Ranger's Apprentice 3 & 4 Bindup (31 page)

‘You really mean Horace is some kind of hero in Gallica?' Will asked incredulously, not totally sure that Halt and Horace weren't pulling off some kind of enormous practical joke. But the grizzled Ranger was nodding his head emphatically.

‘A regular figure of respect,' he said. Evanlyn turned to the muscular young warrior and leaned forward to touch his hand lightly.

‘I can believe it,' she said. ‘Did you see the way he took care of that Temujai soldier who was trying to kill me?' Her eyes were alight with an unusual warmth and Will, noticing it, felt a sudden shaft of jealousy for his old friend. Then he pushed the unworthy thought aside.

Halt had been unwilling to remain too close to the Temujai camp site. There was no telling how far away the main force might be and there was always the possibility that the two men who had escaped might lead others back to the spot.

They had retraced the path Halt and Horace had followed, moving back towards the border crossing where they had discovered the first evidence of the Temujai assault. Around the middle of the day, they found a spot on a hilltop, with a good view of the surrounding terrain and a saucer-shaped depression that would keep them hidden from sight. Here, they could see without being seen, and Halt decided to camp there while he made up his mind as to their next move.

They had built a small fire, screened by a grove of young pines, and prepared a meal.

Evanlyn and Will fell ravenously on the savoury stew that the Ranger had prepared and for a while there was silence, broken only by the sound of dedicated eating.

Then the old friends began to catch up on the events that had taken place since the final confrontation with the Wargal army on the Plains of Uthal. Will's jaw had dropped with amazement as Halt described how Horace had defeated the terrifying Lord Morgarath in single combat.

Horace looked suitably embarrassed and Halt, sensing this, described the combat in a light-hearted tone, jokingly implying that the boy had stumbled clumsily and fallen under the oncoming hooves of Morgarath's battlehorse, rather than choosing to do so as a deliberate last throw of the dice to unseat his opponent. The apprentice warrior blushed and pointed out that his final ploy – the double knife defence – had been taught to him by Gilan and that he and Will had spent hours practising the skill on their trip through Celtica. He made it sound as if, somehow, Will deserved some share of the credit for his victory. As he spoke, Will leaned back comfortably against a log and
thought how much Horace had changed. Once his sworn enemy when they were both growing up as castle wards, Horace had become his closest friend.

Well, one of his closest friends, he thought, as he felt a shaggy head butt insistently against his shoulder. He twisted round, reaching out one hand to stroke Tug's ears and scratch the spot between them the way the little horse enjoyed. Tug let go a low snuffle of pleasure at the touch of his master's hand. Since they had been reunited, the horse had refused to stray more than a metre or two from Will's presence.

Halt looked at the two of them now, across the camp fire, and smiled inwardly. He felt an enormous sense of relief now that he had finally found his apprentice. A weight of self-blame had lifted from him, for he had suffered greatly in the long months since he had watched the wolfship sailing away from the Araluan coast with Will on board. He felt he had failed the youngster, that he had somehow betrayed him. Now that the boy was safely back in his care, he was filled with a deep sense of wellbeing. Admittedly, the events of the past day had also left a new worry gnawing at the back of his mind but, for the moment, that could wait while he enjoyed the reunion.

‘Do you think you could persuade that horse of yours to stay with the other horses for a minute or two?' he said with mock severity. ‘Otherwise he'll wind up believing that he's one of us.'

‘He's been driving Halt crazy since we first found your tracks,' Horace put in, glad that the conversation was moving away from his exploits. ‘He must have picked up your scent and known it was you we were following, although Halt didn't realise it.'

At that, Halt raised an eyebrow. ‘Halt didn't realise it?' he repeated. ‘And I suppose you did?'

Horace shrugged. ‘I'm just a warrior,' he replied. ‘I'm not supposed to be a thinker. I leave that to you Rangers.'

