THE RELIC GUILD (and other stories) Updated regularly.

IDEAL VILLAGE (part 9 of 10)

-PHASE IX-

To use the proper bait is to ensure the trap is sprung...

Shortly before midnight, Lanky left the police station and set off down the village high street. Walking briskly, he passed closed shops and cafes, nodded to a police patrol enforcing curfew, and then he took a left turn into a cobbled alley where the village smithy and the cobbler's were situated. At the end of this alley, Lanky turned right and followed a path that skirted a residential area, cut past the Woodpecker Pub, headed out of the main village, and finally weaved between two freshly furrowed fields all the way to the edge of Ring Wood.
Unbeknownst to the Chief Constable, he was being followed by a hooded and cloaked figure. This figure did not follow too closely, and stuck well to the shadows. But not so well as to escape the attention of Mr Cavendish, who, unbeknownst to the hooded and cloaked figure and the Chief Constable, followed them both.
Lanky paused at the edge of Ring Wood, and took a last look back at the village. He then disappeared into the tree line.
Not far inside Ring Wood there was a small clearing (which was easy to find even in darkness due to the phosphorescent leaves that grew on the trees lining the trail that led to it). At the clearing, there were other, narrower paths that ran into the deeper and darker regions of Ring Wood, where only a select few villagers were cunning and brave enough to travel. And it was these select few villagers that Lanky was due to meet at midnight. However, when he reached the clearing, Dennis Trueshot, Margaret Sharpspear and Roger Honourbound were nowhere to be seen.
Unless you were an Adventurer, Ring Wood was a strange and unsettling place to find yourself alone in, even if you were the most hardened of Chief Constables. Caught in a moment of uncertainty, Lanky wore a deep frown. Midnight had arrived, yet not one sound came from the undergrowth; no breeze rustled the leaves. All was dead. With only bough and moonlight as witness, Lanky made a tempting target for an axe-murderer.
"Have your friends abandoned you, Chief Constable?" said a voice from the darkness – a man's voice. "Don't think too badly of them."
"Show yourself," Lanky demanded.
But the owner of the voice remained concealed, choosing to speak once again from the darkness.
"I sent a letter to the Woodpecker this afternoon, a letter I sighed in your name, of course. I told the Adventurers of how you needed to change the Plan, how you needed them to come here much later than midnight. And that they are to arrive one at a time, not together."
The hooded and cloaked figure chose that moment to step into the clearing. He swept aside his cloak exposing a woodcutter's axe, which he cradled to his chest almost lovingly.
Even though the axe-murderer did not remove his hood and reveal his face, it did not stop Lanky saying, quite calmly, "I know who you are."
"I'm sure you do," the axe-murderer chuckled. "Now, tell me, what evidence are the Adventurers bringing you?"
When Lanky didn't reply, the axe-murderer ran a thumb down the blade of his weapon as if to test its sharpness. "I'll allow you one more chance to answer, Chief Constable."
Lanky lowered his voice to a growl. "And I'll allow you one chance to give yourself up, and one chance only."
The axe-murderer sighed. "I don't suppose it really matters. Once my axe takes your head, I'll wait for Trueshot, Sharpspear and Honourbound to arrive, and I'll chop them down too, one at a time. No one will ever suspect me, no one will ever hear your evidence, and I'll be free to fulfil my heart's desire and ruin Ideal Village for good. No one can escape my axe. That's the way of things. That's how it works. It's what I want."
"Give yourself up," Lanky said, pleadingly. "You have my word you'll be given a fair trial."
The cloaked and hooded figure laughed like he was barking. He raised aloft his axe and the moonlight glinted off the sharp, silver head. Then he ran at Lanky, eager to deliver the fatal chop.
Lanky held his ground, and before the axe-murderer had made it halfway across the clearing, an arrow had thunked into his axe arm. Dennis Trueshot emerged from the tree line, bow in hand. The axe-murderer screamed in rage and pain, and dropped to his knees; but as he did so, he hurled the axe and sent it spinning end over end towards Lanky.
Just as it seemed the axe would embed itself into Lanky's chest, Roger Honourbound dived into the clearing and deftly plucked the weapon from the air. He landed with a smooth roll, and came to his feet, axe in hand.
Lastly, Margaret Sharpspear sprang from the tree line and held the point of her spear to the axe-murderer's throat.
"Should have listened to the Chief Constable," Roger Honourbound said.
"We could've settled this peaceably," added Margaret Sharpspear.
"But you just had to go for one more kill," said Dennis Trueshot. He moved up beside the axe-murderer, and grabbed his hood. "And did you honestly think that letter of yours could really fool us Adventurers? We've been onto you since last night ... Mister Pankhurst ..."
Trueshot pulled the axe-murderer's hood back to indeed reveal the Mayor of Ideal Village and Chairman of the Parish Council, Mr Pankhurst.
"No!" Mr Pankhurst sobbed. He clutched his injured arm. "I covered my tracks."
"Not so well as to foil the Plan," said Lanky.
Mr Pankhurst looked for a moment as though he would try and run for it. But the keen and cold metal of Margaret Sharpspear's spearhead kept him in place.
"There are only ten left-handed people in Ideal Village," Lanky said, "nine of whom I was quite convinced were innocent. Only one remained, one I deliberately did not question, whom I allowed to believe had slipped my net, and whom I knew had spent the first night of curfew alone, while his son manned the emergency hotline at the police station."
"Nice touch, by the way," said Margaret Sharpspear, "poisoning your own son like that."
"Yeah," Dennis Trueshot agreed. "With guts as bad as you gave him, Charlie was safely out the way while you chopped up poor Mickey Rope."
