The Angel
Chapter 5
By: Trep092
Disclaimer: Sadly, Santa didn't bring me the rights for RA for Christmas, and neither did the Easter Bunny for Easter, so I still don't own it.
A/N: Everyone who has read/reviewed/favourite/alerted deserves a cookie!
Reviewers:
Konri Kari: Thanks. I hope you like this one.
Queen's Clasher: I don't know how I managed it, but I did. I hope you like this one.
Ranger Lauren: Well… that's the whole point don't you know?
Luvergirl of books: I'm glad you still like it. I actually haven't read the eleventh book yet sadly.
Lady Bec of Imagineland: Yep I'm back! I hope you like this one!
Scarhead8: I'm glad you like it. I've had a hard time stopping everyone I meet and asking them if they have a broken pencil concealed somewhere on their person. People now think I'm crazy.
Cocoa85715: I'm sorry for the shortness of that chapter. Just wait my friend, Halt is on his way.
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"The nerve of these people," Halt thought as he lay on his stomach in the long grass staring down at the small band of bandits that had bivouacked in a hollow near the edge of a forest. The idiots hadn't even camped in the trees to attempt to hide from pursuit. They even had a roaring fire blazing, acting as a beacon to any eye within miles. They were either extremely confident in the fact that they weren't being followed, or had less brain power than the average garden slug. Halt strongly believed the latter to be true.
It bothered him though. Their plan, while being simple, was no-doubt effective. It had required brains to put together. It was true that they had panicked when faced with the owners of the house that they were robbing, but you'd think that they'd be extra conscious when they were on the run, especially when they knew Rangers were after them. Or perhaps they didn't know.
Haman, the Ranger from the neighbouring Fief that had been tracking the outlaws, had been injured in the pursuit. He had broken his ankle when he had slipped on an embankment in the dark. He had found tracks from the thieves' passage, but had not made contact with them.
Even so, the small band of crooks should think that the people of Serwood wouldn't let their crimes go unpunished.
The three men around the fire were scruffy, unshaven and filthy. They weren't particularly well-built, but they didn't have to be to undertake their scheme. They were cowards who snuck and stole but didn't confront.
"Did ya get a look at the loot we got boys?" the largest of the three asked in an oily voice, breaking the natural silence of the evening.
"Ya," his blonde-haired companion agreed, twirling his ragged mustache around his grubby finger. "That silver bracelet's got to be worth a pretty penny."
"I'm surprised farmin' filth like them coulda afforded such a fine thing." The third man said in a slow drawling accent.
"Don't matter how," Mustache Man said gleefully, "it's ours now and once we've sold it with the rest of the trinkets we'll be rollin' in gold."
Halt clenched his fists in anger. The scum were discussing their loot calmly, seemingly not affected by the murders they'd committed. The state of the corpses back in Serwood had showed that the men were obviously not experienced at killing, but their calm demeanour now showed that the men's hearts were cold and hardened. This made them dangerous.
Seeing and hearing all that he needed to, Halt rose and crept towards the men, creeping through the shadows cast by the trees at the edge of the wood in the uncertain, flickering light of the fire.
"Ya, it's aweful nice of them farmin' scum to leave their valuables unattended, ripe for the pickin'."
"It'd be aweful nice of you to shut your mouth and put your hands on your head, that goes for all of you filth," Halt said calmly as he stepped out from the cover of the trees' shadows.
The men gasped and leapt to their feet, their hands fumbling for weapons. Their eyes widened even farther as the small cloak-wrapped man quickly raised and drew a lethal looking longbow with practiced-ease.
"Put your hands on your heads or you'll find out exactly what I can do with this bow."
"Oh we're so scared," sneered Mustache Man.
"You should be," Halt said in a deadly serious voice. "Does King's Ranger mean anything to you?"
Halt saw the flicker of recognition in the men's eyes, but they didn't back down. Definitely idiots then.
"Maybe we should do what he says Jack," Drawling Mann said nervously not taking his eyes off the deadly arrow that was knocked and pointed in his general direction.
"Yes Jack," Halt drawled in imitation, "let's put our hands on our heads, slowly mind you, and then we're going to have a little conversation."
"What gives you the right?" the big oily-voiced man, who had been silently observing, spoke up. "We're simply harmless travellers; we've done nothing to warrant such treatment."
"You've done nothing?" Halt growled, his fingers twitching on the bow. "Do you call thieving from honest families, killing a man and his wife, and a little girl nothing?"
A swift movement and a flash of metal caught Halt's attention. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blood-stained dagger flying in his direction. He swiftly stepped aside and loosed his arrow.
