Halt's Peril

They proceeded in a series of short rushes. First Will would go forward ten to twenty metres while Halt stood, bow ready, until Will gained the cover of a tree trunk. Then Will would scan the forest while Halt moved forward, then went past him to another point twenty metres further along. Then they would repeat the process, leapfrogging each other, one watching while the other went forward. Frequently, they stopped to let the horses test the air and listen for any out-of-place sounds or scents from the trees around them.

Horace brought up the rear. He had his shield slung over his back for protection. If he needed it in a hurry, he could quickly shrug it round onto his left arm. His sword was drawn. When he first drew the weapon, he had felt a little self-conscious – concerned that it might make him appear nervous. But Halt had nodded approvingly when he caught the gleam of the sharp blade in the dull light under the trees.

'Nothing more useless than a sword you've left in its scabbard,' he had said.

Halt had also instructed him to turn suddenly from time to time and scan the path behind them, making sure that there was no one about to strike at them from behind.

'Don't do it at regular intervals,' Halt had told him as they were about to enter the dim green world of the forest. 'Anybody trailing us will recognise a regular pattern and they'll match it and move more freely. Mix things up. Keep changing it.'

So now, from time to time, Horace would turn to scan the path, turn back, then whip round again immediately. Halt had told him that this was the best way to catch a pursuer unaware.

But each time he did it, there was nobody there.

That did nothing to lessen the tension. He was only too aware that, at any moment, he could turn like this and there might be someone moving on the track behind them. He realised that his hand on the sword grip was damp with tension and he wiped it carefully on his jacket. In a battle, Horace would face any enemy, and any number of enemies, without flinching. It was the uncertainty of this situation that unsettled him – the knowledge that, no matter how many times there had been nothing behind them, this could be the time when it all went wrong.

He also felt extremely vulnerable in the company of Will and Halt. He watched them as they ghosted between the trees, their cloaks helping them blend into the grey and green shades of the forest so that at times he had trouble seeing them clearly.

He was wearing the cloak that Halt had given him, of course. But he knew that the skill of concealment depended on more than just the camouflage patterns on the cloak. It was a result of years of practice, of learning how to use the smallest amount of cover available. How to move swiftly without breaking twigs or rustling dead leaves underfoot. Knowing when to move and when to stand utterly still, even though your nerves shrieked at you to dive into cover. Compared to the two almost silent shadows who accompanied him, he felt like a huge, blundering draught horse, lurching and crashing through the trees and undergrowth. The grim thought occurred to him that any ambusher with half a brain would look for the easiest, most visible target for his first shot.

And that would be him.

Unconsciously, he wiped his damp hand on his jacket again.

Up ahead, as Halt moved forward past him, Will glanced quickly back at his best friend, bringing up the rear. It was just an extra precaution, making sure that nobody was stalking Horace. The man in the centre of the line, whether it was Halt or Will, had the responsibility for checking front, back and sides as they progressed. He was impressed by Horace's calmness, by the way he seemed to take this situation in his stride. The young warrior hadn't been trained for this sort of shadowy, nerve-stretching manoeuvring. Yet he seemed to be cool and unflustered. Will, on the other hand, was surprised that neither of his friends could hear his heart hammering inside his rib cage. The tension beneath the trees was almost palpable. The expectation that a crossbow bolt could come ripping out of the shadowy forest, the concern that any slight inattention on his part could cost the lives of his friends, was close to unbearable. He shook his head angrily. That sort of thinking would lead to exactly the inattention he was worried about.

Clear your head. Clear your mind of all distractions, Halt had told him hundreds of times during the years they had trained together. Become part of the situation. Don't think. Feel and sense what is around you.

He took a deep breath and settled himself, emptying his mind of doubts and worries, focusing his attention and subconscious on the forest around him. After a few seconds, he began to hear the small sounds of the forest more clearly. A bird flashing from one tree to another. A squirrel chattering. A branch falling. Tug and Abelard stepped quietly beside him, their ears twitching as they listened for potential danger. Ahead of him, he could hear Halt's soft footfalls as he slipped forward. Behind, the louder sounds made by Horace and Kicker, no matter how much the tall youth tried to move quietly.

This was the state of attention he needed. He had to hear the total spectrum of sound in the forest so that anything abnormal, any irregularity, would register immediately. If a bird took flight, for example, and didn't land in another tree within a few seconds, it would indicate that something had startled it. It was escaping or fleeing, not simply moving to a more promising feeding place. If there was a shrill warning note in the squirrel's chattering call, it would indicate the presence of something, or someone, unwelcome in its territory.

Most other small animals would respond to that sort of territorial declaration by moving back, he knew. A predator mightn't. A human predator definitely wouldn't.

Halt had stopped, stepping into the cover of an ancient, lichen-covered elm. Will surveyed the ground before him, picking his path so that he wouldn't move in a straight, predictable line, then slid out from behind the tree that sheltered him and ghosted forward yet again.

Tug and Abelard paced soft-footed behind him.

Eventually, the dim light began to grow brighter and the trees became more widely spaced. With each forward rush, Will and Halt could cover more territory until they had almost reached the edge of the forest. Will began to move forward, towards the open, grass-covered heath, but Halt held up a hand and stopped him.

'Look first,' he said softly. 'This could be just the place where they'd lie in wait, knowing we'd relax once we're out of the forest.'

Will's mouth went dry as he realised that Halt was right. The sense of relief that he'd felt, the sudden lessening of tension, had almost led him into what could have been a fatal mistake. He crouched beside Halt and together they studied the terrain ahead of them. Horace waited patiently, a few metres behind them, with the horses.

'See anything?' Halt asked quietly.

Will shook his head, his eyes still moving.

'Neither do I,' Halt agreed. 'But that doesn't mean they're not there.' He glanced up at the tree they sheltered behind. It was one of the taller trees, longer established than its neighbours.

'Slip up the tree and take a look,' he said, then added, 'Stay on this side of the trunk while you do it.'

Will grinned at him. 'I wasn't born yesterday.'

Halt raised an eyebrow. 'Maybe not. But you could have died today if I'd let you go blundering out into the open a few minutes ago.'

There was no answer to that. Will looked up into the tree, selected the handholds and footholds he would use, and swarmed up into the branches. He'd always been an excellent climber and it only took a few seconds for him to be ten metres above the forest floor. From this vantage point, he had a clear view of the land that lay before them.

'No sign,' he called softly.

Halt grunted. 'Can you find a good shooting position up there?'

Will glanced around. A few metres above him there was a wide branch that would give him a good position, with a clear view of the land ahead. He saw the sense of Halt's question. From an elevated position, he would see any ambusher's movement before they were in a position to shoot.

'Give me a moment.' He went higher up the tree. Halt watched him, smiling at the ease with which he could climb. It's because he's not nervous, he realised. He feels at home up there and he's not afraid of falling.

'Ready,' Will called. He had an arrow ready on the string and his eyes scanned from side to side.

Halt rose from his kneeling position beside the tree and moved out into the open ground before them. He could make out the tracks of the Outsiders once more – a heel print here, a patch of broken, flattened grass stems there – so faint that only an experienced tracker would see them.

He moved out ten metres. Then twenty. Then fifty. Unconsciously, he had moved in a crouch, his every muscle ready to dive into cover or loose a return shot at a moment's notice. Gradually, as he moved further he realised that the danger was past. He stood more erect, then, stopping, he signalled for Will and Horace to join him.

The grass here was only knee high. It provided nothing like the cover the shoulder-high gorse had. Anybody waiting in ambush here would be in more danger than their intended victims, Halt thought. They'd have to lie face down to conceal themselves, so that they'd waste precious seconds rising to see their quarry and get ready for a shot. The Genovesans were too skilled to put themselves at such a disadvantage.

They mounted and rode on, more relaxed now but still scanning the ground carefully and still turning from time to time to check their rear. The grassland continued for several kilometres. Then they reached a ridge and looked down into a wide valley below them.

'Now that's where we're going to have to be careful,' Halt said. Nineteen The flat plain ahead of them stretched for kilometres. In the distance, they could see the steely glint of a river as it twisted its way through the countryside, always searching for the lowest lying point.

Immediately before them, at the base of the ridge upon which they found themselves, the grass sloped gradually down. Then the land changed dramatically.

Gaunt, bare tree trunks rose from the flat ground, massed together in irregular ranks. Their bare limbs reached to the sky, jagged and uneven, devoid of any covering of leaves, twisted into weird shapes, as if in agony and supplication. There were thousands of them. Possibly tens of thousands, in close-packed ranks. And all of them dead, grey and bare.

To Will's eye, used to the soft green tones in the forests around Castle Redmont and Seacliff, the sight was unutterably sad and desolate. The wind sighed through the dead branches and trunks, whispering a forlorn sound that was only just audible. Without a cloak of leaves, and with their inner layers long devoid of sap, the branches didn't sway gracefully. They remained stark and stiff, their sharp, ugly lines unwavering as they resisted the gentle force of the breeze.

Will guessed that in a strong wind the dead limbs would crack and split by the dozen, falling to the ground below like so many warped, grey spears.

'What is it, Halt?' he asked. He spoke in almost a whisper. It seemed more suitable somehow, in the proximity of so many dead trees.

'It's a drowned forest,' Halt told them.

Horace leaned forward, crossing both hands on the pommel of his saddle as he surveyed the scene of utter desolation that stretched before them.

'How does a forest drown?' he asked. Like Will, he kept his voice low, as if not wishing to disturb the tragic scene. The grey, gaunt shapes stretching out below them seemed to demand such a measure of respect. Halt pointed to the distant glitter of the river, visible beyond the thousands of trees and a low ridge.

'I'd say that river must have flooded,' he said. 'It would have been many years ago and it must have been a particularly wet season. The floodwaters spread over the low ground and, basically, the trees drowned. They're not capable of living when their root system is under water and so, gradually, they died off.'

'But I've seen floods before,' Horace said. 'A river floods. The waters rise. Then they recede and everything goes back pretty much to normal.'

Halt was studying the lie of the land now and he nodded acknowledgement of Horace's statement.

'Normally, you'd expect it to happen that way,' he said. 'And over a short period of time, the trees will survive. But look more closely. The river is contained by that low ridge beyond the forest. Once the waters rose over that ridge and flooded down to where the forest stood, there was no way it could recede again once the rain stopped. And I suspect that the rain kept on going for some time. The floodwater was trapped there among the trees. That's what killed them.'

Will shook his head sadly. 'How long ago?'

Halt pursed his lips. 'Fifty, sixty years, perhaps. Those trunks look empty of life. They will have been quietly rotting here for decades.'

He had been looking for the trail down the slope as they were speaking. Now he saw it and urged Abelard towards it. The others followed behind him. As they reached the flat ground below their earlier vantage point, they realised what a formidable barrier the drowned forest was. The grey trunks were all the same shade and their twisted, irregular shapes made it difficult to distinguish one from another. They merged together in a grey wall. It was almost impossible to discern detail or perspective.

'Now, this is what I'd call a good ambush site,' Halt said. Then, a few seconds later, he swung down from his saddle and walked forward several paces, studying the ground. He beckoned the others to join him.

'Will,' he said, 'you saw the tracks Tennyson and his party left in the grassland once we got out of the forest?'

Will nodded and Halt gestured at the ground around him. 'Take a good look at these and see if you can find any difference.'

There was a thread of wool hanging from a low bush in the grass. Further along, something gleamed on the ground. Will went to it and picked it up. It was a horn button. A little further along, he saw a distinct, perfectly formed heel print in a soft patch of ground. The grass itself was heavily trampled and beaten down.

'So, what do you think?' Halt asked.

There was definitely something wrong, Will thought, and Halt's question seemed to confirm that the older Ranger felt the same. Mentally, he pictured the tracks they had seen at the top of the rise behind them. Vague impressions in the dirt, occasional bruised blades of grass, almost invisible to a follower. Now here, conveniently, there were threads, buttons, and a deep footprint – just the sort of thing that Tennyson's party had seemed to be avoiding only a few hundred metres away. And the line of visual clues pointed in one clear direction – into the dead forest.

'It all seems a little… obvious,' he said, at length. And the moment he said it, he realised that was what had been bothering him about these tracks. Suddenly, after leaving a trail that could be followed only by highly trained trackers, the party ahead of them were leaving tracks that even Horace could follow.

'Exactly,' Halt said, staring into the grey depths of the dead forest. 'It's all very convenient, isn't it?'

'They wanted us to find the tracks,' Will said. It was a statement of fact, not a question, and Halt nodded slowly.

'Question is, why? Why would they want us to find them?'

'They want us to follow,' Horace said, surprising himself slightly. Halt gave him a grin.

'Well thought out, Horace. That cloak must be making you think like a Ranger.' He gestured towards the forest ahead of them. 'They wanted to make sure that we knew they'd gone this way. And there's only one reason for them to have done that.'

'They're waiting for us somewhere in there,' Will said. Like Halt, he was gazing steadily into the grey wasteland that faced them, frowning slightly as he tried to discern some sign of movement, some out-of-place item, among the long-dead trees. He had to blink several times. The tree trunks merged together in his vision and seemed to blur into one mass.

'It's what I'd do,' Halt said quietly. Then, with just a hint of contempt, he added, 'Although I hope I'd be a little more subtle about it. Those signs there are almost an insult to my intelligence.'

'They're not to know that, of course,' Horace put in. 'None of them will have had much to do with Rangers before. They can't know that Rangers can see the tracks left by a sparrow flying low over a piece of rocky ground.'

Halt and Will looked at him suspiciously.

'Was that sarcasm?' Halt asked.

'Sounded like it to me,' Will agreed.

'Well, Horace, were you being sarcastic?' Halt persisted.

Horace tried not to grin. He didn't entirely succeed. 'Not at all, Halt. I was being suitably respectful in the light of your amazing skills. Almost inhuman, they seem to be.'

'That was sarcasm,' Will said in a definite tone.

Horace shrugged diffidently. 'More irony than sarcasm, I think,' he said.

Halt nodded slowly. 'Nevertheless,' he said, 'our sarcastic friend – no, make that our ironic friend – has a point. The Genovesans have no idea that we know the first thing about tracking. They may suspect it. But they're not taking chances with this…' He indicated the footprint, the thread and the horn button. '… this spoonfeeding.'

'So, what do we do now?' Horace asked.

'What we do now,' Halt replied, 'is that you take the horses back a few hundred metres and wait. Will and I will flush these damn Genovesans out.'

Horace stepped forward to remonstrate with the Ranger, his hands outstretched.

'Oh come on, Halt! All right, I admit I was being sarcastic – just a little. But that's no reason to leave me out of things. You can trust me!'

But Halt was already shaking his head and he laid a hand on Horace's forearm to reassure him.

'Horace, I'm not punishing you. And I trust you every bit as much as I trust Will. But this is not the sort of fight you're trained for. And you're not armed for it, either,' he added.

Without his realising it, Horace's hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, sheathed at his side, in an instinctive gesture.

'I'm armed, all right!' he insisted. 'Just let me get to close quarters and I'll show these damned assassins how well armed I am! I think I'd like to have the murderer who killed Ferris at the point of my sword.'

Halt didn't release the young man's arm. He shook it gently to make his point.

'That's why I want you to wait back a little. This won't be a close-quarter fight. These men kill from a distance. Will and I have our bows so we'll be fighting them on even terms. But you won't get near them. They'll put enough crossbow bolts into you to make you look like a porcupine before you get within twenty metres of them.'

'But…' Horace began.

'Think about it, Horace. You won't be able to help if it comes to a fight. They'll be too far away. You'll just provide them with an extra target. And if Will and I have to keep an eye on you, we won't be able to concentrate on finding them and killing them before they kill us. Now please, take the horses back out of bow shot and let us do what we've been trained to do.'

The struggle was all too evident on the young warrior's face. It went against the grain for him to retire and leave his friends to do the difficult and dangerous task that lay before them.

Yet deep in his heart, he knew Halt was right. He could be of no help in the coming engagement. He would, in fact, be a hindrance or, worse still, a distraction for his friends.

'All right,' he said reluctantly. 'I guess what you say makes sense. But I don't like it.'

Will grinned at him. 'I don't like it either,' he said. 'I'd much rather stay back with you and the horses. But Halt hasn't given me the choice.'

Horace smiled at his old friend. He could see the light of determination in Will's eyes. It was time for them to take the fight to the Genovesans and Horace knew that, in spite of his protests to the contrary, Will was ready to do just that.

Feeling worse than useless, Horace reached for Tug's bridle. 'Come on, boy.'

For a moment, the little horse resisted, turning an inquiring eye on his master, and giving vent to a troubled neigh.

'Go along, Tug,' Will said, accompanying the order with a hand signal. The little horse trotted reluctantly after Horace and Kicker.

'Abelard, follow,' Halt said. His horse tossed its head rebelliously but turned to follow the other two horses back from the rows of grey, twisted tree trunks.

Horace turned and called softly back to his friends. 'If you need me, just call and I'll…'

His voice trailed off. There was no sign of the two Rangers. They had simply disappeared into the drowned forest. Horace felt a thrill of nervousness go up his spine. He glanced at Tug.

'Gives me the creeps when they do that,' he said. Tug shook his head violently, vibrating his shaggy mane in agreement. 'Still,' said Horace, 'I'm glad they're on our side.'

Tug regarded him out of one eye, his head cocked to the side. That's what I was trying to tell you, he seemed to be saying. Twenty Will and Halt, separated by about five metres so they wouldn't offer a grouped target to the Genovesans, slipped silently into the dead forest. Their eyes darted from side to side, quartering, seeking, going back again as the two Rangers ghosted from one piece of cover to the next, searching for that one sight of movement or flash of colour that would give them a warning.

Will searched from left to centre, then back again. Halt went from right to centre then reversed his scan. Between them, they covered the entire one hundred and eighty degrees from their extreme left and right to their front.

Every so often, without creating any predictable pattern, one or the other would spin suddenly to check their rear.

