Will bowed and turned away to walk down that long, long aisle again. Again, the cheering started and this time, he kept his head high as the cheers rolled around him and echoed to the rafters of the Great Hall. Then, as he neared the massive doors once more, he saw a sight that stopped him in his tracks, stunned with surprise.
For, standing a little aside from the crowd, wrapped in his grey and green mottled cloak, his eyes shadowed by the cowl, was Halt.
And he was smiling.
Later that afternoon, after all the noise and celebrations had died down, Will sat alone on the tiny verandah of Halt’s small cottage. In his hand, he held a small bronze amulet, shaped like an oak leaf, with a steel chain threaded through a ring at the top.
‘It’s our symbol,’ his teacher had explained as he handed it to him after the events at the castle. ‘The Rangers’ equivalent of a coat of arms.’
Then he had fumbled inside his own collar and produced an identically shaped oak leaf, on a chain around his neck. The shape was identical, but the colour was different. The oak leaf Halt wore was made of silver.
‘Bronze is the apprentice colour,’ Halt had told him. ‘When you finish your training, you’ll receive a silver oak leaf like this one. We all wear them in the Ranger Corps, either silver or bronze.’ He had looked away from the boy for a few minutes, then had added, his voice a little husky, ‘Strictly speaking, you shouldn’t receive it until you’ve passed your first Assessment. But I doubt anyone will argue about it, the way things have turned out.’
Now the curiously shaped piece of metal gleamed dully in Will’s hand as he thought of the decision he’d made. It seemed so strange to him that he had voluntarily given up the one thing that he had spent most of his life hoping for: the chance to go through Battleschool and take his place as a knight in Castle Redmont’s army.
He twirled the bronze oak leaf on its chain around his index finger, letting it wind right up to the finger, then spiral loose again. He sighed deeply. Life could be so complicated. Deep within himself, he felt he had made the right decision. And yet, way down deeper still, there was a tiny thread of doubt.
With a start, he realised that there was someone standing beside him. It was Halt, he recognised as he turned quickly. The Ranger stooped and sat beside the boy on the rough pine planking of the narrow verandah. Before them, the low sun of the late afternoon filtered through the luminous green leaves of the forest, the light seeming to dance and gyrate as the light breeze stirred the leaves.
‘A big day,’ he said softly and Will nodded.
‘And a big decision that you made,’ the Ranger said, after several more minutes’ silence between them. This time, Will turned to face him.
‘Halt, did I make the right decision?’ he asked finally, the anguish clear in his voice. Halt placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward a little, squinting into the dappled glare through the trees.
‘As far as I’m concerned, yes. I chose you as an apprentice and I can see all the potential you have to be a Ranger. I’ve even come to almost enjoy having you around and getting under my feet,’ he added, with the barest hint of a smile. ‘But my feelings, my wishes, aren’t important in this. The right decision for you is the one you want most.’
‘I always wanted to become a knight,’ Will said, then realised, with a sense of surprise, that he’d phrased the statement in the past tense. And yet he knew that a part of him still wanted it.
‘It is possible, of course,’ said Halt quietly, ‘to want to do two different things at the same time. Then it just becomes a choice of knowing which one you want most.’
Not for the first time, Will felt that Halt had some way of reading his mind.
‘If you can sum it up in one thought, what’s the main reason you feel a little disappointed that you refused the Baron’s offer?’ Halt continued.
Will considered the question. ‘I guess …’ he said slowly, ‘I feel that by turning down Battleschool, I’m somehow letting my father down.’
Halt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Your father?’ he repeated and Will nodded.
‘He was a mighty warrior,’ he told the Ranger, ‘A knight. He died at Hackham Heath, fighting the Wargals – a hero.’
‘You know all this, do you?’ Halt asked him and Will nodded. This was the dream that had sustained him through the long, lonely years of never knowing who he was or what he was meant to be. The dream had become reality for him now.
‘He was a man any son would be proud of,’ he said finally, and Halt nodded.
