Ranger's Apprentice 9 Halt's Peril Read online

  'Could rain tonight,' he said. 'Be good to be into the pass by then.'

  'Why's that?' Will wanted to know.

  'Caves,' Halt told him succinctly. 'The walls of the pass are lined with them and I'd rather spend the night in a nice warm, dry cave than sleeping out in this Pictish rain again.'

  They reached One Raven Pass with the last light of day. At first, Will and Horace could see no sign of it. Then they realised that a few metres after the entrance, the pass took an abrupt ninety-degree turn to the left, so that the rock wall opposite seemed to fill the opening. They rode in cautiously, their hoof beats echoing back from the rock walls that soared above them. For the first fifty metres or so, the path was narrow, a winding track between the high mountains. Then gradually it opened out, until the floor of the pass was thirty or forty metres wide. The ground was still rising and the surface was rough. Inside the pass, the shadows were deep and the going was treacherous. Kicker stumbled several times and Halt held up his hand.

  'We might camp for the night,' he said. 'The horses could break a leg in these conditions and then we'd be in real trouble.'

  Will was peering around the heavily shadowed walls. 'Don't see any of those warm, dry caves you mentioned,' he said.

  Halt clicked his tongue in annoyance. 'The notes on the map say they should be here.' Then he pointed. 'That overhang will have to do us.'

  A large, flat spur of rock jutted out from the wall of the pass, providing an area of shelter underneath. There was plenty of headroom. In the absence of a cave, it would serve the purpose, Will thought.

  'At least it'll keep the rain off,' he said.

  They set up camp. Will and Horace had carried a supply of firewood from the previous camp site and Halt decided they could risk a fire. They were cold and low-spirited, he realised, and all too ready to snap at one another. A fire, some hot food and hot coffee would go a long way to restoring their spirits. There was a slight risk that it might be seen, he thought, but the twists and turns of the pass should conceal it pretty effectively. Besides, so far they'd seen no sign that anyone was following them. And moving in the dark over the uneven, rock-strewn, sloping ground of the pass would be risky for any pursuer. Doing so quietly would be well nigh impossible. All in all, he thought, the potential gains outweighed the dangers.

  They settled into their blankets and cloaks early, covering the fire with sand before they did so. It was one matter to heat food and water for a few minutes, another altogether to leave the fire burning to signal their presence while they slept. Horace offered to take the first watch and Will and Halt accepted gratefully.

  Horace's hand on his shoulder roused Will from a deep, dreamless sleep. For a second, he wondered where he was, and why there was a pebble pressing painfully into his hip through his blankets. Then he remembered.

  'Is it my watch?' he mumbled. But Horace crouched over him, his finger to his lips for silence.

  'Listen,' he whispered. He turned away to face down the pass. Will, sniffing and yawning, sat up in his blankets, propped on one elbow.

  A long, rasping cry echoed down the pass, bouncing from one wall to the other and back again so that the echoes continued long after the original noise had ceased. Will felt his skin goosebump at the sound. It was a sound of sorrow, a wavering, croaking cry of pain.

  'What the devil is that?' he whispered.

  Horace shook his head. Then he leaned forward again to listen, his head cocked slightly to one side.

  'It's the third time I've heard it,' he said. 'The first two were so quiet I wasn't really sure I heard them. But now it's closer.'

  The cry came again, but this time from a different direction. The first had been from down the pass, Will thought. This one was definitely behind them, issuing from somewhere back the way they had come.

  Suddenly, he recognised the sound.

  'It's a raven,' he said. 'The raven of One Raven Pass.'

  'But that one was from up there,' Horace began, pointing back along the pass, then turning uncertainly towards the direction from which they'd heard the first cry. 'There must be two of them.'

  'Or one of them flying around,' Will put in.

  'You think so?' Horace asked. He would face any enemy unflinchingly. But to sit here in this shadowy cleft in the mountains listening to that mournful sound set his nerves on edge.

