Halt's Peril

by John Flanagan

  When the water began to bubble and steam, he measured a little less than the usual amount of coffee into the palm of his hand and threw it carefully into the boiling water.

  Then he edged the pot away from the flames a little so that it settled down as the coffee began to steep. The delicious, unmistakable aroma rose from the pot, despite the tightly closed lid.

  Later, he wondered if it was that familiar smell that roused Halt. It certainly seemed so, judging by his first words.

  'I'll have a cup of that when it's ready.'

  Horace swung around, startled by the sound of Halt's voice. Halt sounded stronger and more positive than he had the last time he had spoken. Horace moved closer to him, seizing his right hand.

  'Halt! You're awake! How are you feeling?'

  Halt didn't answer immediately. He peered at the figure leaning over him and tried to raise his head a little but then let it drop back, defeated.

  'Who's that?' he said. 'Can't see too clearly for some reason. Must have taken a knock on the head, did I?'

  'It's me, Halt. And no, you were. . .' Before Horace could continue to explain what had happened, Halt began talking again and the young warrior's heart sank as he realised that, despite the apparent strength in Halt's voice, he was even more far gone now than he had been before.

  'That damned Thorgan, wasn't it? Him with his club. I never saw him coming till he was on me.'

  Horace actually recoiled a little in shock. Thorgan? He'd heard the name. He'd heard it when he was a little boy in the Ward at Redmont. It was a famous tale of courage and loyalty throughout Araluen and one that had helped cement the remarkable legend of the Ranger Corps.

  Thorgan the Smasher had been an infamous brigand who had terrified the north-eastern region of Araluen many years ago. His crew of cutthroats robbed and murdered travellers and even raided small villages, burning, robbing and terrorising wherever they went. Thorgan himself carried an immense war club, from which he derived his nickname.

  Halt and Crowley, having just revitalised and re-formed the Ranger Corps, had vowed to stamp out Thorgan's band, and to bring Thorgan before King Duncan's court of law. But in a running battle in a forest, Crowley had been ambushed by three of Thorgan's men and was fighting desperately for his life. Halt went to his aid, shooting two of the bandits and cutting the third down with his saxe knife. But in saving Crowley, he failed to see Thorgan concealed in the trees until it was almost too late. The huge bandit leapt out, swinging a terrible blow with the massive club. Halt just managed to evade its full force, slipping cat-like to one side at the very last moment. Still, it caught him a glancing blow on the head and he only just managed to drive his saxe knife deep into Thorgan's body before falling unconscious across Crowley. Even in that movement, he was trying to protect his friend.

  The two friends were found some hours later by a patrol of Duncan's cavalry. They were huddled together, both unconscious. Close by, the body of Thorgan was leaning against the bole of a tree, a surprised expression on his face, and the hilt of Halt's saxe knife protruding from his ribs.

  That was the event, from so long ago, that was now foremost in Halt's wandering mind. His next words confirmed Horace's suspicion.

  'Are you all right, Crowley? Thought I was too late getting to you, old friend. Hope you didn't think I'd let you down.'

  Crowley? Horace realised, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, that Halt had mistaken him for the Ranger Commandant. There seemed to be no point trying to convince him otherwise. Either he would realise his mistake or not. Horace squeezed his hand.

  'You'd never let me down, Halt. I know that.'

  Halt smiled and closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them once more and there was a strange calm in them.

  'Don't know if I'm going to make it this time, Crowley,' he said, in a matter-of-fact voice. Horace felt his heart lurch with sadness – more at the tone of acceptance than the words themselves.

  'You'll make it, Halt. Of course you'll make it! We need you. I need you.'

  But Halt smiled again, a sad little smile that said he didn't believe the words he was hearing.

  'Been a long road, hasn't it? You've been a good friend.'

  'Halt . . .' Horace began but Halt raised a hand to stop him.

