John Flanagan: The Ruins of Gorlan

In a few more minutes, it would be in position to drop on his unsuspecting friends on the other side, taking them by surprise. He had to stop it.

Halt was clear of the hiding place now, the small knife sliding free of the sheath almost of its own volition as he ran across the courtyard, dodging and weaving among the scattered rubble. The Kalkara heard him before he had gone half a dozen paces and it turned back on him, terrifying in its silence as it loped, apelike, to cut him off before he could warn his friends.

Halt stopped suddenly, stock-still, eyes locked on the shambling figure coming at him.

In another few meters, its hypnotic gaze would seize control of his mind. He felt the irresistible urge to look into those red eyes growing stronger. Then he closed his own eyes, his brow furrowed in fierce concentration, and brought his knife hand up, back and forward in one smooth, instinctive memory throw, seeing the target moving in his mind's eye, mentally aligning the throw and the spin of the knife to the point in space where knife and target would arrive simultaneously.

Only a Ranger could have made that throw – and only one of a handful of them. It took the Kalkara in its right eye and the beast screamed in pain and fury as it stopped to clutch at the sudden lance of agony that began in its eye and seared all the way to the pain sensors in its brain. Then Halt was running past it for the wall, scrambling up the rocks.

Will saw him as a shadowy figure as he scrambled onto the top of the ruined wall. But shadowy or not, there was something unmistakable about it. "Halt!" he cried, pointing so that the two knights saw him as well. All three of them saw the Ranger pause, look back and hesitate. Then a huge shape began to appear a few meters behind him as the Kalkara, whose wound was painful but nowhere near mortal, came after him.

Baron Arald went to remount. Then, realizing that no horse could pick its way through the tumble of rocks and masonry beside the wall, he dragged his huge broadsword from its saddle scabbard and ran toward the ruins. "Get back, Will!" he shouted as he advanced and Will nervously edged Tug back to the fringe of the trees.

On the wall, Halt heard the shout and saw Arald running forward. Sir Rodney was close behind him, a huge battle-ax whirring in circles around his head.

"Jump, Halt! Jump!" the Baron shouted, and Halt needed no further invitation. He leaped the three meters from the wall, rolling to break his fall as he landed. Then he was up on his feet, running awkwardly to meet the two knights as the wound in his leg reopened.

Will watched, his heart in his mouth, as Halt ran toward the two knights. The Kalkara hesitated a moment, then, screaming a bloodcurdling challenge, it leaped after him. But, whereas Halt had rolled to recover, the Kalkara simply transformed the three-meter drop into a huge, bounding leap, its unbelievably powerful rear legs driving it up and forward, covering the ground between it and Halt in that one movement. The massive arm swung, catching Halt a glancing blow and sending him rolling forward, unconscious. But the beast had no time to finish him off, as Baron Arald stepped up to meet it, the broadsword humming in a deadly arc for its neck.

The Kalkara was wickedly fast and it ducked the killing blow, then slammed its talons into Arald's exposed back before he could recover from the stroke. They slashed the chain mail as if it were wool and Arald grunted in pain and surprise as the force of the blow drove him to his knees, the broadsword falling from his hands, blood streaming from half a dozen deep slashes in his back.

He would have died then and there had it not been for Sir Rodney. The Battlemaster whirled the heavy war ax as if it were a toy, and crashed it into the Kalkara's side.

The armor of wax-matted hair protected the beast, but the sheer force of the blow staggered it so that it reeled back from the knight, screaming in fury and frustration. Sir Rodney advanced, placing himself protectively between the Kalkara and the prone figures of Halt and the Baron, his feet set, the ax drawing back for another crushing blow.

And then, strangely, he let the weapon fall from his grasp and stood before the monster, totally at its mercy as the power of the Kalkara's gaze, now channeled through its one good eye, robbed him of his will and his ability to think.

The Kalkara screamed its victory to the night sky. Black blood streamed down its face. Never in its life had it felt such pain as these three puny men had inflicted on it. And now they would die for presuming to stand against it. But the primitive intelligence that drove it wanted its moment of triumph and it screamed again and again over the three helpless men.

Will watched, horrified. A thought was forming, an idea was lurking somewhere at the edge of his mind. He looked to one side, saw the flickering torch that Baron Arald had discarded. Fire. The one weapon that could defeat the Kalkara. But he was forty meters away…

He whipped an arrow from his quiver, slipping from the saddle and running lightly to the flickering torch. A good supply of sticky, melted pitch had run down the handle of the torch and he quickly rolled the arrowhead in the soft, clinging stuff, forming a huge gobbet of it on the arrow. Then he placed it in the flame until it flared to life.

Forty meters away, the huge evil creature was satisfying its need for triumph, its screams rolling and echoing through the night as it stood over the two bodies – Halt unconscious, Baron Arald in a daze of pain. Sir Rodney still stood, frozen in place, hands dangling helplessly by his side as he waited for his death. Now the Kalkara raised one massive, taloned paw to strike him down and all the knight could feel was the paralyzing terror of its gaze.

Will brought the arrow back to full draw, wincing at the pain as the flames singed against his bow hand. He raised his aim point a little to allow for the extra weight of the pitch, and released.

The arrow soared in a spark-trailing arc, the wind of its passage subduing the flame to a mere coal. The Kalkara saw the flash of light coming and turned to look, sealing its own fate as the arrow struck it square in its massive chest.

It barely penetrated an inch into the hard, scale-like hair. But as the arrow came to a halt, the little flame flared again, the bonding material in the hair around it caught, and the flame began to spread with incredible speed.

Now the Kalkara's screams had terror in then as it felt the touch of fire – the one thing in life it feared.

The monster beat at the flames on its chest with its paws but that served only to spread the fire to its arms. There was a sudden rush of red flame and in seconds the Kalkara was engulfed, burning from head to toe, rushing blindly in circles in a vain attempt to escape. The screams were nonstop, piercing, reaching higher and higher into a scale of agony that the mind could barely comprehend as the rush of flames grew fiercer with each second.

And then the screaming stopped and the creature was dead.

THE INN AT WENSLEY VILLAGE WAS FULL OF MUSIC AND laughter and noise. Will sat at a table with Horace, Alyss and Jenny, while the innkeeper plied them with a succulent dinner of roast goose and farm fresh vegetables, followed by a delicious blueberry pie whose flaky pastry won even Jenny's approval.

It had been Horace's idea to celebrate Will's return to Castle Redmont with a feast. The two girls had agreed immediately, eager for a break in their day-to-day lives, which now seemed rather humdrum compared to the events that Will had been part of.

Naturally, word of the battle with the Kalkara had gone around the village like wildfire – an appropriate simile, Will thought as it occurred to him. As he entered the inn with his friends that evening, an expectant hush had fallen over the room and every eye had turned toward him. He was grateful for the deep cowl on his cloak, which concealed his rapidly reddening features. His three companions sensed his embarrassment. Jenny, as ever, was the quickest to react, and to break the silence that filled the inn. "Come on, you solemn lot!" she cried to the musicians by the fireplace. "Let's have some music in here! And some chatter if you please!" She added the second suggestion with a meaningful glance at the other occupants in the room.