Okay, chapter two, I hope the first chapter is was a good one, and I hope this second was is just as good, if not better. Let's get on with the story!
It was close to mid day as Ryder walked through the small village, just east of the inn, to inquire about Banning and his family, about the tree and those dogs barking. The innkeeper claimed he had no knowledge of what had happened just a few hours earlier, not do to mention he would not acknowledge hearing the dogs bark. He claimed to be asleep all night in his bed; that he never woke up on the couch.
He left Watt at the inn, to help with the investigation. The older man hadn't wanted to stay there a moment longer after hearing those dreadful dogs, and seeing the glowing lights, but it seemed his justice would not allow him to abandon Holmes when he needed help. He agreed to sneak around, look at the records he could find, and tell Ryder about them when he came back.
But no one wanted to talk about the inn, which they claimed was cursed. They said that Banning knew this too, but was too greedy to listen to reason. That proved to be the end of his wife, his dogs, and if he wasn't lucky his children too. Ryder sighed; superstition fell upon even more superstition, like a town being built over the ruins of a town that had been built over even older ruins. There were no facts, no shine of light that he had hoped to find. Perhaps if he had used his full name, his rank and stature, there might have been someone who was really to talk, but he doubted it.
He had just decided to turn and leave for the inn when he overheard two men talk in the shadows. "Did you ever find her?"
"No, it was as if some evil force just swept up and pulled her away," a despondent young man said. "Just like all the other girls the last couple of months."
Ryder's curiosity was rising yet again, and though he knew it was dangerous, he decided to approach these men and ask what they were talking about. The younger seemed on the up and up, but the older fellow seemed a bit cautious, and didn't look like he was a law abiding person at all. A few gold coins quickly loosened their tongues before their fingers could loosen their blades at their hips.
He found out that the younger man was out last night, or rather early this morning, with his girlfriend, hoping to sneak a kiss away from the prying, overzealous religious eyes that lived in the village. She decided to play a little game on him, and hide in the dark, dim forest, just outside the village, and as he walked, lead by her giggles as he came closer to her, he could never truly find her. He called out to her, begged her to come back to him, and froze as he heard her scream, the same scream that others in the village had heard for months, actually years. Girl after girl seemed to just vanish, no sign of a struggle, no evidence anyone was out with them, just poof, gone. The village was always guarding against this, they had for over seven years since the nightmare began, but recently the mere weight of young girls between their late teens to early thirties simply grew greater and greater. It had started with Rose, Banning's wife, continued to mere travelers who came near the village, and now it was taking their own women.
There were talks of charging Banning's inn, burning it to the ground in hopes of appeasing whatever supernatural entity it was that was taking the women, but there were fears that such violence on such ground might cause reprisals against them by either the supernatural or the king's men. Ryder listened with all his interest, thanking the two men, and again paying them a few more golden coins to keep their silence about their meeting, and turned to the inn. So the game turns a little more interesting.
He had just returned to the inn a half hour later, when he noticed that Sir Andrew and Hayley had slipped off to a small garden to the right rear of the inn, for a few moments of alone time themselves. He had no idea it was there, but there it was. He could see flowers of pink and yellow buds had closed up for the winter, and an ever so tiny pond next to the woman's feet, with small orange and white fish swam around. About the lovers spread an elaborate hedge wall that seemed to hug the two of them as it felt their love, its colors mixed green and brown as winter tried to do its damage.
The thirty-two year old man smiled at the sight, but was edgy. He never considered himself a megalomaniac old fashioned fuddy dudddy, like most people in this age were; he found nothing wrong with an unmarried man and his girl to slip away and simply speak, or hold hands, so long as there was no kissing involved. But it sent shivers up his back after hearing the story in the village just a little while ago and seeing a young woman such as Hayley being alone even in broad daylight. True Sir Andrew was large and strong enough to fend off any fiend, but what if she should play a hide and seek trick like the woman in the village had with her boyfriend?
A shuffle of bare feet in the grass, just off his shoulder caused him to turn around, and peer at the younger sister, her eyes narrowing, her jaw tightening as she watched the two lovers sit in a decent winter afternoon, talking about each other, and current affairs. Ryder knew that look; his own sister used to bare it down on him when they were younger and he got something that she wanted from their parents. There was also a bit of mischievousness in her eyes, and a slight curled lip as they spoke about how Sir Andrew had found ants literally in his undergarments, lured to them by the promise of honey that had been liberally dabbed on his garments. Sir Andrew assure Haley that it had to have been someone in his unit, as a practical joke, or to get revenge for one of his harsh orders, but the tiny giggle that escaped Larke's mouth proved otherwise.
