Chapter 4

Maddie was busy for the entire week.

During her apprenticeship, Will taught her that whenever a Ranger is assigned to a new fief, the first thing that Ranger does should be collecting information. So that's exactly what Maddie did. She had went to every single town, village and hamlet in Gorlan fief, no matter how small or diminutive. She chose to disguise herself as a traveller to extract information about the state of being of Gorlan fief. Will told her, during her apprenticeship, that the presence of a Ranger can unnerve just about anyone, and her being the first female Ranger would just make people suspicious and reluctant as well.

From the amount of things she'd heard from the people of Gorlan, the fief was quite stable, with the majority of its people being more wealthy than average. Most of them were also very happy with their current condition. There had been a huge decline in the crime rate in the last two years ever since Baron Damien established a crime watch comprised solely of knights called the Knight Watch- Baron Damien confirmed the name was pun intended- who watched over the people and protected them from bandits, thieves and brigands, as well as capturing those criminals. Unlike most Barons of other fiefs, who couldn't care less about what their people want, Baron Damien seemed abnormally interested in the well-being of his subjects.

She also listened to simple gossip and the everyday goings-on of the fief, most of it were pretty trivial at the time, she can never know when knowing how much lady A bought more food than lady B migth just accidentally save the whole fief. Information, no matter how unimportant it might seems at first glance, was a Ranger's lifeblood. That and coffee. Maddie was pretty sure she drank enough coffee throughout that entire week to have coffee actually flowing through her veins.

When she'd asked the locals if anything suspicious has happened recently, they had said three huge, bear like creatures with long, sharp claws were spotted together near the ruins of the castle Gorlan a couple months ago, but Maddie dismissed it as actual bears being spotted. No need to be worried about anything, the creature had only been seen once, though Maddie would investigate it if it was continued to be spotted.

When assessing the castle staff, she noticed that there were no shortages, when she asked about this, Baron Damien had explained this peculiar system he had set up the year he became Baron of Gorlan fief. Every year, he would host an event that allows all youths of the age of fifteen to be apprenticed under his Craftmasters if they show the potential, it was not unlike Choosing day in Redmont. Though the family of the apprentice would have to pay a small fee to enter their child into an apprenticeship.


Maddie was assessing the Battleschool training of Gorlan fief a few weeks after she had arrived at Gorlan fief. First year apprentices semmed to be abundant in numbers, though most of them lacked most of the skills to be a knight. There were much less second year apprentices, however, presumably due to the expulsion of apprentices who didn't make the cut.

A class of fourth year apprentices were drilling specific combat sequences, led by an instructor so Maddie had come to watch, leaning against a fence, her cowl concealing her face. There were some knights watching too, discussing to each other, pointing at certain apprentices who seemed to be more fluent at combat techniques than others, catching out mistakes. Among them were Tim Stoker, she noted. She hadn't seen him since the day she arrived at Gorlan. He seemed to be quite popular and respected among his peers, some of them even turned to him for advice and corrections even though he must be the youngest out of all the knights in Gorlan.

Tim spotted her leaning against the fence, beamed, and walked over to her. He stopped in front of her. "How do like Gorlan so far, your highness?" He smiled and bowed respectfully. She frowned at his use of the word 'your highness'.

"Don't call me your highness. I hate it when people call me that. Call me Maddie instead. And also stop bowing, people are watching" Maddie said in a hushed voice, suddenly conscious that some Battleschool apprentices were watching them.

"Well, you're royalty, aren't you? At Battleschool we're taught to show members of the royal family utmost respect at all times." Tim said, glancing at the Battleschool apprentices. "When we actually get the honour to e in their presence that is." He added.

"Well, you didn't bow every five seconds when we were at my cabin, didn't you? Plus, but the fact that the Crown Princess of Araluen is a Ranger isn't a well-known fact, isn't it?" Maddie asked rhetorically.

"I guess not, but still…"

"So just act casual around me, talk to me like I'm a Ranger, not a princess. Actually no, talk to me like a friend, that's even better."

"A friend? Well I mean, we did ran away from Jory Ruhl's gang together, and you did save me from being sold as a slave…" Tim went on, unsure about the prospect of having a Ranger as a friend, especially one that was also royalty. "It depends on whether you want me as a friend."

"Yes, I do want you as a friend. We Rangers get lonely sometimes, you know." Maddie reluctantly confessed, blushing a little. "And you're also my bodyguard so I might as well get to know you better." She explained her intentions.

Then suddenly, a shrill scream pierced through the Battleschool. All heads turned towards the source of the sound, where a maid ran out of the dormitory.

"What is this ruckus that's going on?" Sir Chuck stepped out from under the shade of tree, he had been spectating the Battleschool apprentices training.

"MURDER! MURDER!" The maid screamed, horror evident in her voice.

"Murder? Where? Tell us!"

"In the left wing of the dormitory, last door to the right. He's dead on the floor." The maid gave the directions through sobs. As soon as she heard it, Maddie ran into the dormitory before anyone could stop her or made to follow.

She entered the corridor and turned left when it branched off into two opposite directions, leading into another long corridor with doors lining the two walls symmetrically. Maddie ran to the end of the corridor and opened the last door to the right.

