Chapter 8
"Thank you," Will said, counting out three silver pieces and resting them on the bench. Jason Barre, a well muscled merchant, with wispy brown hair tied at the base of his neck, accepted the coins and handed the apprentice a sack of ground coffee beans.
Buying coffee was the only time Will got off training, save for special occassions. Halt firmly believed that the cabin must be stocked up with enough coffee beans to last one week at any time. Which meant they usually bought two weeks worth, so that they could eat one week and still have enough left for the emergency supply. The emergency referring to if Redmont ran out of coffee. Apparently, coffee with honey was more delicious than any blood in the world for the vampire, a fact that went against all legends of dark, blood thirsty monsters.
Blood thirsty vampire, Will chuckled to himself, more like coffee thirsty.
"Have a good day, ranger Will," Barre said.
"You too, merchant Barre," Will waved a hand, smiled, and stepped out of the small shop. It always puzzled him that the shop was tucked away in a narrow side street- a shady street too, the kind of place theives would trade stolen goods after dark and warmweed would exchange hands. He supposed it had been there before Barre bought it, but it was a strange place for a man who had nothing to hide.
He hesitated on the bustling main street. All that awaited for him back at the cabin was an afternoon of tough training and an evening of chores. He considered telling Halt that Jason Barre had just received a shipment of stock and Will had helped him put it on the shelves before buying the coffee. That way, he could afford to stay in Wensley village a little longer.
Or he could go to the castle and see Alyss. Of course, he quickly added in his mind, he could also meet up with Jenny and George, Alyss's name just started with the first letter of the alphabet and that's why she had come to his mind first.
Or he could slink back to the cabin and pretend these thoughts didn't cross his mind. This option was the safest, although he would miss out on seeing Alyss. Halt had an uncanny way of finding things out and Will wasn't convinced he would accept the lie about Barre's stock.
Just as he was debating what he should do, a voice called out his name. A soft, familiar voice with a low pitched cadence and a calm, steady quality to it.
"Alyss?" he asked, scanning the crowd. At first, he didn't see her, then he spotted the flutter of a white couriers gown. "Alyss!"
In his mottled ranger cloak, the crowd parted for him, avoided him, and he met Alyss in the center of the road. She took his hand, and guided him to the fringes of the street, as they had been getting in the way of the oxen pulling carts that were urged to avoid them.
"What are you doing here?" Will asked, unable to hide the happy grin stretched across his face. She smiled back at him.
"I could ask you the same thing," she said, then proceeded to answer his question. "Lady Pauline is training me to fit in with the crowd even when I'm wearing my uniform. I think I've failed, running over to you like that." She chuckled and Will was reminded of how her laugh flowed as smooth as a river over shiny black pebbles. "And what about you?"
They were still holding hands and her fingers squeezed his gently at the question.
"I was buying coffee for Halt," he told her. She cocked her head, curious.
"I can't imagine the ranger Halt doing something as mundane as drinking coffee," she admitted. "What is he like, by the way? Is he always very grim?"
Will said that Halt liked nothing more than coffee, that he was more normal than one might think and yes, he was always very grim, but sometimes there was less heart behind the grimness and he even joked- always straightfaced and usually at Will's expense.
"So, is he a magical creature?" Alyss asked. "I've heard that the ranger corps are."
Will hesitated. "I don't know," he said finally. "He looks human. And I guess the ranger corps don't have to be, because I'm not magical and I'm an apprentice ranger." The last bit he raced through, the words stumbling over each other. A sudden coldness had descended into his heart. What would Alyss think if she found out he was a werewolf?
"Okay, okay," Alyss seemed amused by his rush. "I know you're human. I have to admit, I'm kind of releived. I was always a bit scared of Halt, but I suppose if he's not magical, there's nothing to worry about, right?"
"Right," Will muttered. He wasn't sure why he felt so icy inside. His stomache was churning and he thought he might be sick. She would not be smiling at him if she knew.
"Are you alright?" Alyss released his hand to touch his cheek. "You're kind of pale."
"I-I'm fine," Will forced a grin. "I should get this coffee back to Halt."
Alyss pulled her hand away and he had to fight not to sigh at the loss of those soft fingers. "I should be training too," she admitted. "Oh, look, here comes Pauline now."
Will followed her gaze. He had seen Lady Pauline around of course, and her flowing courier gown, her white blonde hair swept up on her head, her serene grey eyes were distinctive to her, and similar to Alyss at once. Now that he was looking directly at her, it was obvious Halt's picture was of her when she was young.
Pauline and Alyss exchanged a few words, the two of them with the same graceful poise and calm expressions. They were very alike. Will gave a clumsy bow and excused himself, his face flushing as he heard Alyss's soft laughter behind him and Pauline saying to her that Will was a nice young man.
