Ranger's Apprentice 3 & 4 Bindup

by John Flanagan

  ‘Agreed,’ he said again. Yet this time, the word was almost purred. ‘Now get on with it, boy, before you lose your courage and wet your pants.’

  Horace cocked his head at the warlord and, for the first time, felt in control of the situation.

  ‘What a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work you are, Deparnieux,’ he said softly and the black knight leaned forward across the table, thrusting his chin out for the ritual blow with a glove that would issue the challenge and make the entire event irrevocable.

  ‘Frightened, boy?’ he sneered, and then flinched as a glove slapped stingingly across his cheek.

  Not that the pain made him flinch. Rather, it was the unexpectedness of it all. For the boy across the table hadn’t moved. Instead, the bearded, grizzled bowman had come to his feet with a speed and agility that left the warlord no time to react, and struck him across the face with the glove that he had held under the table for the past few minutes.

  ‘Then I challenge you, Deparnieux,’ the Ranger said. And for a few seconds the warlord felt a surge of uncertainty as he saw the light of satisfaction deep behind those steady, unwavering eyes.

  A small patch of sunlight crept across the single room of the hut. Evanlyn, dozing in a chair, felt the warmth of the sun on her face and smiled, unconsciously. Outside, the snow was still deep on the ground, but the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue in the midafternoon.

  Half asleep, she enjoyed the warmth as it slowly moved across her. Behind closed eyelids, she saw the bright red of the sun’s glare.

  Then, abruptly, the light was blocked and she opened her eyes.

  Will stood before her, in the attitude that had become familiar to her over the past week. His hands were clasped together and his dark brown eyes, once so alight with amusement and fun, held nothing but a wistful plea. He stood patiently, waiting for her to react, and she smiled at him, a little sadly.

  ‘All right,’ she told him gently.

  The faintest trace of a smile touched his lips, seeming for a moment to reflect in those dark eyes, and she felt a renewal of the surge of hope that had been growing within her over the past days. Gradually, but noticeably, Will was changing. At first, as she withheld the drug from him, he had convulsed in those awful shuddering fits, only recovering when she doled out a small portion of the warmweed.

  But, as the intervals between doses had grown longer and the doses themselves smaller, she had begun to hope that he would eventually recover. The seizures were a thing of the past. Now, instead of being ruled by his body as it craved the drug, Will was becoming more mentally attuned to a smaller supply. There was still a need there, but it was reflected in the pleading, almost childlike, behaviour that she was seeing now.

  After three days without a taste of the weed, he would come to her and simply stand in front of her, the message clear in his eyes. And, in response, she would measure out a helping of the ever-decreasing stock of drug that remained in the oiled cotton pouch. It was a race, she knew, to see whether his dependence would outlast the supply. If that were the case, she could see some hard times ahead for the two of them. She had no idea what his reaction would be if she refused him. But she sensed that further deprivation would result in another bout of uncontrollable shivering and crying.

  Perhaps, she reasoned, that was the next necessary stage in his rehabilitation. But, rightly or wrongly, she simply could not bring herself to witness that helpless, naked need again. Time enough for that when the warmweed finally ran out, she thought.

  ‘Stay here,’ she told him, rising from the wood frame chair and heading for the door. Again, she thought she saw a dim glint of pleasure in his eyes. It was gone almost as soon as she thought she had seen it, but she told herself that it had really been there, that she wasn’t simply seeing what she hoped to see.

  She kept the supply of warmweed in the stable, behind a loose board on one of the side walls. Initially, she was planning to conceal the oiled cloth pouch in the pile of firewood logs. But then she realised that she would use Will to fetch firewood and the possibility of his finding the supply of the drug was too awful to contemplate.

  She had no clear idea what would happen to him if he took an excessively large dose.

  At the least, she reasoned, his dependence would soar once again to a new level. And there might possibly be more permanent side effects as well – even fatal ones. What she did know was that if Will found the warmweed and used it all in one massive binge, she would face weeks of the convulsions and shuddering fits that had seized him when he had been deprived of the drug before.

