The Royal Ranger

Sixteen

The twenty arrows grew into forty. Then Will finally relented and let Maddie rest for the day.

That night, the muscles in her shoulders, back and upper arms ached and cramped as she tossed on her bed, trying to sleep. The strip of light under her bedroom door told her that Will was still awake. After an hour, she rose, tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack, peering through. Her mentor was sitting by the fire, with a sheaf of papers on his knee—reports from other fiefs, she knew. As she watched, he took a sheet and placed it in a leather folder on the side table by his elbow.

“Could be him,” Will muttered softly. Then he took up the next report, angling the page so that the candle light struck it directly.

Frowning thoughtfully, Maddie went back to bed.

“What was that all about?” she wondered. Somehow, she sensed it would be a mistake to quiz him on the matter.

The next day, after she had completed her housekeeping duties, Will had her at it again. She shot twenty arrows, rested for ten minutes, then shot another twenty. Again, her back and shoulders shrieked with pain. But she gritted her teeth and kept at it. By the end of the week, she sensed that it was becoming a little easier to draw the bow back to the full length of the arrow. Her technique was improving and her muscles were toughening. The pain was still there, but now it was a dull ache, not the searing cramps of the first few days. And it was decreasing with each passing day.

As she practised, she noted Will’s continuing preoccupation with the regular reports from Rangers in other fiefs. He would sit, his back against a tree, scanning new reports as they came in. She knew by now that it was standard practice for Rangers to keep up to date with events around the Kingdom. But she sensed that this was something more than routine. Every so often, he would add a page or two to the growing file in the leather folder.

After two weeks, she found she could draw the bow with relative ease and hold it steady for several seconds. As this happened, she found her accuracy was improving and she was hitting in the centre of the bale more than half the time. Her misses and near misses were becoming less and less frequent.

As he saw her technique and strength growing, Will began to work with her on her accuracy.

“Don’t try to aim down the arrow shaft,” he told her. “You have to sense where the arrow will go. You need to see the entire sighting picture—the bale of hay, the bow and the arrowhead. Learn where the arrow will fly.”

She frowned. “How do I do that?”

“There’s only one way. You practise. Over and over again, so that aligning the shot to the target becomes an instinctive action. After a while, after seeing enough arrows fly, you’ll instinctively know where to position the bow in the sighting picture. As the range increases, you’ll also need to gauge how much elevation you give the arrow—how far above the target you need to aim to hit the centre.”

Of course, archery wasn’t the only skill she was practising. He also set her to practising with her throwing knife and the saxe knife, using a pine board set against a tree for a target. As she became more proficient in putting the knives into the target from a short range, he moved her back so that she had to judge how to spin the knives twice on their way to the pine board.

At least, she thought, this didn’t leave her with aching, cramped muscles. She had to admit, there was no sound in the world more satisfying than the solid thunk of a knife burying its point into the pinewood.

And nothing more frustrating than the vibrating rattle of an inaccurate throw hitting the board side on and bouncing harmlessly into the trees.

There were other lessons, too. Will showed her how the mottled, uneven design of the cloaks they wore helped them blend into the background of the woods around them.

“The mottling breaks up the regular shape of a person’s body. There’s nothing even. Everything is irregular and random, and the colouring matches the greens and greys of the trees and undergrowth.

“But the real secret is to stand absolutely still. Most people are spotted when they think they’ve already been discovered and they move. It’s movement that gives us away. But if you stand perfectly still, you’d be surprised how close a searcher can be and still not spot you. Remember the basic rule: Trust the cloak.”

The words echoed in his own mind as he spoke them. He remembered the countless times Halt had said them to him. He found there was something surprisingly satisfying in passing this knowledge on to a younger person—particularly as he found Maddie to be eager to learn. The skills of a Ranger fascinated her. She was an adventurous spirit, like her mother, and she was more suited to learning about stalking and shooting than sewing and embroidery.

There were still some aspects of her attitude that needed correction. She had spent her life so far being spoiled and having people accede to her every whim. As a consequence, she liked to get her own way. If things didn’t go well immediately, she could become impatient and frustrated.

