Ranger's Apprentice 1 & 2 Bindup (18 page)

It was a cold, cheerless camp. Tired from the hard pace they had been keeping up, the Rangers ate a cold meal – bread, dried fruit and cold meat once more, washed down with cold water from their canteens. Will was beginning to hate the sight of the virtually tasteless hard rations they carried. Then Halt took the first watch as Will and Gilan rolled themselves into their cloaks and slept.

It wasn't the first rough camp that Will had endured since his training period began. But this was the first time there wasn't the slight comfort of a crackling fire, or at least a bed of warm coals, to sleep by. He slept fitfully, uncomfortable dreams chasing through his subconscious – dreams of fearful creatures, strange and terrifying things that stayed just outside his consciousness, but close enough to the surface that he felt their presence, and was unsettled by them.

He was almost glad when Halt shook him gently awake for his watch.

The wind was scudding clouds across the moon. The moaning song of the Stones was stronger than ever. Will felt a weariness of spirit and wondered if the Stones had been designed to wear people down like this. The long grass around them hissed a counterpoint to the far-off keening. Halt pointed to a spot in the heavens, indicating an angle of elevation for Will to remember.

‘When the moon reaches that angle,' he told the apprentice, ‘turn over the watch to Gilan.'

Will nodded, rousing himself and standing to stretch his stiff muscles. He picked up his bow and quiver and walked to the bush Halt had selected as a vantage point. Rangers on watch never stayed in the open by the camp site but always moved away ten or twenty metres, and found a place of concealment. That way, strangers coming upon the camp site would be less likely to see them. It was one of the many skills Will had learned in his months of training.

He took two arrows from the quiver and held them between the fingers of his bow hand. He would hold them thus for the four hours of his watch. If he needed them, there would be no excessive movement as he took an arrow from his quiver – movement that might alert an attacker. Then he flipped the cowl of his cloak over his head so he would merge with the irregular shape of the bush. His head and eyes scanned constantly from side to side as Halt had taught him, changing focus constantly, from close to the camp site and out to the dim horizon around them. That way, his vision would not become fixated on one distance and one area and he'd stand a better chance of seeing movement. From time to time, he turned slowly through a complete circle, scanning the entire ground around them,
moving slowly to keep his own movement as imperceptible as possible.

The keening of the Stones and the hissing of wind through the grass formed a constant background. But he began to hear other noises as well – the rustling of small animals in the grass, and other, less explicable, sounds. With each one, his heart raced a little faster, wondering if this might be the Kalkara, creeping in on the sleeping figures of his friends. Once, he was convinced that he could hear the breath of a heavy animal. Fear rose up in him, clutching at his throat, until he realised that, with his senses tuned to the utmost degree, he could actually hear his companions breathing quietly in their sleep.

He knew that, from any more than five metres away, he would be virtually invisible to the human eye, thanks to the cloak, the shadows and the shape of the bush around him. But he wondered if the Kalkara depended on sight alone. Perhaps they had other senses that would tell them that there was an enemy concealed in the bush. Perhaps, even now, they were moving closer, concealed by the long shifting grass, ready to strike …

His nerves, already stretched beyond endurance by the Stone Flutes' dismal song, urged him to spin round and identify the source of each new sound as he heard it. But he knew that to do so would be to reveal himself. He forced himself to move slowly, turning carefully until he faced the direction from which he thought the sound had come, assessing each new risk before discarding it.

In the long hours of tense watching, he saw nothing but the racing clouds, the fleeting moon and the undulating sea of grass that surrounded them. By the time the moon
reached the preordained elevation, he was physically and mentally drained. He woke Gilan to take over the watch, then rolled back into his cloak again.

This time there were no dreams. Exhausted, he slept soundly until the grey light of dawn.

They saw the Stone Flutes by midmorning – a grey and surprisingly small circle of granite monoliths that stood at the top of a rise in the Plain. Their elected course took the riders a kilometre or so to one side of the Stones and Will was content to go no closer. The depressing song was now louder than ever, ebbing and flowing on the tide of the wind.

‘Next flute player I meet,' said Gilan with grim humour, ‘I'm going to split his lip for him.'

They continued on their way, the kilometres passing behind them, hour after hour, one the same as the next, with nothing new to see and always with the faint howl of the Stones at their back, keeping their nerves on edge.

The Plainsman rose suddenly from the grass some fifty metres away from them. Small, dressed in grey rags and with long hair hanging unkempt to his shoulder, he glared at them through mad eyes for several seconds.

Will's heart had barely recovered from the shock of his sudden appearance when he was off, bent double and running through the grass, seeming to sink into it. Within
seconds, he had disappeared, swallowed by the grass. Halt was about to urge Abelard in pursuit but he stopped. The arrow he had selected instantly and laid on the bowstring remained undrawn. Gilan was also ready to shoot, his reactions every bit as sharp as Halt's. He too held his shot, looking curiously at his senior.