There were to bunk beds pushed to the sides, as was the layouts of most Battleschool dormitory rooms. There was a two long tables at the end of the room were the Battleschool apprentices could do their homework. There was a small window at the back that could be open to let in fresh air. Normally, in a dormitory room, that would be all the interesting features. Except for the dead body dressed in full-armour lying in a puddle of blood in the middle of the room.

She heard heavy footsteps running towards her direction and Sir Chuck and a half a dozen other knights appeared by her side. "Ranger." He nodded. He couldn't use the term 'your majesty' since there were other people around them at that moment. "What happened in there?"

"See for yourself." Maddie stepped back, allowing the Battlemaster to look in the room.

"He's dead." He spoke in a quiet voice. That caused quite a stir among the knights.

"Dead?" One of them asked, as if wanting confirmation even though he already had it.

The Battlemaster entered the room, took an armoured gauntlet off, held the body's hand up, noticing it was still warm, and tried to find a pulse. There was none. "Yes, dead." He confirmed.

"This would be your job to investigate though, Ranger." He stepped back to let Maddie enter the room.

Maddie entered and knelt down to touch the body's wrist, also trying to find a pulse, Rangers were better at detecting pulses than knights. But she found the same result as the Battlemaster. "The body's still warm." She noted.

"Yes, he is. He died recently, maybe less than an hour ago." Chuck nodded.

"Has anybody entered, or leave the Battleschool in that time?" Maddie asked.

"I'll ask the guards." He promised.

"Tell the guards to close off the gate as well, and have more guards patrolling the perimeter to catch anybody who tries to sneak out, or in." Maddie said and Battlemaster Chuck relayed the order from her to one of his trusted senior knights, which would be in turn delivered to the guards. The Gorlan Battleschool was surrounded by a three metres (10 feet) high stone wall with sharp spikes on the top so the only entrance and exit would be the gate. It was very unlikely the culprit could've tried climbing over the walls.

"Do you know who this was?" Maddie asked, motioning to the body. Battlemaster Chuck lifted the visor obscuring the face of the body, studied the face, a flash of recognition on his face.

"It's Alan Trot! One of my senior knights. He's been missing for a month!" The Battlemaster exclaimed. Many knights still in the corridor stirred at the mention of the name.

"Missing for a month?" Maddie inquired. That's an extremely long amount of time for a person to be missing and turned up being killed recently. Chances are Alan Trot had been held captive somewhere, and may or may not have been still alive when he was brought into the room. Already questions started to form in Maddie's mind. Why held Alan Trot captive for a month? Why only kill him now? Why did they bring his body into this dormitory room? And who benefits? They obviously wanted this body to be discovered, looking at how they made no attempt at concealing it. And Maddie would hardly call a dormitory room a good hiding place for anything but maybe an illegal stash of candies.

"Yes, no one has seen him for that long. He went to visit his old parents one day and never came back. When we went to his parent's residence, they said he never arrived at their house." Battlemaster Chuck told Maddie.

"So let me get this straight. One of your senior knights went missing for a month and just suddenly turned up recently dead in one of your Battleschool dormitory rooms?"

"Uh, yes." Battlemaster Chuck suddenly sounded uncertain. After all, for the body to appear in the dormitory room, the murderer would have to first bring Alan, dead or alive, into the room, and escaped. And someone surely would have seen the culprit exited the room, and the window's too small for an escape route. After all, at the time Alan was killed, the entire yard would be filled with apprentices.

Maddie continued examining the body. When taking the armour off Alan's body, she saw that he was dressed raggedly and was very thin. Whoever captured him definitely didn't see the need to feed him more than he needed to survive. When looking at his whole body, she noticed that there were severe burn marks and all his fingernails had been pulled out. The same were for the toenails. "Whoever had Alan captive until now tortured him." She announced. Much to the outrage of several knights who knew Alan Trot personally.

"Monsters! Why did they do such a thing?" Several knights bellowed in anguish.

"Now, now," Maddie said calmly. "We don't even who did this yet, so I'd rather you hold onto your anger until we find the identity of the culprit." Or culprits, she realised, after all, someone could've covered for the person who brought Alan into the room. In fact, it seemed extremely likely. She would have to explore that possibility later on though.

Searching under Alan's ragged tunic, she found a dagger embedded deep inside his torso, with only the handle not covered in blood. Pulling out the dagger, she noticed that wrapped around the handle, was a piece of paper.

Unwrapping the piece of paper, she saw that there were words written on it. Her eyes widened when she read the contents. Noticing her facial features changed when she read the paper, several knights were curious. One of them asked, tentatively. "What does it say, Ranger?"

She read the piece of paper out loud. "Every twenty-four hours, ten will die. Signed. The Masters of Death."


Sorry for not uploading yesterday, I'm trying to upload at least four or five times a week while balancing between writing, school and tutoring.

Any reviews or criticism would be greatly appreciated. English is not my first language so I always hope to improve.

Ps: I've changed it from 'Every twenty-four hours, another one will die.' to 'Every twenty-four hours, another ten will die." Because when you think about it, Gorlan probably has a population ranging from 4000-5000 so the chance of you being killed would be less than 0.025%.