Halt's Peril

  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 atte
ntion 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.
br />   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.'