They had progressed some forty metres into the forest when Halt found a larger than normal piece of cover. A tree had grown with multiple trunks and now it provided enough protection for the two of them. There were also two other features in the topography close to the tree that had taken his attention. Checking their back trail and finding it clear, he gestured for Will to join him. He watched approvingly as his former apprentice slid between the trees, taking full advantage of every piece of cover. He seemed to be a blur, never clearly visible, even to Halt's trained eyes.

They crouched together behind the spreading trunks. Now that they were within the forest, Will realised that the trees had a sound of their own. Normally, in a densely packed forest, he would expect to hear the gentle soughing of the wind through the leaves, the call of birds and the movement of small animals. Here, there were no leaves, no birds or animals. But, despite what he had thought earlier, the trunks and limbs moved slightly, groaning and creaking in protest as their dry joints were forced to give by the ever-present breeze. Sometimes one bare limb rubbed against a close neighbour with a cracking, shrieking noise. It was as if the forest was groaning in its death agony.

'Ugly sound, isn't it?' Halt asked.

'Gets on my nerves,' Will admitted. 'What do we do now?'

Halt nodded to the narrow path that lay through the trunks in front of them. It wound and twisted from side to side as it found its way around the massive grey trunks. But it always returned to its original direction, which was south-east.

'I see they're still leaving a clear trail for us to follow,' he said.

Will glanced in the direction he indicated. He could see a small fragment of cloth trapped on the sharp end of a broken branch.

'I see they're not being any more subtle about it,' he answered. Both of them kept their voices low, only just above a whisper. They had no idea how close the enemy might be.

'No indeed,' Halt agreed. 'I've seen plenty of footprints along the way, too. You'd swear they were made by a giant, from the depth of them.'

Will reached down and felt the ground with two fingers. The grass was short here among the dead trees and the ground beneath it was dry and hard. 'Not as if it's soft ground, either.'

'No. This ground dried out many, many years ago. They're doing it intentionally again. Letting us know exactly which way they've gone.'

'And which way they want us to follow,' Will said.

A faint smile creased Halt's face. 'That too.'

'But we're not going to do that?' Will said. It seemed logical to him. If your enemy wanted you to do something, it only made sense to do something else entirely.

'We're not,' Halt agreed. 'I am.'

Will opened his mouth to protest but Halt held up a hand to forestall him.

'If we seem to be doing what they want, they may grow overconfident. And that can only be good for us.' As he spoke, his eyes were scanning the forest unceasingly, searching for any trace of movement, any sign that the Genovesans might be close.

'True,' Will admitted. 'But I…'

Once again, Halt's upraised hand stopped him in mid-sentence.

'Will, we could be in here for days searching for them if we don't do something to make them show their hand. And all the while, Tennyson is getting further and further away. We've got to take a risk. After all, we're only assuming they're here in the first place. What if they've second-guessed us – left all these convenient signs so we'd think they're trying to lure us in, and then high-tailed it out of here, leaving us creeping around trying to find them – and wasting hours of daylight doing it.'

Will frowned. That hadn't occurred to him. But it was possible.

'Do you think they've done that?' he asked.

Halt shook his head, slowly and deliberately. 'No. I think they're here. I can sense them. But it is a possibility.'

Behind them, a branch moved with a louder than normal, drawn-out groan of tortured wood. Will spun round, his bow coming up as he did so. Once again, he felt that tight knot in the pit of his stomach as he wondered where the enemy were, when they might show their hand. Halt leaned a little closer, his voice even quieter than before.

'I'm going to wait an hour or so. We've got a good position here and we're covered pretty well from all sides. Let's see what they do now they know we're here.'

'Do you think they'll move?' Will asked.

'No. They're too well trained for that. But it's worth a try. In an hour, the sun will be lower and the shadows deeper and longer in here. That'll work for us.'

'Them too,' Will suggested, but Halt shook his head.

'They're good,' he said. 'But they're not trained for this the way we are. They're more used to working in cities, blending into crowds. Plus our cloaks give us a big advantage in here. The colours match the surroundings a lot better than that dull purple they wear. So we wait for an hour and see what happens.'

'Then what?'

'Then I'll move on again, following that very obvious trail they're leaving.' Halt saw Will's quick intake of breath and knew the young Ranger was about to protest. He gave him no opportunity. 'I'll be careful, Will, don't worry. I have done this sort of thing before, you know,' he added mildly. And he was rewarded by a reluctant smile from his apprentice.

'Did I say something amusing?' he asked.

Will shook his head, seemed to ponder whether he should say anything, then decided to go ahead.

'Well, it's just that… before we left Redmont, Lady Pauline spoke to me. About you.'

Halt's eyebrow shot up. 'And exactly what did she have to say about me?'

'Well…' Will shrugged uncomfortably. He wished now he'd decided against bringing this up. 'She asked me to look after you.'

Halt nodded several times, digesting this piece of information before he spoke again. 'Touching to see she has so much faith in you.' He paused. 'And so little in me.'

Will thought it might be best if he said nothing further. But Halt wasn't going to let the matter drop.

'I assume this instruction was accompanied by some sort of statement along the lines of: "He isn't getting any younger, you know"?'

Will hesitated, just too long. 'No. Of course not.'

Halt snorted disdainfully. 'The woman seems to think I'm senile.' But in spite of himself, as he thought about his tall, graceful wife, he smiled fondly. Then he recovered himself and came back to business.

'All right. Let's get down to it. The reason I'm going to go ahead is that I need your movement skills. You're smaller and nimbler than I am so you've got a better chance of remaining unseen. I'll break cover and move out after them. You wait here for five minutes, then circle out to the left there. They should be watching me by then and if you're as good as you say you are, they won't notice you.'

He indicated a shallow indentation in the ground, leading to the left. After about ten metres, a tree had fallen across it and its massive grey trunk lay at a slight angle to the indentation. These were the two items he'd noticed as he took cover behind the large tree. He'd been looking for something of the kind since they'd entered the forest.

'Belly crawl along that little gully there, as far as the fallen trunk. Then stay behind that and keep going. That should get you at least thirty metres away from here without them seeing you go. With any luck, they should think you're still in here, ready to give me support if I need it. But all the while, you'll be circling out to flank them.'

'Even though we don't know where they are?' Will asked. But he was beginning to see the good sense behind Halt's plan.

Halt studied the forest in front of them once more, the corners of his eyes crinkled with concentration.

'They won't be far from the track,' he said. 'These trees will see to that. It's too hard to shoot accurately through this tangle at any range greater than about fifty metres. More like thirty, really. If you work your way out a hundred metres to the left, then begin to move parallel to me, you should stay well outside them. And you'll be placed to come up behind them.'

Will was nodding as he took in the details. It sounded like a good plan. But there was one potential snag.

'I still don't like the fact that you're going to draw their attention,' he said.

Halt shrugged. 'Can't see any other way to do it. But believe me, I'm not going to be walking along pointing to my chest and saying, "Just put a bolt here, please." I'll be dodging from cover to cover. And the longer shadows will help. You just make sure that if they do try to shoot, you're ready to beat them to it. I'm damned sure I'll be trying to.'

Will took several deep breaths. In his mind's eye, he could see the situation developing, with him slipping out to flank the Genovesans as Halt moved through the trees. It was a simple enough plan, and that was a good thing. Simple plans usually worked better than complex ones that relied on a sequence of events falling into place. The fewer things there were to go wrong, he'd learned, the better.

He imagined one of the assassins rising from cover. Odds were, he thought, they'd have taken cover behind a fallen tree trunk. Their crossbows would be better suited to shoot from low-lying cover like that. Unlike a man armed with a longbow, they wouldn't have to rise to their feet to shoot. And they'd expose less of themselves than if they had to step from behind the cover of a standing tree to make their shot.

Halt could see his young friend's mind working and he let him think it through. He was in no hurry to move. The shadows weren't long enough for his liking yet and he could see that Will was assimilating the plan of action, setting it in his mind to make sure there was no misunderstanding. After a minute or two, he spoke again.

'We've got several things going for us, Will. One, these assassins won't be familiar with Ranger training or our skill levels. If they don't see you leave cover behind this tree, they'll assume you're still here – and that will give you an edge.

'Two, they're using crossbows. It'll be relatively short range so we won't have any particular edge in accuracy. But, on the other hand, they won't outrange us.'

The most powerful crossbows could outrange a longbow. But, firing a short bolt or quarrel rather than a longer, more stable arrow, they became less accurate the longer the shot travelled. In the restricted space inside the trees, they'd be on an even footing.

'They're not using full-power crossbows in any event,' Will said. A really powerful crossbow had massive limbs and cord. It was re-cocked and loaded by use of a two-handed crank set into the butt. And it could take several minutes to ratchet the string back for each shot. The Genovesans used a less powerful version, with a stirrup at the front of the bow. The bowman placed his foot in the stirrup to hold the bow steady, then, using a two-handed tool that hooked onto the string, he would pull it back to the cocked position, using both hands and all the muscles of his back. The range was reduced but so was the loading time – to around twenty or thirty seconds. And the bowman had to stand erect during the procedure. They could release their first shots from behind low cover, he realised. But then they'd have to expose themselves to the Rangers' return shots.

'They'll have to show themselves after the first shot,' he said.

Halt pursed his lips. 'They may have more than one bow each,' he reminded Will. 'So don't take chances. But either way, we'll shoot faster than they will.'

It would take around twenty seconds for the crossbowmen to reload. Then they'd have to aim and shoot again. Will could nock, draw, aim and shoot in less than five seconds. Halt was a little faster. By the time a Genovesan was ready with his second shot, the two Rangers could have over a dozen arrows in the air, all heading for him. The Genovesans had the advantage of shooting from ambush. But if they missed with their first shots, the odds suddenly swung in the Rangers' favour.

Halt studied the forest around them for the tenth time. Moving his head slightly as he faced west, he could see the glare of the sun between the trunks. The shadows were longer now and visibility among the trees was becoming more and more uncertain. If he left it much longer, they'd be caught inside the trees in the gathering darkness. It was time to move.

'All right,' he said. 'Remember: five minutes, then slip out through that gully.'

Will grinned sardonically. It was more of a dent in the ground than a gully, he thought. But Halt didn't see the reaction. Again, he was studying the forest to the front and sides of their position. He rose from his kneeling position into a half crouch.

'Let's invite these fellows to dance,' he said, and slipped silently out onto the path, a green and grey blur that quickly melded into the shadows of the forest. Twenty-one Halt's eyes were slits of concentration as he moved forward between the trees, following the narrow, indistinct path. He scanned constantly, taking in the ground ahead and to either side. He noted, with a sardonic smile, the occasional clues that had been left behind by the men he was following – a scrap of cloth snagged on a branch here, an all-too-obvious footprint there. He maintained the pretence of searching for these signs and following the tracks they had left. It wouldn't do to let his quarry know he was onto their little game, he thought.

The ground was littered with deadfalls – branches and twigs that the wind had snapped off from the trees high above and dropped to the forest floor. They formed an almost continuous carpet beneath his feet and, skilled as he was at moving silently, even Halt couldn't avoid some noise as they cracked and snapped under his soft tread. He could do it if he moved slowly, testing the ground with each foot before he put weight on it. But moving slowly was too dangerous an option. He needed speed. By moving quickly, he became an indistinct, grey-toned blur sliding among the bare trunks – and that would make him a more difficult target. Besides, there wasn't much point in moving silently if he wanted the Genovesans to know he was here.

He slipped into the cover of a thick, grey trunk. Over the years, long past the time when the trees had drowned, some undergrowth had taken hold in the forest floor and a clump of buckthorn had established itself about the base of the dead tree. The green leaves and the grey trunk of the tree would match the random colouring on his cloak to conceal him.

He crouched, scanning the forest ahead. Long years of training made sure that his head barely moved as he did so. It was his eyes that darted from side to side, seeking, testing, consciously changing their depth of focus to search from close in to further out. His face remained in the shadow thrown by the deep cowl. The Genovesans, if they were watching, would have seen him dart behind the tree. But now they would have lost sight of him as he blended in and, so long as he didn't move, they would be uncertain if he were still there or not.

All of which meant they would be looking for him, and not Will. He felt a grim sense of satisfaction knowing that Will was backing him up. By now, Halt thought, his young student would have begun to move, snaking away from the three-trunked tree they had sheltered behind, crawling low-bellied along the shallow gully to the shelter of the fallen trunk.

He couldn't think of anyone he would rather have with him. Gilan, perhaps. His unseen movement skills were second to none in the Corps. Or Crowley, of course, his oldest comrade.

But, skilled as they both were, he knew Will would always be his first choice. Crowley was experienced and calm under pressure. But he couldn't match Will in unseen movement. Gilan might move more stealthily than Will, but there was very little in it. And Will had an advantage that Gilan didn't. His mind moved a little quicker and he was inclined to see the unconventional alternative faster than Gilan. If the unexpected occurred, he knew Will could act on his own initiative and come up with the right solution. That wasn't to denigrate Gilan's worth at all. He was a fine Ranger and highly skilled. Will just had that slight edge in making a decision quickly and getting it right. Gilan would think about a situation and probably come to the same conclusion. With Will, it was an instinctive ability.

There was one other point, and it was a very important one in the current situation. Halt knew, although Will probably didn't, that Will was a better shot than either Crowley or Gilan.

In fact, he thought, with a grim smile, that might prove to be the most important point of all.

He waited a few more seconds, letting his breathing and his heart rate settle. In spite of what he had said to Will – that he had done this sort of thing before – he didn't like the idea of intentionally drawing the enemy's notice. Moving as he was through the trees, his back crawled with the expectation that any second, a bolt might slam into it. The very idea of moving so that his enemy could see him went against all his deeply ingrained training. Halt preferred to move without anyone ever seeing him, or ever being aware that he was there.

He knew that in these conditions, and with his cloak, he was presenting a very poor target. But the Genovesans were skilled marksmen. They were more than capable of hitting a poor target. That's why they were so highly paid by those who hired them, after all.

'You're wasting time,' he muttered. 'You just don't want to go back out there again, do you?'

And the answer, of course, was no. He didn't. But there was no alternative. He surveyed the path once more, picked out his route for the next five or ten metres, then glided quickly out from behind cover and went forward into the grey maze of dead trees.

Belly to the ground, using elbows, ankles and knees to propel himself forward and never rising higher than a completely prone position, Will slid out from behind the multiple-trunked dead tree. It was a technique called the snake crawl and he'd practised it for hours on end as an apprentice, sliding through low cover, trying to remain unseen by the keen gaze of his teacher. Time and again he would feel he was getting the technique right, only to have his ego dashed by a sarcastic voice: Is that a bony backside I see sticking up out of the grass by that black rock? I think it is. Perhaps I should put an arrow in it if its owner doesn't GET IT DOWN!

Today, of course, there was more at risk than a sarcastic ribbing from his teacher. Today, Halt's life, and his own, were dependent on his being able to keep that errant behind down, close to the ground with the rest of his body. He crawled slowly, moving the loose branches and twigs out of his path as he went. Unlike Halt, he couldn't afford to make the slightest noise. True, the forest was maintaining its litany of groans and scrapes and creaks. But the sharp sound of a snapping twig would tell a keen listener that someone was on the move out here.

Flat to the ground as he was, he found his vision focused on the short blades of grass only a few centimetres away from the tip of his nose. His world became this tiny space of dirt and grass and grey branches. He watched a small brown beetle hurry past, only centimetres from his face, ignoring him completely. A file of ants marched steadfastly over his left hand, refusing to be diverted from their purpose. He let them go, then edged forward slowly, carefully brushing a branch to one side. It made a small noise, magnified by his raw nerves, and he paused for a moment. Then he told himself that nobody could have heard that slight scrape over the background noises of the forest and he continued. The shelter of the fallen tree trunk was only a few metres away by now. Once he was behind that he could afford to move more swiftly – and more comfortably. There'd be no need to maintain this belly-to-the-ground posture when he was concealed behind the metre-thick tree trunk.

But for now, he resisted the urge to hurry into the cover of the trunk. Doing that could well undo all the work he'd put in so far. A sudden movement could draw attention. Instead, he concentrated on the old technique he'd taught himself as an apprentice, trying to sense that his body was actually forcing itself into the ground beneath him, becoming conscious of its weight pressing into the rough grass and dirt and sticks.

He felt completely vulnerable because, for once, he was effectively unarmed. In order to crawl completely prone, he had to unstring his bow, pushing it through two small retaining loops on his cloak, made for the purpose. Trying to crawl with a strung bow in these conditions was risking that a branch or twig or even a clump of grass could become snagged in the angle where the bowstring met the notched end of the bow. And the strung bow covered a much wider area of ground, making it more susceptible to snagging. Now it was held firmly in a straight line along his back, a straight piece of yew wood that would slide smoothly past snags and obstructions.

For the same reason, he'd hitched his belt around so that the buckle and his double knife scabbard were placed in the small of his back, beneath the cloak. Again, it made for smoother, quieter progress. But it also meant that if he were discovered, he would waste precious seconds trying to draw either of his knives.

It went totally against the grain to move in the presence of enemies while he was disarmed this way. He particularly regretted the need for the bow to be unstrung. As the old Ranger saying went, an unstrung bow is a stick. It had been a joke when he'd first heard it, five years ago. Now there was nothing amusing about it at all.

At last, he made it into the shelter provided by the horizontal tree trunk. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief. There had been no cries of alarm; no sudden, searing agony as a crossbow bolt buried itself into his back. He felt the tension along his back ease a little. Without realising it, his muscles and flesh had been bunched instinctively, in a vain attempt to lessen the pain of such a wound.

Rising slightly from his totally prone position – although not too much – he began to make faster progress. When he was further away from the track, he rose carefully to his feet, slid behind the largest tree he could find, and restrung his bow. He felt another lessening of tension. Now he wasn't the one at risk any more. The Genovesans were.

Halt was down on one knee, pretending to study another intentional sign left by the Genovesans. In fact, though his head was lowered, his eyes were raised as he searched the tangle of grey trunks and dim shadows ahead of him.

