Read Betrayal at Falador Online

Authors: T. S. Church

Betrayal at Falador

T.S. CHURCH

TITAN BOOKS

COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS:

RUNESCAPE: RETURN TO CANIFIS

BY T.S. CHURCH

RUNESCAPE: BETRAYAL AT FALADOR

ISBN: 9780857682918

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St

London

SE1 0UP

First edition October 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The names, characters, logos, symbols, designs, visual representations and all other elements of RuneScape are trade marks and/or copyright of Jagex Limited and are used under licence.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group UK Ltd.

To my grandparents, parents, and the Giraffe, and to my nephews, who I hope will take as much enjoyment from the book as they do from the game. And also to the talented staff at Jagex who have devoted so much of their time to this project.

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-NINE

FIFTY

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-FOUR

FIFTY-FIVE

FIFTY-SIX

FIFTY-SEVEN

FIFTY-EIGHT

FIFTY-NINE

SIXTY

SIXTY-ONE

SIXTY-TWO

SIXTY-THREE

SIXTY-FOUR

SIXTY-FIVE

SIXTY-SIX

SIXTY-SEVEN

SIXTY-EIGHT

SIXTY-NINE

SEVENTY

SEVENTY-ONE

SEVENTY-TWO

SEVENTY-THREE

SEVENTY-FOUR

SEVENTY-FIVE

SEVENTY-SIX

SEVENTY-SEVEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RUNESCAPE: RETURN TO CANIFIS

ONE

“Get some light over here! We need some light!”

Master-at-arms Nicholas Sharpe shouted loudly into the wind in order to be heard by his fellow knights on the bridge. A fair young man ran forward, shielding his blazing torch from the anger of the winter storm.

“Thank you, Squire Theodore. Now, let us see what damage has been done.”

Half a dozen men stood around as firelight flickered over the fallen masonry. It was a life-sized statue of a knight which had come crashing down from the castle heights an hour after midnight, when the storm had been at its most ferocious. The crash had been loud enough to raise the alarm.

“That’s more than a thousand pounds of solid stone,” Sharpe said, peering up into the darkness from whence it had plummeted. “Must’ve been a wicked gust to move it.

“We can’t leave it here,” he added. “Get hold of it. On three we’ll lift.”

There was some jostling as the knights moved closer, every man packing himself as close to the statue as possible.

“One... two...
three
!” Sharpe counted out, and on his last call the small group of men lifted the marble statue with a collective groan of effort. “Carry him to the courtyard. We can’t leave one of our own out here in the cold!”

The men staggered under their burden, moving slowly from the exposed bridge toward the open gates, Squire Theodore lighting the way.

The statue will be safe there until the morning,
the master-at-arms mused,
as long as the damage wasn’t serious enough to break it into a thousand pieces as they moved it.

And as long as nothing more comes down on our heads,
he added silently. It wasn’t safe in the streets of Falador that night; several people had already been killed by falling debris, and the quicker their party was back inside the castle, the better.

But the pessimistic thought turned to prophecy. A sharp crack, a sudden cry, and the statue dropped again to the paving, scattering the men who had lifted it. Only two had retained their grips on the polished marble, and now they held the right leg between them, detached from the rest of the figure.

“Get the torch back here!” Sharpe hollered, his temper rising. He swiftly noted the anxious faces gazing toward the courtyard. “Where’s the torch?” he called. “Where has Theodore got to?”

A sudden gust of wind, biting cold in its journey south from Ice Mountain, swept across the bridge. The squire emerged from the gatehouse, bringing the torch with him and carrying a heavy bundle under his arm. As soon as he reached the shivering party, there was a crack from above and a cry of warning rang out.

“Watch your heads!”

Each man instinctively looked up, crouching low in readiness. Spinning from the rooftops, a tile crashed onto the bridge and exploded on the stonework scant yards away, sending sharp chips of slate into the turbulent moat below.

“Come on; we must not stay out here any longer,” Sharpe said decisively. For all the statue meant, it wasn’t worth the lives of the young men who stood close to him. “Theodore, don’t run off again. We need the light to see what we’re doing.”

He noted the look of disappointment on the young man’s face. Theodore was an excellent squire; the master-at-arms couldn’t recall any better. Yet he took himself too seriously, making him an easy target for any of his peers who envied his dedication, or even despised him for it.

“I have blankets, sir,” Theodore said. “We can carry the statue on that. It will allow more of us to help lift it and prevent any more accidents like the last one...” His voice trailed off as a couple of the knights regarded him coolly.

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