‘I must admit it had me puzzled,' Halt said. ‘I've never seen a Ranger horse behave like that. Even when I ordered him to calm down and be silent, I could tell there was something on his mind. When you first stepped out of the trees to shoot I thought he was going to take off after you.'

Will continued to rub the shaggy head as it leaned down to him. He smiled broadly around the camp site. Now that Halt was here, and he was surrounded by his closest friends, he felt safe and secure once more – a sensation he hadn't enjoyed in over a year. He smiled at the Ranger, relieved that Halt had been pleased with his actions. Evanlyn had described their journey across the Stormwhite Sea, and the series of events that had led to their arrival at Hallasholm.

Horace had looked at Will with open admiration as she described the way he had humbled the wolfship captain Slagor in the draughty, smoky cabin on the barren island where they had sheltered from the Stormwhite's worst excesses. Halt had merely studied his apprentice with a keen glance and nodded once. That single movement meant more to Will than volumes of praise from anyone else – particularly since he wasn't terribly proud of the way things had turned out at Hallasholm, and his subsequent addiction to warmweed. He had been fearful that Halt would disapprove, but when Evanlyn had spoken of her near despair when she had found him in the yard slaves' compound, mindless and unthinking, the Ranger
had merely nodded once more and uttered a curse under his breath at people who would inflict such a substance on others. His eyes had met Will's anxious gaze across the fireplace and Will had seen a deep, deep sadness there.

‘I'm sorry you had to go through that,' his master said softly, and Will knew that everything would be all right again.

Eventually, they had talked their fill. There would be details that could be filled in over the coming weeks, and there were items that they had forgotten. But in general terms, they were up to date with each other.

There was, however, one aspect of Halt's story that hadn't been revealed. Neither Will nor Evanlyn had learned of Halt's banishment, or his expulsion from the Ranger Corps. As he had told Horace before they crossed the border, it was something that he didn't wish to discuss just yet.

As the shadows lengthened, Halt moved once more to the spot where their captive was tied hand and foot. He loosened the bonds for a few minutes, first the hands, then the feet, re-tying the hands before he released the second set of bonds. The Temujai warrior grunted a brief appreciation of the temporary relief. Halt had already done this several times during the afternoon, ensuring that the man wasn't permanently disabled by the restriction of the flow of blood to his hands and feet.

It also gave him an opportunity to make sure the man's bonds were tight and that he hadn't managed to loosen them or wriggle free. Knowing he would receive no reply, Halt asked the man for his name and his military unit. Although he spoke the Temujai tongue with reasonable
fluency, having spent several years among the People, as they called themselves, he saw no reason to appraise the prisoner of that fact. As a consequence, Halt used the trader's language common to all the people of the Hemisphere – a melange of Gallic, Teuton and Temujai words in a simple, pigeon-language structure that took no notice of grammar or syntax.

As he had expected, the Tem'uj simply ignored his overtures. Halt shrugged and moved away, deep in thought. Horace was sitting by the fireplace, carefully cleaning and oiling his sword. Evanlyn was in the sentry position at the brow of the hilltop, keeping watch over the hillside below them. She would be due to be relieved in another half hour, he thought idly. As Halt paced back and forth, turning over the problem that taxed his mind, he became aware of another presence beside him. He glanced around and smiled to see Will pacing with him, wrapped in the grey mottled Ranger cloak that Halt had carried with him, along with the bow he'd made and a saxe knife. The double knife scabbards were a Ranger-issued item of equipment and Halt, expelled from the Corps, had been unable to find one for the boy. As yet, Will hadn't remarked on the fact.

‘What's the problem, Halt?' the young man asked now.

Halt stopped pacing to face him, his eyebrow arcing in an expression that was familiar to Will.

‘Problem?' he repeated. Will grinned at him, refusing to be put off, refusing to be diverted. He's grown up a lot in the past year, Halt thought, remembering how that response would once have left the boy confused and disconcerted.