Briefly, among the trees to his left, he saw a slight movement, and perhaps a hint of dull purple in the shadows. He remained unmoving. Crouched as he was, he made a poor target for the crossbowman, if indeed he was out there. Odds were, the assassin would wait until he rose to his feet and gave him a larger target.

He glanced left. The trees he had been passing for the last few metres had been narrow – a new grove when they had been wiped out by the flood. Some were little more than saplings and none of them provided the sort of substantial cover he would prefer. He smiled grimly. Which, of course, was why the Genovesans had chosen this spot to leave another clue. They would know that a person following them would stop and kneel to study it, then rise to his feet once more.

And in that totally vulnerable moment, he would be a perfect target for them. Halt's eyes sought that source of movement and colour again but he saw nothing. That made sense. Once he stopped, the crossbowman would have brought his weapon up to the aiming point. That was the small flash of movement he'd noticed. Now, he'd be stock-still again, crossbow trained on the spot where he'd expect Halt to rise to his feet. Halt tensed his muscles, preparing to move.

He glanced to his left, saw one tree that was marginally thicker than its neighbours, although not thick enough to fully conceal him. Nevertheless, he thought, it would have to do. He hoped Will had got into position by now. He'd glanced far left a few times – not enough to make the Genovesans aware of it – and had seen no sign of him.

Which could mean he was out there. On the other hand, it could mean he had been delayed by some unforeseen event. He might be nowhere in sight. Then Halt felt a sense of certainty. This was Will he was thinking about. He'd be there.

Without warning, he launched himself sideways off his bent right knee, rolling smoothly into the partial shelter of the tree he had picked out. And waited, nerves tense and screaming.

Nothing.

No dull smack of a crossbow string being released. No vicious, triple-barbed bolt whirring overhead to thud into the trees behind him. Nothing. Just the eerie groaning of the dead trees as they moved and twisted and rubbed against each other. That told him something. The Genovesans weren't going to be tricked into a rushed shot by his sudden, unexpected movement. Their discipline was too good to allow that.

Alternatively, he thought, he might have imagined that small movement in the trees. There might be nobody there at all.

Yet somehow, he knew that they were there, waiting. Some sixth sense told him this was the time and the place. The combination of factors – the obvious clue on the trail, the thinning trees – told him that they were just a few metres away, waiting for him to make his next move. He lay prone behind the tree. For the moment, he was concealed. But as soon as he started to rise to his feet, he'd be visible. He glanced around. He could crawl to a larger tree but the nearest was some distance away. And the thinner growth of trees here meant he'd be badly exposed if he tried to move.

Which was, he told himself for the second time, precisely why the Genovesans had picked this spot. Because now he was certain he had seen that movement. It was a perfect ambush site. And he was in a helpless position. He was relatively safe for the moment and would remain that way so long as he hugged the ground. But he couldn't see. He knew if he raised his head to study the situation, he'd be inviting a crossbow bolt between the eyes. He was stranded here and, effectively, blinded. All the advantages lay with the Genovesans. They had seen where he had gone. His sudden movement, rolling to the side, must have told them that he knew they were there. All they had to do was wait for him to move and they had him cold.

No matter how he thought it through, the situation got no better. If he remained here, sooner or later one of the assassins would move to flank him, while the other kept his crossbow trained on the spot where he lay concealed. He thought with grim humour of the discussion he'd had with Will only an hour or so earlier.

After the first shot, all the advantages will be with us.

Except for one awkward detail. After the first shot, he'd probably be dead.

He closed his eyes and concentrated fiercely. He had one chance and that depended on Will being in position behind the Genovesans. Then he felt a fierce certainty flooding through him. Will would be there because Halt needed him to be there. Will would be there because he was Will – and he had never let Halt down.

Halt opened his eyes. Still lying flat, he eased an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to the string of his bow. Then he gathered his feet and legs beneath him and crouched. He considered his next move. All his instincts screamed at him to rise slowly to his feet, to postpone the moment when the Genovesan pulled his trigger. But he discarded the thought. A slow movement would simply give the Genovesan more time to align his sights.

A sudden movement might startle him and cause him to rush his shot. It wasn't likely, he admitted to himself. But it was possible. And that made it the better choice.

'I hope you're there, Will,' he muttered to himself. Then he lunged to his feet, bow up, arrow drawing back, searching desperately for some sign, some flicker of movement in the trees. Twenty-two The forest had seemed a lifeless expanse but, as Halt had discovered, some undergrowth had recently established itself among the grey trunks. As Will crept quietly out of the solid shelter afforded by the fallen tree, he encountered another variety.

A trailing tendril of stay-with-me vine had wound its way up one of the former forest giants, spiralled along a dead, snapped-off branch, then allowed its end to drop off into clear air. He brushed against it as he passed the tree that was its host.

Instantly, four of the hooked thorns fastened themselves into the tough material of his cloak, holding it and him firmly in place. He cursed under his breath. He didn't have the time to deal with this delay but he had no choice. He reached behind him and grabbed a handful of the cloak. Gently at first, then with increasing pressure, he tried to pull the garment free from the tenacious vine.

At first, he thought he was succeeding, as he felt a slight give. But this was just the elastic vine itself, stretching as he pulled. Then it reached the end of its stretch and he was held firm. In fact, he realised angrily, he was now more firmly snagged than before. His movement had made the thorns bite more deeply. Worse still, the thorny vine held him trapped in a half-standing position.

There was nothing for it. He would have to take off the cloak and cut the vine away. Held from behind as he was, he couldn't reach the infuriating creeper. That meant he had to remove his quiver, which he wore over the cloak, then the cloak itself.

All of which meant extra movement, which could well give him away to the Genovesan assassins as they lay in ambush somewhere out there. Again, he cursed silently. Then slowly, with infinite care, he slid the strap of the quiver over his head and put it to one side. Unfastening the clasp that held the cloak in place at his throat, he eased the garment from his shoulders.

Hurry, he thought. Halt is depending on you getting into position!

But he resisted the panicked impulse and moved with infinite patience, knowing that a hasty movement might betray him. He had the cloak off now and drew his saxe knife. The vine had snagged high on the cloak, between his shoulderblades. He sliced through it easily with the razor-sharp blade then slowly, the cloak bunched in his hands, he sank to the ground.

Still maintaining the same painfully slow movements, he re-donned the cloak. For a moment he considered leaving it behind but the extra concealment it afforded decided him against such a course. He passed the quiver strap over his head and settled the arrows on his shoulder, adjusting the flap on his cloak that covered the distinctive feathers of the fletching. He strung his bow and was ready to move again. He took a quick look back through the forest, the way he had come. There was no sign of movement, no sign that he had been noticed. Still, he thought, the first sign of that was likely to be a crossbow bolt.

He had to assume that he had remained unseen so he moved on, staying in a crouch now, keeping low to the ground and sliding quietly from one piece of cover to the next. Several times he detoured to avoid more hanging tendrils of the innocent-looking stay-with-me vine. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, he thought grimly.

When he judged that he had come nearly seventy metres to the left, he swung right a little to parallel the path Halt was following. Any further out and he'd be too far away if anything happened. The dense wall of dead trees would block his view completely. And gradually, as he moved forward, he began to angle back in towards the path being taken by his mentor.

He was standing now, trading concealment for extra speed, hoping to make up the time he had lost with the vine. But this far out, he could afford the risk, he thought. Unless he and Halt had it all completely wrong, the assassins would be somewhere to his right, hopefully on the same side of the path and looking away from him. Noise was his main enemy now and he placed his feet with extreme care on the litter of dead sticks that covered the ground, inching and easing his soft boots between the sticks to prevent snapping them.

Fifty metres to his right, he noticed a patch of forest where the trees were more widely spaced and the trunks were noticeably thinner than the majority of trees in the forest. He slipped to a new vantage point and studied the lie of the land from behind the bole of a tree.

Nothing moved. But his senses told him this would be the place. He eased away from the tree and slipped forward for another five metres, then went behind another tree, his eyes never leaving that area where the trees thinned.

He had actually raised his right foot to step out from behind cover when he spotted a brief flicker of movement and froze instantly. He waited, foot partially raised, eyes boring into the grey ranks of trees, waiting to see if the movement might be repeated.

Then he saw them. And once he'd picked them out, he wondered how he'd ever missed seeing them in the first place. Although he had to admit that the dull purple cloaks blended well into the shadows of the forest.

He smiled grimly. It was the movement that had betrayed them. Move and you're almost certain to be seen, Halt had told him over and over as they had practised.

'You were right, Halt,' he said silently to himself.

As he had expected, the two crossbowmen were crouched behind a fallen tree trunk. They had added a haphazard pile of fallen branches to it, creating a higher barrier, but one that would still go relatively unnoticed. Both men had their crossbows levelled across the top of this makeshift parapet. They were half turned away from him. The fallen tree ran at an angle to his position and their attention was fixed on a point in the forest some thirty metres from where they crouched.

He followed the line of their gaze as best he could but could see nothing. Odds were, that was where they had sighted Halt, and now he had gone to ground, Will thought.

He heard a small sound then – a shuffling sound, of a body moving quickly over the ground, accompanied by the loud snapping of several branches. It seemed to come from the point they were watching and one of them actually rose a little higher behind the barrier, his crossbow ready and seeking a target.

The trees formed a thick screen between him and the Genovesans. He was further away from them than he'd like to be. If he had to shoot, his arrow could be deflected by any one of a dozen trees or branches. He estimated that he was sixty metres out, and he really needed to get closer to be sure of his shot.

Whatever it was that he'd heard moving a few seconds ago, and he assumed it was Halt moving into cover, had attracted their full attention. There was no risk they'd see him if he moved, unless he was stupid enough to step on a dry branch. He flicked the cover flap away from his quiver and drew an arrow, nocking it onto the bowstring. Then he stepped, light-footed as a fox, out from behind the tree that sheltered him and began to close in on the two crossbowmen.

Five metres. Ten. Another five. Still they kept their full attention on the trees to his right. If they hadn't been watching so intently, there was a chance they might have seen him in their peripheral vision. He was approaching them on an angle, just behind their right side, not from directly behind. But he could tell by their body language that they were completely focused away from him. They were like two hunting dogs, bodies almost quivering with excitement and tension as they caught the first scent of their quarry.

Another step. Feel the bent branch under the ball of your foot, gently work the toe under the branch, check that your foot is on flat ground now, then let your weight go forward onto the ball of that foot. Then start the whole process over again with the other foot. He was into a more comfortable range now. The trees formed less of a screen between him and the two Genovesans. In another few paces he'd be…

Halt stood up.

There was no warning. One moment, the forest seemed empty. Then, with a rustle of undergrowth, the grey-bearded Ranger seemed to rise out of the ground, his bow already trained, an arrow on the string and drawn back.

Will heard a short cry of surprise from one of the crossbowmen, saw Halt shift his aim slightly as the sound revealed the man's position. Both crossbows came up fractionally and Will drew and shot at the man closest to him. As he did so, he heard the deep-throated thrum of Halt's bow, closely followed by the dull slap of the crossbow string smacking into the stop.

The first bolt missed. It was fired by the Genovesan Will had picked as a target and in the second before he squeezed the crossbow's trigger, Will's arrow slammed into his side. He lurched sideways, jolting against his companion and throwing him off his aim. Then Halt's arrow slashed into his chest and he jerked the trigger with dead fingers as he toppled backwards. A branch jutting out from the trunk caught him and held him sprawled half erect across it.

Will cursed as he realised they had made a dangerous mistake. He and Halt had wasted both their shots on the same man, leaving the other crossbowman uninjured, and partly obscured by his fallen comrade. Will saw the crossbow swing towards him now. He snapped off a shot, knew he had missed and pivoted back into cover, behind the tree next to him. He heard Halt shoot again, heard his arrow glance off an intervening tree. Then a bolt gouged a long furrow out of the hardwood that sheltered Will, spinning harmlessly away to clatter among the deadfalls.

Two crossbows. Two shots, he thought exultantly. Now they had him!

He stepped clear of the tree, continuing the pivoting movement so that he emerged on the opposite side to the one where he had gone into cover, and his mouth went dry as he saw the Genovesan aiming another crossbow towards Halt, heard the dull smack of the cord again. Halt had warned him that they might have more than one bow apiece and he'd been right.

Then Will's heart froze at the most chilling sound he had heard in his young life: Halt's brief cry of pain, followed by the sound of his bow dropping.

'Halt!' he screamed, all thought of the Genovesan forgotten for a moment. He searched vainly, looking to where Halt had risen into view. But there was no sign of him now. He was down, Will thought dully. He had been hit and he was down.

He heard a sudden movement, swung back and saw the Genovesan disappearing through the screen of tightly packed tree trunks. He was no more than a blur of movement, a brief glimpse of the purple cloak. Will shot three arrows after him, heard them all strike against the intervening trunks and branches. Then he heard the dull hammer of a horse's hooves. The assassins had obviously left their horses tethered back among the trees and there would be no chance of catching the survivor now.

There was no need for silence or stealth any longer. He rushed to the spot where he had last seen Halt, snapping branches and twigs underfoot, shoving through tendrils of the damned stay-with-me vines as they swung into his face and snatched at his cloak to impede him.

His heart pounded as he saw the Ranger doubled over, turned away from him. Wet, red blood stained his cloak. There seemed to be a lot of it.

'Halt!' he cried, his voice breaking with fear. 'Are you all right?' Twenty-three For a second, there was no reply and Will felt a dreadful darkness steal into his heart. Then it was instantly dispelled as the bearded Ranger rolled over to face him, his right hand clenched over his left forearm, partially stemming the flow of blood. Halt grimaced in pain.

'I'm all right,' he said, through gritted teeth. 'That damned bolt only scraped my arm. But it hurts like the very devil.'

Will went down on one knee beside his master and eased Halt's hand away from the wound.

'Let me see,' he said. He moved Halt's hand, tentatively at first, afraid that he'd see the jetting, pulsing spurt of blood that would tell him a major artery had been severed. He gave a sigh of relief when he saw there was just a steady welling of blood. Then, reassured, he took his saxe knife and cut the Ranger's sleeve away from the wound. He studied it for a moment, then reached into the wound pack that every Ranger carried on his belt and took out a clean piece of linen, wiping the blood away so he could see the extent of the damage.

'He nearly missed you,' he said. 'A centimetre to the left and he would have missed you completely.'

There was a shallow score across the skin of the forearm – about four centimetres long but not deep enough to cut muscles or tendons. Will unstoppered Halt's canteen and flooded the wound with water, wiping with the cloth again and clearing the blood away momentarily. It quickly welled back again and he shrugged. At least the wound was clean. He applied some salve, took a field dressing from his pack and wound it around Halt's forearm.

'You ruined my jacket,' Halt said accusingly, looking at the neatly slit sleeve that now dangled down either side of his arm. Will grinned at him. The grumpy, complaining tone of voice did more than anything else to reassure him that the Ranger was only slightly wounded.

'You can sew it up tonight,' he told him.

Halt snorted indignantly. 'I'm wounded. You can sew it for me.' Then he added, in a more serious tone, 'I take it the second one got away. I heard a horse.'

Will took his right arm and helped him to his feet, although really there was no need to. Halt was only slightly injured, after all. But the older Ranger recognised that Will's mother-henning was a reaction to the worry he'd felt when his teacher had been hit, so he accepted his ministrations without resisting. By the same token, he allowed Will to retrieve his fallen longbow and hand it to him.

'Yes,' Will said, in answer to the question. 'Seems they'd tethered their horses a little further back in the trees. I shot at him but I missed. I'm sorry, Halt.'

He was downcast, feeling that he'd let his mentor down. Halt patted him gently on the shoulder.

'Can't be helped,' he said. 'This forest makes accuracy almost impossible. Too many branches and trees in the way.'

'We made a mistake,' Will said, and when Halt raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question, he continued, 'We both shot at the same man. That left the other man clear to shoot at you.'

Halt shrugged. 'That couldn't be foreseen. I've told you over and over, something always goes wrong in a fight. There's always something you can't plan for.'

'I suppose so. It's just…' Will stopped, unable to articulate his thoughts. He sensed that somehow, he could have done better, could have saved Halt from the pain of this wound – and the fact that he had come so close to death. Halt put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently.

'Don't worry about it. Look at the result. One of them is dead and all we have to show for it is a scratch on my arm. I'd say that's a pretty fair outcome, especially when you consider that they started with all the advantages. Wouldn't you?'

Will said nothing. He was picturing Halt lying on the forest floor with a crossbow bolt buried in his chest, eyes staring sightlessly up into the stark branches overhead. Halt shook him again, a little more vigorously than before.

'Well, wouldn't you?' he repeated and Will slowly allowed a tired grin to show on his features.

'I suppose so,' he agreed.

Halt nodded in satisfaction, although secretly he wished they had managed to kill or capture the second Genovesan as well. Their task would certainly be a lot easier if that had been the case. 'All right, let's get back and find Horace. He's probably going crazy, wondering what's become of us.'

Horace was, in fact, on tenterhooks. He had set up a small camp site, but then was too wound up to sit and relax in it. He had paced anxiously up and down, waiting for some sign of his friends, and had actually worn a furrow in the knee-high grass. The three horses were less concerned, idly cropping grass around them.

Naturally the Rangers caught sight of Horace before he saw them. Even approaching a friendly camp, they tended to move unobtrusively, allowing themselves to blend into the background. Will whistled shrilly. Tug's head shot up instantly, ears pricked, and he whinnied in reply. Horace saw them then, and ran through the grass to meet them. He stopped a few metres short of them, seeing Halt's torn sleeve and the bandage around his arm.

'Are you all…?'

Halt held up a hand to reassure him. 'I'm fine. Nothing but a scratch.'

'Literally,' Will added. Now that he was over that initial shock and fear when he had seen his mentor wounded, he could afford to joke about it. Halt looked sidelong at him.

'That's a little harsh,' he said. 'It's actually very painful.'

'What happened?' Horace interrupted, sensing they might launch into one of those interminable exchanges of banter that Rangers seemed so fond of. 'Did you get them?'

