A servant slipped into the room as quietly as possible, trying to make himself as unobtrusive, as small, and as unnoticeable as he could. Despite his efforts, he was unsuccessful. His failure became abundantly clear when a bowl sailed out of the gloomy darkness at his head, nearly clipping his temple.

"Bring me something decent to eat or I swear I'll find a way to rouse myself from this bed and murder every last one of you!"

The servant scurried for the door, bowing and scraping as he did. "Yes, Lord Morgan, right away!"

Once the servant was gone, the door shut behind him, Morgan slumped back against the pillows stacked behind his head and released a groan. Being unable to do a damn thing, cooped up in the castle was wearing on his nerves. He was anxious to finish the job his father had begun.

To end the reign of King Duncan and to put an end to those cloaked fools, the Rangers.

He wanted to poke and prod his wound, not that it would heal any faster, but he was sick of the pain. Sick of being an invalid. If one of his men hadn't spotted the bastard who shot him, he would probably be dead instead of cursing his lazy servants.

After some shifting to find a comfortable position, he laid back staring up at the canopy of the huge bed. With a grumble, he shifted again. The arrow had gone in deep just below his left shoulder. It was dumb luck he wasn't dead.

He cursed the Rangers as he rolled slightly to his side to stare at the arrow shaft that sat on his nightstand. He reached out and ran a finger over the feathered fletching on the end of the shaft with a grin.

He knew a lot about the Ranger Corps. He'd taken the time to study them. He needed to know his enemy so he could defeat them. The Rangers were egotistical bastards, they chose to make their arrows unique. This arrow was specific to one Ranger and when he found the man he would suffer untold horrors before he was finally allowed to pass from this world to the next. It would take time to find out which ranger the arrow belonged to. His finger ran over the feathered fletching again.

All that remained was for his contact to discern exactly where the rest of his enemies were hidden. He wanted those ultimately responsible for his father's demise. Instead of handing over the culprits responsible for his father's death they attempted to use deception. They tried to assassinate him instead of own up to what they'd done. He should have expected no less from those slippery Rangers. Sneaking through the shadows as they were want to do.

"My Lord?"

Morgan struggled to a sitting position and waved the captain of his soldiers over. "Yes, what is it?"

The man bowed low, straightened and gave Morgan a sly smile. "Information has reached us from your informant inside Castle Araluen."

He waved a hand impatiently at the man. "Yes, and?"

"All of them are there."

Morgan laughed. "Anything else?"

"It would appear that Duncan has taken ill recently, his daughter has taken over most of the day to day running of things. She and Sir Horace are wed and they have a son named Mitchell."

"Yes, we already know about the prince. Do not repeat information I already know!"

"He is currently training at the Redmont Battleschool." The man grinned. "It has also come to our attention that the Rangers' Will and Halt both have daughters who are currently training to be Rangers."

Morgan straightened, wincing as he wound pulled, causing him pain. "The Rangers both have children?"

The captain held up the index finger on his right hand. "They each have one daughter, both are fifteen and the informant says they are Rangers Apprentices."

Morgan considered the information. It seems someone had given him an excellent opportunity to defeat his enemies. The Ranger Corps was extremely close-knit, secretive. Finding out information about any of its members was next to impossible.

Ah, but discovering information about two teenage girls mucking about Redmont pretending they're Rangers. They were making things very easy for him. Women simply couldn't be trusted to keep quiet. The two had probably told the world who they were, who their fathers were and every detail about the Ranger Corps, while they were at it. He grinned.

It was obvious the two young girls hadn't kept quiet or the informant would never have known they were the daughters of the famous Rangers. If he wanted to destroy the two men there was no better way than to take away their families.

"Find out the identities of their wives. We start from there." Morgan waved the man from the room.

Now he needed to concentrate on recovering. He could do nothing about those who killed his father, not personally until he was well again. He wanted to look into their faces when he took their miserable lives. There would be no chance for escape, no chance to live, just as they hadn't given his father a chance.

He would kill them as easily as they had murdered his father. He would put an end to this.

He ignored the pain as he pushed his body upright and pulled himself from the bed, crossed the room and peeled away the bandage that covered the wound. Once it was removed, he studied it closely with a grimace. It was still gruesome looking. Barely scabbed over, discolored around the edges. It looked like a giant badly healing bruise, with a grotesque wound at its center. As badly as he'd like to curse the Ranger that shot him, he also cursed the idiot soldier who attempted to treat the wound.

Any soldier worth anything knew you didn't rip an arrow from the wound, especially a Ranger's arrow. Damn broad headed arrows. Yet that's exactly what the fool had done, ripped it free without any consideration for what it would do to his flesh. The man had died a very slow and painful death for his stupidity.

He twisted around and prodded at the wound, grunted in pain and cursed the dead soldier. He placed a new bandage on the wound. He was rather glad he'd killed the man. If he was foolish enough to treat his wound this way there was no telling how he treated the other soldiers and he couldn't afford to lose anymore men. It was a damn lucky thing that one of the other men had some experience and had treated his wound so he didn't bleed to death.

He patted the bandage in place and moved across the room and found a clean shirt, struggling into it and headed for the door. He was done with the lounging about in bed. It was high time he returned to his plan.

It was time he ruled Araluen as his father should have.

"Soon, Father, very soon Araluen will belong to us as it should have long ago and you will finally be able to rest peacefully."

He would take a great deal of pleasure in driving his sword through Sir Hroace's heart, but not until the forced the man to witness the death of his son. Morgan's laughter rang out through the cold stone corridors of the castle as he made his way to his office so he could go over his plans and be certain he was moving in the right direction.

There were so many delicious ways to make people suffer. Killing their loved ones. That was the easiest way to watch them burn in their own private little Hell. Filled with all the guilt they could heap upon themselves as they blamed themselves for not being able to save the person.