  'No. Might not have too long, Crowley. Got to say a few things . . .' He paused, breathing deeply, gathering his strength. For a terrible moment, Horace thought he had drifted away. But then he rallied.

  'The boy, Crowley. Look after him, won't you?'

  Instinctively, Horace knew he was talking about Will. Halt's sense of time and events seemed hopelessly jumbled, hopelessly out of kilter. But he was searching Horace's face now, obviously seeing only a blur and waiting for a reply.

  'Crowley? You still there?'

  'I'm here, Halt,' Horace said. He swallowed past a huge lump in his throat, desperately forcing the hot, stinging tears back as they threatened to force their way out through his eyes.

  'I'm here. And I'll watch out for him, never fear.' He felt a twinge of guilt at the deception but he deemed it was for the best. Halt had become troubled as he thought 'Crowley' hadn't heard his request. He relaxed a little when Horace answered him.

  'Thought maybe you'd gone,' Halt said, then, with a trace of his sardonic grin, he added, 'Thought maybe I'd gone.' Then the grin faded as he remembered what he had been saying. 'He could be the greatest of us all, you know.'

  Horace bowed his head but he knew he had to answer. He had to keep Halt talking. If he was talking he was alive. That was all Horace knew.

  'He had a great teacher, Halt,' Horace said, his voice breaking.

  Halt waved a weary hand in dismissal. 'Didn't need to teach him. Just needed to point the way.' There was a long pause, then he added: 'Horace too. Another good one there. Watch over him. He and Will together . . . they could be the future of this Kingdom.'

  This time Horace couldn't talk. He felt a numbing wave of sadness, but at the same time, a glow of pride was in his heart – pride that Halt would talk about him in such terms. Unable to speak, he squeezed the Ranger's hand once more. Halt made another effort to raise his head and managed to get it a few centimetres off his pillow.

  'One more thing . . . tell Pauline . . .' He hesitated and Horace was about to prompt him when he managed to continue. 'Oh . . . never mind. She knows there's never been anyone else for me.'

  That last effort seemed to exhaust him and his eyes slowly closed. Horace opened his mouth to scream his grief but he realised that the grey-bearded Ranger's chest was still rising and falling. The movement was slow. But he was still breathing. Still alive.

  And Horace bowed his head and wept. Maybe from fear. Maybe from anguish. Maybe from relief that his friend continued to live.

  Maybe from all three.

  Thirty-one

  Exhausted, slumped in the saddle, Will reined Abelard in to a stop. The ride through the night since they had left the barrows was a blur in his mind: a constant sequence of holding to the steady, disciplined lope for two hours, then dismounting and walking for quarter of an hour, then mounting the spare horse and setting off once again at the same steady lope. He had stopped twice for short rests, with no further interruption to his sleep. The rests had revived him a little. But they also served to let the aches and stiffness in his muscles really set in. Each time he restarted, he suffered several minutes of agony until his senses became dulled to the discomfort.

  Now, he was almost at the end of his journey. Or at least, the first part of it. To his left, he could see the solid bulk of Castle Macindaw. To his right lay the dark mass that delineated the beginning of Grimsdell Wood.

  For a moment he was tempted to ride to the castle. He would be welcomed there, he knew. There would be hot food, a hot bath and a soft bed. He looked at Abelard. The little horse stood, head down and weary. Tug, who hadn't been carrying Will's weight for the past two hours, looked a little better, but still tired. Even Kicker, who had carried no load so far,
would be leg weary. If he went to the castle, the horses would be cared for, fed and watered and stabled in comfort.

  He could possibly send a messenger to Malcolm while he regained his strength and energy. Surely Orman, the castle lord, must have some way of contacting the eccentric old healer, he thought. Just a few hours. Surely it wouldn't do any harm?

  The temptation swayed him – literally. He realised he was actually swaying in the saddle as his eyes became harder and harder to hold open. Any moment, he'd crash to the ground and lie there on the grass, and he knew if that happened, he might not have the strength, mental or physical, to rise again.

