Guyenne, France, 1723

Hidden in a thicket of trees, his horse quiet and still beneath him, Ludovic de Vauban watched a carriage hurrying along the rutted dirt path some distance away, heading towards them, its wheels caked in mud.

A grin split Gustave's face, and he nudged Ludovic. "This is going to be a good one."

"How do you know?" Ludovic asked.

It had been three years since he had murdered his stepfather and fled the family home, disappearing into the French countryside. Three years since he'd fallen in with Gustave and his gang, and started eking out as a living as a thief, attacking carriages on the road and robbing their inhabitants. But his heart was never truly in it.

"Look at the windows," Gustave said.

Ludovic squinted at the carriage. It looked as though the windows were covered by black curtains, blocking any view of the interior.

"If they're hiding their faces, I'll they're important or recognisable, and that means rich."

Ludovic wasn't entirely convinced by that, but Gustave had a lot more experience than he did.

Gustave looked back at the rest of the gang – Alain, Paul, Benoit. All older than Ludovic, they'd been together for years, sometimes sleeping rough in the countryside, sometimes spending harsher nights in cheap lodging houses. Sometimes they robbed the lodging houses before moving on.

It wasn't the life Ludovic had ever imagined for himself.

It wasn't the life he wanted.

But he'd left home with nothing more than the clothes he'd been wearing, stained with mud and blood and thicker things he still didn't want to think about.

He'd never forgotten the way the iron poker felt in his hands, the sensation as it crunched into Maurice's skull. Generally, Gustave and his men didn't kill their victims – as long as those victims were cooperative.

Usually, they were.

Sometimes they weren't, and then blood was spilled.

Ludovic wouldn't be a part of that. He would not kill again, and to his surprise, Gustave had not pushed him to. The others teased him about it, and on occasion their teasing took a harder, crueller edge, but Ludovic never retaliated. He didn't always agree with their methods, but they'd taken him in when he'd had nothing. He might not have survived without them.

"This is a big one, boys" Gustave said, smiling gleefully. "I reckon this will last us through autumn and into next year."

The carriage drew closer to their hiding place, and unease curdled in Ludovic's gut. Something didn't feel right about this. His horse shifted, pawing the ground.

Ludovic caught Gustave's arm as the older man started to draw his prized flintlock pistol from his belt. It was a beautiful weapon, all shining, polished beech, the barrel decorated with delicate gold scrollwork; he'd had it for as long as Ludovic had known him, but he never knew where Gustave had got it. Some poor soul on the road, no doubt. Gustave rarely let anyone else touch it.

"Wait," he said.

"For what?" Gustave asked.

Ludovic scanned the carriage again. A driver sat at the front, whip in hand, but there was no footman on the hooded rear seat, and that feeling of unease intensified.

"They're rich enough to see us through till next spring, yet they travel with only one servant?" he said.

"That's the point," Gustave said. "They're trying to trick us into thinking they don't have anything worth stealing. But that's a Berline carriage, boy. That's worth something."

"Something feels wrong about this," Ludovic insisted.

Paul laughed unpleasantly. "Scared, are you?"

"Maybe he heard the story about those men in Gascony," Alain suggested.

Ludovic looked back at them. Paul was smirking, but Alain's face was serious.

"What men in Gascony?" Ludovic asked.

"Ignore him. It's just a story," Gustave said.

"It's not. It really happened," Paul insisted.

"What happened?" Ludovic asked.

Gustave sighed. "Rumour has it that fifty or sixty years ago, a gang like us made a habit of attacking carriages on the road. But one night they all disappeared. Their bodies were found weeks later, after the winter snow had thawed. Some of them had been stripped of their clothes. Others had been partially eaten. No one ever knew what killed them."

A shiver rolled down Ludovic's spine as he looked again at the carriage they were targeting. It was so black that it almost blended in with the night-time countryside, its shape only separate from the shadows thanks to its four lit lanterns, bobbing along like small stars.

"It's not true," Alain reassured him. "No one knows what happened that night. No one knows if those attacked a carriage or not, because none of them were left alive to talk. No one knows if they even all died the same day. And even if they did pick on the wrong carriage, it will be because it was well-defended, not because of anything supernatural. The truth is rarely as thrilling as gossip, and people do love to gossip."

Still, Ludovic couldn't shake the images from his head. It wasn't winter yet, and there was no snow on the ground, only a damp carpet of leaves, but he imagined those men dying all those years ago. He imagined him and his friends dying the same way tonight.