  A long-suffering voice came from the pile of blankets that covered Halt. 'I've heard ravens do tend to fly around,' he said. 'Now will you two kindly shut up and let me sleep?'

  'Sorry, Halt,' Horace said, abashed. He patted Will on the shoulder. 'You go back to sleep too. I've got another hour to go.'

  Will settled down again. The croaking call came again, from a third direction.

  'Yes,' said Horace to himself. 'It's definitely one raven, flying to different positions. Definitely. That's what it is, all right.'

  'I'm not going to warn you again,' came Halt's muffled voice. Horace opened his mouth to apologise, thought better of it and remained silent.

  The raven continued its mournful croaking throughout the night. Will took over the watch from Horace, then handed over to Halt a few hours before dawn. As light began to touch the higher edges of the rock walls around them, the raven gradually became silent.

  'Now that he's gone,' Horace said, as he extinguished the breakfast cooking fire, 'I almost miss him.'

  'That's not how you felt last night,' Will said, grinning. He made his eyes wide and staring and waved his hands in mock fright. 'Ooooh, Will! Help! There's a big bad raven come to carry me away.'

  Horace shook his head, somewhat shamefaced. 'Well, I suppose I was a little startled,' he said. 'But it took me by surprise, that's all.'

  'I'm glad I was here to protect you,' Will said, with a slightly superior tone.

  Halt, watching them as he rolled his pack, thought his former apprentice was pushing it too far. 'You know,' he said quietly, 'just after you first heard the raven, Will, I actually heard a strange crackling noise as well.'

  Will regarded him curiously. 'You did? I didn't notice it. What do you think it was?'

  'I couldn't be sure,' the Ranger said thoughtfully, 'but I suspect it was the sound of your hair standing on end in fright.'

  Horace gave a short bark of laughter and Halt allowed him one of his brief smiles. Will turned to roll his own pack, feeling his cheeks redden.

  'Oh yes. Very amusing, Halt. Very amusing,' he said. But he did wonder how the bearded Ranger had known that his hair had done just that.

  They continued along the pass, still moving slightly uphill. After a while, the path became level, then sloped gradually down again. An hour or so after they had left the camp site, Halt pointed out a small, flat-topped cairn of rocks set by the eastern wall of the pass.

  'That's what our friend the raven was crying about,' he said.

  They rode closer to study the pile, which resembled a small, rough altar. The stones were very old and their edges worn smooth. On the rock wall beside them, there were faint carvings visible, weathered by years of wind and rain.

  'It's a memorial to the men who died here,' Halt told them.

  Will leaned forward a little to study the carvings. 'What do they say?'

  Halt shrugged. 'They're pretty hard to make out, worn as they are. And I can't read Scotti runes anyway. I suspect they tell the story of the battle.' He indicated the steep walls. At this point, the pass had narrowed again so that it was barely twenty metres wide. 'There are ledges up there where the enemy stationed their archers,' he said. 'They fired down into the ranks of the Scotti as they were packed together down here. They fired arrows, rolled rocks, threw spears. The Scotti soldiers got in their own way trying to retreat. When they were hopelessly tangled together and confused, the enemy cavalry came round the next bend there and hit them.'

  His two young companions followed his account of the ancient battle, looking from one point to another as he described it. Young as they were, they were both experienced in battle and they cou
ld picture the terrible slaughter that must have taken place in this crowded, shadowy cleft in the rocks.

  'Who were they, Halt?' Horace asked. He kept his voice lowered in an unconscious mark of respect for the warriors who had died here. Halt looked at him, not understanding the question, so he elaborated.

  'Who were the enemy?'

  'We were,' Halt told him. 'The Araluans. This antagonism between the two nations isn't something recent, you know. It goes back for centuries. That's why I'm keen to get out of Picta and back onto Araluan soil.'

