Chapter 1: A Start

Vincent peered around the trunk of the tree.

This section of forest was more open as it was regrowth. It still had a lot of shrubbery and short trees that were hampering his vision. He saw the man aim at him, and he quickly pulled his head back. A fraction of a second later, the shot chipped a large chunk of bark off the tree near his head. Vincent swore silently.

He tried to ignore the sweat on his palms and dribbling down his back, as he heard another shot ring-out over to his left where he’d last seen Paul. He, Paul and Leigh, were hemmed in. He was still wondering how they had ended up in this predicament. He was not happy to have eight outlaws shooting at him. This was not the first time he’d had brigands shooting at him in a forest, and he suspected it wouldn’t be the last.

Duke Vincent Arrondale would turn twenty-two in six weeks, and he was hoping that he would live to see that birthday.

Vincent had the soft, light-brown curly hair that the Arrondale’s were famous for, as well as the sky-blue eyes with gold flecks.

Vincent was taller than the average at 183cm tall, with broad shoulders and a tight sexy arse. He had a lanky, tight-muscled physic that hid just how powerful he was in body strength. He wasn’t hard on the eyes as far as many women were concerned.

His seven years older cousin was called Duke Tyshawn Terell, better known as Ty. Ty was the Duke of the Northern Region of Ausland, and he had been Vincent’s guardian. Most people remarked that Vincent was a younger version of Ty. Ty was about 1cm taller than Vincent was and while he had the classic Arrondale looks, he did have a more intense look about him.

Ty had decided that as part of their physical training in Law Enforcement, Vincent and his friend, Earl Leigh Karlson, would spend the autumn working out of his Investigations department in Terville, the capital city of his Region.

An exciting case had developed due to a gang of highwaymen becoming more brazen and killing their victims. Paul Mandle, one of Ty’s Chief Investigators, Leigh and Vincent had been assigned to follow up any leads they got on these men.

Terville and the surrounding region had nearly doubled in population in the last four years. Ty’s wife, Willow, had been able to open up a lot of land and even created a new small town, called Gavinston, in her province that was to the east of the city.

Because of Willow’s estranged grandfather’s will, half of the farmland and several mine-sites in Willow’s province, Tervale, had been unusable for many years. It had required the death of Willow’s mother to break the conditions of the will.

Willow has also been able to expand her production of Nadack and Lavender. Willow’s family had been growing the herbs in the Northern Region for centuries, and both herbs had very high resale values in the neighbouring countries.

Nadack was a potent herb used as a healing agent that controlled pain, reduced inflammation in the body and increased the body’s ability to fight infections. It could be extracted from the leaf of the plant, but the seeds were more concentrated. The lavender also had healing properties and many other commercial uses such as perfume and soaps.

Willow and her consortium of growers had a reputation for producing very high-quality products. They used to ship their products at the end of autumn for sale at the winter auctions in Bavindor, the Capital of Ausland.

Bavindor is located on the east coast of the Eastern Region, and it is where King Harold Whitmore IV lives, and hosts the Court of Ministers for the middle month of the summer and winter seasons. The Winter Season is also the primary social season and when most of the courting and weddings of the gentry take place.

Because Willow now sold all of her Nadack from her own Agents in Terville, the thieves who once preyed on Willow and her customers in Bavindor had to move as well. In the past, it had not been uncommon for her consortium to have their shipments waylaid by thieves on the way to Bavindor.

Now because her customers came to her, the thieves were her customers’ problem. This new gang had started stalking the northern roads a couple of months before. They had been harassing the Nordlanders returning home across the northern border from Terville to the city of Haldol.

Vincent’s other cousin, Princess Prudence (Prue), was married to Prince Tahnar Dahl (Tah). Tah was the third son of King Jonas Dahl of Nordland. Prue ran several companies based in the Northern Region that made steam and wind-powered generators and battery storage systems. Other companies in the region were also building other devices to use these systems.

This latest gang of thieves had worked out it was also profitable to hit her shipments to Nordland and her customers. Paul had traced this new gang to the part of the forest that Vincent now found himself in, and being shot at by.