The carriage was close now. Gustave's eyes gleamed, one hand tightening on the reins of his horse.

"Time to go, boys," he said.

Digging their heels into their horses' sides, they rode for the carriage.

Gustave always went first, pulling his horse to a stop in the middle of the path, blocking the carriage. The driver stopped, reached into his coat, perhaps for his own weapon, but Gustave aimed his flintlock at the other man's chest.

"Hands where I can see them, there's a good boy," he said, giving a toothy smile that might have been charming under different circumstances.

Dismounting, Ludovic and Benoit approached the nearest carriage door, each of them holding a long dagger. Their victims didn't need to know that Ludovic had no intention of hurting anyone this night – usually the threat was enough to make them cooperate.

The polished door opened before they could stop it, and a man stepped out. His clothes were dark, all blacks and greys, but the tailoring was elegant, and his shoes were made of good leather. Several rings glittered on his fingers.

Gustave was right – whoever this man was, he had money.

"Please don't do this," he said, before Ludovic or Benoit had a chance to say anything.

"Why don't you hand over those diamonds?" Benoit said, hungrily eyeing the man's rings.

For some reason Ludovic expected the man to resist. Outwardly, he was unremarkable, and his build was smaller than any of the thieves, but there was something in his eyes that Ludovic didn't like – the faint glitter of something old.

His skin prickled, and he gripped his dagger tighter.

But the man simply pulled off the rings and tossed them, one by one, to Benoit, who eagerly caught them and stuffed them into a grubby pocket.

A soft moan sounded from inside the carriage.

"What was that?" Paul asked, joining them from the other side of the carriage.

The man fixed him with a cold look, and again, Ludovic had the strangest feeling. He couldn't explain it. Their intended victim seemed perfectly ordinary, and yet at the same time he didn't. He'd done nothing to suggest he was any kind of threat, yet all Ludovic's instincts screamed that he was dangerous.

"My wife is very sick. I am taking her into the countryside so she can recuperate. I'll gladly give you everything I have if you just leave my wife alone," the man said, looking at Ludovic and Benoit.

They exchanged glances.

It could have been nothing more than a ploy to get them to leave. The rings that he had given Benoit were a good start, but if the man's wife wore similar jewellery, then Gustave would never let the couple leave with it.

But there was a quiet desperation in the man's voice that went beyond trying to keep his jewels. Ludovic was not proud of the life he had led since joining Gustave, and he often lay awake at night, thinking of the things he had done. He had no wish to tear jewellery from an ill woman, or to prevent her husband from getting her the help she needed.

Paul gave the man a nasty grin. "If she's sick, she'll be confined to bed. No need for diamonds in bed," he said.

He started for the carriage, and the man blocked his path.

"Don't do this," he said, and it sounded more like a warning than a plea.

A scuffle sounded at the front of the carriage – Gustave and Alain dragging the driver down from his perch. Alain pushed the man ahead of him, guiding him towards the others, while Gustave followed with his pistol still cocked.

"No one's going to hurt your wife," he said, as jovial as if they were old friends. Then the warmth bled from his voice, and he lifted the flintlock that little bit higher. "As long as you cooperate."

"I have cooperated, and handed over anything I have of value. But I cannot let you near my wife," the man said.

Gustave smiled coldly. "We're not interested in her virtue, if that's what you're worried about."

For just a second, real anger flashed across the man's face, and Ludovic again got the uncomfortable feeling that he was looking at someone very dangerous – someone who was humouring them for some reason, but would not take kindly to being pushed too far.

"If she's sick, then she may be contagious. Perhaps we should avoid her," Ludovic said.

The man gave him a quick look, and gratitude briefly softened his stare.

Even Paul seemed to pause, considering that. But Gustave just smiled again. "You're not the first person to try appealing to my sentimental side. It didn't work for anyone else, and it won't work for you. Step aside."

"I can't do that," the man said.

Gustave stepped closer, jabbing the pistol at the man's face. "This says you can."

Most people would have cowered in front of the weapon. The strange man stared down the barrel, then lifted cold eyes, staring at Gustave. For the span of a heartbeat Ludovic thought that Gustave would quail and step aside, then he visibly hardened himself.

"Paul," he said. "Move this gentleman out of the way."

He said 'gentlemen' like it tasted bad.

Paul grinned and cracked his knuckles, but he didn't get more than two paces towards the man and the carriage door he still guarded before a guttural moan drifted out of the darkened space inside the vehicle.

And then everything went horribly wrong.

Part 1/3