‘That’s certainly true.’
There was something in his voice that made Will hesitate. Halt wasn’t simply agreeing out of politeness. Will turned quickly to him, realising the full implications of the Ranger’s words.
‘You knew him, Halt? You knew my father?’
There was a light of hope in the boy’s eyes that cried out for the truth and the Ranger nodded soberly.
‘Yes. I did. I didn’t know him for long. But I think I could say I knew him well. And you’re right. You can be extremely proud of him.’
‘He was a mighty warrior, wasn’t he?’ said Will.
‘He was a soldier,’ Halt agreed, ‘and a brave fighter.’
‘I knew it!’ Will said happily, ‘He was a great knight!’
‘A sergeant,’ Halt said softly, and not unkindly.
Will’s jaw hung open, the next words he had been about to say frozen in his throat. Finally, he managed, in a confused voice:
‘A sergeant?’
Halt nodded. He could see the disappointment in the boy’s eyes and he put an arm around his shoulders.
‘Don’t judge a man’s quality by his position in life, Will. Your father, Daniel, was a loyal and brave soldier. He didn’t have the opportunity to go to Battleschool because he began life as a farmer. But, if he had, he would have been one of the greatest of knights.’
‘But he …’ the boy began sadly. The Ranger stopped him, continuing in that same kind, soft, compelling voice.
‘Because without taking any of the vows or the special training that knights have, he lived up to the highest ideals of knighthood and chivalry and valour. It was actually a few days after the battle at Hackham Heath, while Morgarath and his Wargals were fighting their way back to Three Step Pass. A sudden counterattack took us by surprise and your father saw a comrade surrounded by a troop of Wargals. The man was on the ground and was within a second of being cut to pieces when your father took a hand.’
The light in the boy’s eyes had begin to shine again.
‘He did?’ Will asked, his lips just framing the words, and Halt nodded.
‘He did. He left the safety of the battle line and leapt forward, armed only with a spear. He stood over his injured comrade and protected him from the Wargals. He killed one with the spear, then another smashed the head of the spear, leaving Daniel with only a spear shaft. So he used it like a quarterstaff and knocked down two others – left, right! Just like that!’
He flicked his hand to left and right to demonstrate. Will’s eyes were intent on him now, seeing the battle as the Ranger described it.
‘He was wounded then, as the spear shaft broke under another attack. It would have been enough to kill most men. But he simply took the sword from one of the Wargals he’d killed and struck down three more, all the time bleeding from a massive wound in his side.’
‘Three of them?’ Will asked.
‘Three. He had the speed of a leopard. And remember, as a spearman, he had never really trained with the sword.’
He paused, remembering that day so long ago.
‘You know, of course, that there is almost nothing that Wargals fear? They’re called the Unminded Ones and once they begin a battle, they almost always finish it.
‘Almost always. This was one of the few times I saw Wargals afraid. As your father struck out to either side, still standing over his wounded comrade, they began to back away. Slowly at first. Then they ran. They simply turne
d and ran.
‘I have never seen any other man, no knight, no mighty warrior, who could send Wargals running in fear. Your father did. He may have been a sergeant, Will, but he was the mightiest warrior I ever had the privilege to watch. Then, as the Wargals retreated, he sank down on one knee beside the man he’d been protecting, still trying to shield him, even though he knew he was dying himself.
‘He had taken half a dozen wounds. But it was probably the first that killed him.’
‘And was his friend saved?’ Will asked in a small voice.
Halt looked a little puzzled. ‘His friend?’ he asked.
‘The man he protected,’ Will explained. ‘Did he survive?’
Somehow, he thought it would have been a tragedy if his father’s valiant attempt had been unsuccessful.
‘They weren’t friends,’ said Halt. ‘Up until that moment, he had never laid eyes on the other man.’ He paused, then added, ‘Nor I on him.’
The significance of those last four words sank deep into Will’s consciousness.
‘You?’ he whispered. ‘You were the man he saved?’