  She wondered if his dulled mind could process the fact that she always left the cabin and returned with the weed; whether he was capable of putting together a cause and effect sequence and reasoning that the weed must be kept somewhere outside the cabin. She wasn’t sure, but in any event, she took no risk, taking great care to check that he hadn’t followed her when she took the pouch from the small concealed space in the timber wall.

  She looked carefully over her shoulder as she entered the stable and the pony looked up and snorted a greeting to her. But there was no sign that Will was showing any interest in her movements. Apparently, he was content to wait where he was, knowing that she would shortly return with the drug that he craved. How this happened, or where she found it, didn’t seem to be questions that concerned him. They were abstractions and he dealt only in absolute facts these days.

  She measured a minute amount of the dried weed into the palm of her hand, rewrapped the remaining supply and replaced it behind the loose board. Again, halfway through the sequence, she turned suddenly to see if she might be being observed. But there was no sign of her companion – only the pony, watching her with liquid, intelligent eyes.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ she said to the horse in a lowered tone. Remarkably, it chose that very moment to shake its head, as ponies do from time to time. Evanlyn shrugged after a second of startled reaction. It was as if the horse had heard and understood her. She replaced the pouch in the hollow and jammed the section of board back to conceal it. Stooping to the earth floor of the stable, she gathered a handful of dirt and smeared it over the jagged line that marked the join in the wood. Then, satisfied that the hiding place was concealed as well as it could be, she returned to the cabin.

  Will smiled as she entered and, for one moment, she thought he had recognised her from the old days. The old days, she thought ruefully. They were barely a few months ago, but now she thought of them as ancient history. Then she realised that his gaze was riveted on her clenched right hand. The smile was for the drug, not for her.

  Still, it was a beginning, she thought.

  She held out the clenched hand and he eagerly stepped forward, cupping both his hands underneath hers, anxious that not a grain should be spilt. She allowed the grey-green herb to trickle into his hands, watching his face as his eyes followed the thin stream of the drug. Unconsciously, his tongue darted across his lips in anticipation. When she had given him all of it – and allowed him to carefully brush the few minute crumbs that remained fastened on her palm into his own – he looked up at her and smiled again.

  This time, he smiled at her, she was sure.

  ‘Good,’ he said briefly, and then his gaze fell to the tiny mound of dried warmweed in his hand. He turned away from her, hunching over the hand as he brought it to his mouth.

  Evanlyn felt that sudden glow of hope burn brightly within her once more. It was the first time Will had actually spoken to her in the time since they had escaped from Hallasholm.

  It wasn’t much. Just the one word. But it was a beginning. She smiled after him as he hunkered down in a corner of the cabin. Animal-like, he instinctively cowered away as he took the drug, seemingly nervous that she might take it from him.

  ‘Welcome back, Will,’ she said softly.

  But he said nothing in reply. The warmweed had him once again.

  Horace rose in his stirrups as Kicker reached a full gallop. He held the long ash
pole out to his right-hand side, at right angles to his body and the line of travel. Ahead of him, standing unmoving in the middle of the field situated in front of the castle, Halt drew back the string of his longbow until the feathered end of the arrow touched the corner of his mouth.

  Horace urged the battlehorse to an even faster pace, until they had reached maximum speed. He glanced out to his right, to make sure the helmet that he had attached to the end of the pole was still in the correct position, facing Halt. Then he looked back at the small figure on the grass before him.

  He saw the first arrow released, spitting from the bow with incredible force and speeding towards the moving target. Then, in an almost incomprehensible blur of motion, Halt’s hands moved and another arrow was on the way.

  Almost at the same time, Horace felt a double concussion transmitted down the length of the ash pole he held out, as the two shafts slammed into the helmet within the space of half a second.