‘When you pace back and forth like a caged tiger, it usually means you're trying to think through a problem of some kind,' Will said. Halt pursed his lips thoughtfully.

‘And I suppose you've seen so many tigers in your time?' he asked. ‘Caged and otherwise?'

Will's grin widened a little. ‘And when you try to distract me from my question by asking a question back, I
know
you're thinking over some problem,' he added. Halt finally gave in. He had no idea that his habits had become so easy to interpret. He made a mental note to change things, then wondered if he wasn't getting too old to do so.

‘Well, yes,' he replied. ‘I must admit I do have something on my mind. Nothing major. Don't let it worry you.'

‘What is it?' said his apprentice bluntly and Halt cocked his head sideways.

‘You see,' he explained, ‘when I say “don't let it worry you”, I mean, there's no real need for us to discuss it.'

‘I know that,' said his apprentice, still grinning. ‘But what is it anyway?'

Halt drew a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh. ‘I seem to remember that I once had much more authority than I seem to have these days,' he said to no one in particular. Then, realising that Will was still waiting expectantly, he relented.

‘It's these Temujai,' he said. ‘I'd like to know what they're up to.' He glanced across their camp site to where the Tem'uj was sitting, securely bound. ‘And I've got a snowball's chance in a forest fire of finding out from our friend there.'

Will shrugged. ‘Is it really any of our concern?' he
asked. ‘After all, surely we can leave them and the Skandians to fight it out.'

Halt considered this, scratching at his chin with forefinger and thumb. ‘I take it you're thinking along the lines of the old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”?' he said and Will shrugged once again.

‘I wasn't thinking of it in those words exactly,' he said. ‘But it does sum the situation up pretty well, don't you think? If the Skandians are kept busy fighting these Temujai, then they won't be able to bother us with their coastal raids, will they?'

‘That's true, up to a point,' Halt admitted. ‘But there is another old saying: “Rather the devil you know”. Have you ever heard that one?'

‘Yes. So you're saying that these Temujai could be a lot more of a problem than the Skandians?'

‘Oh yes indeed. If they defeat the Skandians, there's nothing to stop them moving on Teutlandt, Gallica, and finally Araluen.'

‘But they'd have to beat the Skandians first, wouldn't they?' Will said. He knew, from first-hand experience, that the Skandians were fierce, fearless warriors. He could see them forming an effective buffer between the invading Temujai and the other western nations, with both sides ending up severely weakened by the war and neither presenting a threat in the near future. It was a perfect strategic position, he told himself comfortably. Halt's next words made him feel considerably less comfortable.

‘Oh, they'll defeat them, all right. Make no mistake about that. It will be a savage, bloody war, but the Temujai will win.'

After the evening meal, Halt called the small group together. The wind had risen with the onset of night and it whistled eerily through the branches of the pines. It was a clear night, and the half moon shone brilliantly above them as they huddled in their cloaks around the remnants of the fire.

‘Will and I were talking earlier,' he told them. ‘And I've decided that, since our discussion concerns all of us, it's only fair to tell you what I've been thinking.'

Horace and Evanlyn exchanged puzzled looks. They had both simply assumed that the master and the apprentice were catching up on lost time together. Now, it appeared, there was something else to consider.

‘First and foremost,' Halt continued, seeing he had their undivided attention, ‘my aim is to get you, Will, and the pr–' He hesitated, stopping before he used Evanlyn's title. They had all agreed that it would be safer for her to continue under her assumed name until they returned home. He corrected
himself. ‘Will and Evanlyn, and Horace, of course, across the border and out of Skandia. As escaped prisoners, you're in considerable danger if the Skandians recapture you. And, as we all know, that danger is even greater for Evanlyn.'

The three listeners nodded. Will had told Halt and Horace about the risk to Evanlyn should Ragnak ever discover her real identity as King Duncan's daughter. The Oberjarl had sworn a blood vow to the Vallas, the trio of savage gods who ruled the Skandian religion, in which he promised death to any relative of the Araluan King.

