John Flanagan - Halts peril

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.