  He allowed Kicker to ease down to a canter as they passed Halt, taking the horse in a wide circle to come to a stop before the Ranger. Halt now stood with his bow grounded, waiting patiently to see the result of his practice. Horace let the pole and the attached helmet dip to the ground in front of him. Both shafts, incredibly, had found their way through the helmet’s vision slits and into the soft padding that Halt had put inside to protect the razor-sharp arrowheads.

  As Halt took the old helmet in his hands, Horace swung his leg over the pommel and slid to the ground beside him. The grizzled Ranger nodded once as he inspected the result of his target practice.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all.’

  Horace dropped the end of his reins, allowing Kicker to wander off and crop the short, thick grass that grew on the tournament field. He was puzzled and more than a little worried by Halt’s actions.

  After the challenge had been issued and accepted, Deparnieux had agreed to return their weapons. Halt claimed that he had not fired an arrow in weeks and would need to hone his skills for the combat. Deparnieux, who practised his own combat skills daily, saw nothing unusual in the request. So the weapons had been returned, although the two Araluans were watched closely by at least half a dozen crossbowmen whenever they practised.

  For the past three days, Halt had instructed Horace to gallop down the field, the helmet held out on the end of a pole, as he fired shafts at the eyeholes. Every time, at least one of the two shafts had found its mark. Generally, Halt managed to put both arrows through the tiny spaces he was aiming at.

  Yet this was no more than Horace expected of the Ranger. Halt’s skill with a longbow was legendary. There was no need for him to practise now, particularly when, by doing so, he was revealing his tactics to the Gallic warlord.

  ‘Is he watching?’ Halt asked quietly, seeming to read Horace’s thoughts. The Ranger had his back to the castle walls and couldn’t see. But Horace, moving his eyes only and not his head, could make out the black silhouette at one of the castle’s many terraces, hunched over the balustrade watching them – as he had done every time they had taken the field.

  ‘Yes, Halt,’ he said now. ‘He’s watching. But is it wise for us to do this where he can see?’

  The very faintest trace of a smile seemed to touch the Ranger’s lips.

  ‘Possibly not,’ he replied. ‘But he’d make sure he saw us no matter where we practised, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Horace admitted reluctantly, ‘but surely you don’t need to practise, do you?’

  Halt shook his head sadly. ‘Spoken like a true apprentice,’ he said. ‘Practice never hurt anyone, young Horace. Bear that in mind when we get back to Castle Redmont.’

  Horace eyed Halt unhappily as he eased the two arrows free from the straw and leather padding that filled the inside of the helmet.

  ‘There’s something else,’ he began, and Halt held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Your precious rules of chivalry are bothering you again, aren’t they?’ Horace was forced to nod reluctant agreement. It was a bone of contention between the two of them, and had been ever since Halt had arranged to challenge Deparnieux to a duel.

  At first, the warlord had been enraged, then sarcastically amused, that a commoner might assume to challenge him.

  ‘I am a consecrated knight,’ he spat at Halt. ‘A nobleman! I cannot be challenged to combat by any ruffian from the forest!’

  The Ranger’s brows had darkened at that. His voice, when he spoke, was low and dangerous. Inadvertently, both Deparnieux and Horace had leaned forward to listen more carefully to his words.

  ‘Guard your tongue, you lowborn cur!’ Halt had replied. ‘You’re speaking to a member of the royal house of Hibernia, sixth in line to the throne and with a lineage that was noble when you and yours were scouring the kennels for scraps to eat!’

  And, as he had spoken, an unmistakable Hibernian burr had accented his words. Horace had looked at him in considerable surprise. He had never had the slightest idea that Halt was descended from a royal line. Deparnieux was equally taken aback by the news. He was right, of course. No knight was obliged to honour a challenge from one beneath him. But the grizzled archer’s claim to royal blood put a different aspect on matters. His challenge must be treated seriously and with respect. Deparnieux could not ignore it – particularly as it had been issued in the presence of several of his men. To refuse the challenge would undermine his position seriously.