‘On the other hand,' Halt said, ‘I am deeply worried about the presence of the Temujai here on the borders of Skandia. They haven't come this far west in twenty years – and the last time they did, they put the entire western world at risk.'

Now he really had their attention, he saw. Horace and Evanlyn sat up straighter and leaned a little closer to him. He saw the puzzled look on the young warrior's face in the firelight.

‘Surely, Halt, you're exaggerating?' Horace asked.

Will looked sideways at his friend. ‘That's what I thought too,' he said quietly, ‘but apparently not.'

Halt shook his head firmly. ‘I wish I were,' he said. ‘But if the Temujai are moving in force, it's a threat to all our countries, Araluen included.'

‘What happened last time, Halt?' It was Evanlyn who spoke now, her voice uncertain, the concern obvious in it. ‘Were you there? Did you fight them?'

Halt hesitated. He appeared unwilling to talk about his previous experiences with the Temujai. Finally, however, he seemed to come to a decision.

‘I fought with them and, eventually, against them,' he said flatly. ‘There were things we wanted to learn from them and I was sent to do so.'

Horace frowned. ‘Such as?' he asked. ‘What could the Rangers hope to learn from a bunch of wild horsemen?' Horace, it must be admitted, had a somewhat inflated idea of the extent of the Ranger Corps' knowledge. To put it simply, he thought they knew just about everything that was worth knowing.

‘You wanted to learn how they made their bows, didn't you?' said Will suddenly. He remembered seeing the bows carried by the horsemen and thinking how similar they were to his own. Halt looked at him and nodded.

‘That was part of it. But there was something more important. I was sent to trade with them for some of their stallions and mares. The Ranger horses we ride today were originally bred from the Temujai herds,' he explained. ‘We found their recurve bows interesting but when you consider how difficult and time-consuming they are to make, they offered no significant improvement in performance over the longbow. But the horses were a different matter.'

‘And they were happy to trade?' asked Will. As he spoke, he turned to study the shaggy little horse standing a few paces behind him. Tug, seeing him turn to look, nickered a soft greeting. Now that Halt mentioned it, there was a distinct resemblance to the horses he had seen in the Temujai camp.

‘They were not!' Halt replied with a heartfelt shake of the head. ‘They guarded their breeding stock jealously. I'm probably still wanted among the Temujai nation as a horse thief.'

‘You stole them?' Horace asked, in a mildly disapproving tone.

Halt hid a smile as he replied.

‘I left what I considered a fair price,' he told them. ‘The Temujai had other ideas about the matter. They weren't keen to sell at any price.'

‘Anyway,' Will said impatiently, dismissing the matter of whether the horses had been bought or stolen, ‘what happened when their army invaded? How far did they come?'

Halt stirred the small pile of embers between them with the end of a charred stick until a few tongues of flame flickered in the red coals. ‘They were heading further south that time,' he said. ‘They overran the Ursali nation and the Middle Kingdoms in no time at all. There was no stopping them. They were the ultimate warriors – fast moving, incredibly brave but, most of all, highly disciplined. They fought as a large unit, always, whereas the armies facing them almost always ended up fighting in small groups of perhaps a dozen at a time.'

‘How could they do that?' Evanlyn asked. She had been around her father's armies enough to know that the biggest problem facing any commander once battle started was staying in effective control and maintaining communication with the troops under him. Halt looked at her, sensing the professional interest behind her question.

‘They've developed a signalling system that lets their central commander direct all his troops in concerted manoeuvres,' he told her. ‘It's a very complex system relying on coloured flags in different combinations. They can even operate at night,' he added. ‘They simply
substitute coloured lanterns for the flags. Quite frankly, there was no army capable of stopping them as they drove on towards the sea.