  It was an obvious hint and the two young men urged their horses after him as he rode south, heading for the exit from the pass. Horace glanced back at the small memorial once or twice, but soon a twist in the pass hid it from sight.

  An hour later, they found the second set of tracks.

  Twelve

  Halt and Will, intent on the tracks left by Tennyson and his followers, noticed the different set almost simultaneously.

  'Halt . . .' Will said. But his old mentor was already nodding.

  'I see them.' He reined in Abelard. Will and Horace stopped as well and the two Rangers dismounted to study this evidence of newcomers. Horace, aware of a certain tension in the air, surreptitiously loosened his sword in its scabbard. He was bursting to question the Rangers but he knew any such distraction would be unwelcome. They'd tell him when they'd assessed the situation, he knew.

  Will glanced back down the trail. There was a small subsidiary defile leading in from the left-hand side of the pass a few metres back – a narrow gap in the rocks that joined the major route into Araluen. They had ridden past it, almost without noticing. They had seen plenty of narrow tracks leading off the main path. Most of them petered out after twenty to thirty metres, ending in blind walls of rock.

  This one was different. The tracks had come from it.

  Will ran lightly back and disappeared into the cleft. He was gone for some minutes and then, to Horace's intense relief, he reappeared. The tall young warrior was uncomfortable when his friend disappeared suddenly like that. So was Tug, he realised. The little horse had shifted nervously and stamped his hoof when his master seemed to vanish into the rock.

  'That's where they came from,' Will said thoughtfully, jerking his thumb back at the gap in the wall. 'The trail in there goes back quite a way. I went forty or fifty metres in and it didn't seem to end. And it widened out quite a bit.'

  Halt scratched his beard thoughtfully. 'There are dozens of subsidiary trails leading into the main pass,' he said. 'This is obviously one of them.' He looked down at the scuffed ground before him, twisting his mouth thoughtfully to one side. Horace decided that his companions had had long enough to assess the situation.

  'Who are they?' he asked.

  Halt didn't answer immediately. He looked at Will. 'What would you say?'

  The days were long past when Will would blurt out an unconsidered answer to such a question from Halt. Better to be accurate than fast, he knew. He went down on one knee, touching one of the tracks with his forefinger, tracing its outline in the sand. He looked to left and right, studying the faint outlines of other footprints.

  'The footprints are all big,' he said. 'And quite deep on this hard surface. So whoever they are, they're heavily built.'

  'So?' Halt prompted.

  'So they're all men. There are no smaller prints that I can see. No women or children with them. I'd say they're a war party.'

  'Following Tennyson?' Horace asked, his mind going back to the pathetic scene at the crofter's cottage.

  Will chewed his lip thoughtfully. He looked at Halt but the older Ranger gestured for him to continue his line of reasoning.

  'Maybe,' he said. 'They came through several hours after Tennyson did. You can see where their tracks overlay his party's. And they're fresher. I'd say these were made early this morning.'

  'Well, let's hope they catch him,' Horace said. To his way of thinking, if a vengeful Scotti war party wiped out Tennyson and his Outsiders, that would be a neat solution to the whole situation.

  'Maybe,' Will repeated. 'But . . . if they're chasing Tennyson, why did they come into the main trail here from the east?' He indicated the side trail again. 'Anyone following Tennyson after what he and his men did would be more likely to come straight down the pass behind us – from the north.'

  'Maybe it's a short cut,' Horace suggested, but Will shook his head.

  'If you could see the way it snakes and twists in there, you'd know it's no kind of a short cut. I'd say it originates from somewhere else entirely. Somewhere further to the east.' He looked at Halt for confirmation and the bearded Ranger nodded.

  'I tend to agree,' he said. 'I think it's just coincidence that we've run across them. Odds are, they have no idea that Tennyson and his thugs are ahead of them.'

  'Couldn't they see the tracks?' Horace asked, waving his hand vaguely at the sandy, rock-strewn surface of the path. Halt allowed himself a brief smile.

