Halt was bored. There was no other way to describe it. An when a ranger gets bored, one needs to be careful. Especially when that one is the person who 'locked up' said ranger. Halt made up all kinds of funny little plans to embarrass Evan in front of his crew. Of course, half of the things he imagined were impossible to actually do, but the thinking was a nice way to get through some time. And time was something Halt had enough of, now he was stuck on the ship. He had noticed that his seasickness didn't bother him all that much when he kept himself busy, which encouraged him to continue thinking up even more ingenious, but crazy plans.
Part of the plan he decided to stick to, consisted of remaining silent. He would not say a word, not to anyone aboard the ship. Twice a day, some people from the kitchen staff brought him a meal. Those meals weren't very special, but he appreciated that they didn't forget him. It would be a shame to starve to death, now he was finally on his way to Skandia. An hour after the first meal of the day had been delivered to him, he gathered his belongings and left his 'cell'.
He casually strolled across various decks until he reached the fresh air of the top deck. It took a while before the first crewmember noticed the escaped prisoner walking around. The man had a bewildered look in his eyes as he stared at Halt's cloak for a moment, before turning to another crewmember. He barked a few words in the strange language that characterized the Scoti, pointing towards the ranger. The two of them followed him with their eyes, as he passed them. They decided not to move, though. Very well, Halt though. You don't bother me, I don't bother you. For a while he just walked there, enjoying the fresh air, which was an incredible improvement after having been below deck between the dusty barrels for several days. That, and the fact that he was barely bothered by seasickness, due to the size of the ship, put him into a good mood. Almost cheerfully he continued towards the middle of the ship.
A gigantic sail occupied a large part above the deck there. This was the ship's most important sail, catching most wind. All the way above it, at the top of the mast, a flag displaying the Scoti's royal crest waved about proudly. Halt realized this situation could get very interesting. He took his long bow off his shoulder and slowly grabbed an arrow. A few second later, the rope holding up the flag snapped, causing the piece of fabric to come sailing down. Halt chuckled at his own inward pun.
As if nothing had happened, Halt continued on his way down the ship. Several moments later confused Scoti voices were calling out to one another; the fallen flag had been found. Some yards away from Halt, a smaller, but still important-looking sail was filled with wind. Again, Halt grabbed an arrow. By the time he passed the sail, a nice and big hole decorated the sail, which immediately let go of the wind. A crewmember who happened to witness Halt's destructive actions came rushing towards the ranger, shouting angrily. Without hesitation Halt took care of him. He didn't kill the man, he didn't believe that to be necessary. If he had done that, too many crewmembers would be lost and then he'd never reach Skandia. That did not agree with Halt's plans of course...
Everyone who got in Halt's way, simply got knocked unconscious or disarmed. That was always fun. The ranger didn't feel like hurting innocent bystanders, so he only attacked people attacking him. He continued like this for another while, cutting ropes and sails every now and then, defending himself when needed. Eventually someone higher up in the ship's hierarchy heard of what he was doing and ordered for Halt to be captured again. He was again taken back to the room full of wine barrels. The Scoti didn't seem to learn from their previous mistakes, as they tied him up exactly the same way and left his weapons in the same spot. An extra rope was brought in to keep him where he was.
Halt had noticed by then that the Scoti weren't all that bright. But this was simply stupid, even for them: he had escaped from here twice now. Didn't they see that their methods weren't working?! He shook his head in disappointment. He had expected a little more of a challenge.
Barely an hour later, he repeated his actions.
At that same moment, Evan tried to convince the king not to attack Skandia. That had never been part of his plan. He had to let Halt pay for what the ranger had done, and where better to do it than in Skandia? First it would give him hope, because he wanted to go to Skandia too, which Evan would then crush again. Evan would take everything from him, so that damned ranger would finally feel what that was like. He would finally understand what Evan had felt like the past 28 years.
But now the king wanted to charge at the Skandians, in the hope that they would return his son's shield. Of course, the Skandians didn't have that stupid shield in their possession. It had been carefully hidden in one of Evan's private storage rooms. He didn't understand why the Scoti cared so much about their shields. Those things were invented to protect warriors from weapons, not to represent or be more valuable than its owner; for some reasons the king had always put effort in trying to find that shield, instead of the so called rebels who had been accused of kidnapping his son. Evan couldn't emphasize with this, even though he had been the one to make up the story of the kidnapping in the first place, but that wasn't his top priority at that moment.
