Читать онлайн «Erak's Ransom»

Erak_s ransom

John Flanagan

Chapter 1

The sentry never saw the dark-clad figure ghosting through the night towards Castle Araluen. Merging with the prevailing patterns of light and shade thrown by the half moon, the interloper seemed to blend into the fabric of the night, matching the rhythm of the trees and cloud shadows as they moved with the moderate wind.

The sentry's post was in the outer cordon, outside the walls of the massive castle, by the south-eastern tower. The moat rippled gently behind him, its surface stirred by the wind so that the reflections of the stars in the dark water were set shimmering in a thousand tiny points of light. Before him stretched the massive parkland that surrounded the castle, carefully tended, immaculately mown and dotted with fruit and shade trees.

The ground sloped gently away from the castle. There were trees and small shady dells where couples or individuals could sit and relax and picnic in relative privacy, sheltered from the sun. But the trees were small and they were well spaced out, with plenty of open ground between them so that concealment would be denied to any large attacking force. It was a well-ordered compromise between the provision of privacy and relaxation and the need for security in an age when an attack could conceivably happen at any time.

Thirty metres to the left of where the sentry stood, a picnic table had been fashioned by attaching an old cartwheel to the sawn-off stump of what had been a larger tree. Several rustic benches were placed around the table and a smaller tree had been planted to one side to shade it at noon. It was a favourite picnic spot for the knights and their ladies. It afforded a good overview of the green, pleasant parklands that sloped away to the distant dark line of a forest. And it was placed so that it would enjoy sunshine all year round – so long as the sun was shining.

The intruder was heading towards this table.

The dark figure slipped into the shadows of a small grove forty metres from the bench, then dropped belly down to the ground. Taking one last look to get a bearing, the intruder snaked out of the shadows, face down, heading for the shelter of the table.

Progress was painstakingly slow. This was obviously a trained stalker who knew that any rapid movement would register with the sentry's peripheral vision. As shadows of clouds passed over the park, the crawling figure would move with them, rippling unobtrusively across the short grass, seeming to be just one more moving shadow. The dark green clothing aided concealment. Black would have been too dark and would have created too deep a shadow.

Dark green merged perfectly with the tone of the grass itself.

It took ten minutes to cover the distance to the table. A few metres short of the objective, the figure froze as the guard suddenly stiffened, as if alerted by some sound or slight movement – or perhaps just an intuitive sense that all was not quite right. He turned and peered in the general direction of the table, not even registering the dark, unmoving shape a few metres from it.