Mustache Man fell to the ground, his fingers clutching his ear. He had taken advantage of Halt's momentary distraction to grab the dagger strapped to his leg and throw it, but unfortunately for him, Halt's reflexes were sharp; the well-aimed arrow sliced a groove through the top of his left ear. It wasn't a very big wound, but it was quite painful. Normally he would have aimed only to scare; most people would be frightened into talking after a razor-sharp arrow whizzed half a centimetre from their ear. In this case however, he wasn't feeling any sympathy for the ruffians in question, and he thought a little painful demonstration would promptly loosen their tongues.
"I'm really getting tired of you not doing what I say," Halt said wearily, then yelled, "put your hands on your heads, and don't try any funny business."
The two remaining standing thugs jumped, and then quickly complied. Mustache Man was still lying on the ground, moaning and clutching his bleeding ear with both his hands.
"That's better." Halt said walking over to the much more compliant thugs. He scoffed, "Harmless travellers indeed."
He quickly laid aside his bow, pulling his sax knife from the double scabbard at his waist. "Don't get any funny ideas; I'm just as handy with this knife as I am with the bow," he warned, "but next time I won't be aiming to graze. I hear that a knife embedded in your knee is quite painful."
The prone, mustachioed man groaned even louder, and Halt could see by the light of the still flickering fire, that his face was chalk-white with fear and pain.
Halt uncoiled a length of rope from around his waist and dropped it at the feet of the man with the drawling voice. "Tie your two friends' hands behind their backs."
Without taking his wide, terrified eyes off the gleaming, raiser-sharp blade in Halt's hand, the man bent down, picked up the rope and cautiously moved towards the two other members of the group.
"Wait," the Oily-Voiced man who had spoken out earlier said in an imploring voice, "You have the wrong people. We're innocent travellers who haven't done anything to warrant the attention of a King's Ranger."
"Well if you hadn't merited my attention before, which I strongly suspect you did, you warrant it now. You attacked me."
"Oh, Jack's just a bit jumpy. He's a little slow if you get my meaning," the man replied
"Funny, he threw that dagger after I had mentioned that you lot are thieves and murderers, and I do believe I saw blood on that dagger."
Halt's sharp eyes caught the quick flash of fear in the man's eyes.
"Where are you with that rope?" Halt bellowed at the man with the drawling voice who was standing stalk-still staring at the scene unfolding before him. The man shuffled forward and tied Jack's hands behind his back with fumbling fingers. When he stepped hesitantly towards Oily-Voiced Man, the other man kicked out his leg, tripped him, and then bolted into the night.
Halt leapt over the prone body and tackled the fleeing man to the ground before he had taken no more than three paces. He efficiently tied the struggling man's hands and feet and divested him of his weapons. Then Halt did the same for Drawling Man and Jack. When the three thieves were sufficiently trussed, he collected the dagger that had been thrown at him. As he had suspected, the blade was covered in patches of rust-coloured blood. He strode back to where the men lay and thrust the blade in front of Drawling Man's eyes. Halt judged him as the one that would be the easiest to get talking.
"What's your name?"
"Clive, my lord."
"Oh, so now its lord is it? Alright then, what are the names of your friends?"
"Jack and Herman."
"Where's your horses Clive?"
"We don't have no horses," Herman said in his Oily voice from where he lay bound on the ground. "We're only poor travellers."
"T-that's r-right," Clive stuttered nervously, "We ain't got no horses."
Halt strode quickly over to Herman and shoved his sax knife under his chin. When Herman gasped in fear, Halt shoved an old rag into his mouth. "I'm really getting tired of your feeble bleating about how your such '"innocent"' and '"poor"' travellers. I think we've established you're not, so just shut up!"
Herman struggled violently against is bonds and thrashed his head from side to side, but his efforts were fruitless. Halt gave him one last contemptuous look, then strode back to Clive.
"I will ask you one last time, and unless you want to end up like your friend Jack, you'll answer me truthfully and quickly. Where are your horses?"
"O-over there," Clive said in a quavering voice, "beyond those trees. Please don't hurt me my lord.""
"Oh I wouldn't be worrying about what I'll do to you," said Halt as he turned away. He caught the look of hope in the man's wild eyes so he added, "I'd be worrying about what the Baron will do to you. The punishment for murder is death don't you know." Clive gasped in terror at this pronouncement.
