William had spent several days helping the innkeeper change the sign outside his inn. He'd designed the sign to look like a normal sign under scrutiny but hid several messages in plain sight.
The first message was the background. It was the checkerboard pattern of a chess board with only the king's piece surrounded by pawns of the opposite color obviously having him in checkmate. The foreground broadcast the new title of the inn "The Den in Red". The word "red" was run through with an arrow. Above the inn's title were two glowing red eyes of a predatory animal.
John, Will and Harold the innkeeper carefully hung the new sign. They stood around admiring their hard work.
"I didn't know you were such an apt wood engraver, John," Will said.
"More a hobby than a skill," John replied, "but thank you."
"It's so much better than that ol' rubbish I had up there," said Harold. He rubbed Will's head, leaving Will's red hair a mess.
Will hated how Harold treated like a child but he understood that Harold didn't really understand his genius. He wondered if it was bad to claim genius? Is it wrong to claim any descriptor? Will pondered the ethics of self righteousness as he and the others went back into the inn.
It had been a week since they'd met in the inn's main hall but already Will had been introduced to some of the local people that were fed up with tyrannical rule. He'd shared a tome regarding the history of Rome and it's democracy. How the men had laughed at first, believing that such an idea as voting was humorous.
The men all sat around discussing an idealistic utopia. One in which every man was responsible for himself but wouldn't turn away someone if the ability to aid them was within their power.
"That's what you have to ask yourself," Will had posed to the little group of four men that had been listening to his history lesson that first week. "Do you have the ability to help yourself? Do you have the ability to help others?"
One man answered, "I hardly have the ability to dress myself."
Will smiled. "The first step to enlightenment is the admission that you know nothing."
The man responded, "Well, all I know is how to tan leather."
"Then let me show you how to use your skills for the betterment of society."
"How can tanning leather better anything?"
"Leather armor is light and easy to move in," Will had his first student in his grasp, he didn't want to let him go, "Let me show you how to reinforce it so that it will deflect a direct attack."
Tanner looked at Will with curious eyes. "You can teach me to do this?"
"I can teach you many things. I've read many books regarding the manufacture of armor and weapons. I've seen what works and what doesn't. I can also show you how to come to your own conclusions instead of relying on what is told to you." Will knew that this is what people really wanted. A freedom to discern the world around them.
Will set up to meet the men at the den first. If they passed certain tests, they would be invited back to sanctuary. Tanner was the first man given the riddle map.
Meanwhile, deep in Sherwood, Thomas had been patient. Tybalt and four other noble men had come to the cabin for their hunting trip. They didn't realize that they were already prey. Thomas watched as they unloaded their wagon with a weeks worth of supplies. Those supplies would last five times as long for Thomas. He smiled. The kill got better with every moment.
He waited for dusk and for the men to settle in. He knew that they didn't have a worry on their minds as they lit lanterns in the cabin, preparing for sleep so they could get up early the next day for their hunt.
Thomas aimed at the front door.
Each arrow arced as he had practiced, hitting the door in a rapid procession.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Shadows moved inside as one of the men opened the door. To Thomas' pleasure, it was Tybalt. The red arrow's path intersected Tybalt through the eye as he looked out to see who was at the door. The force of the arrow pinned his head to the door. His body kicked a few times before it hung motionless.
Thomas rushed around the side to his hidden door that lead under the floor of the cabin. He could see one man try to pull Tybalt's body free from the door, not to save him but because the door couldn't close with Tybalt's body in the way. Eventually, the man shoved Tybalt's body outside and slammed the door. The torches within the cabin went out.
Thomas crept into his hiding place under the floor. He could hear the men inside as their panicked mumbling and shouts to stay quiet gave way to the boards under their feet creaking. Thomas knew exactly where the men stood.
Two were beside the front window. They hadn't opened it but were trying to peek out through its cracks to see if the cabin was surrounded.
"Who's out there?" Thomas heard one man mutter.
"I don't see anything!" he heard another.
One man still stood by the front door and the last was pacing.
"It's the French!" said one man.
"Are you nuts? The French wouldn't attack this far inland!" Thomas enjoyed the panic he'd caused. He wondered if this was the noise inside the tavern as flames gutted it.
Thomas readied his knife as the man pacing crossed the floor. As the man stepped where two of the floor boards met, Thomas stabbed upward with his knife. The blade passed through the leather of the man's boot and through the flesh of his foot like a knife through warm butter. The man let out a scream as Thomas pushed the blade along the crevice of the floor boards, splitting the man's foot open.
The other men turned to see the man fall to the floor screaming. Thomas wasted no time as the man rolled across more cracks in the floor, Thomas stabbed. Blood began raining down through the floor. Again and again Thomas stabbed until the man screamed no more.
The men panicked even more. They hadn't seen Thomas' knife come up through the floor. They looked around the room to see if there was another opening.
"We're besieged by ghosts!" cried one man.
One of the men that was at the window ran over to the hiding spot in the wall but when he opened it he found there wasn't anything there. He panicked and ran back to one of the bedrooms and the other man that was at the window followed him.
As the one sitting near the door stood up and headed back with them, Thomas opened the trap door. He did so with such ferocity that the man screamed as if a wolf had pounced on him. Thomas grabbed the man and pulled him under the floor. The trapdoor was back in place when the other two men came into the main room.
Thomas slashed the man's throat open and the men could hear gurgling as he bled out. They couldn't figure out where the man went.
"What the hell just happened to him?" one man cried.
The men looked outside again. They began babbling to each other about what was stalking them. A ghost. A bogeyman. It wasn't until they suspected a demon that Thomas let it be known he was already in the room. He used their noisy banter to cover the sound of him creeping up through the floor.
"It's got to be that hooded demon," one man suggested.
"I like that nickname the more I hear it," Thomas said.
The men turned suddenly. One man's bladder released and the smell of urine filled the air.
"Please!" one begged.
"We haven't done nothing," said the other.
"It was in your power to do so much. You nobles look as us like we're so much fodder. Like we're the grain we raise, easily replaced." Thomas said.
Thomas was trying to figure out who he should let live when one man made a run for the door. He pulled on the handle but Tybalt's body acted as a wedge, preventing the door from opening far. Thomas knife spun through the air into the back of the man's skull.
"I guess it's you," Thomas said to the only man left.
He approached the man slowly. The front of Thomas was coated heavy in blood, the sight of which only made him more horrific.
"You're going to pass on a message for me," Thomas said as he cracked the man in the head with the pommel of his sword.
When the man awoke, he was tied to a horse. Tybalt's head was in his hands and it was tied in place. The arrow still in place in his skull.
"You tell your masters that death stalks them. Tell them that it's only a matter of time before I visit upon them what I visited up this cabin." Thomas slapped the rear end of the horse it galloped off back in the direction it had come.
He hoped that the man would be discovered by a patrol or that he would make it back to the castle. He also hoped that the man realized that he had the horse's reigns in his hands along with Tybalt's head.
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