'One of them,' Will replied, the smile on his face fading quickly. 'The other one got away.'

'Only one?' Horace said, before he could stop himself. He wasn't used to partial success from the Rangers. Then he noticed their expressions and realised that his exclamation might have been a little tactless.

'I mean,' he amended hastily, 'that's excellent. Well done.' He paused awkwardly, waiting for a sarcastic reply. He was faintly surprised when none came.

The truth was, of course, that both Halt and Will agreed with the sentiment he'd expressed. Both of them wished they had managed a more complete result. And although neither would voice the thought aloud, they both felt they had left the job half done.

Horace regarded them for a second or two, puzzled at their non-reaction, then he gestured for them to come into the camp site, where he had a small fire burning, and the ever-present coffee pot sitting ready by its side.

'Sit down,' he told them. 'I'll make coffee and you can tell me what happened.'

They briefly recounted the events among the drowned trees. Neither of them mentioned the moments of dry-mouthed fear as they faced up to an invisible enemy, knowing that the first sign they might have of him was the sudden flash of a crossbow bolt coming at them. Similarly, Will omitted to mention the desperate moments he had spent freeing himself from the stay-with-me vine's thorns. A few more seconds' delay there, he realised, and he might not have arrived in time to save Halt from that first crossbow bolt. He pushed the thought aside. That was the sort of detail that didn't need pondering.

'So what do we do now?' Horace asked, as they sat cross-legged round the small fire, sipping their coffee. 'Do you think the survivor will be likely to set up another ambush?'

Will and Horace both looked at Halt as he considered the question.

'I doubt it,' he said at length. 'The Genovesans are mercenaries. They fight for money, not for any cause or out of any sense of commitment. And our friend knows that now the odds are stacked against him. If he waits for us again, he might get one of us. But the chances are that the other one will get him. That's not good business. It might suit Tennyson's purpose but I doubt he'll be able to convince our purple friend that he should give his life for the Outsiders' cause.'

He glanced towards the west. Already the sun had dipped well below the tops of the dead trees. Nightfall would be upon them soon.

'We'll camp here for the night,' he declared.

'And tomorrow?' Will asked him.

Halt turned and reached behind him for his saddle bag. He winced in discomfort as he stretched his left arm towards them. The wound had dried and stiffened and the movement set the blood welling again inside the bandage. Horace rose quickly to his feet and fetched the saddle bag for him.

'Thanks, Horace,' he said. He took his map out of the saddle bag and spread it out before him.

'Pity that map doesn't indicate the dead forest,' Will said. Halt nodded agreement.

'It will after this,' he said. 'It's actually shown here as Ethelsten Forest. Doesn't mention that it's all dead trees. But it does show something that is important to us.'

Will edged round to see the map more clearly and Horace knelt on one knee behind Halt, gazing over his shoulder.

'I don't think our friend will lie in wait for us again, but I could be wrong. And "I was wrong" have been the last words of too many careless travellers. So I'm not about to blindly follow him through that forest again. We'll go in further along – say, down here about a kilometre or so to the west of where we are now, and make our way through from there.'

'How will we pick up their tracks again?' Will asked. 'They could have gone in any direction once they're through the forest.'

'Could have,' Halt said. 'But any direction they go, they're hemmed in by the river that caused all this trouble.' He indicated the grey trunks, now ghostly in the evening shadows. 'No matter where they're heading, they'll have to cross it. And there's only one ford within fifteen kilometres. That's where they'll have headed.'

'True,' said Horace, with a grin. 'Somehow I can't see Tennyson being too keen to swim across a deep river and get himself all soaking wet.'

'He is a man who enjoys his comforts, isn't he?' Halt agreed dryly. 'But that's another reason for us to move west a little before we head into the forest again. Aside from avoiding any further traps set by that purple assassin, it'll bring us out close by the ford.'

'Where we should pick up their tracks again,' Will said, with a sense of satisfaction.

'With any luck,' Halt agreed. He rolled up the map and replaced it in his saddle bag. 'And I think it's time a little luck went our way for a change. The other side seem to be getting the lion's share.'

'Except for the one who's still in the forest,' Will said.

Halt nodded. 'Yes. Except for him. I suppose I'm being ungrateful. We've had our share of good luck today.'

Which was ironic, in the light of what was to happen the following morning. Twenty-four The day started normally enough. The three travellers rose early. It was going to be a long day in the saddle, so they ate a substantial breakfast, then broke camp and rode west through the grassland along the forest's fringe. After several kilometres, Halt spotted a narrow path between the trees, swung Abelard's head south and led the way into the forest.

Will and Halt were familiar with the sepulchral feeling of the grey, lifeless shapes massed around them. Horace, on the other hand, was a little overawed by his surroundings. His eyes darted continuously from side to side, trying to pierce the blur of dead trunks.

'How did you manage to see anyone in this mess?' he asked. The two Rangers grinned at him.

'It wasn't easy,' Will said. The monotone colouring of the trees tended to destroy any sense of perspective, as he had noted the day before.

'Gilan did well to get the first one,' Halt said absently.

Will looked at him with a slight frown. 'Gilan?'

Halt looked at him curiously. 'What about him?' he asked, his face blank.

'You said, "Gilan did well to get the first one",' Horace explained. Now it was Halt's turn to frown.

'No I didn't,' he said. Then he added, 'Did I?'

The expressions on the faces of his two companions told him that he had said Gilan. He shook his head and gave a short laugh.

'I meant Will,' he said. 'Sorry, Will. You know I'm always confusing the two of you.'

'No matter,' said Will. But as they rode on, he felt a worm of worry in his mind. He had never before known Halt to confuse him with Gilan. He glanced quickly at Horace but the tall warrior seemed satisfied with the explanation, so he let it pass.

There was little opportunity to discuss it as they traversed the forest. Halt spread them out in single file at five-metre intervals, just in case the surviving Genovesan had decided to set another trap, and had discovered the path they were taking. This time, feeling sympathy for Horace, Will acted as the rearguard, regularly checking the trail behind them for any sign of pursuit.

All three of them heaved silent sighs of relief when they finally emerged from the drowned forest. Ahead of them lay grasslands, and, once they topped the low ridge on the far side of the forest, the tree-covered banks of the river wound before them.

'I'm glad to be out of those trees,' Horace said.

Halt smiled at him. 'Yes. I couldn't help thinking those damn Genovesans might have something cooked up for us.'

Again, Will frowned. 'Those Genovesans? How many do you think there are?'

Halt looked at him, momentarily confused.

'Two,' he said. Then he shook his head. 'No. One, of course. You got one of them, didn't you?'

'We both got him,' Will reminded him and Halt looked blank for a moment, then nodded, as if remembering.

'Of course.' He paused, frowned again and asked, 'Did I say two?'

'Yes,' Will said. Halt gave a short bark of laughter and shook his head, as if to clear it.

'Must be getting absentminded,' he said cheerfully.

Now it was Will's turn to frown. He was beginning to sense that something was very wrong. Halt wasn't usually so affable. And he definitely wasn't absentminded. He spoke tentatively now, not wanting to offend his teacher.

'Halt? Are you sure you're all right?'

'Of course I am,' Halt said, with a trace of his usual asperity. 'Now let's find that ford, shall we?'

He touched his heels to Abelard and surged ahead of them, cutting off further conversation on the matter. As he rode, Will noticed that he was rubbing his injured left arm.

'Is your arm all right?' he called.

Halt immediately stopped rubbing it. 'It's fine,' he replied shortly, in a tone that brooked no further discussion on the matter. Behind him, riding side by side, Will and Horace exchanged slightly puzzled looks. Then Horace shrugged. It wasn't the first time that Halt's behaviour or demeanour had ever puzzled him. He was used to the older Ranger's unpredictable moods. Will was less inclined to dismiss the matter, but he hesitated to say anything to Horace about his growing concern – partly because he wasn't completely sure what he was concerned about.

They came to the ford, a place where the river widened, so that the fast-flowing water slowed somewhat, and shallowed as it spread out to fill the wider space between the banks. Halt rode forward until Abelard was fetlock-deep in the water. He leaned out to the side, staring down into the clear water below him and ahead of him.

'Clean sandy bottom by the look of it,' he said. 'Seems to stay shallow enough.' He urged Abelard forward, walking him out to the centre of the river. The water rose slowly past the little horse's knees as he moved forward, then stayed at a constant depth.

'Come ahead,' he called to Will and Horace, and they splashed through the water after him. As they came level with him, they slowed and he proceeded, checking the bottom carefully as he went. They let him go a few paces, then followed, maintaining their distance behind him in case of an unexpected deep hole in the river bed. But there was none and the water level began to fall again as they passed the midpoint. A few minutes later, they splashed up onto the far bank.

'Well, well. What do we see here?' Halt asked. He was pointing to the river bank where it sloped gently up from the water. The ground was muddy and it had been heavily travelled only recently. There were multiple tracks leading away from the bank.

Will dismounted and knelt to study the tracks. He found several familiar signs among them, noting that the bulk of their quarry was still on foot.

'It's them all right,' he said, looking up at Halt. The grey-bearded Ranger nodded and swept his gaze round the horizon before them.

'Still heading south?' he said.

'Still heading south.'

Halt pondered the information for a few seconds, then scratched his bearded chin. 'Maybe we should camp here for the night.'

Will looked sharply at him, not sure if he'd heard him correctly.

'Camp?' he said, his voice rising in pitch. 'Halt, it's barely noon! We've hours of daylight left!'

The Ranger seemed to absorb this information. Then he nodded assent.

'Right. We'll push on then. Lead the way.'

Halt seemed remote, Will thought as he swung up into Tug's saddle. He nodded from time to time, as if he were going over information in his mind. And as he nodded, he muttered to himself, but in a low tone so that Will couldn't make out the words. The small thread of worry Will had felt earlier in the day was now a broad ribbon of concern. There was definitely something wrong with his old mentor. In all the years they had been together, Will had never seen him so… he searched for the right word and found it eventually… disconnected from the world around him.

They emerged from the band of trees that lined the banks of the river and now they were travelling more open country – grassland interspersed with clumps of trees and low-lying bushes.

They had left the coarse heather and gorse of the border country behind them and the land was more lush and gentle. In the distance, Will could see a dim line that marked a range of hills. He estimated that they were at least a day's travel away, possibly more. The clear air made distances deceptive.

'Looks like they're heading for those hills,' he said.

'That'd make sense,' Halt replied. 'The map says there are caves all through them. And the Outsiders just love to hide away in dark places. I think we'll go into combat formation,' he added.

Will glanced at him, but the suggestion made sense. The countryside here was open and the going was easy. There was no reason to bunch up together on the trail. Combat formation meant they would ride on a wide front, with some thirty metres between them. That made them a more difficult target and it allowed each of them to provide cover and support for his companions if necessary.

Will edged Tug out to the left, while Horace went right. Halt stayed in the centre and they rode quietly, in a long extended line, for about an hour. Then Halt whistled and placed his clenched fist on top of his head, the field signal for 'join me'.

Mystified, because he had seen nothing to indicate a reason to move closer again, Will trotted Tug through the long grass to where Halt sat waiting on Abelard. Horace joined them a few moments later and Will waited until he was with them before he queried Halt.

'What is it?'

Halt looked a little puzzled. 'What's what?'

Alarm bells began to jangle even louder than before in Will's brain at the reply. He spoke carefully and patiently.

'Halt, you put us into combat formation an hour or so ago. Now you're calling us in. What happened to make you change your mind?'

'Oh, that!' A look of comprehension dawned on Halt's face as he realised the reason for Will's question. 'I just thought we might ride together for a while. I was feeling… lonely, I suppose.'

'Lonely?' It was Horace who said it, his voice shrill with disbelief. 'Halt, what are you…?'

Will made a quick hand gesture to Horace and the young warrior left the question unfinished.

Will nudged Tug closer to Abelard and leaned towards Halt, peering closely at his face and eyes. He seemed a little pale, he thought. He couldn't see the eyes clearly. The shadow of the cowl of Halt's cloak hid them.

Abelard moved nervously, taking little steps in place. He uttered a deep rumble in his chest. It wasn't due to the proximity of Will and Tug, the young Ranger knew. Abelard was completely at home with both of them. He realised that the horse sensed something was wrong with Halt as well and was unsettled by the fact.

'Halt, look at me, please. Let me see your eyes,' he said.

Halt glared at him and urged Abelard a few paces away.

'My eyes? There's nothing wrong with my eyes! And don't crowd in on me like that! You're bothering Abelard!' Unconsciously, he rubbed his injured forearm.

'How's the arm?' Will asked, keeping his voice calm and unconcerned.

'It's fine!' Halt flared angrily at him, and again Abelard shifted his feet nervously.

'It's just that you were rubbing it,' Will said in a placating tone. But Halt's temper was fully aroused by now.

'Yes. I was. Because it hurts. Let yourself get shot by a crossbow one of these days and you'll know about that! Now are we going to dillydally here all day talking about my eyes and my arm and worrying my horse? Be still, Abelard!' he snapped.

Will's jaw dropped. He had never, ever, in the time he had spent with Halt, heard the Ranger raise his voice to Abelard. Rangers just didn't do that with their horses.

'Halt,' he began, but Halt interrupted him.

'Because while we waste time here, Farrell and his henchmen are getting further and further away!'

'Farrell?' This time it was Horace's turn to be totally concerned. 'Halt, we're after Tennyson, not Farrell. Farrell was the Outsider leader at Selsey village!'

He was right. Farrell had led a band of Outsiders in an attempted raid on a small isolated fishing village on the West Coast of Araluen. It was this event that first alerted Halt to the Outsiders' wider plans in Hibernia. Halt glared now at Horace.

'I know that!' he snapped. 'Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I'm mad?'

There was a pause. Neither Will nor Horace knew what to say next. Halt swung his furious glare from one to the other, challenging them.

'Well? Do you?' he repeated. Then, when neither of them said anything, he shook Abelard's reins roughly and set him to a slow canter.

Heading west.

'Will, what's happening?' Horace asked as Halt rode off in the wrong direction.

'I don't know. But it's all bad, I can tell you that,' Will replied. He urged Tug after Abelard, calling after his mentor.

'Halt! Come back!'

Horace followed, uncertainly. The bearded Ranger didn't bother to turn in the saddle to reply to Will. But they heard him calling.

'Come on, if you're coming! We're wasting time and those Temujai can't be far behind us now!'

'Temujai?' Horace said to Will. 'The Temujai are thousands of kilometres away!'

Will shook his head sadly, urging Tug to increase his pace.

'Not in his mind,' he said grimly. He understood now. Something had caused Halt to lose all sense of the situation and time. He was seeing enemies and events from the past. From a few months back and from years prior to that, all hopelessly jumbled in his mind.

'Halt! Wait for me!' he called.

Then, suddenly, he set Tug to a full gallop as his mentor threw up his arms, let out a strangled cry and fell crashing to the ground beside a thoroughly alarmed Abelard.

And lay there, unmoving. Twenty-five 'Halt!'

The anguished cry was torn from Will as he urged Tug into a full gallop. Reaching the still figure lying in the long grass, he threw himself from the saddle and knelt beside him. Abelard stepped nervously beside his master, his head down, trying to nudge Halt with his muzzle, looking for some sign of life. The little horse nickered constantly, but there was a whine of anxiety in the sound – a note that Will had never heard before.

'Still, Abelard,' he said quietly. He gestured with the back of his hand to wave the horse away. 'Get back, boy.'

The horse wasn't doing Halt any good and his stepping and nudging could only get in the way. Reluctantly, Abelard paced back a few steps. Although he would normally only respond to Halt, he was intelligent enough to recognise that his master was incapacitated and that Will was next in the chain of command. Reassured by the calm tone of Will's voice, he stopped making the small, distracted noises and stood still. His ears were pricked upright, however, and his eyes never strayed from Halt.

Halt was lying face down and, gently, Will rolled him over. He moved the cowl back from Halt's face. His eyes were shut and his face was deathly pale. He didn't seem to be breathing and for a moment Will felt a surge of horror rush through him.

Halt dead? It couldn't be! It was impossible. He could not imagine a world without Halt in it.

Then the still figure gave a shuddering sigh and began to breathe again and Will felt relief flood through his system. Horace arrived, swinging down from the saddle and dropping to his knees on the other side of the fallen Ranger. The concern was obvious on his face.

'He's not…' He hesitated.

Will shook his head. 'He's alive. But he's unconscious.'

Halt gave vent to another shuddering breath that seemed to shake his entire body. Then his breathing settled a little. But he was breathing raggedly, and taking only shallow breaths. That was why, Will realised, he was being racked by those great shuddering sobs every so often. He needed the extra oxygen in his lungs.

Quickly, he stood and removed his cloak, folding it to form a makeshift cushion.

'Lift his head,' he told Horace. The tall warrior gently raised Halt's head clear of the grass and Will slid the folded cloak under it. Horace lowered Halt's head onto it. He studied the still form of the Ranger, his sense of helplessness showing on his young face.

'Will,' he said, 'what do we do? What's happened to him?'

Will shook his head, then leaned forward and gently raised one of Halt's eyelids with his thumb. There was no reaction from the unconscious Ranger. But as Will studied his eye, he noticed that the pupil remained dilated, even though the day was relatively bright. He knew that it was an automatic reaction for the pupil to close down when exposed to sudden bright light. Apparently, Halt's system wasn't reacting to normal stimuli.

'What is it?' Horace asked. He hoped that the fact that Will had done something, anything, was an indication that he had some idea of what the problem might be. Again, Will shook his head.

'I don't know,' he muttered.

He allowed the eye to close again. He put one finger on Halt's throat, feeling for the pulse in the large artery there. It was fluttery and uneven, but at least it was there. He sat back on his haunches, pondering the situation. All Rangers were trained to administer basic medical treatment in the event of a colleague being wounded. But this was beyond bandaging and stitching. This wasn't a wound he could isolate and…

A wound! The moment he had the thought, he was reminded of Halt's constant rubbing and scratching at the minor wound to his forearm. He gripped the sleeve of Halt's jacket, along the line that he had stitched up only the night before, and ripped the stitching apart, letting the sleeve fall back away from his arm.