He had just decided to walk up to the raven haired sprite, and politely ruin her fun, when another shuffle of movement caught both his ears and his eyes, and this particular sight made every inch of his body tighten. A boy, perhaps just a little older that Larke by three years at least, but no more stood with a rake in his hand, a green coif hat with its strap under his chin, rested on hair a brown as mud, and shadowed eyes browner than mud. He was taller than Larke, but not by much and looked to weigh just a little less than the girl. He was dressed in only a white sleeved vest that stretched from his wrists to his ankles, and wore what looked like a second vest, one without sleeves. His eyes were tight, but his body was moving back and forth, and from time to time he turned his glance at his rake, to the girl. Ryder frowned and narrowed his own eyes. The boy seemed an awful like an Adamist, a gardener, perhaps Banning had hired him to tend this small garden, but he doubted the old man would have liked the way the boy was ogling his daughter, if he could see him that was.
Enough was enough, Ryder decided on a course of action and stomped toward the young man, who shirked toward him, eyes wide as if he saw the devil approach, and fled at top speed through the rest of the inn's land, before making safety to the protection of the woods. As he ran he began crying or chanting, Ryder couldn't make out which, in Gaelic Irish, begging for the help of Brixia, a Celtic goddess. Chills ran up and down Ryder's spine and as he reached the spot where the boy had disappeared, looking at trees, more trees and that was about it. The thirty something knelt down to the dirt, to look for any kind of footprints, and frowned for the umpteenth time this day. There weren't any to be found.
"His name is William," Watt told Ryder as they sat in the older man's room. "I saw him earlier and asked about him. Banning told me he hired him about eight years ago, when the village was going to stone him or something."
"Stone him?" Ryder bolted up and stared the other man in the face.
The older man's room was smaller than Ryder's by twice the size, and was cluttered with papers and quills, where Watt wrote down everything that he had been told, or read. He was an astounding fellow, one whose sense of justice was being trumped by his innate ability to remember anything said, or seen. It made him all the more dear to Ryder, who cursed that bag in his room for excluding this man who was fast becoming his best friend from entering his larger abode; if not for that damn bag and what was within.
"I gather he was a bit eccentric," Watt said with a nod of his head. "In fact he still seems to be so. He insists on blabbering on in Gaelic for one thing, and always eyes the young women."
"So I noticed," Ryder said, explaining what had happened when he tried to question the boy. "How did Banning every get the village to release him into his custody?"
"Bribery, from what I gathered," Watt said. "And the promise to keep the lad away from the village."
"They claim the land here is cursed, and that many women, first travelers, and now their own have gone missing."
"Banning's notes say that his wife, Rose, seemed very distressed about the land, and something else," Watt said. "I managed to sneak into his room when he was out, yelling at his younger daughter about something. Holmes, I did try to find out what it was that she didn't like, but there were many pages out of place, and I had to get out fast when I heard him approach the inn."
Ryder looked at his friend and smiled, oddly, as if he was enjoying hearing what he was. "Things are getting very interesting indeed."
Night had fallen yet again, and Ryder lay in his bed, his ears listening to the yaps and howls of supposedly invisible dogs. During the day, after he and Watt had separated from their discussion, he had gone to the tree, and surveyed the land all around it. Everything seemed right and proper, but there was one odd piece in the field, far left of the tree that hadn't sat right with him. He had examined it, but it turned up to be nothing.
He laid mopping, angry at himself, and angry at his bag for crimpling him in solving this mystery. There was something he had missed, or wouldn't allow him to see, how could William walk around, and leave no footprints? No footprints, was he responsible for the attacks?
As if on clue, a shriek in the night brought him out of his meditation, and he immediately headed down stairs to investigate. Yet again, Watt followed close on his heels, and yet again, Banning was staring out the window, though this time he seemed more alert.
"What is it?" Ryder barked.
"Don't know, and in this dark I don't want to risk my neck for nothing," the old man grumbled. His eyes were fixed on something, on the area where the tree was, and he shivered with dread as the scream could be heard again. Watt growled, lifting the man off his feet and pointed toward the door.