  As a result, he had accepted and the combat was set down for a week from that day.

  Later, in their tower chambers, Horace had expressed his surprise about Halt’s background.

  ‘I had no idea you were descended from Hibernian royalty,’ he said. Halt snorted dismissively as he replied.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘But our friend doesn’t know that and there’s no way he can prove I’m not. Therefore he has to take my challenge as binding.’

  And it was this disregard for the strict conventions of chivalry that had Horace so concerned, as much as the fact that Halt seemed to be letting his enemy know exactly what tactics he had for the combat, which was now only a day away. Training in the Battleschool placed great store upon the conventions and obligations of knighthood. They were, so Horace had been taught for the past eighteen months, binding and inflexible. They placed obligations on those who would be knights and, while they gave them great privileges, those privileges had to be earned. A knight had to observe the rules. To live by them and, if necessary, to die for them.

  Among the most binding and inflexible of those conventions was that of a knight’s recourse to trial by combat. It was a course that could be followed only by those who were followers of one of the various chivalrous orders. Even Horace, as an unknighted warrior, wasn’t strictly speaking entitled to challenge Deparnieux. But Halt certainly wasn’t and the Ranger’s cavalier attitude to a system that Horace held in the highest esteem had shocked the boy – and continued to do so now.

  ‘Look,’ said Halt, not unkindly, as he put an arm around Horace’s brawny shoulders, ‘the rules of chivalry are a fine thing, I admit that. But only for those who abide by all the rules.’

  ‘But …’ Horace began, but Halt stopped him by squeezing his shoulder.

  ‘Deparnieux has used those rules to kill, to plunder and to murder for god knows how many years. He accepts those parts of the rules that suit him and discards the ones that don’t. You’ve seen that already.’

  Horace nodded unhappily. ‘I know, Halt. It’s just I’ve been taught that –’

  Halt interrupted him again, but gently. ‘You’ve been taught by men who are noble,’ he said. ‘By men who uphold the rules of chivalry – all the rules – and live according to them. Let me tell you, I know no finer man than Sir Rodney, or Baron Arald, for that matter. Men like that are the embodiment of everything that is right about chivalry and knighthood.’

  He paused, looking intently at the boy’s troubled face. Horace nodded agreement. Halt had chosen two of
his role models in Rodney and the Baron. Seeing that he had made his point, Halt continued: ‘But a murdering, cowardly swine like Deparnieux cannot be allowed to claim the same standards as men like that. I have no compunction at all about lying to him as long as it helps me bring him to the point where I can fight him – and defeat him, with any luck.’

  And at that point, Horace turned to him, his face still troubled, but perhaps a little less so.

  ‘But how can you hope to defeat him when he knows exactly what you plan to do?’ he asked miserably. Halt shrugged and replied, without any trace of a smile:

  ‘Perhaps I’ll get lucky.’

  The hunting bow was awkward in Evanlyn’s grip. She fumbled as she tried to set one of the arrows on the string, almost dropping it into the snow at her feet as she tried to keep her eyes on the small animal moving slowly across the clearing before her.

  Unthinkingly, she hissed her annoyance and instantly the rabbit sat up on its hind legs, its ears twitching this way and that to see if they could catch another hint of the foreign sound it had just picked up, and the nose twitching this way and that as it sampled the air for any trace of a foreign scent.

  Evanlyn froze, waiting till the animal had reassured itself that there was no immediate danger, then went back to scrabble with its forepaws in the snow, scraping it away to expose the wet, stunted grass underneath. Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched as the rabbit began to graze again, then, looking down this time, slipped the arrow onto the string, just under the nock mark that the bow’s original maker had placed there.

  At this point, the string had been built up in thickness, with a fine cord wound round and round it, so that the nock fitted snugly, holding the arrow in place without any need for her fingers to do so. It was a snug hold, but a light one nevertheless, and the force of the string’s release would instantly break the grip and send the arrow on its way.