The bandage was still in place. A slight stain showed on it where blood had seeped through the material before the bleeding stopped. He leaned forward and sniffed lightly at the wound, then recoiled hurriedly, with an exclamation of disgust.

'What is it?' Horace asked quickly.

'His arm. It smells foul. I think that might be where the trouble lies.' Mentally, he berated himself. He should have thought of that sooner. Then he dismissed his moment of self-criticism. The wound had seemed like a minor one. There had been no reason to suspect any connection between it and Halt's current behaviour. He drew his throwing knife and slid the razor-sharp edge under the end of the bandage. Abelard rumbled a warning.

'It's all right, Abelard,' he said, without lifting his eyes from his task. 'Settle, boy. Settle.'

Tug moved to stand close to his companion, brushing against Abelard and offering comfort and support. He nickered gently, as if to reassure Abelard that Will had the situation well in hand. Will wished that he felt the same confidence.

He slit the bandage and lifted it away from Halt's arm. The cut ends opened easily but where the bandage lay over the wound, it seemed to have stuck. That puzzled him a little. He didn't think there would have been enough blood from the wound to have dried and stuck the bandage in place like this. He was loath to simply rip the bandage away. He didn't know how much extra damage that might do.

He put a hand out to Horace.

'Get me a canteen,' he said and the tall youth hurried to fetch the canteen that was tied to the saddle bow on Kicker. Abelard was closer but in his current state of nervousness, Horace wasn't sure how he would react if he was approached. He handed the canteen to Will, who began to pour water carefully over the bandage, letting it soak through and loosen whatever it was that was causing it to stick to the wound.

After a minute or so, he tugged gently at the edge and felt it give a little. Halt stirred, moaning quietly. Abelard whinnied.

'Easy,' Will said gently. 'Easy there.' He wasn't sure whether his words were addressed to Halt or Abelard. He decided he was talking to both. Horace knelt again, eyes wide and fascinated as he watched his friend gradually work the bandage loose from the crusted, dried matter that surrounded the wound.

It took several minutes' soaking and gently easing the cloth away but eventually it fell clear and they could see what they were faced with.

'Oh my god,' said Horace quietly. The horror in his voice was obvious. Will made an inarticulate sound in his throat and, for a moment, turned his eyes away from the terrible sight of Halt's arm.

The graze itself, which he might have expected to have dried and scabbed over by now, was still weeping. The flesh around it was coated with a discoloured mass of oozing, vile fluid. The rotting smell that Will had noticed earlier was now all too evident. Both young men instinctively recoiled from it. But perhaps worst of all was the flesh of the rest of the arm. It was swollen to almost half again its normal size. No wonder Halt had been rubbing and scratching at it for the past day, Will thought. And the entire swollen forearm was discoloured. A sickly yellow around the wound gradually gave way to a dark blue tone, shot with bands of livid red. He touched Halt's arm gently with one forefinger. The skin was hot to the touch.

'How did this happen? You cleaned and dressed the wound almost immediately!' Horace said in a shocked, low voice. Both he and Will had seen their share of battles and their share of wounds in the past few years. Neither of them had ever seen anything like this. Neither of them had seen such a level of infection, for that was what this surely was, develop in a clean wound in such a short time.

Will's face was grim as he studied the wound. Halt stirred fretfully, groaning and trying to reach with his other hand for the dreadful, discoloured arm. Will stopped him gently, forcing Halt's free hand back down by his side.

'There must have been something on the crossbow bolt,' he said finally and Horace looked at him, not comprehending.

'Something?'

'Poison,' Will said briefly. The sense of hopelessness and uncertainty began to well up in his chest again. He had no idea what to do here, no idea how to treat this terrible wound. No idea how to counteract the poison – for that was almost certainly what it was.

Then he felt the hopelessness being submerged by a sense of panic. Halt could lose his arm. Worse, he could die here, miles from anywhere. And all because Will, his trusted protege, the famous Will Treaty, renowned throughout the Kingdom of Araluen for his fast thinking and decisive action, didn't have the first inkling of what to do. He reached out uncertainly to touch that damaged arm and realised his hand was shaking. Shaking in fear and panic and from a sense of utter uselessness.

He had to do something. Try something. But what? Again he faced the inevitable answer. He didn't know what to do. Halt could be dying and he didn't know how to help him.

'Do you have any idea what it is? The poison, I mean?' Horace asked. His horrified gaze was fixed on Halt's arm. Horace was a warrior who faced his enemies in fair combat. The very idea of poison was anathema to him.

'No! I don't have the faintest idea what it is!' Will shouted at him. 'What do I know about poisons? I'm a Ranger, not a healer!' The panic was threatening to take charge of him now and his eyes were blurring with tears. He started to reach out for Halt again, paused uncertainly, then drew back his hand. What was the point of touching him? Of poking and prying at him? He needed care and expert treatment.

Perhaps stirred by the sound of Will's voice, Halt tossed slightly and muttered something incomprehensible.

'Maybe we could clean the wound?' Horace suggested. It seemed logical that Halt might feel better if that oozing liquid was cleared away. And clean water might soothe the swollen, feverish, discoloured flesh as well.

With a giant effort, Will gained control of himself. Horace, as he so often did, had cut through to the heart of the matter. When all else fails, fall back on basic principles. Basic treatment for a wound was to clean it. To wipe away as much corruption and poison as possible. That much he could do for Halt, he thought. And now that he had a clear course of action, he felt the clutching, debilitating panic receding. He held out his hand and looked at it. The shaking had stopped.

'Thanks, Horace. Good thinking.' He looked up at his big friend and gave him a sad smile. 'Would you mind getting a fire going? I'll need some boiling water to sterilise the bandages and clean his arm up.'

Horace nodded and rose to his feet. 'I might as well set up the camp site,' he said. 'I guess we'll be staying here for a while.'

'I guess so,' Will said. As Horace moved away and began to gather stones for a fireplace, Will became conscious of another pair of eyes watching him. He looked up and there was Abelard, his head moving slightly from side to side. He uttered a subdued whinny as Will looked at him.

'Don't fret,' Will told him. 'He'll be all right.'

He tried to put as much conviction as he could into the words. He wished he could believe them himself.

Once the fire was lit and water boiled, Will set about the task of cleaning Halt's wound. He soaked pads of linen in the boiling water, then, after letting it cool a little, he used them to wipe away the pus and crusted matter around the edge of the wound. As he gradually worked, swabbing as gently as he could, he was rewarded by the sight of clean blood again seeping from the lacerated flesh. He thought that might be a good thing. He remembered hearing somewhere that fresh blood tended to clean out a wound. At least there was no new pus or discolouration forming.

He dabbed the wound gently with clean linen until the faint flow of blood stopped. Then he applied some of the pain-killing salve that all Rangers carried in their wound kits. It was highly effective, he knew, but he was always a little uncomfortable using it. It was derived from the drug warmweed and the faintly pungent aroma it gave off brought back unpleasant memories for him.

At least, now that the wound was clean, the smell of corruption they had noticed before seemed to have abated. That too might be a good sign, he thought.

He decided not to re-bandage the wound. Keeping it bandaged may have contained the poison and magnified its effects, he thought. Instead, he soaked a pad of linen in boiling water, then, allowing it to cool a little, draped it over the wound to cover it. If need be, he would hold it lightly in place with a loose bandage.

He had soaked more cloth in cool water and now he draped this over the swollen flesh further up the arm that had been so hot to his touch earlier. He thought that the swelling seemed to have gone down a little. He arranged the cooling cloths on Halt's arm and shrugged.

'That's all I can do for the present, I'm afraid,' he said.

'You seem to have done a lot,' Halt replied. His voice was weak, but his eyes were open and there was a little colour back in his cheeks. Whether it was the effect of the cleaning, the warmweed salve or just coincidence, he had regained consciousness.

This time Will couldn't stop the tears as they flooded out of his eyes and ran freely down his cheeks.

Halt was alive. And he seemed to be improving. Twenty-six When Horace had the camp site set up, they spread out Halt's bedroll and lifted him gently onto it.

At first, he protested, waving them away and attempting to rise to his feet. But his strength failed him before he had even managed to sit up and Will saw a quick flash of fear in his eyes as he sank back again.

'Maybe you'd better carry me,' he said and they did so. Horace arranged one of their tents as a lean-to shelter to shield Halt from the sun. Will looked around, studying the sky and the weather.

'Looks like it'll stay fine tonight,' he said. 'We'll keep him in the open. Fresh air might be good for him.'

He was guessing, he knew. But he was convinced that the interior of a stuffy little one-man tent would not be the place for Halt over the next few hours. He was conscious that the slight smell of corruption was still present around the wound, even though it was nowhere near as strong as before. It might well become suffocating if Halt were confined inside a tent.

Almost as soon as they moved Halt, he lost consciousness again. He muttered and tossed in his sleep. But at least now his breathing seemed more regular. Will sat hunched beside him, watching like a hawk.

At one stage, Horace laid a hand on his shoulder. 'I'll watch him for a while. You need to rest.'

But Will shook his head. 'I'm fine. I'll watch him.'

Horace nodded. He understood how his friend felt. 'Let me know if you need a break.' Will grunted in reply so Horace busied himself making a thin broth from their provisions. He thought they could feed it to Halt when he woke again. Broth was good for injured men, he knew. He kept it simmering in the edge of the fire and made a simple meal for Will and himself, using flat bread and some cold beef and pickles that they had been carrying. He took a plate to Will, who was still sitting, staring at his teacher. The young Ranger took the plate and glanced up.

'Thanks, Horace,' he said briefly. Then his eyes went back to Halt and he began eating the food mechanically.

Around sunset, Halt's eyes opened again. For a moment or two, he looked around, puzzled, as he tried to remember what had happened, why he was lying here with Will huddled in his cloak beside him and dozing. Then it came back to him. He glanced down at the loosely bandaged arm. He could see the swollen, discoloured flesh and feel the throbbing heat that shot through it. A cold hand clutched his heart as he realised what had happened to him.

He made a small sound in his throat and Will's head shot up as he instantly came awake.

'Halt!' he said, relief evident in his voice. The older Ranger made a small gesture with his right hand. A short distance away, Abelard's ears pricked up and he whinnied briefly, moving closer to the recumbent figure. The small horse hadn't moved more than a few metres from his master's side in the past three hours.

Halt grinned weakly up at him.

'Hullo, old friend,' he said. 'Been worried about me, have you?'

Abelard moved forward and leaned his head down to nuzzle Halt's cheek. Halt said a few words to him, speaking in Gallic, as he often did when he was talking privately to Abelard. Watching the simple interaction between them that said so much about the bond they shared, Will's eyes filled with tears once more. But this time, they were tears of relief.

Finally, Halt gestured with his uninjured arm, gently shooing Abelard away.

'Off you go, boy. Will and I need to talk a little.'

The horse backed away a few paces. But his ears were still up and he was still alert to any move or noise that Halt might make. Will edged closer and seized Halt's uninjured hand. The return grip was surprisingly weak and he felt a thrill of alarm. Then he dismissed it. Halt had been close to death. He would take some time to recover.

'You're all right now,' he said.

Halt glanced around, trying to see more of the camp site. 'Is Horace here?'

Will shook his head. 'He's out setting snares. There's a pond nearby where he thinks ducks might settle at dusk so he's gone to try his luck. We're getting short on fresh food.' He dismissed the unimportant matter of Horace and their provisions with a quick gesture. 'My god, Halt, it's good to see you awake again! We thought we'd lost you for a while. But now you're on the mend.'

He caught the quick flash of apprehension in Halt's eyes, instantly masked, and suddenly a horrible doubt struck him.

'Halt? You are all right, aren't you? Of course you are! You're awake and talking. Maybe a little weak but you'll get your strength back and before you know it we'll be…'

He stopped, aware that he was babbling, aware that he was talking to convince himself, not the bearded Ranger who lay before him. There was a long silence between them.

'Tell me.'

Halt hesitated, then glanced down at his injured arm. He drew a deep breath before he spoke.

'You understand that the bolt was poisoned, don't you?'

Will nodded disconsolately. 'I guessed as much. I should have thought of it earlier.'

But Halt shook his head gently. 'No reason why you should have. But I should have at least considered it. Those blasted Genovesans know all about poisons. I should have realised that it wouldn't be beyond them to dip their crossbow bolts in it.'

He paused. 'I vaguely remember going a little crazy. Did I think the Temujai were after us?'

Will nodded. 'That's when we really got worried. Then you galloped off in the wrong direction and fell off your horse. You were unconscious when I reached you. I thought you were dead at first.'

'I wasn't breathing?' Halt asked.

'No. Then you gave a sort of huge sigh and started breathing again. That's when we thought to look at your arm. It only occurred to me then that it had been bothering you all day.'

He briefly described the condition the arm had been in and, at Halt's urging, what actions he had taken. His teacher nodded thoughtfully as he described how he had cleaned the wound again and applied the warmweed-derived salve to it.

'Yes,' he said thoughtfully, 'that might have slowed it down a little. Warmweed tends to have a few other properties besides reducing pain. I've heard that some people have used it for treating snakebite – which is a pretty similar thing to this when you think about it.'

'And it worked?' Will asked. He didn't like the way Halt paused before he answered.

'Up to a point. It slowed the effect of the venom. But the victim still needed treatment. The trouble is, with this sort of poison, I don't know what the correct treatment might be.'

'But Halt, you're improving! You're so much better than you were this afternoon! I can see you're recovering…'

He stopped as Halt laid a hand on his arm. 'That's often the way with these poisons. The victim seems to recover, then he has a relapse. And each time, after each bout of consciousness, he's a little worse than before. And gradually…' He stopped and made an uncertain gesture in the air.

Will felt he was staring into a deep, black hole before him. The realisation of what Halt was saying constricted his throat so that he could barely talk.

'Halt?' he choked. 'Are you saying you're…?'

He couldn't finish the sentence. Halt said it for him.

'Dying? I'm afraid it's a distinct possibility, Will. I'll have bouts of consciousness like this. Then I'll pass out again. Each time, I'll take a little longer to recover. And each time I do, I'll be weaker than the time before.'

'But Halt!' The tears gushed from Will's eyes, blinding him. 'You can't die! You mustn't! How could I manage without…' Suddenly he was beyond speech and his body was racked with great sobs. The tears coursed down his face unheeded. He hunched forward on his knees, rocking back and forth and making a terrible keening sound in the back of his throat.

'Will?' Halt's voice was weak and it didn't penetrate Will's grief. The older Ranger took several deep breaths and gathered his strength.

'Will!'

This time the familiar bark of authority was there and it cut through to Will's consciousness. He stopped rocking and looked up, wiping his eyes and streaming nose with the hem of his cloak. Halt smiled at him, a tired, crooked little smile.

'I promise I'm trying my best not to die. But you have to be prepared for it. The next twelve hours or so will be the critical period, I'd say. If I feel stronger tomorrow morning, who knows? I might have beaten it. Dealing with poison isn't an exact science. Some people are affected worse than others. But I'll need all my strength to fight it and I'll need you to be strong for me.'

Red-eyed and ashamed of himself, Will nodded. His back straightened. Weeping and wailing would do nothing to help Halt.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I won't let that happen again. Is there anything I can do for you?'

Halt looked down at his injured arm. 'Maybe change that dressing in another hour or so. And use a little more salve. How long since you put it on?'

Will considered the question. He knew that the salve couldn't be used too often. 'Four, maybe five hours.'

Halt nodded. 'Fine. Give it an hour then put some more on. Not sure if it'll help, but it can't hurt. Maybe a little water now if you've got some?'

'Of course,' Will said. He unstoppered his canteen and propped Halt up so that he could drink slowly. The bearded Ranger was experienced enough to know that he shouldn't gulp the water greedily.

He sighed as the water trickled through his parched mouth and throat.

'Oh, that's so good,' he said. 'People always underestimate water.'

Will glanced quickly at the camp fire, where the coffee pot sat in the embers to one side.

'I can get you some coffee if you like. Or soup?' he suggested. But Halt shook his head, lying back against the saddle, padded with his own folded cloak, that was serving as his pillow.

'No. No. Water's fine. Maybe some soup later.' His voice was sounding tired, as if the effort of their conversation had exhausted him. His eyes slid shut and he said something. But he spoke so softly that Will had to lean forward and ask him to repeat himself.

'Where's Horace?' he asked, his eyes still shut.

'He's setting the snares. I told…'

He was going to say 'I told you that' but he realised that Halt's mind had begun to wander again, just as he had forecast. There would be a brief period of lucidity, then he would slowly sink back into unconsciousness.

'Yes. Yes. Of course. You told me. He's a good boy. So's Will, of course. Both good boys.'

Will said nothing. He simply gripped Halt's free hand a little tighter, not trusting his voice if he were to try to speak.

'Can't let him face Deparnieux, of course. Thinks everybody fights by the rules, young Horace does…'

Again, Will squeezed Halt's hand, just to let him know that he wasn't alone. He hoped the contact would register with Halt's wandering mind. Deparnieux had been the evil Gallic warlord who held Halt and Horace captive years ago, when they were searching for Will and Evanlyn.

The poison had taken his mind again and he was no longer living in the present. His words died away to a mutter and he drifted into sleep. Will sat and watched over him. The breathing was deep and even. Perhaps he would recover. Perhaps a good night's rest was all that he needed. Will would re-dress the wound in an hour. The warmweed salve would work its magic. In the morning, Halt would be on the road to recovery.

Horace, returning shortly after dark with a brace of ducks, found Will crouched beside his teacher. He took in the tear-stained face and the red eyes and gently led him away to the fire. He gave him coffee and flat bread and made him drink some of the beef broth he had prepared for Halt.

When Will had recovered his composure a little, he told Horace all that Halt had said about the poison and the possible outcome they faced. Horace, determined to keep a positive frame of mind, assessed Halt's condition while Will cleaned and re-dressed the wound.