Halt nodded. ‘As I said, I only knew him for a few minutes. But he did more for me than any other man, before or since. As he was dying, he told me of his wife, and how she was back at their farm alone, with a baby due any day. He begged me to see that she was looked after.’
Will looked at the grim, bearded face he had grown to know so well. There was a deep sadness in Halt’s eyes as he remembered that day.
‘I was too late to save your mother. It was a difficult birth and she died shortly after you were born. But I brought you back here and Baron Arald agreed that you should be brought up in the Ward – until you were old enough to become my apprentice.’
‘But all those years, you never …’ Will stopped, lost for words. Halt smiled grimly at him.
‘I never let on that I had placed you in the Ward? No. Think about it, Will. People are … strange about Rangers. How would they have reacted to you as you grew up? Wondering what sort of strange creature you were? We decided it would be better if nobody knew of my interest in you.’
Will nodded. Halt was right, of course. Life as a ward had been difficult enough. It would have been far more so if people had known he was somehow connected to Halt.
‘So you took me as your apprentice because of my father?’ said Will. But this time Halt shook his head.
‘No. I made sure you were looked after because of your father. I chose you because you showed you had the abilities and the skills that were needed. And you also seem to have inherited some of your father’s courage.’
There was a long, long silence between them as Will absorbed the story of his father’s amazing battle. Somehow, the truth was more stirring, more inspiring than any fantasy he could have made up over the years to sustain himself. Eventually, Halt stood up to go and he smiled gratefully up at the grizzled figure, now silhouetted against the sky as the last light of day died.
‘I think my father would be glad I chose the way I did,’ he said, slipping the bronze oak leaf on its chain over his head. Halt merely nodded once, then turned away and went inside the cottage, leaving his apprentice to his own thoughts.
Will sat quietly for some minutes. Almost unthinkingly, his hand went to touch the bronze oakleaf symbol hanging at his throat. Faintly, the evening breeze carried the sounds of the Battleschool drill yard to him, and the nonstop hammering and clanking from the armoury that had been going on, night and day, for the past week. They were the sounds of Castle Redmont preparing for the coming war.
Yet strangely, for the first time in his life, he felt at peace.
This one is for Katy.
Halt and Will had been trailing the Wargals for three days. The four heavy-bodied, brutish creatures, foot soldiers of the rebel warlord Morgarath, had been sighted passing through Redmont Fief, heading north. Once word reached the Ranger, he had set out to intercept them, accompanied by his young apprentice.
‘Where could they have come from, Halt?’ Will asked during one of their short rest stops. ‘Surely we’ve got Three Step Pass well and truly bottled up by now?’
Three Step Pass provided the only real access between the Kingdom of Araluen and the Mountains of Rain and Night, where Morgarath had his headquarters. Now that the Kingdom was preparing for the coming war with Morgarath, a company of infantry and archers had been sent to reinforce the small permanent garrison at the narrow pass until the main army could assemble.
‘That’s the only place where they can come in sizeable numbers,’ Halt agreed. ‘But a small party like this could slip into the Kingdom by way of the barrier cliffs.’
Morgarath’s domain was an inhospitable mountain plateau that towered high above the southern reaches of the Kingdom. From Three Step Pass in the east, a line of sheer, precipitous cliffs ran roughly due west, forming the border between the plateau and Araluen. As the cliffs swung south-west, they plunged into another obstacle called the Fissure – a huge split in the earth that ran out to the sea, and separated Morgarath’s lands from the kingdom of the Celts.
It was these natural fortifications that had kept Araluen, and neighbouring Celtica, safe from Morgarath’s armies for the past sixteen years. Conversely, they also provided the rebel warlord with protection from Araluen’s forces.
‘I thought those cliffs were impassable?’ Will said.
Halt allowed himself a grim smile. ‘Nowhere is ever really impassable. Particularly if you have no respect for how many lives you lose trying to prove the fact. My guess is that they used ropes and grapnels and waited for a moonless night and bad weather. That way, they could slip past the border patrols.’