  He shook himself, tossing his head violently, blinking his eyes rapidly, to beat back the drowsiness that threatened to engulf him.

  'No!' he said suddenly, and Abelard's head raised, ears pricked, at the sudden sound of his voice. The horse wasn't as tired as he seemed, Will realised. He was simply conserving his strength against the need for further effort.

  Will knew, in his heart, that if he were to go to Macindaw, he would be delayed – and by far more than a few hours. He would have to explain the situation, answering a hundred questions, and then convince Orman to send a messenger into the woods.

  Assuming that such a messenger could find Malcolm's cottage – and there was no certainty of that, beyond Will's assumption that the castle lord must have some way of contacting the healer – he would then have to convince Malcolm of the urgency of the situation. And that urgency would be reduced by the mere fact that Will had not come himself. Delay would mount upon delay and then it would be dark and too late to set out. It could cost him hours and he knew Halt didn't have that time. Halt could die because his apprentice had decided a few hours on a feather mattress were more important than his closest friend's life.

  It would be quicker if he went to Malcolm himself to explain the situation. And if the healer showed any reluctance or hesitation about dropping whatever he might be doing and riding for two days to assist someone he'd never met, Will would simply grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him along.

  The decision made, he sat a little straighter in the saddle and turned Abelard's head towards Grimsdell Wood.

  It was some time since he had last been here but gradually it came back to him and he began to recognise landmarks. This was the spot where he had rendezvoused with Alyss when they first set out to reconnoitre Malcolm's home. Or Malkallam's lair, as they thought of it at that time. Inside the tree line was a small clearing where he had waited and shot at Jack Buttle, wounding the murderer in the upper leg but causing no serious damage.

  'Should have held my aim higher,' he muttered to himself.

  Abelard's ears twitched. What was that?

  It appeared that in Halt's absence, the horse had decided he should share his thoughts with Will. Or maybe Will had simply come to know him better and could divine his thoughts more clearly.

  'Nothing,' he replied. 'Just ignore me.'

  He dismounted stiffly, groaning at the pain the movement caused him. He loosened Abelard's girth and patted him on the neck.

  'Good boy,' he said. 'You've done well.'

  There was plenty of grass in the clearing. He tethered Kicker to a young sapling. The lead rein would give the big horse room to move and graze if he chose to. Abelard, of course, required no tether. Will simply held up a hand, palm outward, then pointed to the ground.

  'Stay here,' he said quietly. The horse tossed his head in acknowledgement.

  He'd decided to ride Tug into the almost senseless tangle of Grimsdell Wood. He wasn't completely sure that he would be able to find his way to Malcolm's cottage. The trails he had followed previously might well be overgrown by now. New trails might have been formed. He thought he knew the way, but it would help to have Tug's extra senses along as well. Briefly, he thought of the dog, Shadow, and wished grimly that she was with him. She would find the cottage without hesitation.

  He tightened Tug's saddle straps and mounted, groaning again as the stiff muscles were stretched and racked by the movement. He hesitated, looking at the wall of trees around them. Then he thought he could make out the faintest trace of a trail. It seemed vaguely familiar. He was sure that was the way he and Alyss had gone last time.

  'Let's go,' he said to Tug and they rode into Grimsdell Wood.

  The path was obviously a trail left by small animals, who stood closer to the ground than Tug. Consequently, about a metre and a half from the ground, it was obstructed by overhanging branches, vines and creepers that all conspired to delay Will's progress, forcing him to duck under them or cut them aside. He saw several clumps of the ubiquitous stay-with-me vines and avoided them carefully.

  The canopy of the trees overhead grew so close together that there was no sight of the sun, and few of its rays penetrated to the forest floor. He rode in a dark, half-shadowed world and, with no idea where the sun might lie, he quickly lost all sense of direction. He thought bitterly of his seeker needle, miles away in the pack he had left behind at the camp site. In his hurry to find help for his stricken master, he had forgotten how treacherous Grimsdell Wood could be and had blindly assumed that he would be able to find his way through it once more.

