berries. I say, let's go back to the rendezvous point and continue our search tomorrow morning"
"Hey, we can't go back without Chip! We promised them!"
Monterey scoffed annoyed. "Rite, rite… Let's look for our chipmunk some more. I just hope nothing bigger than me finds us first in this black patch of forest"
Zipper perched himself on his friend's right shoulder. "Oh you will be fine, there are only critters like me around us, none of them… huh?"
"None of them, what?"
"That smell is back, stronger than before"
The big mouse sniffed the air methodically from left to right. "Hmpf! Now that you mention it"
Then, both partners stared at each other in realization. "Blood!"
"Quick, this way Monty!"
"Rite behind ye, mate!"
They made their way through the obscured vegetation and towards the source of that acrid, metallic odor. What they found, in the middle of an trail of flattened soil, gave them chills in a way they have never felt before.
They found Chip Maplewood, limping down the road, swaying from one side to the other with a haunted expression and his clothes torn to rags -crimson stained rags-.
"Mary queen of Scotland!" Monterey muttered, completely taken aback by the woeful state of his companion. "Chip, mate! Are you injured?"
The black nosed chipmunk silently shook his head twice in response, then kept on walking, passing between the shocked pair of knights barely addressing their presence.
"Wait for us!" Zipper quickly flew and put himself right between the ranger's eyes. That's when he realized the glow on the chipmunk's gaze was almost gone. Gone along with that smug trademark expression he had showed off plenty just two nights before. Today, the little scout couldn't help but compare Chip with a ghostly, wretched apparition.
Monterey, meanwhile, grabbed the ranger by the shoulder and dared to ask. "What happened with the musketeers that were after you?"
He turned around, his eyes growing wider as in shock. "… I killed them" He answered with a trembling and breaking voice.
"You killed them?"
Then, a visibly distraught Zipper flew back to his friend. "Monty, that blood isn't his!"
As Monterey Jack blinked in disbelief, Chip swayed away a pair of steps, then slumped to his knees, shaking arms pinned against the stomach. "Yes, I killed all of them! Colombe, Caesar, Fabrice, Artus… But I didn't want to kill them! I was forced to!"
Suddenly, the ranger's alien inner voice cried. "Look out!"
"Shut up!" Chip yelled in rage, a moment before being hit in the head from behind and fall unconscious to the ground.
His ambusher, Monterey Jack, looked at the still form of the ranger and let go a sigh of relief. "Phew, we are done here Zipper… lets go back to captain Patrick's camp"
Zipper, who had landed next to Chip to check on his condition, scratched his head. "Why did he told us to shut up? We attacked him in complete silence"
"Ye 'now, Zip" Monterey stated as he knelt to tie together the chipmunk's arms. "In the two days we shared with Chip and company, I've come to realize they all have some screws loose"
Many hours later, Chip woke up to the monotonous sound of horse's hooves stepping on cobblestones. A bump on the road further helped the chipmunk to regain awareness about him and his surroundings. He was… inside a wooden cage, his ankles and wrists tied – quite strongly – together. Beyond the bars, he also made notice of a collection of human-sized wicker baskets which smelled to a variety of fresh vegetables. "So, I'm traveling hidden in a farmer's cart" Chip correctly reasoned.
Not a second later, a pulsating headache assaulted him without mercy. As he winced and fell flat again on the floor of the cage, he reckoned his weapons and cloak were gone, along with his leather tunic and belts. In fact, he was wearing only his shirt, once white, now blood stained. A rag that became a grotesque reminder of the massacre he had committed hours before. The mere thought of it, filled with sounds of clashing blades and harrowing screams, made Chip shake his head in revulsion.
However, upon opening his eyes again, Chip actually felt his mind sharper and more conscious than the day before. These inner voices were gone along with that numbing feeling of hopeless submission. An obvious consequence, he concluded after clenching and unclenching his paws, as the maligned raven blades were nowhere close to him, nowhere to be seen.
But any kind of relief he could have felt was soon cut short by the reality of his situation. Possessed or not, he had murdered in cold blood four members of Rouen's musketeer garrison. He was now a murderer, a criminal. His old mentor André even had a word for it: a fallen ranger.
Tied as he was, he managed to sit down against the bars. A movement that didn't go unnoticed by the warden. To Chip's horror, that warden was no other than Monterey Jack.
"M-Monterey?"
"Hello there, Chip" The big mouse grinned at the prisoner. "I was starting to think you wouldn't come back to the land of the living. To get the correct measure of force when knocking someone senseless is not an easy task for the strongest mouse of Scotland"
Chip jerked his neck side to side, unable to do anything else to ease the pain from the aforementioned headache. "Really? It feels more like a backstab. A backstab from someone I trusted! Why, why are you doing this!?"
A serious scowl crept up over the hulking knight's face upon hearing these words and, just when he was about to retort, the leader of the inquisitors - a blue lizard dressed in black and white uniform and wearing a feathered hat – joined the conversation.
"Ah, Ranger Maplewood! Good to see you awake!" Patrick Lefevre greeted him with a reptilian hissing accent, a bitten piece of lettuce in his right paw.
And indeed, Chip jumped at the sound of the all-too-familiar voice. "Patrick!"
The blue lizard leaned closer to the prisoner's cage, so much that both gazes had a chance to meet and study each other. "Well, he seems to be in good condition" The inquisitor commented with a hint of satisfaction, then he chowed another bit of lettuce and turned to Monterey. "I was starting to worry he wouldn't survive the night. I'm well aware you have problems holding back your strength in the middle of a combat, Sir Jack"
"We were just talking about that, cap'n!" The mouse commented quite proudly. "I hope yer opinion about me and Zipper has now changed and even improved"
"Why are you two so concerned about my well-being?"
The captain walked around the cage to make sure it was sturdy enough, and at the same time, he proceeded to explain. "Good question, Maplewood! Let me put it this way: People all over in Normandy are scared to death by the events that you and your friends caused in Saint Pierre three nights ago. As consequence, commoners and nobility are turning to the inquisition and Rouen's garrison for protection against the forces of Hell that had descended on our lands"
"So, you are planning to show me around like a prize?"
"Pfft! No, ranger Maplewood. We are on our way to Rouen with orders to deliver you to our inquisition partners. Once there, I assume they will get you judged by the crime of witchcraft, which in turn will allow them to burn you at the stake in front of the whole city, as law goes"
Tipping his wide feathered hat Patrick turned around and left, satisfied with the frightened expression of the prisoner. The lizard was one of these kinds of people who loved to sow seeds of fear in the mind of his enemies, to torment them and watch them sink in despair. A hobby that grew into a talent while working for the ruthless French inquisition.
A pale Chip let himself fall on the hard floor of his cage. "So this is it" He thought broodily. "I'll be burned like a cultist in front of a crowd. Burned to death…"
As Monterey and Zipper turned around to leave, Chip gazed at him again. "I didn't know you hated me so much"
The knight looked over his shoulder, grumbled, and then walked away.
Chip rolled to one side, covered his face with the tied paws and fought the impulse to cry in front of the appointed musketeer that arrived in that same moment to stand guard on him.
"It's ironic" He thought with remorse. "I ended up changing places with the person I set up to rescue. At least she and Tammy managed to escape. They must have arrived at Stone Coffer by now. I wonder…" Here he let out a sigh of defeat. "I wonder if they are still waiting for me"