Ranger's Apprentice The Royal Ranger 2: The Red Fox Clan

Prologue

He stood in the shadows to one side, letting the rage build within him. He needed the rage. He fed off it. It inflamed the passion and fire that went into his words and his delivery.

Audiences felt it and reacted to it. He had the ability to arouse the same rage in them. His audiences were, for the most part, unsophisticated country folk and villagers, and he used all the tricks of the rabble-rouser’s trade to play upon their prejudices and intolerance – to make them raise their fists to the heavens and cry for justice.

The basis for his own rage was simple. In his mind, he had been cheated out of his birthright, his right of inheri­tance. And it had been done at the whim of a monarch who sought to cement his own family’s succession to the throne. At the stroke of a pen, he had changed a centuries-old law of the land and decreed that, in Araluen, a female heir could succeed to the throne.

Most Araluans accepted the new law without thinking. But a small number of fanatics and conservatives resented it. They had formed the Red Fox Clan, a subversive group with the avowed aim of bringing back the old ways – the law of male succession.

The Red Fox Clan had been few in number when he had first discovered them several years ago, with perhaps less than fifty members. But he had seen them as the key to attaining his destiny – the throne of Araluen. He had recognised that this movement, weak and unorganised as it was, could become the base from which he could launch his campaign.

Accordingly, he had joined them, bringing his undoubted talent for organisation and leadership to their movement.

He had travelled from village to village, from town to town, preaching his message of prejudice in clandestine meetings, biding his time and watching the number of clan members grow. That initial group of less than fifty now numbered in the hundreds. They were a powerful and well-financed movement. And he had gradually risen to the position of Vulpus Rutilis – the Red Fox, leader of the Clan.

He was a skilled and convincing orator, but that was only one aspect of his complex character. He could be hard and ruthless when he needed to be, and on more than one occasion he had brutally crushed people who defied him or tried to impede his way to the top.

But, just as important, he had learned at an early age that a more effective way to achieve his ends was by charm and apparent friendliness. His mother had told him as a boy, when she had dinned into his brain the injustice that had been done to him, ‘you catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ – and he had applied that lesson well as he grew in years and maturity.

He had cultivated the ability to make others like him, to convince them he was their friend. A consummate actor, he had learned to hide animosity behind an outer show of warmth and geniality – and a winning smile. Even now, there were half a dozen people in the upper ranks of the Red Fox Clan whom he hated. Yet not one of them was aware of the fact, and all of them regarded him as a friend, a warm and generous ally.

And there were others – those outside the cult, people he viewed as his most bitter adversaries – who had no idea of the depths of hatred that simmered below his outer layer of easygoing cordiality.

Now, the time was approaching when he could cast that pretence aside and reveal his true feelings, and he felt a deep sense of satisfaction at the thought of it.

The meeting was being held in a large clearing in the woods, situated between three large villages where he had recruited members to the Clan. He scanned them now. Only Clan members had been invited, and a screen of guards armed with clubs and swords were in place to make sure that no outsider would witness the meeting. There were nearly a hundred people present – an excellent turnout. In the beginning, he had spoken to audiences of less than a dozen people – people who were only half interested in what he had to say but were looking for some diversion from their drab, humdrum lives. Now, the movement had gathered its own momentum and energy. There was an expectant buzz among the crowd as they waited for him to speak.

He judged that it was time to do so. The past few years had seen him develop a sense of timing when dealing with crowds. He had the ability to know when he should appear – and then to wait those vital few minutes longer until expectancy had turned into eagerness and enthusi­asm for the cause.

There was a raised speaking platform to his left, lit by flaring torches and with a backdrop bearing the face of a red fox.

He donned his mask now – a stylised fox face that covered his eyes, nose and cheeks. He pulled the fur-trimmed scarlet cloak tighter around his body and mounted the three low steps at the back of the stage, pushing through the backdrop to appear, almost magically, in the flaring torchlight.

There was a moment’s silence as he appeared, then shattering applause as he threw his arms wide, with the scarlet cloak spread behind him.