“Full marks to you. The Storyman idea was yours, after all. He’s just doing what you told him to do, Jory.”
In spite of all his discipline and training, Will’s head snapped round at the name. Fortunately, the two men were facing away from him and the movement went unnoticed. But then the Stealer turned back, running his fingers through his hair and scratching his scalp. At the same moment, a cloud that had been obscuring the moon scudded away on the wind and the pale light fell on his face.
It was a face Will had never forgotten. He had seen it only once before, as he stood, helpless with rage, on the edge of a river, and watched a punt slide away from the bank. But it was burned into his memory as if with a hot iron.
The Stealer in the Night was Jory Ruhl.
Beneath the concealing folds of the cloak, Will’s hand moved to the hilt of his saxe, closing around it. A savage rage filled his heart and he wanted to leap to his feet, throw back the cloak and strike at the man who had been responsible for Alyss’s death, but he held himself back with an enormous effort. Deliberately, he slowed his breathing and gained control of the blind, unreasoning fury that threatened to overwhelm him. He had finally found Ruhl—ironically, when he was no longer looking for him. And Ruhl had no idea that he had been discovered.
But if Will killed Ruhl here and now, he would never find the missing children from Danvers Crossing, Boyletown, Esseldon, and who knew how many other villages in the fief. Will knew he could track the kidnapper back to his base. Presumably, it would be somewhere on the coast, where an Iberian ship could embark the captured children and take them off to the Socorro slave market.
Will would follow Ruhl to the coast, release the children and, if possible, destroy the ship.
Then he would kill Ruhl.
As the red rage slowly abated, he became aware of what Ruhl and his assistant were saying.
“Well, she’s the last one,” Ruhl said, jerking his thumb at the weeping little girl. “That makes ten and that’s how many we contracted for with Eligio. We’ll collect the others and head for Hawkshead Bay. The ship is due in three days.”
His companion nodded assent. “It’s been a successful month,” he said. “We only drew a blank in two villages.”
“It would have been a better month if that Ranger hadn’t started snooping. That wasted four days of our time.” The Stealer produced a length of rope from his pocket, pulled the girl’s hands behind her back and began to tie her wrists together.
Liam, Will thought. If he’d had any doubts that the slavers were the ones who had killed the young Ranger, they were dispelled by Ruhl’s words. That’s something else you’ll pay for, he promised.
“And I still wonder what happened to Benito. He was supposed to scare off that girl but he’s disappeared,” Ruhl continued.
The cloaked man shrugged. “I always thought he was unreliable. He’s probably drunk somewhere, or in jail. He was always getting into trouble.”
“Well, it’s one less to share the profits with,” Ruhl said. He tugged the rope around Violet’s wrists, testing the knot. The girl gave a small cry of pain. “Be quiet,” he ordered her. Then he continued to his companion: “Let’s go. We’ve stood here long enough.”
He grabbed the young girl’s arm and dragged her along beside him as he jogged across the grassy field to the dark line of the trees. The other man followed.
Will waited until they had disappeared into the forest. He’d have no trouble tracking them and besides, he knew they were heading for a place called Hawkshead Bay. He wondered briefly about the man they called Benito.
“Probably the one who tried to kill Maddie,” he said to himself.
When he was sure they were gone, and he could no longer be seen, he stood up from his hiding place. His knees ached with the movement, having been bent in one position for several hours.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered. He had no idea that he was repeating a sentiment that Halt had expressed many times.
He took his flint and steel from his belt pouch. Turning his back to the direction Ruhl had taken, he spread his cloak wide to form a screen. Then he struck two sparks from the flint in quick succession.
It was the signal he had devised with Maddie before they began their vigil. Even though the spark was tiny, it showed up clearly in the darkness. The spread cloak shielded it, in case Ruhl happened to still be in sight and glance back at the house.
A few moments later, he saw a dark form slip out of the alley where Maddie had been concealed. Staying in the shadows cast by the eaves of the buildings on the far side of the street, she moved quickly to the left for about twenty metres. At that point, she became lost to his sight. Minutes later, she crept silently out of another alley, parallel to the one beside the Carter house. She made her way to where Will stood, waiting.
“I saw them,” she said. “Did they take the girl?”
Will nodded. “Yes. And now they’re heading back to their lair. It’s at a place called Hawkshead Bay.”
“Do you know where that is?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll check the map and see if it’s marked there. If not, we’ll simply follow Ruhl’s tracks.”
She looked at him, slightly puzzled, her head to one side. “Ruhl? Who’s Ruhl?”
“He’s the Stealer,” Will told her. But something in his voice caught her attention.
“Do you know him?” she asked.
Will nodded grimly. “He’s the man who killed my wife.”
Forty-two
Dawn was four hours away and Will decided they should get a few hours’ sleep before they set out after Ruhl and his gang.
“We can’t track them in the dark and we’ve been up for hours keeping watch the past two nights. We might as well get some sleep while we can,” he said. “They won’t be moving too fast. Ruhl said they were going to collect the other children they’ve abducted. That’ll slow them down.”
Maddie yawned. She didn’t disagree with his assessment of the situation.
They returned to the clearing where they had hidden the horses and rolled out their blankets on the soft, springy grass. Maddie was asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes. The tension of the nights spent on watch, and the events of the previous few days, had left her emotionally and physically exhausted.
She awoke to what she now considered to be the delightful smell of fresh coffee brewing. She sat up and saw Will sitting beside a small fire, the map of Trelleth Fief spread out on the ground beside him. He heard her moving and looked up, gesturing to the coffee pot in the coals at the edge of the fire.
“Get yourself some coffee,” he said. “And there’s bread there to toast as well. No sense setting out on an empty stomach.”
She propped a slab of bread up on a stick close to the heat of the coals, then poured a cup of coffee. They had no milk but by now she could drink it black, so long as it was sweetened with plenty of honey. She sipped it appreciatively, turned the toast as it was on the point of burning and hunkered down opposite him.
“Did you find Hawkshead Bay?” she asked.
He nodded, jabbing a finger at the chart.
“A little south of here,” he said. “I can see why they called it Hawkshead Bay.”
She peered at it, frowning. “Doesn’t look like a hawk’s head to me,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
Will raised an eyebrow in her direction. “That could be because you’re looking at it upside down,” he said patiently. “By the way, your toast’s burning.”
She grabbed at the toast and burnt her fingers, dropping the slightly blackened slice of bread onto the grass. She muttered a very unladylike oath. That sent both of Will’s eyebrows soaring.