  He sensed that Tug was feeling the same confusion – undoubtedly because of the fact that he couldn't see the sun and had no way of judging his own direction. The trail they followed wound and twisted and doubled back so that after a few minutes, there was no way of knowing exactly where they were heading. All they could do was keep going.

  'At least we don't have to contend with Malcolm's bugaboos this time,' he told Tug.

  The first time he had entered this wood, Malcolm had lined the way with frightening signs and sounds and flashing lights that appeared then disappeared. There was no evidence of them now. As that thought struck him, he realised that this possibly meant Malcolm felt more secure in the woods these days. And perhaps that meant that his network of watchers was no longer deployed among the trees. And that was a disadvantage. If word got back to the healer that the Ranger Will had returned, he would undoubtedly send someone to guide him to Healer's Clearing. But if there were no watchers, he could wander aimlessly all day and nobody would be any the wiser.

  Gently, he reined Tug in as they reached a slightly wider part of the trail. He sat still for a moment, considering their position. After a few seconds, he was forced to accept the truth. They were lost. At least, he was.

  'Do you have any idea where we are?' he asked Tug. The horse tossed his head and neighed sharply. It was an uncertain sound. For once, Tug's almost supernatural senses were defeated.

  'We can't be too far away,' Will said hopefully. Although, in truth, they could have been travelling entirely in the wrong direction for the past hour. He had seen nothing familiar. He paused, scanning the trees that grew close around them. He shoved back his cowl and listened, alert for any sound that might give him an idea of his position.

  And heard frogs.

  Several frogs, croaking.

  'Listen!' he said urgently to Tug, and pointed in the direction from which he had heard the insistent sound. Tug's ears went up and his head swung to follow the sound. He heard them too.

  'Find them,' Will ordered and, with a definite task in mind, Tug set off into the trees, brushing aside several saplings, forcing his way through some low undergrowth until he emerged on another path. It was just ten metres from the one they had been following and it appeared to be much more travelled. After a few metres, it diverged, angling away towards the sound of those frogs.

  With growing certainty, Tug surged forward and then, without warning, the trees opened out and they emerged on the edge of a wide, black body of water.

  'Grimsdell mere,' Will said triumphantly. From here, he knew, they were barely ten minutes' away from Healer's Clearing. But ten minutes in which direction? The black mere itself was familiar but the part of the bank where they had emerged wasn't. Once it was lost to sight, they could go blundering about the wood and lo
se themselves again within a few minutes.

  Tug turned his head to look at him. There are the frogs. I did my bit.

  Will patted his neck gratefully. 'Well done. Now it's time for me to do something.'

  An idea came to him and, placing his fingers in either side of his mouth, he let go a shrill, piercing whistle. Tug started at the unexpected sound.

  'Sorry,' Will told him. 'Here goes again.'

  Again, he whistled, long and loud and shrill. The sound seemed to be swallowed up by the dark mass of the wood around them. He waited, counting the seconds till a minute had passed, then whistled once more.

  He repeated the action another four times, allowing a minute to pass between each whistle. And each time, he scanned the trees around them, hoping that his idea would work.

  He was placing his fingers for a seventh whistle when he heard a rustling sound in the undergrowth close by. Tug rumbled a warning, which quickly turned to a sound of greeting. Then a black and white shape emerged, body low to the ground, heavy, white-tipped tail sweeping slowly from side to side in welcome.

  Will dismounted painfully and moved to greet her, fondling the soft fur of her head, rubbing under her chin in the way dogs love to be patted. She raised her head to his touch, her eyes, one brown, the other a surprising manic blue, half-closed in pleasure.

  'Hello, Shadow,' he said. 'You have no idea how delighted I am to see you.'