Paul had once been involved with a group of thieves who were responsible for the killing of Willow’s parents nearly five years before. Paul had redeemed himself when he had helped Ty rescue Willow from her cousin, who was determined to rape and marry her to take control of her substantial inheritance.

Paul’s Gifts from the Old Gods were his ability to read a crime scene and track anything or anybody. Ty had gotten King Harold to pardon Paul, as long as he worked for Ty.

Ty had recently made Paul his primary investigator for his region.

So here was Vincent, with his back pressed into a tree, with the thieves they had tracked, now shooting at them.

He blamed Paul. Paul in his desire to prove Ty hadn’t made a mistake trusting him was very zealous in his job. Paul’s need to identify the thieves had gotten him too close to their camp. He had accidentally startled some birds that were nesting in a bush near where he had stopped to observe the camp.

Typically, he was super careful, but even he couldn’t know everything. What was worse, was that one of the thieves had recognised Paul, panicked and started shooting. He knew that Paul was probably the one man who could track them and identify them. Once Paul got your scent, he never forgot it.

Paul’s uncanny nose could pull strangers out of a crowd, by their smell alone, as long as he had smelt you sometime before. If you walked past Paul and he caught your scent, he could track back to where you had last been, as long as your scent hadn’t been muddied too badly by other stronger smells.

From the reports the men had received, there were supposed to be four thieves in this group. However, the group they stumbled over had eight members. Vincent guessed the other four men stayed hidden unless something went wrong. They were probably the boss and the distributors of the goods.

Vincent surmised that if any of the four in the raiding party were recognised, it didn’t matter. The other men made sure the goods got to the port to be shipped to the other countries. They could also probably replace the men doing the actual robberies if one of them was hurt.

He had heard several horses take off, but didn’t know how many men were left. Two for sure as far as the gunfire indicated. Vincent heard movement to his left and aimed at the area. He held fire because, in relation to his position, he didn’t know where Leigh or Paul was located.

Vincent reacted to a head and a gun that popped up over the top of an old tree stump, 5m to his right. Vincent fired, the man gave a short grunt and he went down. He wouldn’t be shooting anyone else in a hurry. The man who had shot at him from the other side of the tree, open-fired again. Vincent counted the shots and then rolled out from behind the tree.

Vincent sent a single shot into the bush. He heard a grunt of pain and then a body fall. It didn’t move again, and no more sounds came from the spot. He scanned the area and saw movement behind the man who fell in the bush. Yet, he held fire.

“Paul? Leigh?” he called out. No one shot at him as he waited.

He heard more movement behind the bush and then heard Paul say, “That’s Mattie Yates, Leigh. He was a bad bastard, Vincent sure plugged him good.”

Vincent had to smile when he heard Paul spit. ‘Ouch,’ he thought. ‘Paul only spits on the dead if he knows their history and it wasn’t good.’

“Paul, what about the guy to my right?” he called out. He swivelled so that he covered the tall stump that hid the first guy he had shot. There wasn’t any movement there either. He heard Leigh, but not Paul as the two men worked their way around to the other man.

Paul could be bloody scary in his bushcraft. You often didn’t know he had found you until he sat down beside you and lit up one of the disgusting cigars that he insisted on smoking. Vincent had thought Ty had incredible bush skills, but Paul was just uncanny.

“By the Gods, Vincent, you’re supposed to wound them, so Ty can question them,” Paul complained.

Vincent grinned and got to his feet. He dusted himself down as he made his way to his friends. “Sorry Paul, old habit. Ty always said a wounded man can still hurt you but a dead one can’t.”

Paul grunted, “Well, it’s just as well I didn’t kill mine. Leigh is as bad as you; he bagged one of them too.”

“What about the other four shitheads?” Vincent asked as he reloaded his pistol.

“They took off, but they have left gear behind that I can use to sniff them out,” Paul said giving Vincent his evil little grin that said he was delighted he would have new leads to follow.