My co-writer sent me the chapters but I already finished mine so I'm back to fanfiction. Definitely not complaining, it's so much easier when the characters are already developed. And of course, they're tons of fun to write about. IDK whether or not to put an s after Kalkara… So I've left it like deer or fish or sheep, with no s added. (Whoa, I just realized all of those nouns without an s added to them in the plural are animals… cool.)

It's long again, just so much to write and I'm bored. All I've done since Friday at 3:30 is clean and do homework and get a haircut and look for new flowers for our front flowerbed. Yawntastic.

XXX

"So let me get this straight… Rosabel read everyone's files?" Crowley asked, while I tried not to look too guilty.

Halt nodded. "Yes, she did."

"And only one of our Rangers tried to kill her?"

I clamped a hand over my own mouth to keep from laughing.

We'd taken Harrison to be tried for treason, and Crowley had been summoned to hear the explanation. Kory was still totally suspicious of everyone, but I knew things were back to normal. Well, almost normal.

Harrison was gone, and Merron had replaced him. We all spent the few moments of free time thinking up new pranks on him. Halt even made an effort to brush off his complaints. ("You never do know where toads will end up, Merron. Have you been leaving the windows open?")

"Well, we need to get back to training." Halt said briskly. "Rosabel, come."

I ran outside after him and untied Belladonna while he climbed into Abelard's saddle.

XXX

"What animal caused these tracks?"

I leaned sideways to see the tracks Halt was pointing at. "Two deer." I answered eventually.

Halt nodded. "Anything else?"

"They were walking calmly but then they were frightened by… something over there." I pointed to the place where the tracks veered sharply away from.

"Well, go look at those tracks."

I steered Belladonna off the path and to where the tracks should have been. The tracks were huge, and eerily familiar. "Halt!" He must have heard the urgency in my voice, because he jumped to the ground and ran over to me. "Please tell me those tracks aren't what I think they are?"

"Rosabel, go back to camp and get the two biggest pots. Fill them with water and then come back."

"You're not going to use fire, are you? But Halt, that could burn the entire fief!"

"That's what the water is for."

"We could send for a bunch of knights."

"Rosabel, people die fighting Kalkara. Go get water."

I nodded and started off along the path again. I bit my lip, and then wheeled Belladonna around. I urged her to a gallop and set off towards the fief's castle, thinking of getting a few knights to help.

XXX

"Rosabel?" I looked over and saw that the other Ranger apprentices as well as Kory were on their horses beside Will, who'd spoken.

I compelled Belladonna to turn around and motioned for him to come. "Kalkara. Halt's out there."

Will nodded and told the apprentices to stay before matching my pace. I heard all of the apprentices laugh and make comments like "yeah, right". They simply joined the galloping horses.

I found the tracks not long after they joined me. I saw Halt's footprints and followed them. I heard the screaming get louder and motioned for everyone to fan out.

Belladonna firmly planted her hooves in the soft ground and refused to move. Everyone dismounted and readied their weapons.

I found myself between Will and Elizabeth. Adrianne fell into step on Elizabeth's right, where she always was.

"Halt?"

I nearly shot Kory for that. Seriously, who calls out to someone who's hunting and/or being hunted by a practically invincible creature? I rolled my eyes and caught a glimpse of Halt in a tree. I nudged Will and nodded towards its trunk.

I'd misjudged the Kalkara. There were five. They must have stepped in each other's footprints. I didn't know they were intelligent as that.

"Oh, God." I muttered. "Five."

I saw that Halt had already shot their eyes and injured one with about twenty arrows within a handbreadth. His quiver had to be empty, and seeing as there was a saxe knife and a throwing knife stuck in another's pelt, he was completely unarmed.

The five Kalkara spun around and tried to figure out where we were. I went for an arrow, but my hand brushed a branch. I winced as leaves rustled and the twigs snapped off. I found myself facing five Kalkara. "Umm…"

Will elbowed me. It wasn't like making one more noise would do much. "HEY!" Kory yelled from behind the Kalkara.

Halt called out too, and then everyone was shouting and the Kalkara were getting confused. I held up a fist and everyone went silent. I was hoping we could get a few shots off while they were blundering about, but with my luck, of course the wind picked up from behind me. My scent was carried over to them, and yet again I looked into the dull, bleeding eyes of the Kalkara.

I shot about six arrows, but then they were far too close. I dropped to the ground and rolled past them, between their feet. Will managed to get several more arrows off, before they found him. He jumped up into a tree to avoid them.

Elizabeth pulled out a small bottle and a piece of dried meat. I winced in sympathetic pain as she cut her hand and spilled some of her blood on the meat before drenching it in the liquid. She threw the meat at one of them. It bent down and picked it up. Seeming to realize it was food, it ate it.

The Kalkara then proceeded towards Elizabeth with its fellow monsters, but quickly dropped to the ground and screamed in pain before twitching its last and dying.

"Whoa…" Kory muttered from beside me.

I had to agree, even though it sent two of the remaining Kalkara towards me yet again. That reaffirmed my suspicions that Beth was the most dangerous person I'd ever met.