He stood, signifying that their rest stop was at an end. Will rose with him and they moved towards their horses. Halt gave a small grunt as he swung into the saddle. The wound he had suffered in the battle with the two Kalkara still troubled him a little.
‘My main concern isn’t where they came from,’ he continued. ‘It’s where they’re heading, and what they have in mind.’
The words were barely spoken when they heard a shout from somewhere ahead of them, followed by a commotion of grunting and, finally, the clash of weapons.
‘And we may be about to find out!’ Halt finished.
He urged Abelard into a gallop, controlling the horse with his knees as his hands effortlessly selected an arrow and nocked it to the string of his massive longbow. Will scrambled into Tug’s saddle and galloped after him. He couldn’t match Halt’s hands-free riding skill. He needed his right hand for the 0 reins as he held his own bow ready in his left hand.
They were riding through sparse woodland, leaving it to the sure-footed Ranger horses to pick the best route. Suddenly, they burst clear of the trees into a wide meadow. Abelard, under his rider’s urging, slid to a stop, Tug following suit beside him. Dropping the reins to Tug’s neck, Will’s right hand instinctively reached for an arrow from his quiver and nocked it ready.
A large fig tree grew in the middle of the cleared ground. At the base of it there was a small camp. A wisp of smoke still curled from the fireplace and a pack and blanket roll lay beside it. The four Wargals they had been tracking surrounded a single man, who had his back to the tree. For the moment his long sword held them at bay, but the Wargals were making small feinting movements towards him, trying to find an advantage. They were armed with short swords and axes and one carried a heavy iron spear.
Will drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the creatures. After following their trail for so long, it was a shock to come upon them so suddenly in plain sight. Bear-like in build, they had long muzzles and massive, yellow canine fangs, exposed now as they snarled at their prey. They were covered in shaggy fur and wore black leather armour. The man was dressed similarly and his voice cracked in fear as he repelled their tentative attacks.
‘Stand back! I’m on a mission for Lord Morgarath. Stand back, I order you! I order you in Lord Morgarath’s name!’
/> Halt nudged Abelard around, allowing him room to draw the arrow he had ready on the string.
‘Drop your weapons! All of you!’ he shouted. Five pairs of eyes swung towards him as the four Wargals and their prey turned in surprise. The Wargal with the spear recovered first. Realising that the swordsman was distracted, he darted forward and ran the spear into his body. A second later, Halt’s arrow buried itself in the Wargal’s heart and he fell dead beside his stricken prey. As the swordsman sank to his knees, the other Wargals charged at the two Rangers.
Shambling and bear-like as they might be, they covered ground with incredible speed.
Halt’s second shot dropped the left-hand Wargal. Will fired at the one on the right and realised instantly that he had misjudged the brute’s speed. The arrow hissed through the space where the Wargal had been a second before. His hand flew to his quiver for another arrow and he heard a hoarse grunt of pain as Halt’s third shot buried itself in the chest of the middle creature. Then Will loosed his second arrow at the surviving Wargal, now terrifyingly close.
Panicked by those savage eyes and yellow fangs, he snatched as he released and knew that his arrow would fly wide and the Wargal was almost upon him.
As the Wargal snarled in triumph, Tug came to his master’s aid. The little horse reared and lashed out with his front hooves at the horrific creature in front of him. Unexpectedly, he also danced forward a few steps, towards the threat, rather than retreating. Will, caught by surprise, clung to the pommel of the saddle.
The Wargal was equally surprised. Like all its kind, it had a deep-seated instinctive fear of horses – a fear born at the Battle of Hackham Heath sixteen years ago, where Morgarath’s first Wargal army had been decimated by Araluan cavalry. It hesitated now for a fatal second, stepping back before those flashing hooves.
Halt’s fourth arrow took it in the throat. At such short range, the arrow tore clean through. With a final grunting shriek, the Wargal fell dead on the grass.