Page 5 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

It couldn’t be Ravana’s men. They wouldn’t sneak up on him. They’d have fired an arrow to incapacitate him, and he’d be halfway back home to the tri-city area of Warchesterlestermestershire (pronounced Warshire) by then. Which meant…what? There were no settlements in Elmswood. He’d have sent men to conquer them if there were.

It could be haunted. It looked the part. And having to fight ghosts would certainly fit his bad luck streak.

“Are we really going to play this game?” he called out, squinting into the darkness. It looked close to dawn, with the slightest green tint of wan sunlight illuminating the wiry branches of the elms. He swished his sword again. “If so, I’ll have you know I’m an expert at hide-and-seek—”

It came from above. A heavy weight knocked him right onto his stomach, flattening him against the moss-and-spider-infested ground. It partially blocked his vision, too, and as he flailed against it, sinewy arms held fast. It took him a few embarrassing seconds to realize he was fighting a net of rope.

“Woo!” A voice—casual and distinctly not a ghost, whooped from somewhere in the trees above. “I got him! And on the first try, too. Dibs on the goat, Bronwen.”

Benjamin. With difficulty, he strained around to scan his campsite for Beni. She had to be close if they’d spotted her. Was she all right? Were her kids?

The tree branch above him crackled. Someone came landing down with easy grace just a few steps from his head. Morfran caught sight of muddy boots and green skirts before he raised his gaze higher to meet eyes with a glaring woman.

“Keep the goat.” Her voice was steel. “I only want him.”

Morfran had never been bound and kept prisoner before. The fact that these two peasants had accomplished the impossible was, frankly, humiliating. They’d unwrapped him from the netting, tied his hands behind his back, and stolen his gear in record time. He couldn’t even fight back. He was sluggish and slow, his vision blurry and doubling from sleep deprivation, and twice there appeared to be more than two of them.

The woman had kicked him in the ribs to get him to rise, and to rise now.

“I am rising,” he argued.

“Not fast enough,” she replied curtly, before grabbing Beni’s leash, scooping Baby Goats One and Two in her arms, and striding ahead, her long plait of brown hair swaying with each step.

The man walked behind him, holding Morfran’s sword against Morfran’s back, which was incentive to walk stiff and straight and without fuss.

Morfran only spoke when he saw Baby Goat Two squirming in the woman’s arm, and she in turn huffed and tried to adjust its weight, too carelessly for his liking.

“If you drop or hurt any of my pets, I’ll maim you in your sleep.”

“How?” she asked. “With your hands tied behind your back? Are you that skilled of a fighter?” She turned her head, so he only caught sight of her profile. “Or should we make it a real challenge and tie your feet together, too?”

“We could blindfold ’im as well,” the man said. “Though he’d probably end up headbutting a wall trying to kill us and hurt himself, the poor fellow.”

Poor fellow? Did they dare believe that he, Morfran, Dark Lord of Ruthven™, would be so unskilled as to headbutt a wall in an attempt to kill them—

He shut his mouth before he said something stupid. They would believe that, because they didn’t know who he was. He was dressed as a commoner after all, loaded down with three goats, lost in woods in the kingdom’s boonies. Not to mention that Ravana had apparently ordered her men not to announce his disappearance. Everyone besides Ravana’s most trusted men would still believe him to be at Castle Atrago, ordering the pillaging of villages and beheading court traitors from his sanctuary.

This could be good. Perhaps they were forest dwellers just suspicious of outsiders. Perhaps if he just convinced them he was a mere peasant down on his luck, they’d—

“Say, is this really your lute?” The man shuffled through his pack. “Would you be open to parting with it?”

Morfran spun around. Damn the wrist bindings. He’d kick the man to death if he had to. If he saw what else was in that pack—namely the journal and a certain pair of tight black pants…

The man already had the sword raised and propped against Morfran’s sternum.

“Leave his bag alone, Hugh.” The woman had stopped and turned. “We’ll search it when we return home.”

Morfran tossed a seething look at the man before staring her down. She had the appearance of a serf: a simple leather bodice over dirt-smeared skirts, mucky boots, and a messy plait hopelessly trying to keep her hair under control. But despite her being a peasant, there was something unpeasant-ish about her. It was the unexpected sharp edge to her doe-like eyes, something that told him not to disregard her anytime soon.

Though the man next to her didn’t have the same biting stare, he did have the same bright green eyes and brown hair. Siblings, most likely. No woman spoke with such exhausted dismissal to a man unless she’d had to bear his lame jokes and idiocy since infancy.

“I don’t know why you’ve bound me, or where we’re going,” he said. “But I’ve been lost in these woods for days and I just want to reach the Sea of Biscuitte.”

The woman flickered her gaze down him unhurriedly, as if judging how ridiculous he looked in hose. Then she leaned forward. Her tone was cold. “When I am done with you, you’ll no longer have hands to hold a sword, and you’ll no longer have a tongue to speak any lies.”

He blinked at her blatant hostility. “Yes. Well. All right. Look, if you could just release me, I promise I’ll get out of your hair. I only ask for my sword and my goats back.” He thought for a moment. “And everything else.”

The man—Hugh—snorted a breathy laugh. “Looks like your intimidation doesn’t work on this fellow, Bronwen.”