And while she was a much more pleasant person than she had been initially, there was still a level of petulance there as well. Like her mother, Will thought to himself, remembering how Evanlyn had been in their first days together on Erak’s ship and on Skorghijl.

But Maddie was also determined—which was possibly the reverse side of petulance, he thought—and that definitely won his approval. He noted that, even when she wasn’t shooting, she would string the bow then spend twenty minutes to half an hour simply drawing the string back and slowly releasing it, building her muscle memory and strength.

He came upon her at the rear of the cabin one day, struggling with the thick stringer cord to bend the limbs of the bow and set the bowstring in place.

“There’s another way to do that,” he said. “And you don’t have to carry a stringer round all the time.”

He held out his hand and she passed him the unstrung bow. He detached the stringer and handed it back to her.

“I think your strength might have improved enough for you to try this way,” he said.

She watched as he hooked one of the recurve spurs around the front of his left ankle, then stepped his right foot through the gap between the loose string and the bow. Then, with his left ankle holding the bow firmly in place, he used his weight and the strength of his back and right arm to bend the bow forward, using his right thigh as a fulcrum.

The bowstring slid smoothly up the limb of the bow and he seated it firmly in its notch. Then he straightened and handed her the strung bow.

“There,” he said. “You unstring it the same way. Try it.”

She mimicked his position, then pushed against the bow limb to bend it so that she could release the loop of the bowstring from the top of the bow. She struggled at first, but found that by using the strength of her legs, her back and her newly tautened shoulder and arm muscles, she could bend the bow forward.

She smiled triumphantly at him. He nodded, unsmiling. But that didn’t dampen her sense of achievement. She settled the bow firmly against her left ankle, then heaved at it to reset the string. She struggled over the last few vital centimetres, then felt a sense of accomplishment as the looped end of the bowstring slid home.

“Is that how you string your bow?” she asked. She realised that she had never seen him do this. He shrugged.

“Sometimes. It’s easier with the recurve—the way it locks behind your ankle and stays in place. With a normal longbow, that can slip out at the most embarrassing time. But generally, I use this.”

He gestured to the back of his right boot, and she noticed that there was a loop of leather strap there, behind the heel.

“I put one end of the bow into that loop, then use my whole body to bend the bow over my back while I slide the string into place,” he said.

She nodded thoughtfully, seeing how it would work.

“So the idea is to use all your muscles to bend the bow—back, legs and arms?” she said.

“That’s the best way to do it. Use everything you’ve got. Don’t overwork one part. Most Rangers are small, after all. We need to use all the muscles we’ve got.”

She looked at him curiously. She had never thought of him as being particularly small. But now she realised that he was much shorter than her father—and most of the other knights and warriors she had known over the years. Shorter, perhaps, but no smaller around the shoulders and chest. She guessed that a lifetime of practising with his longbow, with its draw weight of eighty to ninety pounds, had developed those muscles to their current condition.

As he so often did, Will seemed to sense what she was thinking.

“There’s something to be said for being small,” he told her. “After all, the bigger you are, the more there is to hide.”

He nodded at the bow that she was still holding in her hand.

“Don’t let me stop you practising,” he said, and strolled away. A bundle of reports had come in with the mail courier that morning and he needed to go through them.

She began to draw the bow, pushing in and out, drawing the string back. Now, she found, she could bring it back past her nose, until her index finger was almost touching the corner of her mouth.

“I may need to make you some longer arrows,” she heard him say. She looked up in surprise. She thought he had gone, but he had stopped at the corner of the cabin to watch her.

“Keep practising,” he said, then moved away once more.

Usually she practised archery and knife throwing in the afternoon, with the mornings taken up by fitness training, distance running and camouflage skills. But on this day, Will changed the routine. They ate lunch together in the cabin—fresh bread, sharp, tangy cheese and apples. She washed hers down with cool milk, while he had coffee. He’d shown her how to grind the beans rather than just dump them in the pot and douse them with boiling water. He sipped the last few drops appreciatively.

“You’re getting better at this,” he said. They cleared the table together and washed their plates. Then she reached for her bow and quiver, which were hanging from hooks beside the door. But he shook his head.

“Not today,” he said. “Today I want to see how good you are with that sling of yours.”