Halt did a swift visual check on his prisoners and then slipped off beyond the extended arm of forest to find the thieves' horses. He found them right where Clive said they'd be. There were four horses tethered to trees on the fringe of the woods; three for riding and a pack pony that was piled high with saddlebags. One quick look in the most accessible bags revealed an assortment of small trinkets that, when added together, amounted to a fair amount of gold. Halt whistled under his breath. He didn't envy the person who'd have to sort out the owners of the plethora of items in the treasure trove.
One by one he untied the four horses and lead them back to where the three men still lay bound on the ground. When all the men and beasts were congregated Halt addressed the prisoners. "After looking in your saddle bags and finding a large amount of baubles, and seeing this knife," he waved the still blood-covered dagger in the air, "I do believe that you lot are the bandits wanted in several fiefs for thievery, and also those wanted in this fief for three counts of murder."
With that declaration, Herman thrashed wildly against his bonds.
"I'm sure the Baron will be happy to hear your remonstrations," Halt added disdainfully. He truly loathed the three men lying before him. They were no-good criminals, who believed that the World owed them something. They snuck around and stole honest peoples' valuables, things that the people had worked hard for. And then, when they had been caught, they'd murdered three people in cold blood; taking a young girl from her parents, and the parents from a young boy.
The boy! Halt had nearly forgotten him in the search for his parents' killers.
He thrust out his hand and grabbed the collar of Clive's shirt. Clive squeaked in terror at the sudden, violent motion. "Where's the boy," Halt growled in his most menacing voice.
"Boy?" Clive choked out past the pressure on his windpipe.
"Yes, the boy. You know, the son of the people you murdered today. Where is he?" Halt yelled the last three words, making Clive's eyes roll in terror.
"We didn't mean it," Clive choked out, "those people come runnin' in the house and surprised us is all. We didn't mean to kill 'em, but we had to. They just surprised us."
"What about the boy?" Halt demanded again with no pity in his stern voice.
"There weren't no boy there, Just the old woman and man and the girl. No boy!" He yelled the last two words as Halt used his grip on the man's shirt to shake him roughly.
Halt saw no deceit in Clive's frantic eyes. He was a half-witted man who had already confessed to being involved in murder and theft. He had no reason to lie about the boy.
"Alright then," he addressed the entire group lying before him, "you lot are going to come with me to visit the Baron who will judge you for your crimes. If it were up to me, I'd hang you right here and now. I do have that authority, but because I am capable of taking you to the Baron, that is where we are going."
Without further ado, he hefted Clive to his feet. He loosened the bonds around his ankles so that he could shuffle awkwardly over to one of the horses. Making use of his incredible upper body strength, gained from years of using his heavy longbow, he heaved Clive into the saddle. He produced another length of rope seemingly from nowhere, and bound the criminal to the saddle. He repeated the process with the other two; prodding the protesting Herman along with his sax knife.
Finally, when the protesting men and horses were tied in a long line, Halt set off on foot leading the parade. He had left Abelard half a kilometre away from the campsite because he had wanted to scout around the area on foot. When he reached his sturdy little horse, he tied the lead rein to Abelard's pommel and mounted.
Setting off east with the clomping, plodding horses in toe, Halt couldn't help but think again that he was missing something. There had to be a ringleader for this little band of felons; they weren't intelligent enough to come up with their little scheme. There had to be someone organizing and directing them. He and the Baron would have to question them further when they got back to castle Redmont.
Unbeknownst to Halt, the leader stood deep within the shadows at the edge of the forest watching him ride away with his idiot lackeys and his treasure. He didn't much care about the men, they were nothing but dumb muscle, but he wasn't about to see his treasure taken away.
He had arrived at the campsite just after the Ranger. He was glad that he had decided to silently observe his men before revealing himself or he would have strolled out right into a trap. He had debated simply stealing the pack horse and fleeing, but after seeing the cloaked man's skill with his weapons, he couldn't risk it, and after all, he wasn't a take action kind of person. He preferred having others do his dirty work while he reaped the reward.
Cursing, he spun on his heel and faded back into the trees. He was a fairly skilled unseen mover in the forest; after all, it was his home. It was that fact that had saved him from Halt's eagle eyes and acute senses. That and the fact that Halt had left Abelard a fare distance away.
He was determined to get his treasure back. It was good that he had several other less simple-minded men in his employ. He would need them to ambush and kill the Ranger. No one messed with him and lived.
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TBC
Please review.
A/N: ell folks, I have no excuse. None at all. But I'm back again and that's all that matters. My muse has returned to me and I have planned out the remainder of this story (it should be nine chapters long). I even have ideas for other stories floating around. So hang on to your hats/hair/wigs/heads and brace yourselves for a crazy ride!