  'Could you?' he asked.

  Horace had to admit that if the two Rangers weren't there to point out the faint scuffs and imprints in the sand, he probably wouldn't. He shook his head.

  'The Scotti are no great shakes at tracking,' Halt told him. He gestured for Will to remount and swung up into Abelard's saddle.

  'So if they're not after Tennyson, what are they doing here?' Horace asked.

  'My guess is, they're planning a cattle raid in Araluen. There are several small villages close to the border and they may be heading for one of them.'

  'And if they are?' Will asked.

  Halt fixed his unblinking gaze on him. 'If they are, we'll have to discourage them. Which could be a damned nuisance.'

  The intentions of the Scotti party became clearer shortly after they emerged from One Raven Pass into Araluen itself. Tennyson's party veered slightly to the east, but basically continued to follow a southerly route. The Scotti raiders swung almost immediately to head west of south-west, heading almost ninety degrees away from the Outsiders.

  Halt sighed heavily when he interpreted the signs on the ground. He looked to the south-east, hesitating, then reluctantly turned Abelard's head to follow the raiders.

  'We can't leave them to their own devices,' he said. 'We'll have to take care of them and then come back to pick up Tennyson's trail again.'

  'Can't the locals take care of themselves?' Will asked. He was reluctant to leave the pursuit of Tennyson and his followers, just because a few cattle might be stolen. Halt shook his head wearily.

  'This is a fairly large party, Will. Maybe fifteen or sixteen armed men. They'll pick out a small farm with only two or three men to defend it. They'll kill the men, burn the buildings and crops and take the cattle. And they'll probably take the women as slaves too, if they're in the mood.'

  'And if they're not?' Horace asked.

  'They'll kill them,' Halt said coldly. 'Do you want to let that happen?'

  Both young men shook their heads. They could see the scene at the crofter's cottage all too vividly once more.

  'Let's get after them,' Will said, his face grim.

  Mounted as they were, they were gaining ground rapidly on the Scotti raiders. The countryside on this side of the border changed dramatically and they were moving through heavily wooded land now. Halt called Will alongside him.

  'Go ahead and scout the way,' he said. 'I don't want to catch up with them without knowing it.'

  Will nodded his understanding and urged Tug forward. The horse and rider disappeared into the mist that filtered between the trees. Halt had no qualms about Will's ability to track the Scotti without being seen or heard. Both he and Tug were trained for the task. Horace wasn't so sure.

  'Maybe we should have gone with him,' he said, a few minutes after his friend was lost to sight.

  'Three of us would make four times the noise he will,' Halt said.

  Horace frowned, not quite understanding the equation. 'Wouldn't three of us make three times the noise?'

  Halt
shook his head. 'Will and Tug will make hardly any noise. Neither will Abelard and I. But as for you and that moving earthquake you call a horse . . .' He gestured at Kicker and left the rest unsaid.

  Horace was suitably offended at this slur on his faithful horse. He was very fond of Kicker.

  'That's a little harsh, Halt!' he protested. 'In any case, it's not Kicker's fault. He's not trained to move quietly . . .' He tailed off, realising that he'd just reinforced the very point Halt was making. The Ranger caught his eye and inclined his head meaningfully. Sometimes, Horace thought, a simple look or a tilt of the head could convey more sarcasm than a torrent of words.

  Halt, understanding the concern for Will that lay behind Horace's suggestion, decided he should reassure him. But not for a few minutes, he thought. He was enjoying pulling the warrior's leg again. It was like old times, he thought. Then he scowled. He was getting sentimental.

  'Will knows what he's doing,' he told Horace. 'Don't worry about him.'

  An hour later, Abelard suddenly raised his head and snorted. Then, a few seconds after that, Will and Tug slipped out of the mist once more, cantering towards them. Ranger horses were amazingly light-footed, Horace thought. Tug's hooves made only the slightest of noises on the soft ground.