The other two Kalkara slowly edged towards the blood scent of Elizabeth, but I was distracted by a flash of silver. Kory swung his sword like it weighed absolutely nothing, and it hit one of the Kalkara… and bounced off.

The tall guy dropped to the ground and tried to do what I'd done. I had to kick him to make him go fast enough.

"Hey," I said to the Kalkara, "I'm right here."

One swung a scythe like set of claws, which I jumped away from. They still grazed the arm I'd put up to stop them from hitting vital organs, but I didn't even feel it. My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry, but my instincts had kicked in and my head was filled with a fuzz of fighting moves.

I lashed out with my knives and managed to get one through the closer one's pelt. I heard the rain of arrows from the other apprentices and caught a glimpse of the one Halt had shot falling to the ground next to Elizabeth. Kory was keeping the one Halt had hit with his knives away from Adrianne while she fired volleys into it.

Will was shooting at the one nearest me, while I stabbed it and skipped away from its counterattacks.

Annabel had given Halt half of her arrows and the two shot at the one attacking Elizabeth, not that Bess needed much help killing stuff.

Anne and Henry were fighting the fourth Kalkara, taking turns shooting it from either side and confusing it completely.

I slipped on a clump of peat and skidded down a slight raised area and into a tree root that sent me sprawling. I cursed my clumsiness, not for the first time in my life, and rolled away as the Kalkara that had been attacking me tried to stomp on me.

I did a backwards somersault and landed on my feet, my arms already thrusting my knives forward into the Kalkara. They did make hits, but a matted paw (hand?) grabbed my wrist as I pulled back. It tugged me forward and put me in a headlock.

"Great, now I'm a hostage to a creature that's supposed to be too stupid to care about anything but slaughter and silver." I said, trying to sound cheerfully ironic, but it just came across as more of me trying not to panic like I had when Harrison had attacked me.

I stopped struggling when I felt the razor sharp claws at my throat. Will dropped out of the tree silently and walked towards us me and it.

Everyone else had to keep fighting, since the other creatures hadn't paused to investigate.

I expected Will to pull some amazing hostage-saving trick, but instead he reached into the money pouch on his belt and pulled out a handful of silver coins.

He held his hand up to the Kalkara, which (who?) sniffed at the metal and then released me. Will grabbed my arm and pushed me behind him- I immediately moved back to his side- and gave the Kalkara the coins.

The Kalkara snuffled and made some shrill noises. The other Kalkara stopped, turned, and followed the one with silver as it headed southwest.

I turned and stared at everyone.

"You mean we spent all this time fighting nearly invincible monsters when a few silver coins could have managed that?" Halt demanded, frustrated.

Will and I both whirled on him as he climbed out of the tree. "Halt O'Carrick, if you ever do anything stupid like that again, I will kill you. Attacking 5 Kalkara? You never should have gone alone in the first place! You could have died! What would I tell your wife? What would-" We yelled at him in perfect unison, and the others joined in. Will said the King and Pauline, I said Will and Crowley, and everyone else adlibbed-"Do? Go back to the cabin! And then stay in your bunk and sleep! You're not going to be training anyone for twenty-four hours, understood?"

After everyone quit laughing, Kory asked, "What if they come back?"

"The one I was fighting before they left will die…" Elizabeth looked up in thought and moved her finger up and down like factoring in aspects of something, and then finished, "In about two minutes, which should be when they're halfway to the swamp, at their speed."

"Halt, can we trade apprentices?"

Halt actually laughed at Will's pleading question. "No, I've had enough poison in my system for a lifetime." He answered.

Darn. I'd love to be Will's apprentice… Except Halt was actually a really good mentor, and I had tons of fun annoying him.

XXX

Everyone had gone to sleep, since Kalkaras aren't exactly easy to fight, but I couldn't rest. I was still worried that everything was my fault. I'd practically left a map to the cabin, after killing a Kalkara and then not making sure the others couldn't follow.

I paced back and forth outside in the woods, trying to wear myself out. I heard footsteps and spun around, only to see Will standing there. He walked over to me.

"Why are you awake?"

"I never get to sleep well after I see Kalkara." He answered.

I nodded in agreement.

"Why are you awake?"

"No reason… Will, am I really a danger magnet? If I'd covered my tracks after going to get Azaor, I wouldn't have left a scent trail straight to the cabin. If I hadn't read the files, Kory wouldn't have had a close shave with death. And then I got held as a hostage because I wasn't fast enough to pull my knives out without it grabbing my wrist."

He sighed. "That's why you're awake? Rosabel, I led the Crown Princess into a dangerous battle multiple times. I placed my trust in a so-called sorcerer many times. I helped collapse a cavern while people were still in it. It's part of being a Ranger."

I nodded again, this time slowly. "So taking risks is a Ranger's job?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Hmm… "I considered that for a moment, then decided to do my job and take a risk. I kissed him. He froze in shock for a moment before kissing me back. "I could get used to taking risks."