John Flanagan: The Burning Bridge

"You know him?" Will asked. His insatiable curiosity was already helping him to put the horror of the previous few minutes to one side, as Halt had known it would.

"I chased him out of the kingdom five or six years ago," the Ranger told him. "He was a coward and a murderer. He deserted from the army and found a place with Morgarath." He paused. "Morgarath seems to specialize in recruiting people like him. But what was he doing here:?"

"He said he was on a mission for Morgarath," Will suggested, but Halt shook his head.

"Unlikely. The Wargals were chasing him and only Morgarath could have ordered them to do that, which he'd hardly do if Reacher really was working for him. My guess is that he was deserting again. He'd run out on Morgarath and the Wargals were sent after him."

"Why?" Will asked. "Why desert?"

Halt shrugged. "There's a war coming. People like Dirk try to avoid that sort of unpleasantness."

He reached for the pack that lay by the campfire and began to rummage through it.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" Will asked. Halt frowned as he grew tired of looking through the pack and dumped its contents onto the ground instead.

"Well, it strikes me that if he were deserting Morgarath and coming back to Araluen, he'd have to bring something to bargain for his freedom. So:" His voice died away as he reached for a carefully folded parchment among the spare clothes and eating utensils. He scanned it quickly. One eyebrow rose slightly. After almost a year with the grizzled Ranger, Will knew that was the equivalent of a shout of astonishment. He also knew that if he interrupted Halt before he had finished reading, his mentor would simply ignore him. He waited until Halt folded the parchment, stood slowly and looked at his apprentice, seeing the question in the boy's eyes.

"Is it important?" Will asked.

"Oh, you could say so," Halt told him. "We appear to have stumbled on Morgarath's battle plans for the coming war. I think we'd better get them back to Redmont."

He whistled softly and Abelard and Tug trotted to where their masters waited.

From the trees several hundred meters away, carefully down-wind so that the Ranger horses would catch no scent of an intruder, unfriendly eyes were upon them. Their owner watched as the two Rangers rode away from the scene of the small battle. Then he turned south, toward the cliffs.

It was time to report to Morgarath. His plan had been successful.

I T WAS CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT WHEN THE SINGLE RIDER REINED in his horse outside the small cottage set in the trees below Castle Redmont. The laden pack pony trailing behind the saddle horse ambled to a halt as well. The rider, a tall man who moved with the easy grace of youth, swung down from the saddle and stepped up onto the narrow verandah, stooping to avoid the low-lying eaves. From the lean-to stable at the side of the house came the sound of a gentle nickering and his own horse's head rose as he answered the greeting.

The rider had raised his fist to knock at the door when he saw a light come on behind the curtained windows. He hesitated. The light moved across the room and, a second or so later, the door opened before him.

"Gilan," Halt said, without any note of surprise in his voice. "What are you doing here?"

The young Ranger laughed incredulously as he faced his former teacher. "How do you do it, Halt?" he asked. "How could you possibly know it was me arriving in the middle of the night, before you'd even opened the door?"

Halt shrugged, gesturing for Gilan to enter the house. He closed the door behind him and moved to the neat little kitchen, opening the damping vent on the stove and sending new life flaring into the wood coals inside. He tossed a handful of kindling into the stove and set a copper kettle on the hot plate over the fire chamber, shaking it first to make sure there was plenty of water in it.

"I heard your horse some minutes ago," he finally said. "Then, when I heard Abelard call a greeting, I knew it had to be a Ranger horse." He shrugged again. Simple when you explained it, the gesture said. Gilan laughed again in reply.

"Well, that narrowed it down to fifty people, didn't it?" he said. Halt cocked his head to one side with a pitying look.

"Gilan, I must have heard you stumbling up that front step a thousand times when you were studying with me," he said. "Give me credit for recognizing that sound once more."

The younger Ranger spread his hands in a gesture of defeat. He unclasped his cloak and hung it over the back of a chair, moving a little closer to the stove. It was a chilly night and he watched Halt measuring coffee into a pot with some anticipation. The door to the rear room of the house opened and Will entered the small living room, his clothes pulled on hastily over his nightshirt, his hair still tousled from sleep.

"Evening, Gilan," he said casually. "What brings you here?"

Gilan looked from one to the other in something like despair. "Isn't anybody surprised when I turn up in the middle of the night?" he asked, of no one in particular. Halt, busy by the stove, turned away to hide a grin. A few minutes earlier, he'd heard Will moving hurriedly to the window as the horses drew closer to the cottage. Obviously, his apprentice had overheard Halt's exchange with Gilan and was doing his best to emulate his own casual approach to the unexpected arrival. However, knowing Will as he did, Halt was sure that the boy was burning with curiosity over the reason for Gilan's sudden appearance. He decided he'd call his bluff.

"It's late, Will," he said. "You may as well go back to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow."

Instantly, Will's nonchalant expression was replaced by a stricken look. The suggestion from his master was tantamount to an order. All thought of appearing casual departed instantly.

"Oh, please, Halt!" the boy exclaimed. "I want to know what's going on!"

Halt and Gilan exchanged a quick grin. Will was actually hopping from one foot to another as he waited for Halt to rescind the suggestion that he should go to bed. The grizzled Ranger kept a straight face as he set three steaming mugs of coffee on the kitchen table.

"Just as well I made three cups then, isn't it?" he said and Will realized that he'd been having his leg pulled. He shrugged, grinning, and sat down with his two seniors.

"Very well, Gilan, before my apprentice explodes with curiosity, what is the reason for this unexpected visit?"

"Well, it has to do with those battle plans you discovered last week. Now that we know what Morgarath has in mind, the King wants the army ready on the Plains of Uthal before the dark of the next moon. That's when Morgarath plans to break out through Three Step Pass."

The captured document had told them a great deal. Morgarath's plan called for five hundred Skandian mercenaries to make their way through the swamps of the fenlands and attack the Araluen garrison at Three Step Pass. With the Pass undefended, Morgarath's main army of Wargals would be able to break out and deploy into battle order on the Plains.

"So Duncan plans to beat him to the punch," Halt said, nodding slowly. "Good thinking. That way we control the battlefield."

Will nodded in his turn and said in an equally grave voice, "And we'll keep Morgarath's army bottled up in the Pass."

Gilan turned slightly to hide a grin. He wondered if he had tried to copy Halt's mannerisms when he was an apprentice, and decided that he probably had.

"On the contrary," he said, "once the army's in place, Duncan plans to withdraw the garrison, then fall back to prepared positions and let Morgarath out onto the Plains."

"Let him out?" Will's voice went up in pitch with surprise. "Is the King crazy? Why would:"

He realized that both Rangers were looking at him, Halt with one eyebrow raised and Gilan with a quizzical smile playing at the corners of his mouth.