“I’m pretty good,” she said confidently, although when she thought about it, she realised that she hadn’t used the sling since she’d been at Redmont. Her days had been preoccupied with the bow and her knives.

Will raised an eyebrow. “And modest about it as well,” he commented.

She shrugged, hoping that she wouldn’t disgrace herself when the moment came. She went to her room and took the sling and a pouch of shot from the chest that contained her belongings.

In the clearing outside, Will had set up five poles, each topped by a battered helmet he had scavenged from the discard pile at the Redmont Battleschool armoury. The five poles were at staggered distances, with the closest a mere twenty metres away and the farthest more than forty. There was no symmetry in their placement. The nearest pole was on the extreme right, the farthest in the middle of the line, with the others staggered randomly. She assessed the targets thoughtfully. This was a tougher test than Halt and Crowley had set for her at Castle Araluen. She’d have to assess the distance for each shot. She tied her shot bag onto her belt, selected one of the lead balls and set it in the sling’s pouch, letting the weapon dangle from her right hand, swinging loosely. Will watched closely as she loaded the sling, then put out his hand.

“May I see?” he asked, pointing to the weighted pouch. She took out another shot and handed it to him, watching as he assessed its weight and heft.

“Lead,” he said. “Your mother used stones, as I recall.”

She nodded. “I used to use stones. I still would, at a pinch. But the weight varies and the shapes are irregular, and that affects your accuracy. This way, I know each shot is identical to the one before it. You wouldn’t shoot arrows that were different lengths and weights, would you?”

He nodded, appreciating the point. “Where do you get them?”

“I make them. I have a mould. I melt the lead and pour it in. Then I file off the little edges that form around the join in the mould.”

“Hmmm,” he said. He studied the shot and could see the file marks where she’d smoothed off its circumference. He approved of people making their own weapons and projectiles. Particularly someone who was a princess and could have handed off the task to the armourers at Castle Araluen.

“Right, five shots. One for each helmet. Let’s see how good you really are,” he said. He placed a slight emphasis on the word “really’ and watched to see how she reacted to it. She glanced at him, her lips tightening into a thin line. A challenge had been issued and she was about to take it up.

“Which one first?” she asked. He screwed up his lips in mock consideration.

“Let’s see. Those five helmets represent five Temujai warriors charging towards you, bent on separating you from your head. Which would you choose as the first target?”

The answer was obvious. “The closest,” she said and he nodded, then gestured towards the line of helmets.

“Of course, by now he would have been upon you and your little sling wouldn’t be doing you much good, would it?”

She took the hint.

He watched as she turned side on, advancing her left foot towards the target, letting the loaded sling drop back behind her extended right arm. She let it swing once, setting the shot in the pouch, then brought her right arm up and over in a near-vertical arc, whipping the sling over and releasing as she stepped through with her right leg.

CLANG!

The helmet she had selected as a target jumped in the air under the impact of the heavy lead ball and clattered on the ground, rolling from side to side. Almost immediately, she had reloaded the sling and cast again, this time at the helmet on the extreme left of the line.

CLANG!

The shot struck off centre and the helmet rotated wildly on the pole. But she was already lining up a third target. She cast again. But she was a little hasty and the lead ball whizzed past the helmet, missing it by thirty centimetres.

She hesitated, not sure whether to shoot at that target again.

“He’s still coming at you,” Will said quietly. Quickly, she reloaded, cast again and sent the helmet jumping off the pole and spinning in the dust.

One shot left. She loaded, lined up the nearest remaining helmet and threw. The sling whipped overhead. The lead shot whizzed away and smashed square into the front of the helmet, putting a huge new dent in its battered surface.

She looked at him, her face flushed.

“How do you think that went?” he asked her, his face and voice devoid of expression.

She shrugged, trying not to look too pleased with herself. “Well, four out of five. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?”

He regarded her for a few seconds in silence.

“There were five Temujai warriors charging you,” he said. “You hit four of them. Presumably, the fifth one reached you. In that situation, four out of five isn’t pretty good. It’s pretty dead.”

She felt herself reddening with anger and embarrassment. He was right, she thought. In this world, four out of five wasn’t good enough.

“Keep practising,” he told her.

“Until I get it right,” she said. But he corrected her.

“No. Until you don’t get it wrong.”