'But he said he could get better?' he insisted.

'That's right,' Will said, replacing the linen bandage over the wound. There seemed to be no improvement. But it hadn't deteriorated any further, either. 'He said the next twelve hours would be critical.'

'He's sleeping peacefully now,' Horace noted. 'None of that tossing and turning. I think he's getting better. I definitely think he's getting better.'

Will, his jaw set in a determined line, nodded several times. Then he replied forcefully, 'You're right. All he needs is a good night's rest. In the morning, he'll be fine.'

They took turns watching over the stricken Ranger through the night. He slept peacefully, without any sign of distress. Around three in the morning, he woke briefly and talked calmly and lucidly with Horace, who was on watch. Then he fell asleep again and it seemed that he was winning the battle against the poison.

In the morning, they couldn't wake him. Twenty-seven 'Halt! Halt! Wake up!'

Horace's shout roused Will from a deep sleep. For a second, he was confused, wondering what was happening and where he was. Then he remembered the events of the previous day and threw back his blankets, coming quickly to his feet.

Horace was crouched over Halt, who lay on his back as they had placed him. As Will reached his side, Horace looked up at him, fear in his eyes, then turned back to shout again.

'Halt! Wake up!'

Abelard, who had remained close by his master during the night, sensed the air of concern and neighed nervously, pawing the ground. Halt tossed restlessly on the thin bedroll, trying to throw off the blanket that covered him. His eyes remained shut but he was muttering to himself. As they watched, he cried out, as if in pain.

Horace spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

'He seemed fine,' he said, his voice breaking with emotion. 'I was talking to him a few hours ago and he seemed fine. Then he went back to sleep. Just a few minutes ago, he started tossing and fretting like this and I tried to wake him but… he won't wake up.'

Will leaned forward, closer to the bearded Ranger, and put his hand on his shoulder.

'Halt?' he said tentatively. He shook him gently, trying to rouse him. Halt reacted to the touch, but not the way Will hoped he would. He jerked and shouted something inarticulate and tried to throw Will's hand away from his shoulder with his uninjured hand. He remained unconscious, however.

Will tried again, shaking him a little harder this time.

'Halt! Wake up! Please!' Again, Halt reacted against the touch of Will's hand.

'Do you think you should be shaking him like that?' Horace asked anxiously.

'I don't know!' Will's angry reply was evidence of the helplessness he was feeling. 'Can you think of something better to do?'

Horace said nothing. But it was obvious to Will that shaking Halt wasn't achieving anything – it was only distressing him more. He relinquished his grip on the older Ranger's shoulder. Instead, he laid his palm gently on his forehead. The skin was hot beneath his touch and felt strangely dry.

'He's feverish,' he said. All their hopes that Halt would improve after a night's rest were suddenly dashed. He had deteriorated in the last few hours. And deteriorated badly.

Still keeping his touch as gentle as he could, Will removed the linen bandage covering Halt's forearm. He bent closer, sniffing at the wound. The smell of corruption was faintly noticeable but it seemed no worse. The discolouration was still evident as well. But, like the odour, it hadn't worsened during the night. If anything, the swelling might have come down a little. He touched one fingertip to the swollen skin. Yesterday, it had been hot to his touch. Today, its temperature felt relatively normal.

'Still hot?' Horace asked.

He shook his head, a little puzzled. 'No. It feels all right,' he said. 'But his forehead is burning up. I don't understand.'

He sat back to consider the situation. He wished desperately that he knew more about healing.

'Unless,' he said slowly, 'it means that the poison has moved on from his arm and is in his system now… working its way through him.' He looked up and met Horace's worried gaze, then shook his head helplessly. 'I just don't know, Horace. I just don't know enough about all this.'

He busied himself soaking more linen strips in a bowl of cool water and laying them over Halt's forehead, trying to cool him down. He had some dried willow bark in his medical pack, which he knew would reduce the fever. But the problem would be getting Halt to take it. The Ranger was still tossing and groaning, but his jaw was now clenched tight.

Horace stood and went to Halt's saddle bags, which were a few metres away. He unstrapped the lid of one and rummaged inside, finally producing Halt's map of the area. He studied it for a few minutes, then walked back to sink down beside Will, who was busy ministering to Halt.

'What are you looking for?' Will asked him, intent on his task. Horace chewed his lip as he studied the map.

'A town. Even a large village. There must be somewhere near here where we could find an apothecary or a healer of some kind.'

He tapped the map with one forefinger. 'I figure we're probably somewhere about… here,' he said. 'Give or take a few kilometres. How about this? Maddler's Drift? It couldn't be more than half a day's ride away.'

'Are you proposing we should take Halt there?' Will asked.

Horace sucked his cheeks in thoughtfully. 'Moving Halt might not be a good idea. Might be better to see if there's anyone there who could help. The local healer. Go there and bring him back.' He looked up at Will, saw the doubtful expression on his face. 'I'll go if you like,' he offered.

But Will was slowly shaking his head. 'If either of us goes, it should be me,' he said. 'I can move a lot faster than you can.'

'Yes. I know,' Horace conceded. 'But I thought you might not want to leave him. So I just…'

'I know, Horace. And I appreciate it. But think it through. It's only a hamlet. Odds are there's no healer there. And if there is, do you think a country healer will have the faintest idea how to cure this?' He jerked a thumb at Halt, who was groaning, muttering and grinding his teeth.

Horace let out a deep sigh. 'It might be worth a try.' But his voice confirmed that he didn't believe his own words.

Will laid a hand on his forearm. 'Let's face it. Even a good country healer is not much more than a herbalist. And the bad ones are little short of being charlatans and witch doctors. I don't want someone chanting and waving coloured smoke over Halt while he's dying.'

The word was finally out in the open before he could stop himself. Dying. Halt was dying. The hoped-for recovery in what Halt himself had said was a vital twelve-hour period simply hadn't happened.

Horace was stricken as he heard Will say the word. He had spent hours refusing to confront it. Refusing to even consider it.

'Halt can't die. He can't! He's…' He paused, not sure what he was going to say, then finished weakly, 'He's Halt.'

He let the map drop from his fingers and turned away, not wanting Will to see the tears that had sprung to his eyes. Halt was… indomitable. He was indestructible. He had always been part of Horace's world, for as long as the young man could remember. Even before he had got to know the grim-faced Ranger, and learned that his forbidding appearance masked a warm and quietly humorous nature, he had been conscious of him as an ever-present feature of life at Castle Redmont.

He was a larger-than-life presence, a mysterious figure about whom fantastic tales were told and wild rumours flew. He had survived a score of battles. He had faced warlords and fearsome monsters and triumphed every time. He couldn't die because of a slight scratch on his arm. He couldn't! It just didn't seem possible.

Like Will, Horace had been orphaned when he was young, and in recent years he had grown to look upon Halt as a special person in his life. He knew that Will regarded Halt as a father figure and Halt returned the feeling. The close personal relationship between master and apprentice was obvious to anyone who knew them.

Horace didn't presume to have the same closeness they enjoyed. Theirs was a unique relationship. But Halt had come to assume a role in Horace's life similar to a much-loved and vastly respected uncle. He turned back, no longer concerned if Will saw the tears on his face. Halt deserved those tears, he thought. They were nothing to be ashamed of.

Will leaned back on his haunches. He couldn't think of anything more he could do for Halt. The cool cloths on his forehead seemed to be easing him a little. The groaning had died away and he could no longer see the muscles at the side of Halt's jaw clenched tight. Perhaps if Halt relaxed further, he might be able to coax him to take a few sips of willow bark infusion to bring down his fever. And he could put more salve on the wound, although he sensed that the wound itself was no longer the problem. It had been the source, but now the poison had moved on.

The breeze caught the map Horace had dropped and it began to flutter away. Absentmindedly, Will caught it and began to fold it. But it had to be folded a certain way and he got the creases wrong. When he looked down to correct his mistake, a word seemed to leap off the page.

Macindaw.

Castle Macindaw. Scene of his battle with the Scotti invaders. And close by Macindaw, clearly marked on the map, stood Grimsdell Wood, home to Malcolm, once thought to be the reincarnation of Malkallam the Sorcerer, but now known to a select few as the most skilled and knowledgeable healer in all of Araluen.

'Horace?' he said, staring fixedly at the map.

They were old friends. They had been through a great deal together, and Horace knew Will sufficiently well to sense the change in his friend's voice. The hopelessness had gone. Even with that one word, Horace knew that Will had the germ of an idea. He dropped beside his friend and looked over his shoulder, studying the section of the map that was open before him. He too, saw the name.

'Macindaw,' he breathed. 'Malcolm. Of course!'

'A few days ago, you said we'd pass close by if we took that detour,' Will pointed out. 'Where do you think we are now?'

Horace took the map and unfolded it to open the next section. He found the reference points he'd used before – the river, the drowned forest.

'Around here,' he said, indicating a position on the map. 'We've come a good way south of the spot where I said it.'

'True. But we've also come a good way east. And Macindaw was to the east of us when you pointed it out. What we've lost by coming south, we've picked up by coming east.'

Horace pursed his lips uncertainly. 'Not quite,' he said. 'But we're probably only a day and a half away. Maybe two days.'

'I'll do it in one,' Will said. Horace raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

'One day? I know Tug can go all day and all night. But even for him, that's stretching it. And you'd still have to make the return journey.'

'I won't be riding Tug all the way,' Will told him. 'I'll take Abelard too. I can switch between them to rest them.'

Horace felt a surge of hope. Will could make it to Macindaw in that time if he rode both horses, he realised. Of course, the return journey, with Malcolm, would be slower.

'Then take Kicker as well,' he said. He saw Will open his mouth to dismiss the suggestion and hurried on to explain his idea. 'Don't ride him on the way to Macindaw. Save his strength for the return journey. That way, you'll always have one horse resting while you and Malcolm ride the other two.'

Will nodded slowly. Horace's suggestion made good sense. He would be returning with Malcolm and that would mean the healer would have to ride Abelard. But with Kicker along as well, they'd always have a relatively fresh horse. And neither he nor the slightly built healer would weigh anything like Horace in full armour.

'Good idea,' he said finally. He studied the map again and came to a decision. 'I can save time if I cut across country here.' He indicated a spot where the trail made a wide detour round an expanse of rising ground.

Horace nodded agreement, then, noticing something marked on the map at that point, leaned forward to read the notation.

'Barrows?' he said. 'What are barrows?'

'They're ancient burial mounds,' Will said. 'You find them from time to time in sparsely populated areas like this. Nobody knows who's buried in them. They're assumed to be some ancient race that died out long ago.'

'And why does the path curve round them the way it does?' Horace asked, although he thought he already knew the answer.

Will shrugged, trying to look unconcerned.

'Oh… it's just some folk think they're haunted.' Twenty-eight Horace watched as Will prepared for the journey to Macindaw. He stripped the three horses of all extraneous weight, dumping camping gear, provision packs and saddle bags in a neat pile by the camp fire.

Abelard and Tug carried spare arrow cases for Halt and Will and he left these behind. Chances were he wouldn't need to fight and the two dozen arrows in his quiver would be enough in case he ran into unexpected trouble. Kicker was usually loaded with Horace's shield and the heavy mail coat, helmet and chain mail hood that he wore when going into battle. These he left behind as well. The horses were left relatively unburdened, with just their saddles and bridles.

He'd be riding Tug for the first leg of the trip, so he loosened the girths on Abelard's and Kicker's saddles. They might as well be as comfortable as possible, he thought. Abelard nickered gratitude. Kicker, as was the custom with his breed, accepted the gesture stolidly.

He selected a small rucksack from his kit, emptied out the spare clothes it contained and crammed it with basic travelling rations: a loaf of the flat bread Halt had called damper, now a little stale but still edible, along with dried fruit and several strips of smoked beef. The last-mentioned was hard to chew but he knew from past experience that it had the nourishment he'd need to restore his strength. Plus it allowed him to eat in the saddle without the need for a stop.

'I'll take all three of our canteens,' he said to Horace as he was cramming the rations into the rucksack. 'You've got the pond close by and I don't want to have to search for water while I'm travelling.' Satisfied that he had enough food, he tied the small sack to Tug's saddle bow, where he could reach it easily as he rode.

Horace nodded agreement and collected the three canteens. He shook them experimentally.

'They could all use some topping up,' he said. 'And you may as well start out with fresh water.' After a few hours, as they both knew only too well, the water would take on the leathery taste of the canteens.

Will smiled his gratitude. 'Thanks,' he said. 'I'll grab a bite to eat while you're doing it. Might as well set off with a good meal under my belt.'

Horace eyed the rucksack with a grimace. He'd seen what his friend had packed in there.

'Be a while before you get another,' he said and headed off for the pond, the three canteens swinging from their straps in his hands, occasionally rattling together.

They had roasted two ducks the night before and one of the carcasses was relatively untouched. Will tore a leg and a piece of breast meat from it and ate the meat hurriedly, walking restlessly back and forth as he did so. He had more of the flat bread with the meat. The mass of dry bread and rich meat tended to stick in his throat and mouth and he looked around for something to wash it all down.

The coffee pot was almost full, staying warm in the embers at the side of the fire. He filled a mug and drank the hot brew gratefully, feeling its energy coursing through him. He tried to breathe deeply and relax. There was a tight knot in his stomach and all he wanted to do was leap into the saddle and ride as fast as he could. He begrudged the time spent eating and preparing. But he knew that later in the day, he'd be grateful for the energy that the food would provide, and a few minutes spent preparing now would save him hours later on. So he fought down the impatience that was seething inside him and forced himself to think and plan calmly. Had he forgotten anything?

He ran through a mental checklist and nodded to himself. He had everything he needed. The horses were fed and watered and ready to travel. What little equipment he was taking was securely fastened to their saddles.

Horace returned with the three canteens. He fastened one each to Kicker's and Abelard's saddles, tying them down securely with restraining thongs so they wouldn't bounce and jolt with the horses' movement. As he turned away from Abelard, the third canteen knocked against the stirrup iron with a hollow sound.

Will frowned, puzzled. 'That sounds empty.'

Horace smiled and walked to the camp fire.

'It is at the moment. The other two are for the horses. This one is for you.' He picked up the coffee pot and carefully poured the fragrant liquid into the narrow neck of the canteen. His eyes were intent on the task as he continued, 'You might as well have some coffee. I assume you won't be stopping to make camp anywhere?'

Will shook his head. 'I'll stop for a few minutes' sleep when I need it. But I won't be camping, just rolling up in my cloak.'

'Thought so.' Horace finished filling the canteen and pushed the stopper home. 'So you might as well have some coffee. It'll stay warm for a while and even cold coffee is better than leathery water.' He smiled as he said it and Will grinned back.

'Good thinking, Horace.'

Horace looked pleased. He wished he could do more for his friend but this small, thoughtful gesture of support spoke volumes about their friendship.

'Plus it'll give you the sort of pick-up you might need along the way.'

Their smiles faded as they thought about the journey that faced Will. The land itself was wild and who knew what dangers he might encounter. In isolated parts of the Kingdom like this, locals tended to resent strangers and it was possible there could be bandits operating between here and Macindaw. Once he got close to the castle, of course, there was a distinct chance that he might run into Scotti raiding parties, like the one they had foiled several days back. And Will would be concentrating on speed, not stealth.

'I wish I was coming with you,' Horace said quietly. The concern was obvious in his eyes. Will slapped his shoulder and grinned.

'You'd only slow me down, blundering along behind me.' Unintentionally, he used the words Halt had used several days previously. They both realised it and their smiles faded once more as they turned to look at the still figure lying under the lean-to. There was a silence between them.

'I'm glad you'll be here to watch over him,' Will finally said. 'It makes it easier for me to go.'

Horace nodded several times, not trusting himself to speak. Abruptly, Will turned and walked to where Halt lay, going down on one knee and taking the Ranger's right hand in both of his.

'I'll be back, Halt. I promise you. I'll be back within three days. You just make sure you're here waiting for me, do you hear?'

Halt stirred and muttered, then settled again. It was possible that the sound of Will's voice had penetrated through the fog of poison that held him captive. Will hoped so. He shook his head sadly. It pierced his heart to see Halt, normally so strong, so capable, so indefatigable, reduced to this muttering, tossing shadow of himself. He touched the Ranger's brow. His temperature seemed to have come down. He was warm but not burning with fever as he had been. Will stood and, after one last sad look, turned to Horace.

'Keep an eye on that fever. If he gets hot again, use the cool wet cloths on his forehead. And clean the wound out every four hours or so. Use the salve every second time.'

He doubted that treating the wound would serve any purpose now. The sickness had gone deeper into Halt's system. But at least Horace would feel he was doing something positive, and Will knew how important that was.

He gripped Horace's right hand, then the two of them moved closer and embraced.

'I'll take care of him, Will. I'll guard him with my life,' Horace said.

Will nodded, his face buried against his larger friend's shoulder.

'I know you will. And keep watch at night. You never know, that Genovesan killer might decide to come back.'

He stepped back from the embrace. Horace smiled but it was a smile without any humour in it.

'You know, I almost hope he does,' he said.

They walked together to where the horses waited. Abelard shifted nervously, rolling his eyes and rumbling deep in his chest. Will stepped up to him, placed his hands on either side of his muzzle as he'd seen Halt do, and blew gently into his nostrils to get the horse's attention.

'I know you're worried,' he said softly. 'But you have to come with me. Understand? You're coming with me and we'll get help for him.'

The little horse shook his head and mane in that sudden, vibrating manner so common to Ranger horses. He stopped the nervous pacing and whinnying and stood ready.

Horace shook his head in amazement. 'You know, I'd swear he understood what you said,' he remarked.

Will patted Abelard's soft nose and smiled at him fondly.

'He did,' he replied. Then he swung into Tug's saddle and took Kicker's lead rein as Horace passed it up to him. Abelard, of course, would follow without needing to be led.

'Take care, Will,' Horace said and Will nodded.