A nice young werewolf more like.
…...
Horace was heading for the forest in the dead of night. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, determined to catch a magical creature even though he'd failed two nights before and was really very tired. This time, he decided to try a different part of the forest, the thicker part near to the rangers' cabin.
After all, he'd figured all sorts of hideous creatures would be attracted to the rangers. Will had been apprenticed to Redmont's ranger, he remembered. It didn't surprise him, the smaller boy had always been sneaky and dishonourable, climbing to the highest branches of that old oak tree rather than facing him like a man.
Horace held his breath as he passed the cabin. He had Alda's sword in his hand and he pointed it at the cabin, just in case the rangers were lurking there, ready to jump out. He wouldn't be surprised if they hunted human meat at night.
A light flickered on behind the curtains in one of the rooms. Horace flinched and dropped the sword on the ground, hiding it in the long grass. He didn't want to fight with the ranger Halt, not yet, so it was better that Halt didn't see he had the sword.
Sure enough, the door to the cabin opened and the ranger watched him calmly. Halt beckoned for him to come up onto the veranda. Horace bit his lip, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. The sword lay helpless on the ground and the distance between him and his only weapon increased as he stepped up onto the veranda, licking his lips and trying to calm his jangled nerves.
"What are you doing sneaking around in the middle of the night and disturbing me from my sleep?" Halt drawled. Horace noted the knives in the double scabbard, the ranger cloak that shifted and wavered, distorting the ranger as if he were fading in and out of focus.
Horace's throat was dry. He swallowed several times. The ranger simply waited with a raised eyebrow.
"I-uh-I'm a friend of Wills." he hated to even lie about it, that he was a friend of that sneaking rangers apprentice.
"Okay," Halt said at length. "And why are you here in the middle of the night?"
"Um," Horace shifted. "Uh." The dark eyes of the ranger were unnerving. His mind had gone blank, he couldn't think. "I have something to give him," he blurted out.
"Could it not wait until morning?" Halt asked. He was getting impatient now, and he rubbed his eyes, leaning against the doorframe, not looking at all concerned. He probably didn't feel threatened by a visitor in the middle of the night because he probably got heaps of his magical friends visiting, Horace thought. And he was probably a sorceror who could blast Horace away without batting an eyelid.
"No, it's very important," the apprentice warrior insisted. "I thought he might want to know about it immediately. But now that you mention it, it is kind of late. I'll go now, goodnight."
He started to back away, but the ranger wasn't going to let him go that easy. "If it's so important, I'll get him for you." Horace blinked.
"Wha..? Really?" In the middle of the night?
Halt gestured for him to enter the cabin. Horace cautiously took one step and stood tense, ready to bolt at a moments notice. The ranger knocked on a side door and it opened, revealing a hurridly dressed, messy haired Will.
The apprentice's stared at each other through bleary eyes. Halt had moved over to the stove. If he was suspicious at all of the warrior, he didn't show it.
"Horace Altman right?" he asked suddenly. Horace flinched.
"Yes." Oh god, he was thinking, he knows my name, oh god, he knows me, oh god, how does he know my name?
"Rodney's new recruit," Halt mused. "I was wondering what you were like."
Will was staring at his enemy as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Horace bit his lip. Any moment now Will would blurt out something that would cause the ranger to see him as an enemy, and Horace really didn't want to know what Halt did to his enemies- did he fry them up and eat them? Did he chop off all their limbs? Did he torture them and laugh like a maniac at their screams?
"Um, Sir Rodney wanted to talk to you," Horace said the first thing that came to mind.
"I thought you said you had something to show him?" Halt pointed out mildly. He had his back to the apprentices and was brewing a pot of coffee on the stove.
"Yes, um, that too. It's with Sir Rodney," Horace said. "It's really important so Will should come straight away."
Will was still staring at him as if he'd grown a third head. "Huh?" he said eventually.
"If it's so important you should go," Halt said. "Just make it quick, we've got a long day ahead of us tommorrow."
So they went. Horace was cursing in his head at the way things had turned out. He'd just made it worse and worse for himself. Will was still staring at him, and he was feeling the urge to poke the other boys eyes out to stop him. Alda's sword was lying abandoned in the field, and Horace knew he would have to come back to get it, but all he wanted to do was leave as fast as he could and never come back.
No, he had to be braver than that. A coward could never acheieve what he wanted to acheieve- the total anhihilation of dark creatures. And as he had the thought, he realised the rangers were probably magical too. He glanced at Will out of the corner of his eye. Was the boy he had grown up fighting with a monster?
"What is this all about?" Will was asking. "Why did you come here? Why does Sir Rodney want me and not Halt? What..."