‘They'd cut through the north-east corner of Teutlandt, then on through Gallica. Every army that faced them, they defeated. Several times, they were heavily outnumbered, but their superior tactics and discipline made them unbeatable. They were only three days' riding from the Gallican coast when they finally stopped.'

‘What stopped them?' Will asked. A noticeable chill had fallen over the three young listeners as Halt had described the inexorable advance of the Temujai army. At the question, the Ranger gave a short laugh.

‘Politics,' he said. ‘And a dish of bad freshwater clams.'

‘Politics?' Horace snorted in disgust. As a warrior, he had a healthy contempt for politics and politicians.

‘That's right. This was when Mat'lik was the Sha'shan, or supreme leader. Now among people like the Temujai, that's a highly unstable position. It's taken by the strongest contender and very few Sha'shans have died in their beds. Although Mat'lik did, as it turned out,' he added as an afterthought, before continuing.

‘As a result, it's normal practice for anyone who might contest the position to be assigned tasks that keep them a long way from home. In this case, Mat'lik's brother, nephew and second cousin were the most likely candidates, so he made sure they were kept busy with the army. That way, not only could they not get up to mischief around him, but they could all keep an eye on each other as well. Naturally, they distrusted each other totally.'

‘Wasn't it dangerous to give them control over the
army?' Will asked. Halt signified that the question was a good one.

‘Normally, it might be. But the command structure was designed so that none of them had absolute control. Mat'lik's brother Twu'lik was the strategic commander. But his nephew was the paymaster and his cousin was the quartermaster. So, one led them, one fed them and one paid them. They all had pretty equal claims on the loyalty of the soldiers. That way, they could keep each other in check.'

‘So where did the clams come in?' Horace asked. Food was always a matter of interest to him. Halt resettled himself by the fire, leaning back against a log.

‘Mat'lik was partial to freshwater clams,' he told them. ‘So much so that he very unwisely had his wife prepare him a big dish when they were out of season. It seems that some of them were tainted and he was taken by a terrible fit while he was eating. He screamed, tore at his throat, fell down and went into a deep coma. It was obvious that he was very close to death.

‘Naturally, when news reached the army, the three main contenders for the top job couldn't get back to the Sha'shan's court fast enough. The succession would be decided by an election among the senior Shans and they knew if they weren't back there to hand out the bribes and buy votes, someone else would get the prize.'

‘So they simply abandoned the invasion?' Will asked. ‘After they'd come so far?'

Halt made a dismissive gesture.

‘They were a pragmatic bunch,' he said. ‘Gallica wasn't going to go away. They'd fought their way through there
once, they could always do it again. But there was only going to be one chance to get the top job.'

‘So the western hemisphere was saved by a dish of bad clams?' Evanlyn said. The grizzled Ranger smiled grimly.

‘It's surprising how often history is decided by something as trivial as a bad shellfish,' he told her.

‘Where were you while this was all going on, Halt?' Will asked his master.

Halt smiled again at the memory. ‘I suppose it's one of those moments you never forget,' he said. ‘I was high-tailing it for the coast, with a small herd of …' He hesitated, glancing sidelong at Horace. ‘… fairly purchased horses, and a Temujai fighting patrol was right behind me. They were gaining on me too. Suddenly, one morning, they reined in and watched me gallop away. Then they simply turned around and started trotting back east – all the way to their homeland.'

There was a brief silence as he finished the tale. Halt could have wagered that it would be Will who would come up with the next question, and he was not disappointed.

‘So who became the Sha-shan?' he asked. ‘The brother, the nephew or the cousin?'

‘None of them,' Halt replied. ‘The election went to a dark horse candidate who had designs on the countries to the east of the Temujai homelands. The other three were executed for abandoning their mission in the west.' He stirred the fire again, thinking back to that well-remembered day when the pursuing riders had suddenly given up the chase and left him to escape.

‘And now they're back again,' he said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder what they have in mind?'