"And let's not forget Sally Salinger," added Roger Honourbound. "Alone in her house, sleeping and dreaming of all things pink – she must have made an easy target for your axe. Pankhurst, you're as cowardly as you are evil."
Lanky said, "You followed me here believing I was collecting the hard evidence I needed to incriminate you. But there never was any hard evidence."
"A trap," Mr Pankhurst realised, a little breathlessly. "You tricked me here ..."
Lanky sighed. "Even though you weren't present at the Parish meetings, you read Mr Knight's reports on what had been decided. The Plan depended upon it. I needed you to know when and where I could be found alone, so you would reveal yourself."
Dennis Trueshot snorted. "You know, Pankhurst, for someone who doesn't like change, you've certainly changed a lot in this village."
"Change?" Mr Pankhurst spat. "Don't talk to me about change! I came to this village to live a life without it, but look what change did to my Sandra."
"Your wife died, true," said Roger Honourbound. "But as tragic as that might be, it's no excuse to go about murdering an entire village of good and honest folk."
"No?" Mr Pankhurst's face was creased by fury now. "You don't know what it's like – going to bed every night lonely, waking up every morning to face yet another day without her, without my wife. This place did that to me."
"No," Lanky said, his voice soft and sympathetic. "Even Ideal Village can't prevent death."
"Can't it?" Mr Pankhurst spat, bitterly. "Call me what you like, but I say it's this village that's evil, mouldy to the roots. Every day I've watched the people of this place, wondering why they should be happy, why they get to live an idyllic life with their loved ones, and all the while my Sandra lies in a box, dead!"
Margaret Sharpspear tapped Mr Pankhurst's chin with her spear. "So you boiled and stewed over the years until you finally snapped. And by the use of your left hand, you decided to share your misery with the rest of us."
"Ideal Village is evil!" Mr Pankhurst shouted.
"Only because you made it that way," Lanky replied. "But not anymore."
"So do your worst." Venom seemed to drip from Mr Pankhurst's words now. "End my life, if think it so miserable."
"No," said Lanky. "No one will be ending your life, Mr Pankhurst."
"Then throw me in a cell to rot for the rest of my days, if that's your decision."
"We're not like you, Pankhurst," said Roger Honourbound. "No villager would sleep soundly at night knowing an axe-murderer was still around, even if he was locked away in the deepest, darkest dungeon."
"And spare a thought for poor Charlie," Margaret Sharpspear said. "How can you look your son in the eye now?"
"Yeah," agreed Dennis Trueshot. "First he loses his ma to sickness, and then he loses his pa to madness. Charlie will never mend his broken life with you still around."
At the mention of Charlie, Mr Pankhurst's shoulders slumped, and a look of deep sadness came to his face. "I only ever wanted Charlie to discover what his heart wished for most."
"If he ever does," said Lanky, "you'll not be around to witness it. There's no place for you here, Mr Pankhurst. You may call Ideal Village home no longer."
"What?" Mr Pankhurst stiffened, and his sad expression was replaced in no small degree by suspicious surprise. "You're letting me live?" he said. "You're letting me go?"
"On one condition," Dennis Trueshot said. "There's an oath you have to swear, Pankhurst."
"You will leave this place," said Roger Honourbound. He then gestured to the dark and deep woodland that stretched away from the village, saying, "The city is your destination, at the other side of Ring Wood, where one of your leaning will no doubt fit in better. But never – never! – will you mention the name Ideal Village again, be it to friend or foe or victim."
"And be warned," said Margaret Sharpspear. "If you swear this oath then swear it to your heart. For if you break it, if your evil ways ever seek to return here, then your end will be swift."
"Well, Pankhurst?" said Dennis Trueshot "Do you swear to leave these lands, to never remember them, to never return?"
"I ... I do," said Mr Pankhurst, who was now blinking rapidly.
And on hearing this, Margaret Sharpspear removed the point of her spear from Mr Pankhurst's throat, and the three Adventurers stepped back from him. Mr Pankhurst licked his lips. He was unsure, suspicious that the promise of freedom might be a lie.
"We won't stop you," Lanky said. "Now go!"
With Dennis Trueshot's arrow still lodged in his arm, Mr Pankhurst bolted from the clearing, disappeared into the tree line, and ran down a path that would lead him through Ring Wood and eventually out into the city. However, he had not got far when his voice drifted back to the clearing, to the ears of Lanky and the Adventurers.
"You think you've won?" he shouted. "You think I won't return? Fools! Ideal Village can't hide from me. I'll be back to take each of your heads with my axe, and I won't be alone. I'll bring half of the city with me, and then you'll learn what people truly want—"
Mr Pankhurst screamed.
Ring Wood was suddenly alive with the moving shadows of many things. Huge eight-legged things, small flying things, glowing things, things with pointed ears, and things shaped like man and horse combined: the dwellers of the deeper, darker regions of Ring Wood rushed to converge on Mr Pankhurst and the sworn oath he never intended to uphold; and they did not stop rushing until the axe-murderer's screams were silenced for good.
"As we knew it would be," said Roger Honourbound, and threw Mr Pankhurst's axe to the ground.
"Rotten to the core, that one," said Dennis Trueshot.
Margaret Sharpspear turned to the Chief Constable. "Well done, Lanky; an ugly business, but the Plan worked a wonder. What next?"
Lanky sighed. "High time this village got back to normal," he said. "But first, a stiff drink at the Woodpecker."
Which Mr Cavendish thought was an excellent idea.

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