'Three days,' he said. 'Look for me then. And keep your eyes open while I'm gone.'

He touched his heel to Tug's side and the little horse swung away, Kicker following easily on the lead rein. It seemed that after spending so much time in the company of the two Ranger horses, he was content to stay with them without further urging. Abelard looked once more at the figure lying beneath the blankets, tossed his head in farewell and wheeled, trotting to catch up to the other horses.

For a long while, Horace stood watching them as they trotted away, then increased their speed to a slow lope. Finally, they passed over the ridge and were lost to his sight.

The temptation, of course, was to clap his heels into Tug's side and urge him on to a full gallop. But Will knew that in the long run, they'd make better time by maintaining a slower pace. He held the little horse to a steady lope, a gait the Ranger horses could maintain hour after hour. Abelard matched the pace and Kicker, free of his normal load, and with a longer stride than either of the other horses, kept pace with them easily. The big battlehorse almost appeared to be enjoying himself, running free and unloaded this way.

Will reached the river and turned eastward, following the bank and looking for another crossing. There was a horse ford marked on the map to the east – too deep for foot traffic, which was why Tennyson and his group had been unable to use it. But the horses should manage it easily enough. It had the added advantage that it would put him across the river at a point clear of the drowned forest. He had no wish to re-enter that grey wasteland again in a hurry.

Three hours' steady riding took him to the ford. He urged Tug forward into the water. Abelard followed readily, although Kicker baulked at first as he saw the water rising past Tug's shoulders, almost to his withers. Then the battlehorse seemed to realise that he was several hands higher than his smaller companion and came forward with a rush, throwing spray in the air as he plunged forward in a series of surging leaps, threatening to crash into Tug and unseat Will.

'Settle down, Kicker!' Will ordered him. Once again, he had the sensation that Kicker was having fun. That was something that didn't happen often in a battlehorse's life. But Kicker calmed down and moved more smoothly through the river until the three of them, streaming water, lurched up onto the far bank.

Will paused for a few minutes. He let the three horses drink, but not so much that they'd be heavy and overfull when they moved off. Abelard and Tug, naturally, stopped as soon as he gave them a word command. Kicker, thirstily sucking huge draughts of the cool river water, had to be led away. He shook his mane and glared at Will for a second or two. The young Ranger regarded him evenly.

'Kicker! Do as you're told!'

He said it firmly. He didn't shout, but there was an unmistakable tone of command in his voice that left the big horse in no doubt as to who was in charge here. Kicker looked back reluctantly at the river, but let himself be led away. As he did so, Will rubbed his muzzle gently.

'Good boy,' he said softly. 'We'll make a Ranger horse of you yet.'

A few paces away, Tug whinnied derisively.

You do amuse me at times. Twenty-nine He had been riding Tug for several hours and now they were across the river it seemed a good time to switch horses. He loosened Tug's saddle girth. The little horse looked slightly insulted.

I can keep going, you know.

'I know you can,' Will told him gently. 'But I'll be relying on you later, when we're all bone tired.'

Tug shook his mane. He agreed. But he didn't have to like it. Even though Abelard was his friend, he would prefer to carry Will himself. He knew, even if Will didn't, that he could do it day after day, hour after hour, without wearing himself out.

Will tightened Abelard's girth strap. There was no need to look out for tricks. Unlike some horses, Ranger horses would never fill their lungs with a deep breath to expand their bodies while a strap was being tightened, only to release the breath, and loosen the strap, as soon as it was buckled. He tugged the saddle experimentally, and began to raise his left foot to the stirrup when he realised that Abelard had turned his head to look expectantly at him.

'Of course,' he said softly. 'Excuse my bad manners.' He looked the horse steadily in the eye and said the words Halt had told him so many years ago, outside Old Bob's cottage in the woods.

'Permettez moi?' He hoped he had the accent right. His Gallic wasn't the best. But Abelard tossed his head encouragingly a few times and Will put his foot in the stirrup and swung up astride Halt's horse. For a second he waited, wondering if he had said the password correctly, wondering if Abelard was simply waiting for him to relax so he could toss him high in the air to have him come crashing down on the grass. Strangely, in all the years he and Halt had been together, he had never had occasion to ride Abelard before this. Given that the little horse had known him for years and recognised him as a friend of Halt's, he doubted that he would throw him off. But training was training.

After a few seconds, he realised that there was going to be no violent corkscrewing explosion of horseflesh under him. Abelard was waiting patiently for the signal to proceed. Will twitched Kicker's lead rein to get his attention, then touched his heels to Abelard's barrel of a body and they moved off, building gradually to the familiar lope.

They rode clear of the fertile flats that bounded the river. The trees began to thin out so that they were occasional clumps and outcrops set among the grassy downs. There was a faint path, sometimes difficult to see, but there were few obstructions and the horses were all surefooted, even Kicker. They made good time as the sun sank inexorably closer to the western horizon, firing the low clouds' undersides with a rich orange and purple glare. From time to time, as they crested a hill, he could see glimpses of the grey, stark expanse of the drowned forest off to the east. But they became fewer and fewer as he made progress.

When darkness fell, he spelled the horses again, letting them drink sparingly from the small, folding leather bucket that he carried for the purpose. He took a large swig of the coffee, now with almost no trace of heat left in it. But the taste and the sweetness revived him. The moon was due to rise in an hour and he decided to wait for it. He was travelling unfamiliar ground and, surefooted as they might be, he didn't want to risk one of the horses stumbling or falling. He'd switch back to Tug when they set out again. It was time to do so anyway and, while Tug and Abelard were very similar, Abelard's gait was slightly different – a little stiffer and more abrupt. In time, he knew, he would become accustomed to it. But if they were travelling by night he'd prefer to lead the way on Tug.

After a time, the moon soared up over the eastern horizon, huge and silent and watchful while it was close to the horizon, seeming to shrink as it reached higher into the night sky. He put an arm around Abelard's neck, letting the horse nuzzle against him.

'Thanks, Abelard,' he said, then, on an impulse, 'Merci bien, mon ami. You've done well.'

The little horse rumbled acknowledgement and butted against him several times. Kicker, grazing nearby, looked up as Will retrieved his lead rope from the tree where it was tied and moved to mount Tug.

Once again in the familiar saddle – even Halt's saddle felt slightly different to his own – he looked around at the other two horses, patiently waiting his command.

'All right, boys,' he said. Let's get going.'

He was tired. Inestimably tired. And his body ached in a hundred different muscles. He had changed back to Abelard, then to Tug once more, and even the familiar saddle created its own form of torture for his aching legs and back and behind. He estimated that it was after midnight, so he had been riding, with a few brief stops, for well over twelve hours. And while he was riding, he was also concentrating fiercely. Concentrating on the course they were following, steering by the stars. Watching the ground ahead of them, alert for any obstacles or dangers.

The effort that went into this sort of concentration was almost as exhausting as the physical exertion.

The moon had set hours ago but he continued by starlight. The trees were becoming fewer and further between and he was climbing gradually to a plateau. The terrain now was a series of bare knolls, covered only by long, windswept grass. Soon, he decided, he would have to stop for a brief rest. Once again, it would be the lesser of two undesirable alternatives. If he kept riding too long, his attention would wander and sheer fatigue might lead him into a mistake – a wrong direction, or a poor choice of path. In the back of his mind, he nursed the fear that one of the horses might stumble or fall and injure himself because of some mistake made by Will – a mistake he might not have made if he had all his wits about him.

Once, they startled a large animal close to the faint trail they were following. There was a brief snarl of surprise and it bounded away, disappearing into the long grass before he could get a good look at it. The horses started nervously. Kicker neighed in alarm and pulled at the lead rope, nearly jerking the exhausted young Ranger from the saddle. He had no idea what the animal might have been. A wolf, perhaps, or a large hunting cat. He had heard that there was a species of lynx in this part of the country that could grow as large as a small bear.

Or it could have been a bear.

Whatever it was, if they chanced upon another one, he needed to have his wits about him. He realised with a guilty start that he had actually been dozing in the saddle when they had blundered upon it. Almost certainly, Tug and Abelard would have given him warnings. But he had been too exhausted to notice them.

He reined Tug in. It was time to stop and have a substantial rest. To close his eyes and sleep, if only for half an hour, and let his body be revitalised. Half an hour's proper sleep would do it, and as he had the thought, the idea of stretching flat out, rolling himself in his warm cloak and letting his eyes close and stay closed was too much to resist.

He glanced around the surrounding countryside. The terrain had been rising for some time now and they were close to the top of a large, bare hill. In the distance, he made out several irregular shapes in the dim starlight and for a moment he frowned, wondering what they were.

Then he realised. They were the barrows. The ancient burial mounds of long-dead warriors.

He recalled his flippant remark to Horace: Some folk think they're haunted. It had tripped off the tongue so easily in the daylight, scores of kilometres away. Now, here on this bare hill, with only the dim light of the stars, the whole idea seemed more forbidding, the barrows themselves more ominous.

'Great place you picked for a rest,' he muttered to himself and, groaning with the effort, swung down from Tug's back. His knees gave slightly as he touched the ground and he staggered a pace or two. Then he fastened Kicker's lead rope to Tug's saddle bow, loosened the little horse's girth strap, and looked for a clear space in the grass. Ghosts or no ghosts, he had to sleep.

The ground was hard and the cold struck through his cloak. But at the moment he first stretched out and groaned softly with pleasure, it felt as soft as the softest goose down mattress underneath him. He closed his eyes. He would wake in half an hour, he knew. If by any chance he didn't, Tug would wake him. But that was half an hour away.

For now, he could sleep.

He woke.

Instinctively, he knew that he hadn't been asleep for the full thirty minutes he had allotted to himself. Something had woken him. Something foreign.

Something hostile.

There had been no noise, he realised, as he tracked his thoughts back a few seconds. No sound had intruded into his consciousness to arouse him. It was something else. Something he could feel rather than see or hear. A presence. Something, or someone, was close by.

There was no outward sign that he was awake. His eyes were slitted so that he could see, without any observer realising that they were open. His breathing maintained the same steady rhythm that it had fallen into a few seconds after he had stretched out.

He took stock of the situation, reminding himself of where everything lay around him. The hilt of his saxe knife dug into his right side, where he had lain the double scabbard as he settled in to sleep. The fingers of his left hand touched the smooth surface of his bow, wrapped with him inside the cloak to protect the string from the dampness of the night air.

If there were someone close by, the saxe would be the better choice, he thought. He could spring to his feet and have it drawn and ready in a matter of seconds. The bow would be more cumbersome. He searched his senses, trying to determine a direction. Something had disturbed him. He was sure of that. Now he tried to sense where it lay. He gave himself over to pure instinct.

Where is it? Which direction?

He forced all conscious thought from his mind, letting it become a blank, removing all extraneous distractions the same way he did in the instant before releasing an arrow. His senses told him left. He slid his eyes sideways, without moving his head. But he still had them slitted, feigning sleep, and he could see nothing.

Nothing for it. He tossed and muttered, as if still asleep, and managed to turn his head to the left. Then he allowed his breathing to settle again into the deep even rhythms of sleep.

Something was there. He couldn't see it clearly but it was there. A huge, indistinct shape. Perhaps a man. But larger than any man he'd ever seen. He had a vague impression of armour. Ancient armour, with high rising shoulder guards and a helmet decorated with huge, angular wings.

Somehow, it looked familiar. He tried to remember where he had seen this figure before but his memory retreated down an unlit corridor as soon as he made the attempt. He concentrated on continuing to breathe deeply and evenly. The temptation was to catch his breath as he considered the situation.

He prepared himself, forcing oxygen into his limbs, ensuring that his mind was sharp and uncluttered, focused on what he was about to do. He rehearsed his actions in his mind. Right hand on the saxe knife. Draw it from the scabbard as he leapt to his feet, using his left hand to thrust up from the ground. Use his legs to spring up and to one side, in case the strange figure was prepared to strike at him. The sideways movement would force him to reconsider his stroke and the delay would help Will survive the first vital few seconds.

He prepared his muscles. His hand closed silently around the saxe knife hilt.

And then he was up. In one smooth, uncoiling movement, without any warning or visible preparation, he was on his feet and dancing to his right to avoid a possible sword or axe strike. The saxe gleamed in his hand as he flicked it to release it from its scabbard. He took up a combat crouch, the saxe held out low before him, tip slightly raised, his knees tensed and ready to spring either way, the rest of his muscles loose and ready for instant movement, either attack or defence.

Tug and Abelard both snorted in alarm at the sudden movement. Kicker, startled in his turn, but a little behind them, reared and tugged at his tether.

There was nothing. No giant indistinct warrior in ancient armour. No enemy ready to attack.

There was just the starlit night and the gentle soughing of wind through the long grass. Slowly, he relaxed, rising from his crouch and lowering the point of the saxe so that it lay alongside his thigh.

Then he remembered why the shape had seemed familiar. The Night Warrior, the terrifying illusion that Malcolm had created in Grimsdell Wood, had looked like that. With that realisation, he allowed the last of the tension to flow out of his body. He dropped the saxe point down into the soft ground and slumped wearily.

Had he dreamt it? Had his imagination, fed by the thought of the barrows and the legends of ancient ghosts, simply created the situation? He frowned, thinking. He was sure that he had been fully awake just before he leapt to his feet. But had he? Or had he been in that deceptive state of half sleep, half wakefulness that so often took an exhausted mind and body? And had an old memory stirred within him?

He shook his head. He didn't know. He couldn't tell when he had woken fully. He walked to the horses. They definitely seemed alarmed. But then, they would. After all, he had just leapt to his feet unexpectedly, waving his saxe knife around like a lunatic. He approached Tug and Abelard now. Both of them stood tensed, ears pricked, alert and nervous. Tug shifted his weight from one foot to another. Kicker had relaxed again but Kicker wasn't trained to the fine edge of awareness that the Ranger horses were.

Tug made that familiar low rumbling noise in his chest. Often that was a sign of danger. Or that he was uncertain. Will stroked his nose, speaking gently to him.

'What is it, boy? Do you feel something?'

Undoubtedly, the little horse did. But whether it was some presence close by or whether he was simply reacting to Will's sense of alarm, Will couldn't tell. Gradually, as Tug settled down and his eyes stopped flicking from one point to another in the surrounding night, Will decided that it was the latter. Tug and Abelard were nervous and alert simply because they could sense the same sense of alarm in him. After all, they had made no warning sound as he lay, feigning sleep. Gradually, Will's own racing pulse settled and he came to accept that there had been nothing. It had all been the result of imagination, combined with exhaustion. The fact that the intruder had appeared to look like the Night Warrior finally convinced him that it had come from within his own mind and he felt slightly foolish.

He retrieved his saxe knife, replaced it in the scabbard and buckled the scabbard round his waist. Then he donned his cloak, shaking some of the damp from it first, slung his quiver over his shoulder and picked up his bow.

'Imagination or not,' he said softly, 'I'm not staying here a second longer.'

He tightened the girth on Abelard's saddle and mounted. Then, leading Kicker and with Tug trotting beside him, he rode quickly away from his temporary resting place. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled slightly but he didn't look back.

Behind him, in the darkness, the ancient, invisible presence that inhabited the hill slipped silently back to its resting place, satisfied that another interloper had moved on. Thirty Back at the camp, the hours passed slowly for Horace. Most of the time, Halt lay still. From time to time he would rouse himself to toss and turn, muttering a few words, none of which made much sense.

Occasionally, Horace would hear Will's name mentioned and, once, his own. But most of the time, Halt's mind seemed to be in a place a long way away and a long time ago. He mentioned names and places Horace had never heard before.

Whenever Halt began these muttered outbursts, Horace would hurry to kneel beside him. He kept a supply of cloths soaking in a bowl of cool water, because he noticed that Halt's tossing and turning usually coincided with an increase in his temperature. It was never as dry and burning as it had been on the first day but he was obviously uncomfortable and Horace would mop his face and brow with the damp cool cloths, crooning a wordless tune of comfort as he did so. It seemed to settle the Ranger down and after a few minutes of these ministrations, he would fall into a deep, untroubled sleep once more.

Infrequently, he would wake and become lucid. Usually, he knew who and where he was and what had happened to him. On these occasions, Horace took the opportunity to coax him to eat a little. He made more of the beef broth, using some of their smoked, jerked beef, soaking it and simmering it. It seemed quite tasty and he hoped it had some nourishment in it. Halt needed nourishment, he felt. He was looking weaker and weaker every time he awoke. His voice was no more than a thin croak.

Once, he was awake and conscious for over an hour and Horace's hopes soared. He used the time to get Halt to give him instructions on how to make the camp fire bread he called damper. It was simple enough: flour, water and salt, moulded into a shape and then left buried under the embers for an hour or so. Unfortunately, by the time it was ready to eat, Halt had slipped away again. Horace disconsolately chewed the warm bread by himself. It was doughy and thick but he told himself it was delicious.

He cleaned his armour and sharpened his weapons. They were already razor-sharp but he knew that rust could quickly form on them if he didn't give them constant attention. And he practised his weapon drills as well, working for several hours until his shirt was damp with perspiration. All the time, his ears were alert for the slightest sound from the stricken Ranger, only a few metres away.

He wondered where Will was, and how far he had gone. He knew that the Ranger horses were capable of travelling prodigious distances in a day. But Will had to allow for the return journey as well and there'd be precious little time to rest the horses in between. He couldn't squander their reserves of energy on a one-way trip.

He looked at the map and tried to project Will's path and progress on it. But it was a vain attempt. There were too many uncertainties. Trails could be blocked or obliterated. Fords could have deepened or rivers could have flooded due to rain kilometres away. A dozen different things could force a traveller to make a detour in unknown country. Will had said he would be back in three days. That meant he planned to reach Macindaw, and Grimsdell Wood, where Malcolm had his cottage, in just over one day. The return journey would take longer. Malcolm couldn't be expected to ride nonstop without adequate rest as Will could do. Will had allowed two days' solid travelling, with a full night's rest period in between. It would be tough on the elderly healer, but it would be manageable.