"Majesty, if we attack now, we will be heavily outnumbered! You know the Skandians reputation. We can never win! You will never be able to see your son's shield again," he tried. "We need to use a method of diplomacy to settle this and I am you best candidate to..." The king furiously slammed his fist on the table.
"How many times do I need to tell you?! There's no talking with these barbarians!" he exclaimed. "They know no honour, let alone diplomacy! Why else would they have taken the shield? They probably kidnapped my wife as well, if they didn't do something worse! You want to go talk to them?! What kind of idiot are you?!"
Evan closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. It took all of his self control to keep his cool. He thought of the queen, who had left one night, many years ago, and had never been seen since. She'd probably been fed up with being ordered about all the time. Her disappearance had not been orchestrated by him. She had not been part of his plans. But apparently the king now thought that the Skandians were to blame for this too. Things were starting to get out of hand, if he couldn't take control of the king again soon... Luckily the king wasn't all that sharp-minded either. He usually didn't notice Evan's attempts to distract him from one of his little theories, which came in handy every now and then.
"Majesty, that is exactly why you should not attack yet! They will see that as a sign to start hitting back. They will take everything dear to you and destroy it!" he calmly explained. Well, he appeared to be calm. His heart was pounding in his chest, hoping that the king would see the reason in his comment. Evan remained silent for a while, giving the king the chance to change his mind.
"Very well. We shall not charge at once," he then said, his voice sounding exhausted all of a sudden. He slouched back in his chair. Evan felt like dancing. It had worked! This was amazing! Naturally, he didn't show his victorious feeling on the outside. "Leave me now. I need to decide what we shall do instead."
Evan bowed a little and left the room, cursing under his breath. His victorious feeling disappeared quickly. If he was not in the room, then he could not influence the kind. This could turn into a long trip...
"Sir!" a crewmember called out to him. Evan turned around. The man appeared to be someone with little seagoing experience. He had barely reached adulthood and was clearly anxious to talk to Evan.
"What?" he asked. The discussion with the king had worked on his nerves. He had no desire to spend much time and effort on this chap standing in front of him.
"The, uh, prisoner keeps escaping, sit!" he stuttered, examining his shoes.
"Sure, why not?" Evan grumbled wearily. "Use better ties then! It's not like he can do something." He back to continue on his path.
"But, uh, sir!" the crewmember called out again. Evan slowly turned to face him again, by then starting to get annoyed. The young man's face had turned bright red and he didn't dare look Evan in the eye. "That's not all. He, uh, he, well, look there for example." Evan rolled his eyes, but followed the shaky finger pointing upwards anyways.
The curse that left Evan's mouth then will not be repeated here, considering the inappropriateness. The main sail had been torn to pieces, several useless ropes dangling around it. It was clear which prisoner had done this. Firstly there was only one prisoner: Halt. Secondly, there was probably only one who could have managed to do what had been done: arrows had been used to tear the sail. This was clear enough already. Besides that, the tears form a giant H.
"Halt," Evan grumbled furiously. "I will get you, even if it is the last thing I do."
Horace boredly kicked some sand from side to side. They had been waiting for almost an hour already. He wondered why nobody simply walked over to the ship to ask what was going on. It seemed to be the most logical solution to him. Oh well, he figured it must be his knight-brain. Which seemed even weirder to him was that nobody was leaving. Every person stood there, waiting as one, till something would happen on board the little ship, in the cold, without any food. That might even have been the worst part of it. His stomach was grumbling almost non-stop at that point.
At some point Cassandra poked his side.
"Stop rumbling, you! If it goes on much longer everyone will start thinking that a storm is coming up!" she whispered with a smile on her face. Horace chuckled.
"Perhaps they will finally go home then," he replied. He wrapped his arm around her and tried to see what was going on once again. The annoying thing was that he had no idea whether or not his best friend and daughter were aboard the ship. If he'd had certainty regarding that, the long wait would never have been this tense. He hoped it would all be over soon.
A few minutes had passed when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"What's going on?" Eden asked, who had come to stand beside them with Celia. "Did someone die? It's so quiet here." Horace frowned.
"Let's hope not. This is that Hal guy's ship," he answered. Eden met his gaze for a moment, before realizing what Horace was talking about.
"Oh, Karina's son," he said."Exactly. And like Erak said, I would not be happy if I had to tell her something happened to her kid." Eden nodded slowly."Luckily she is standing in the crowd there as well, so nobody needs to tell her anything," he remarked. Horace looked up and noticed the woman now too, a worried expression on her face."I'm not so sure we should be happy about that. Let's hope we are all worrying for nothing." Horace had no idea how much his thought was off the truth.