Horace wasn't listening. Even though he was an apprentice ranger, this was still the same Will that he could beat in a fight. He should do it, he should do it now. Beat him, threaten him not to tell the ranger that Horace had lied. Kill him. Because undoubtely, the ranger wouldn't like being lied to and Will would tell him that Sir Rodney had nothing to do with any of this.
But he couldn't do it. He had no proof that Will was magical. Horace hated the apprentice ranger, but right now, he wasn't worked up or angry. He wasn't in the mood to fight and he couldn't hurt the smaller boy without anger- his blood did not run cold through his veins.
So instead, feeling like an upmost weakling, he told himself he would just try to get out of this mess and then, if Will was magical, he would find proof. And when he had that proof, he would kill the apprentice ranger, and he'd kill Halt too.
"On second thoughts, you can go back home Will," Horace said.
"What?" Will was still looking extremely confused.
"Sir Rodney doesn't want to see you after all." And since it was obvious Will wasn't going to leave until he got answers, Horace added, "I lied. I just thought I'd pull a prank on you, to rid you of a little sleep. You're so gullible Will and your master too!" he forced a triumphant laugh.
He watched as Will's face twisted with anger. The apprentice stepped forward and slammed his fist into Horace's nose. Blood sprayed into the air and Horace forgot about not hurting the smaller boy. He kneed Will's stomache and followed up with a hooking punch to the shoulder, sending the other boy crashing to the ground.
Horace tried to pin him down, but Will twisted and managed to kick him off. The two apprentices were yelling and brawling and rolling over one another, and a door to a house slammed open. They had made it to Wensley village on the way to the battleschool before the fought, and now a local blacksmith pointed a hot iron at them.
"You two boys quit yer fightin' or I'll show you how a man fights," he hollored, waving the iron. They separated, glaring at each other and at the blacksmith.
"Sorry sir," Will muttered.
"Sorry doesn't cut waking me up in the middle o' the night. Now go home and let me sleep." He slammed the door in their faces.
Will turned and strode back towards the cabin. Horace held his broken nose, grimancing. He hesitated as he watched Will leave, and it was in that moment that he caught sight of the ranger Halt, leaning against a house, his dark eyes boring into the battleschool apprentice.
Seized by a sudden frission of fear, Horace hurried back to the battleschool where he would sneak into his dorm and dream about hot irons and dark, dark eyes.
The next day was a saturday and in his break, he would pluck the courage to return to the cabin for the sword. Will and Halt would be out tracking, and he would search the grassy field for half an hour before giving up, knowing that Alda's sword was lost.
…...
Halt turned the sword over in his hands, admiring the emerald studded hilt.
"Your friend Horace left it behind," Halt said.
"I wonder where he got it from," Will mused.
Halt shrugged. "The real question is, who did he get it from? This is, without a doubt, a sword from the True Guard."
Will's eyes widened. "How can you tell?"
Halt pointed to a silvery inscription on the top of the hilt. "This is their sign," he said. "I'm afraid your friend may be a part of the True Guard."
"He's not my friend," Will said darkly. Halt raised an eyebrow.
'Yes, I could see that," he said. "And I'm very disappointed, Will, a ranger's apprentice should not be so childish as to brawl about."
Will flushed, ashamed. He hated to let his mentor down. "Sorry," he said. "I was angry. Anyway, rangers fight their enemies all the time!"
"And yet, you never drew your knives," Halt pointed out. "If you're fighting someone and you don't want to hurt them with your weapons, there is really no point in fighting them."
Will sighed and bowed his head. There was no excuse for his actions. "Sorry," he said again. Halt nodded curtly, a signal that the matter was over with.
"I'm concerned about the boys intentions," he said. "He brought this sword and yet dropped it when he saw me. I have a sense that he didn't come here to hurt us, but that puzzles me even more. Why was he here?"
Will frowned. Much like his mentor, he hated unanswered puzzles.
"Well, I suppose there's nothing we can do about it," Halt dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand. "I'll have to mention this to Rodney, and he can deal with it as he sees fit."
"How will he deal with it?" Will asked quietly. "Does anyone care if he's in the True Guard? No one likes magical creatures."
He was thinking of Alyss again, and how she might react if she knew he was a werewolf. Perhaps she would join Horace in the True Guard.
"Rodney is a friend," Halt said firmly. "He doesn't have a problem with rangers and actually, the True Guard is an illegal society even though many people support what they do. He will handle the matter in an approppriate way and we'll have to settle with that."
Will was still a bit downcast. Halt leaned over and patted his shoulder.
"Don't worry about it too much. As a member of the corps, you'll soon find there are worse things to deal with than one apprentice warrior," he said.
Will didn't find that too comforting.
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