Horace realised that his stock of firewood was getting low. At least replenishing it would give him something to do. He checked on Halt, watching the Ranger sleep for several minutes before deciding that he wasn't about to stir. Then he took the axe and a canvas log carrier and headed for a small grove of trees two or three hundred metres away. There were plenty of deadfalls there that would supply him with dry, ready to burn firewood.

He gathered sufficient kindling, then looked for heavier pieces, cutting them into manageable lengths with quick blows of the axe. Every so often, he would pause and turn to look back at the camp site. He could make out the prone figure lying near the smouldering fire. Chances were, of course, that if Halt were to cry out, he wouldn't hear him at this distance. It was hard enough to hear him from across the camp fire.

Satisfied that he had enough small pieces for cooking and a supply of heavier, longer-burning logs to last through the dark hours, he laid the wood on the log carrier and pulled the two rope handles together, holding the branches and chopped logs together inside the stout canvas. With the axe over his shoulder and the log holder in the other hand, he trudged back to the camp.

Halt was still sleeping and, so far as Horace could tell, he hadn't moved in the half hour that the tall warrior had been absent. In the back of his mind, Horace had nursed a vain hope that he would return and find Halt wide awake and recovered – or at least, on the road to recovery. The sight of the silent, unmoving shape filled him with sadness.

Moodily, he sat down on his haunches and fed a few of the smaller branches into the embers, fanning them so that tiny flames began to lick from the coals and eventually caught onto the wood. The coffee pot was standing upside down where he'd left it, after throwing away the dregs from the last pot he'd made earlier in the day. He filled the pot and set it to boil, then selected their store of coffee from the ration pack.

He hefted the little calico sack experimentally. It was nearly half empty and he had no idea where they would be able to replenish it in this wilderness.

'Better go easy,' he said aloud. He'd taken to talking to himself since Will had left. After all, there was no one around to hear him. 'Can't have Will arriving back and no coffee to give him.'

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 lose 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.' Thirty-two From the crest of a ridge overlooking the small camp, Bacari watched.

He wondered why the young archer had ridden away. Maybe he'd given up the chase? Then he shook his head. That didn't seem to fit with what he had seen of these three so far. More likely he'd gone in search of a local apothecary or healer.

The bearded one would be in bad shape by now, he knew. Bacari had heard him cry out and heard the clatter of his bow as he'd dropped it. That told him that his bolt had at least wounded his enemy.

And a simple flesh wound was as good as a killing shot with the poison he had used on the bolt. He was surprised that the bearded stranger had survived as long as he had. He must be in excellent physical condition to resist the effects of the poison for so long. The Genovesan smiled grimly to himself. The young man's quest for a healer would be in vain. No country potion merchant would have the faintest idea how to counteract that poison. In fact, he thought, very few healers in large towns would know either.

It was all to the good, he thought. The camp site where Tennyson had arranged to meet with his local followers was barely four hours' ride away. If their pursuers had continued to follow them, they would have caught up in another half day's march. And with Marisi killed in the encounter in the dead forest, the odds were tilting in their pursuers' favour. Bacari didn't relish another straight-out confrontation with the two younger riders, even if the older one was out of the way.

For a few seconds, he considered working his way into crossbow range and taking a shot at the young warrior. But he quickly abandoned the idea. He'd be crossing open ground, where he might easily be seen. If he missed his shot, he'd have to face the swordsman and he'd seen ample evidence of his skill in Hibernia. In addition, he had no way of knowing when the younger archer might return. No, he decided. Leave them be. They represented no immediate danger and his own priorities were changing.

It was time to report back to Tennyson, he thought. He'd already decided that his time with the self-styled prophet might be coming to an end. But before he left, he had to discover where Tennyson kept the gold and precious stones that he'd brought from Hibernia. So, for the time being, he'd play the part of the faithful bodyguard.

By the time he reached the sprawling camp site, he could see that the numbers had already grown. There must have been over fifty new arrivals. He rode slowly through the camp to Tennyson's tent. He smiled as he saw that the simple canvas tent had been replaced with a more substantial pavilion. The newly arrived converts had obviously brought the materials with them.

One of the white robes stood guard outside the pavilion. As Bacari dismounted and walked stiffly towards the entrance, the guard began to draw himself up, as if he were going to bar the way. Bacari smiled at him, but there was something in the smile that told the man he was not a good person to cross. Hastily, the guard stepped back and beckoned him to enter.

Tennyson was seated at a folding table, writing on a large piece of parchment. He looked up in annoyance as Bacari entered unannounced.

'Don't you ever knock?' Tennyson asked sourly.

The Genovesan made a pretence of looking around for something in the canvas walls to knock on. With bad grace, Tennyson waved him to a folding canvas chair, on the opposite side of the table to his own.

'So, what do you have to report?' the prophet said, finishing the last few words on the parchment.

'They've stopped,' Bacari said. That got Tennyson's attention, he thought. The burly man dropped his quill pen and looked up.

'Stopped? Where?'

'About four, maybe five hours' ride away. The older one is sick. He'll die soon.'

'You're sure of that?' Tennyson put in.

'Yes. The poison is in him. He's been wrapped in his blankets for almost two days now. I haven't seen him move. There's no way he will survive. Nobody does.'

Tennyson nodded several times. A cruel smile formed on his lips. 'Good,' he said. 'I hope he dies in pain.'

'He will,' Bacari assured him.

'What about the others? The two young ones?'

Bacari frowned as he answered. 'One has gone. The other stayed with the greybeard.'

'What do you mean, "gone"?' Tennyson asked, a frown creasing his forehead.

'Gone means gone,' Bacari said insolently. 'He rode away. The other one stayed behind. He seems to be tending the bearded one.'

Tennyson rose and began pacing the tent, his mind sorting through this strange turn of events. He turned back to the Genovesan. 'Did he take anything with him?'

Bacari made a small gesture with his hands – it seemed to indicate that the information was unimportant.

'Not that I could see. Aside from the two other horses.' He noticed that Tennyson's face was beginning to flush with rage as he heard this piece of news.

'He took all the horses?'

Bacari shrugged and nodded. He didn't say anything.

'Did it occur to you,' Tennyson said, his voice heavy with sarcasm, 'that he obviously plans to bring someone back? That's why he took extra horses.'

'He may be planning to bring back a healer. I thought of that. But if he is, so what? It will be no use. The bearded one has no chance. And besides, the nearest large settlement where he might hope to find a healer is Collings Vale – and that's more than a day's ride away. That means they won't be moving for at least three days – more if they wait to see if their friend can be cured.'

Tennyson pondered this, his anger slowly subsiding. But the Genovesan's arrogant manner was still a thorn in his side.

'True enough. You're sure there's no cure for this poison of yours?'

'There's a cure. But they won't find it. However, the longer the bearded one survives, the better it is for us.'

'Just how do you figure that?' Tennyson asked. The thoughtful frown was back on his face.

'They won't travel any further while he's sick. So if they find a healer and he delays the inevitable, then that's all to the good. At least so far as we're concerned,' he added, with a cruel grin. 'Postponing things won't do the bearded one much good.'

Tennyson thought about what the Genovesan had said and nodded several times. Finally he came a decision. 'I think you're right,' he said. 'But I want you to get back there and keep an eye on things, just in case.'

The assassin bridled with anger. 'To what purpose?' he demanded. 'I've just ridden four hours. I tell you they're not going anywhere. I'm not going to spend a night out in the wet grass just because you're jumping at shadows! If you want to watch over them tonight, you go and do it.'

Tennyson glared at him. Sooner or later, he had known it would come to this with the Genovesans. They were too proud, too arrogant. And too sure of themselves.

'Keep a respectful tongue in your head when you talk to me, Signor Bacari,' he warned. The Genovesan let go a short bark of contemptuous laughter.

'Or what? I don't fear you, fat man. I don't fear any of your men or your false god. The only person in this camp who is to be feared is me. Understand?'

Tennyson forced down the rage that was welling up in him. The Genovesan was correct, he realised. But that didn't mean that, as soon as the chance arose, Tennyson wasn't going to kill him. For the moment, however, he would maintain an outward appearance of agreement.

'You're right,' he said. 'You must be tired and cold. Get some food and rest.'

Bacari nodded, satisfied that his point had been made. Now he could afford to compromise, for the sake of good relations – and until he found where Tennyson had stashed his gold.

'I will sleep tonight,' he said haughtily. 'Tomorrow, before dawn, I will ride back to check on them.'

'Of course,' Tennyson said in a silky tone. He wondered if Bacari knew how much he hated him at this moment – but took care not to let any hint of that fact enter his manner or tone of voice. 'That's an excellent compromise. After all, for the moment, they're not going anywhere, as you say.'

Bacari nodded, satisfied. But he couldn't resist one last barbed statement.

'That's right,' he said. 'It is as I say.'

And he turned and swept out of the tent, his purple cloak swirling round him. Tennyson stared after him for several minutes, his fists clenching and unclenching in rage.

'One day, my friend,' he said in a whisper, 'your turn will come. And it will be long and slow and painful. I promise you that.' Thirty-three Someone was watching them.

Horace didn't know how he knew. He simply knew. Some sixth sense, the same extra sense that had kept him alive in a dozen combats, told him that someone was watching. He thought he'd sensed a presence on the previous day, when Will had left. Today, he was sure of it.

He continued to move around the camp site, attending to the chores that needed his attention. He cleaned his breakfast utensils and the frying pan he'd used, scouring them with sand and then rinsing them clean in a bucket of clear water from the pond. Halt was still asleep and he seemed to be resting easily. Horace thought he preferred Halt that way, compared to the way he had been – mistaking Horace for Crowley and talking about a long-ago battle with bandits. There had been something decidedly unnerving about that. It forced him to acknowledge the fact that Halt was seriously ill, even close to death. The sight of him resting peacefully was more encouraging. He could believe – or at least he could hope – that the Ranger was actually recovering from the effects of the poison. Logically, he knew that it was only a matter of time before Halt woke again and rambled on about events long past. But hope doesn't always follow logic and he clung to it desperately.

Besides, there was the small matter of someone watching them. That would need to be addressed before too long. He assessed the situation. He knew it would be a mistake to let the watcher know that he had been detected. But here in the open, there was no way he could scan the surrounding countryside to search for some sign of the observer without alerting him.

The odds were that the unknown watcher was somewhere on the ridge to the south-east – the direction in which Tennyson and his group had been travelling. That, after all, was the direction of greatest danger. Of course, it could be someone who had no connection to their present situation – a random traveller who had crossed their trail. Or perhaps a robber, waiting his chance to steal into the camp, assessing his chances against the strangers, measuring their strengths and weaknesses.

But the greater likelihood was that they were being observed by one of Tennyson's followers. And if that were so, it would most likely be the surviving Genovesan. For a moment, his flesh crawled at the thought of a crossbowman lying hidden somewhere out there. Then he relaxed. The low ridge was over three hundred metres away and Will had told him that the Genovesans were armed with relatively low-powered crossbows. Maximum accurate range couldn't be more than one hundred and fifty metres.

But still, the thought that he was being watched rankled. It was like an itch that he couldn't reach to scratch. He glanced casually around the surrounding terrain. The nearest cover where he could scan the horizon without being seen was by the pond, some fifty metres away. It was in a depression in the ground and there were several trees and bushes growing beside the water. From there, he could easily find a concealed observation point. The only problem was, he had already fetched fresh water for the camp. It had been his first task of the morning, before he became aware of the eyes upon him. The watcher might not have been there at that time. But if he had, he would wonder why Horace was fetching water again so soon. And if he started to wonder, he'd grow suspicious.

Then he'd either move off or move against them, and Horace wasn't ready for either of those alternatives. He wanted to know who was out there. And why. He wished Will was back. But the earliest he could expect him would be the next day – assuming he'd been able to maintain the pace he had planned on.

An idea struck him. He moved to the fire and selected a few medium-sized branches from the pile of firewood. Adding them to the fire, he turned away and kicked against the full bucket of water. It lurched sideways and he stooped quickly, as if trying to prevent it tipping. In reality, he finished the job, shoving the bucket over onto its side, spilling the water.

Some of the water ran into the freshly replenished fire, creating a plume of steam and smoke that would be easily visible to the observer. Just to make sure he got the full picture, Horace aimed a kick at the bucket, sending it spinning away, and said in a loud voice:

'Damn it!'

He was rather proud of that bit of byplay. He recalled a conversation at Castle Araluen some months prior, with a member of a touring acting company. The actor had advised Horace to take a seat a little way down the hall for their performance, not right at the front.

'We have to play to the back of the house,' he had explained, 'so our expressions and gestures are somewhat larger than life. Sit too close and it becomes unrealistic.'

At the time, Horace had thought he was simply creating an excuse for what seemed to be excessive over-acting. But now he saw the sense of it.

I certainly played to the back of the house then, he thought with grim satisfaction.

Halt had stirred and murmured briefly when Horace swore and kicked at the offending bucket. Horace checked on him now, reassuring himself that the Ranger had settled. He winced as he moved. His toe was bruised from the solid contact with the bucket and he knew it would ache for a day or two. He shrugged philosophically. Sometimes, an actor had to suffer for his art.

He moved to retrieve the bucket then, walking through the camp, he bent quickly to his pack and picked up his sword and scabbard, holding them close against his side, out of sight. With any luck, the distant watcher wouldn't have seen what he'd picked up.

Trying to look casual, he strolled across the grass to the pond. He walked down the shallow incline to the bank, dropping below ground level as he did so. As soon as the horizon was concealed from his sight – and, by the same token, he was concealed from anyone watching from there – he went into a crouch and placed the bucket on the ground. Staying in the crouch, he moved quickly to the cover of the trees and bushes, where he dropped belly down on the ground.

Pushing himself along on elbows and knees, he squirmed carefully through the undergrowth until he could see the distant ridge.

He began to scan it carefully, dividing it into sectors and searching methodically back and forth, keeping his eyes moving so they wouldn't become fixed to one focus. It took a couple of minutes, but finally he saw a quick movement. He caught it with his peripheral vision, then swung his eyes and focused on it. The watcher had edged forward. Perhaps, after Horace had dropped from sight, he was trying to find a better vantage point to catch sight of the young warrior again.

Now his head and shoulders were visible above the ridge line. If he hadn't seen that small movement, chances are Horace would never have noticed. But now he could see the shape clearly. And he fancied he could also see a faint tinge of dull purple.

'So you've come back, have you?' he muttered. He glanced around, searching the surrounding countryside, looking for a way he could approach the watcher without being seen.

'I need a gully or a stretch of dead ground somewhere,' he said to himself. But he could see no such feature in the land between him and the ridge. Ruefully, he decided that if he were a Ranger, he would have the skill to ghost forward unseen and unheard through the long grass. But, even though Halt had given him a camouflage cloak, he knew the task was beyond him. And the thought of approaching an expert crossbowman across open ground was not an inviting one.

Besides, it would take too long. The Genovesan would be expecting him to reappear in the next few minutes, heading back to the camp site with a replenished water bucket. If he became suspicious, who knew what his next action might be? No, Horace decided, since he couldn't get close to the man, it was best to pretend he hadn't spotted him. It would be a sleepless night tonight, he thought.

He retrieved the bucket and, at the last moment, remembered to refill it. His mind was so preoccupied with the problem of the watching Genovesan that he nearly forgot that small detail. If he'd had to make a return trip, that would really have roused the observer's suspicion, he thought.

When he arrived back at the camp, the problem of the hidden watcher was pushed from his mind for a few minutes. He was delighted and surprised to find Halt awake and lucid.

As they talked, it became apparent that Halt knew where they were and what had happened. He no longer mistook Horace for Crowley and his mind was well and truly back in the present.

His throat was dry, however, and Horace fetched him a cup of coffee. He could see the colour flowing back into Halt's face as he drank the reviving beverage. After a few appreciative sips, Halt looked around the neat camp site.

'Where's Will? I assume he's gone on after Tennyson?'

Horace shook his head. 'He's gone to fetch Malcolm,' he replied and, as Halt momentarily puzzled over the name, he added, 'The healer.'

That brought a frown of disapproval to Halt's face and he shook his head.

'He shouldn't have done that. He should have left me to my own devices and followed the Outsiders. They'll be miles away by now! How long did you say I've been unconscious?'

'Tomorrow will be the third day,' Horace said and the frown on Halt's face deepened.

'That's too big a lead to give them. They could give you the slip. He shouldn't have wasted time going after Malcolm.'

Horace noted the phrase they could give you the slip. Obviously, Halt had ruled himself out of further action against the Outsiders. He hesitated, wondering whether to tell him about the Genovesan who had been keeping watch on them. If the Genovesan was reporting back to Tennyson, the Outsiders couldn't be too far away, he thought. But he decided, on balance, it might be better not to trouble Halt with the news that they were being observed. Instead, he replied:

'Would you have done that in his place? Would you have left him and gone on?'

'Of course I would!' Halt replied immediately. But something in his voice rang false and Horace looked at him, raising one eyebrow. He'd waited a long time for an opportunity to use that expression of disbelief to Halt.

After a pause, the Ranger's anger subsided.

'All right. Perhaps I wouldn't,' he admitted. Then he glared at Horace. 'And stop raising that eyebrow at me. You can't even do it properly. Your other eyebrow moves with it!'

'Yes, Halt,' said Horace, in a mock-subservient tone. He felt an indescribable tide of relief sweeping over him now that Halt seemed to be getting back to normal. Perhaps they wouldn't need Malcolm after all, he thought.

He fixed Halt a light meal of broth and damper. At first, he tried to feed the grey-bearded Ranger. Halt's indignant refusal lightened his spirits even more.

'I'm not an invalid! Give me that damned spoon!' the Ranger said and Horace turned away to hide his grin. That was more like the loveable Halt of old, he thought.

Late in the afternoon, with Halt sleeping calmly, he became aware of a strange sensation. Or, more correctly, a lack of sensation. Since the morning, he had felt the constant scrutiny of the Genovesan's eyes. Now, suddenly, the feeling was gone.