Halt shrugged. ‘May mean nothing,' he said. ‘Or maybe he's off to tell the Kalkara. But we can hardly kill him on suspicion.'

Gilan let out a short bark of laughter, more to release the tension he felt as a result of the man's unexpected appearance.

‘I suppose there's no difference,' he said, ‘whether we find the Kalkara or they find us.' Halt's eyes fixed on him for a moment, without any sign of answering humour.

‘Believe me, Gilan,' he said, ‘there's a big difference.'

They had abandoned the forced march pace now and rode slowly through the tall grass. Behind them, the sound of the Stones began to fade a little, much to Will's relief. Now, he realised, the wind was carrying it away from them.

Some time passed following the sudden appearance of the Plain dweller, with no further sign of life. A question had been nagging at Will all through the afternoon.

‘Halt?' he said experimentally, not sure if Halt would order him to silence. The Ranger looked at him, eyebrows raised in a sign that he was prepared to answer questions, so Will continued. ‘Why do you think Morgarath has enlisted the Kalkara? What does he stand to gain?'

Halt realised that Gilan was waiting for his answer as well. He marshalled his thoughts before he replied. He was
a little reluctant to verbalise them, as so much of the answer depended on guesswork and intuition.

‘Who knows why Morgarath ever does anything?' he answered slowly. ‘I can't give you a definite answer. All I can tell you is what I assume – and what Crowley thinks as well.'

He glanced quickly at his two companions. It was obvious from their expectant expressions that they were prepared to accept his assumptions as ironclad fact. Sometimes, he thought wryly, a reputation for being right all the time could be a heavy burden.

‘There's a war coming,' he went on. ‘That much is already obvious. The Wargals are on the move and we've heard that Morgarath has been in contact with Ragnak.' He saw the puzzled expression flit across Will's face. Gilan, he knew, understood who Ragnak was. ‘Ragnak is the Oberjarl, or supreme lord, if you like, of the Skandians – the sea wolves.' He saw the quick flash of comprehension and went on.

‘This is obviously going to be a bigger war than we've fought before and we're going to need all our resources – and our best commanders to lead us. I think that's what Morgarath has in mind. He's seeking to weaken us by having the Kalkara kill our leaders. Northolt, the supreme army commander, and Lorriac, our best cavalry commander, have gone already. Certainly there will be other men who will step into those positions but there will inevitably be some confusion in the changeover period, some loss of cohesion. I think that's what's behind Morgarath's plan.'

Gilan said thoughtfully. ‘There's another aspect as well.
Both those men were instrumental in his defeat last time. He's destroying our command structure and getting revenge at the same time.'

Halt nodded. ‘That's true, of course. And to a twisted mind like Morgarath's, revenge is a powerful motive.'

‘So you think there'll be more killings?' Will asked and Halt met his gaze steadily.

‘I think there'll be more attempts. Morgarath has sent them out twice with targets and they've succeeded. I don't see any reason why they won't go after others. Morgarath has reason to hate a lot of people in the Kingdom. The King himself, perhaps. Or maybe Baron Arald – he caused Morgarath some grief in the last war.'

And so did you, Will thought, with a sudden flash of fear for his teacher. He was about to voice the thought that Halt might be a target, then realised that Halt was probably well aware of the fact himself. Gilan was asking the older Ranger another question.

‘One thing I don't understand. Why do the Kalkara keep returning to their hideout? Why not just move from one victim to the next?'

‘I suppose that's one of the few advantages we do have,' Halt told them. ‘They're savage and merciless and more intelligent than Wargals. But they're not human. They are totally single-minded. Show them a victim and they'll hunt him down and kill him or die themselves in the attempt. But they can only keep track of one victim at a time. Between killings, they'll return to their lair. Then Morgarath – or one of his underlings – will prime them for their next victim and they'll head out again. Our best hope is to intercept them on the way if they've been given
a new target. Or kill them in their lair if they haven't.'

Will looked for the thousandth time at the featureless grass plain that lay before them. Somewhere out there, the two fearsome creatures were waiting, perhaps with a new victim already in mind. Halt's voice interrupted his train of thought.

‘Sun's going down,' he said. ‘We may as well camp here.'

They swung down stiffly from their saddles, easing the girths to make their horses more comfortable.

‘That's one thing about this blasted place,' Gilan said, looking around them. ‘One spot is as good as another to camp. Or as bad.'

Will woke from a dreamless sleep to the touch of Halt's hand on his shoulder. He tossed back the cloak, glanced at the scudding moon overhead and frowned. He couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour. He started to say so, but Halt stopped him, placing a finger to his lips for silence. Will looked around and realised Gilan was already awake, standing above him, his head turned to the north-east, back the way they had come, listening.