Zada woke to sunlight streaming onto her face. Suddenly the light disappeared as a shadow fell over her. She cracked an eyelid open. "Rise and shine" said a voice from above her. It took a minute for her to realise it was Theo. She groaned and rolled over, away from him. "Oh come on. It's not that early" he complained, although Zada could hear the amusement in his voice. She sighed, knowing he wouldn't leave her alone. She slowly got to her feet and shaded her eyes as she looked around. She looked back at Theo and pointed in four different directions, north, east, south, west. She was asking where they were going. Theo looked surprised for a second and quickly glanced around. "Ummm..." he looked back at Zada who now had her hands on her hips as she glared at him. "You have no idea, do you?" her expression seemed to say. He grinned back at her sheepishly. She shook her head and went to saddle up her horse. "You do know what you're doing? Right?" Theo asked, following her. She just glared at him again. "Okay then" he muttered under his breath and went to find his own horse.

Throughout the ride Theo had been trying to talk to Zada. Admittedly it was a very one-sided conversation but Theo could tell that Zada enjoyed being with another person after so long of being on her own. Even though she tried not to show it. Finally Theo realised where they were going. "The Gathering grounds?" he asked her. She turned to look at him with a longsuffering look on her face, as if it was the most obvious choice ever. He shrugged and looked away.

The gathering grounds, as they rode into the clearing, was eerily quiet. Both apprentices knew this place when it was full of Rangers, noise and bustle. This silent lifeless clearing was an alien landscape for them. "It was a good idea to come here" Theo said, breaking the silence. His voice was unnaturally loud in the surrounding quiet. Zada rolled her eyes and sighed as if she was exasperated it had taken him this long to realise her reasoning. "This is the first place the Rangers will come to regroup" he explained.

"What's left of them" Neither of them voiced the thought but it hung in the air around them, forcing them to see the cold, hard and utterly terrifying truth. They were alone. No help was coming. The deserted gathering grounds were a sign of this. The threat of the power-hungry baron and his army was over but now, more than ever the kingdom needed the leadership and guidance of the Ranger Corps. Leadership and guidance that no longer existed, just like the Rangers that supplied it. The enormity of this thought hit Zada harder than a catapult shot to the face and she swayed in the saddle. Theo urged his horse beside her just in time to stop her from falling to the ground. She was exhausted, her face drawn and grey. The wound on her leg wasn't helping either. Theo knew it was causing her pain and had tried, unsuccessfully, to get her to rest more on the ride over here but she had refused to stop. He lowered her gently to the ground and swung himself down from the saddle next to her. She had collapsed where she landed and was huddled into a ball on the ground. Theo sat himself down next to her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked. Her voice was no louder than a whisper of the wind but Theo heard her as clearly as the echo of her question inside his head. She turned her head to look at him and his heart twisted at how broken she looked. His resolve hardened as a plan begun to form in his mind.

"We're going to rebuild the Ranger Corps. So we'd better start recruiting."