"You hear that? Some poor girl is being tortured, or killed, or raped! You want to leave her to whatever demon has a hold of her?" He waited for an answer, and then dropped the old fool, burst the door open and rushing outside, ignoring Banning's pleas to stay inside.
Ryder followed his friend, and rushed outside, quickly taking a log from the fireplace, whose flames were slowly dimming and dying out, not roaring like they had been the night before, before he went. Bitter cold slammed against the man, who wore only his outer garment, and Ryder slammed his jaw shut, bracing against the chill, but on he went until he found his quarry.
William was nearly foaming at the mouth, his eyes shrinking back into his skull as he shook the girl, who in the light of the torch turned out to be Hayley. He held her by her hair with one hand and her shoulder by the other, and cursed and howled at her in Gaelic, demanding Brixia's vengeance. And behind them was the tree, glowing as brightly as if it had been caught up by the young man's insanity and was joining in his delusions. The ghostly dogs yipped and growled, as if they hadn't been feed in weeks, and were now welcoming blood to come streaming down to the roots of the trees, to suck and lap at the roots as if they were bottles.
Hayley was screaming and pleading for her father's help, pleading for these new shadows to aid her, her chest on fire with fear and pain, her mind racing with the possibility that these shadows could be partners with the insane gardener, that was until the shorter of the two dashed forward and tackled William to the ground, breaking his grip on the woman. The one with the torch turned out to be Ryder Holmes, and he bent down to look at her bruised and swollen face.
"Are you all right?" he asked her calmly. She nodded, and he handed her a branch that he lit with the fire of the torch. "Then get into the inn, as fast as you can. Don't look back." She nodded and raced off, for the safety of her home, her father, and her sister.
As she disappeared Holmes turned to William and Watt, who were still struggling to best one another and he hurried to his friend's side, grabbing the insane boy's naked shoulder, and trying to pin him to the ground. "Lay still," he growled, holding the boy to the ground as a lion pins his prey, "It's all over now, just lay still and perhaps we can help you." The boy howled and cursed in Gaelic, his eyes nothing but white balls of pure energy run on hatred and madness. Is he insane, possessed, or both? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
They continued to try and hold him to the ground as best as they could, but the freezing weather was numbing their bodies and fatigue started to set in. Ryder turned to the house and yelled for Banning to come help, but there was no response, although he could feel the older man's gaze as it burned at his soul. A few minutes later, energy poured through the boy's body again, and he burst forward, breaking free from their collective grasps.
"This will never be over until Brixia has her way," he growled gutturally. "She went to the forbidden land, the holy land of Brixia, she had to be punished." He didn't wait for them to rise up and tackle him again. The boy lifted his head to the moon and bayed like a wolf, before disappearing in a naked streak.
He had gotten away again, and there would be no telling who he might prey on next. Ryder turned to his friend, who was catching his breath, his chest rising and dropping as frozen sweat inched down his face. "Damn it," he grumbled.
They turned and entered the inn, but went no further than a few inches when Banning barred their way. "I warned you not to go outside," he said, his voice cracking.
Their jaws dropped, their eyes bulging. "You're daughter was in the hands of a maniac," Watt hissed, "What would you have had us do?"
"Stay in the house, with me, and the daughter who listens to me," Banning said, slowly turning away. "Did you ever consider that bad things might have resulted because of this? I could have lost both my daughter's tonight."
"Sacrifice one for the other," Watt curled his fingers into a ball, but stopped short of decking Banning because of a calming hand from Ryder. "What do you think Sir Andrew would have thought of that?"
"You don't understand!" Banning growled, his eyes turning deadly as he spun on his feet. His upper lip curled, and showed decaying teeth, before falling as he sighed. "Tomorrow I want you to pack your things and leave. I'll have breakfast for you, but then I don't want to see you ever again. Either of you."
He turned and walked up the stairs into his room, leaving the two men to stand in silent disbelief, in the dark.
Kool, you get to read the second chapter too! I somehow doubt I'll have the complete story by the time I go to my sister's this weekend, but maybe I'll have the third chapter too. Wanna know why Ryder is being so secretive about that bag? Wanna know what he did to have nearly all the kings of Europe and the Roman Catholic Church wanting to run him down and then ask questions? The answer comes in chapter three. If I don't write it by this weekend, or on this weekend, look for me to update in May, again sorry, but I don't have control of my updating schedule. And again review, review, review. If I get around fifteen requests for a sequel, I'll write it.