John Flanagan - The Ruins of Gorlan

The thick undergrowth on the other side of the track was moving, ever so slightly. Normally, he might have passed the movement off as due to the breeze, but his training with Halt had heightened his reasoning and his observation. At the moment, there was no breeze. Not the slightest breath.

But still, the bushes continued to move.

Will's hand went slowly to his quiver. Moving deliberately, so as to avoid startling the creature in the bushes, he drew an arrow and placed it on the string of his bow.

"Halt?" He tried to keep his voice down, but couldn't prevent it from quaking just a little. He wondered if his bow would stop a charging boar. He didn't think so.

Halt looked around, his gaze taking in the arrow nocked to Will's bowstring and noting the direction in which Will was looking.

"I hope you're not thinking of shooting the poor old farmer who's hiding behind those bushes," he said seriously. Yet he pitched his voice so that it carried clearly across the track to the thick clump of bushes on the other side.

Instantly, there was a scuffle of movement from the bush and Will heard a nervous voice crying out:

"Don't shoot, good sir! Please, don't shoot! It's only me!"

The bushes parted as a disheveled and frightened-looking old man stood up and hurried forward. His haste was his undoing, however, as his foot caught in a tangle of underbrush and he sprawled forward onto the snow. He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, hands held out, palms first, to show that he carried no weapons. As he came, he continued a nonstop babble of words:

"Only me, sir! No need for shootin', sir! Only me, I swear, and I'm no danger to the likes of you!"

He hurried forward into the center of the track, his eyes fixed on the bow in Will's hands and the gleaming, razor-sharp tip of the arrow. Slowly, Will released the tension on the string and lowered the bow as he took a closer look at the interloper. He was skinny in the extreme. Dressed in a ragged and dirty farmer's smock, he had long, awkward arms and legs and knobby elbows and knees. His beard was gray and matted and he was going bald on top of his head.

The man stopped a few meters from them and smiled nervously at the two cloaked figures.

"Only me," he repeated, one last time.

Will couldn't help smiling to himself. Anything less like a ferocious, charging wild boar, he couldn't imagine.

"How did you know he was there?" he asked Halt in a soft voice. The Ranger shrugged.

"Saw him a few minutes ago. You'll learn eventually to sense when someone's watching you. Then you know to look for them."

Will shook his head in admiration. Halt's powers of observation were uncanny. No wonder people at the castle held him in such awe!

"Now then," Halt said sternly, "why are you skulking there? Who told you to spy on us?"

The old man rubbed his hands nervously together, his eyes flicking from Halt's forbidding expression to the arrow tip, lowered now but still nocked to the string on Will's bow.

"Not spying, sir! No, no! Not spying. I heard you coming and thought you was that monster porker coming back!"

Halt's eyebrows drew together. "You thought I was a wild boar?" he asked. Again, the farmer shook his head.

"No. No. No. No," he gabbled. "Leastways, not once I'd saw you! But then I wasn't sure who you might be. Could be bandits, like."

"What are you doing here?" Halt asked. "You're not a local, are you?"

The farmer, anxious to please, shook his head once again.

"Come from over Willowtree Creek, I do!" he said. "Been trailing that porker and hoping to find someone as could turn him into bacon."

Halt was suddenly vitally interested. He dropped the mock severe tone in which he had been talking.

"You've seen the boar, then?" he asked, and the farmer rubbed his hands again and looked fearfully around, as if nervous that the " porker" would appear from the trees any minute.

"Seen him. Heard him. Don't want to see him no more. He's a bad 'un, sir, mark my words."

Halt glanced back at the tracks again.

"He's certainly a big one, anyway," he mused.

"And evil, sir!" the farmer went on. "That 'un has a real devil of a temper in him. Why, he'd as soon tear up a man or a horse as have his breakfast, he would!"

"So what did you have in mind for him?" Halt asked, then added, "What's your name, by the way?" The farmer bobbed his head and knuckled his forehead in salute.

"Peter, sir. Salt Peter, they calls me, on account of I likes a little salt on my meat, I do."

Halt nodded. "I'm sure you do," he said patiently. "But what were you hoping to do about this boar?" Salt Peter scratched his head and looked a little lost.

"Don't rightly know. Hoped maybe I'd find a soldier or a warrior or a knight to get rid of him. Or maybe a Ranger," he added as an afterthought.

Will grinned. Halt stood up from where he'd gone down on one knee to examine the tracks in the snow. He dusted a little snow from his knee and walked back to where Salt Peter stood, nervously shifting from one foot to another.

"Has he been causing a lot of trouble?" the Ranger asked, and the old farmer nodded rapidly, several times.

" That he has, sir! That he has! Killed three dogs. Tore up fields and fences, he has. And as near as anything killed my son-in-law when he tried to stop him. Like I said, sir, he's a bad 'un!"

Halt rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Hmmm," he said. "Well, there's no question that we'd better do something about it." He looked up at the sun, sitting low to the horizon in the western sky, then turned to Will. "How much daylight would you say is left, Will"

Will studied the position of the sun. These days, Halt never missed an opportunity to teach him or question him or test his knowledge and developing skills. He knew it was best to consider carefully before making an answer. Halt preferred accurate replies, not fast ones.

"A little over an hour?" Will said. He saw Halt's eyebrows draw together in a frown and remembered that the Ranger also disliked being answered with a question.

"Are you asking me, or telling me?" Halt said. Will shook his head, annoyed at himself.

"A little over an hour," he replied more confidently and, this time, the Ranger nodded agreement.

"Correct. " He turned to the old farmer again.

"Very well, Salt Peter, I want you to take a message to Baron Arald"

"Baron Arald?" the farmer asked nervously. Halt frowned again.

"See what you've done?" he said to Will. "You've got him answering questions with questions now!"

"Sorry," Will mumbled, grinning in spite of himself. Halt shook his head and continued speaking to Salt Peter.

"That's right, Baron Arald. You'll find his castle a couple of kilometers along this track."

Salt Peter peered under one hand, looking along the track as if he could see the castle already. "A castle, you say?" he said, in a wondering voice. "I've never seen a castle!"

Halt sighed impatiently. Keeping this old chatterbox's mind on the subject was beginning to make him short-tempered. "That's right, a castle. Now, go to the guard at the gate…"

"Is it a big castle?" asked the old fellow.

"It's a huge castle!" Halt roared at him. Salt Peter bounded back in fright. He had a hurt look on his face.

"No need to bellow, young man," he said huffily. "I were only asking, is all."

"Well then, stop interrupting me," said the Ranger, "Were wasting time here. Now, are you listening?"

Salt Peter nodded.

"Good," Halt continued. "Go to the guard on the gate and say you have a message from Halt for Baron Arald."

A look of recognition spread across the old mans face. "Halt?" he asked. "Not the Ranger Halt?"

"Yes," replied Halt wearily. "The Ranger Halt."