The weeks progressed slowly. Angie learned quickly but as she constantly told Will, she was easily distracted. What should have taken no time at all to master, took Angie weeks. Once a skill became adequate, Angie moved on to something else. And despite Will's constant repetition of the Ranger motto: "Ordinary people practice until they get it right. A Ranger practices until they never get it wrong." Angie could not focus. And her apology was always accompanied with, "I'll be better."
The summer was coming to a close by the time Will closed in on his breaking point. He had said it was not a problem at the beginning of the apprenticeship, Angie's distracted nature. But now he was not at all certain whether or not it was a fatal flaw. The Gathering was coming up and Will was debating presenting Angie before Gilan has his apprentice.
If he could just get her to concentrate.
Only one thing had made an impression on the girl, and that was her horse Starburst. Working with the animal gave her something to do, and the little horse was so peculiar about how things were done that Angie had to do it perfectly. Starburst had to be feed before Angie fetched water, otherwise the little horse leapt the paddock fence and followed the apprentice around. If he was not brushed to his very high standard, Starburst went out and rolled in everything he could find so Angie would have to brush him again.
It took a few weeks for Will to realize what was happening, after he had punished Angie for not taking proper care of her horse, and she had fought about how unfair he was being. Even after discovering what was happening, Will still made Angie groom her horse as long for and as many times as it took. This made her excellent at caring for the animal, mainly because she got tired of brushing him six or seven times a day.
Perhaps, if Will had really been paying attention, he would have seen the solution his problem. But Will had been certain that a show of force would get the girl to focus. So he threw out punishments left and right, breathed now her neck while she was practicing everything and even challenged her to little competitions. Nothing got through to her.
One morning Will was reading through his mail while Angie scrubbed the dishes from breakfast. As long as he was near her he could keep the apprentice from wondering off. On the top of the pile was a letter from Gilan.
Will opened the letter and read through it quickly, a smile spreading across his face. The letter could be exactly what Will needed to get Angie to focus. He looked up at the girl with the smile still growing, trips always helped.
"It seems we've been given a mission." Angie looked up from her work, brushing her hair from her face with the back of her hand.
"A mission," she asked setting the pan she had been cleaning down on the sink. "I thought we just patrolled Redmont."
"Normally yes, but I'm part of a Task Force."
"That thing set up under King Duncan's reign with the knight," Angie scratched her temple with a thumb. "They're the ones who," she sighed sinking into a chair at the table, "did that treaty with the Skandians, and the Arridi."
"Yes and no," Will was amazed that Angie could remember that. She had a very selective memory, selective being that she was not always paying attention. "The Task Force was founded because of those events. The first official mission was in Hibernia," he could tell he had lost her, Angie had started fiddling with her necklace again. "To get to the point, I'm part of the Task Force."
"Who's your partner?"
"You," he answered, so pleased to have a question in sync with the topic he did not even mind that she had interrupted him. "And Maddie, and Horace, and the little battle school student Horace is training."
A lot of that statement made no sense to Angie. For starters, she was not a partner, she was an apprentice. Second who were Maddie and Horace, she felt like she should have known but she did not. And finally: since where battle school students trained outside of a battle school? Angie had known that knights helped train battle school students, but since when did they pull them out for specialized training?
"Um, right," she bit her lip tapping her fingers on the table. "Can we down play that partner thing? I don't think I'm really Task Force ready."
"No," Will smiled, "Maddie, Horace and the battle school student will be here this afternoon."
"Right," Angie sighed, her fingers drummed the table at a faster pace. "Who are Maddie and Horace?"

Maddie was blonde, she wore a Ranger's cloak and she limped but that hardly slowed the woman down. She charged up the steps of the cabin, patting the dog on the head as she passed and tackle hugged Will, who had just barely managed to stand up before Maddie hit him. Will hugged her in return, making Angie feel like she was intruding on a very private moment.
"Uncle Will," Maddie said breathlessly pulling away from the old Ranger. "It's so good to see you again."
"You too Maddie," Will stroked her long hair back with his hand. "How did you convince Evanlyn to let you come?"
"It's my job," the young Ranger smiled, "Even the queen has to realize that I'm a Ranger first."
"I hope you didn't say that to her," Will could not suppress a grin. "She'll ring my neck for that."
"I wouldn't worry too much," Maddie waved the threat aside. "Mum is much too busy to chase you around the world."
There it was. Angie remembered who Maddie was. Will had trained the Crowned Princess as a Ranger. Will had talked about it during one of their boring history lessons that Angie only half listened too. The Maddie coming on this mission was Princess Madelyn heir to the throne of Araluen. It was starting out to be a very interesting afternoon. But the surprises were not finished yet.
"Did you know he has a Ranger's cloak," Maddie asked. Will's brow knitted together looking at his former apprentice.
"No," he finally responded stroking his beard.
"Well he does," Maddie nodded. "He spent most of the ride to Wensley asking if I could see him," Maddie looked like she had been suffering at the bad end of a joke for several days when she rolled her eyes.
Angie could not understand what the problem was. The cloak was supposed to camouflage the wearer so they were harder to see. Will had explained it several times. So this Horace character had a Ranger's cloak, surely someone working in close proximity to the Ranger's would have one and be trained in how to use it.
"He was riding a horse wasn't he," Will offered after several minutes of silent thought. Maddie nodded, a smile spread over Will's face once more. "Halt gave him that cloak, back when we were chasing Tenison and the Outsiders!"
"You knew he had the cloak," Maddie looked out raged. "I've just spent three days riding cross country with a knight on a battle horse asking if he was invisible, and you knew he had the cloak!"
"I didn't think he still had it," Will defended himself. "That was ages ago, and it didn't even fit him. I thought Halt took it back after we returned home." Maddie narrowed her eyes at her former mentor and shook her head. "Where is old Horace anyway?"
There was a creak on the steps out front, "See, I told you I was a master at this."
A tall knight stood in the doorway. He was not dressed in full armor, but he was wearing chain mail and had a shield strapped to his back. He also wore a mottled Ranger's cloak, which was as ill fitting as Will had suggested.
"Where the devil did you spring from," Will feigned surprise at the less than sudden appearance of his best friend. "And who gave you that cloak?"
"A gift from Halt," Horace beamed entering the cabin and wrapping Will in a tight embrace. "Remember, in that drowned Forest."
"Uncle Halt gave you a cloak," Maddie sighed. "I thought he had more sense than that."
"You weren't there, you don't know," Horace looked down his nose at the Princess. "Maybe someday, we'll tell you the story."
"Uncle Will already told me the story," Maddie retorted.
Horace turned to his friend affronted, "you told her already?"
"Angie hasn't heard it," Will grabbed his young apprentice, who had been contentedly watching from a corner, and drug to into the center of the room. "I'm sure she'd be thrilled to hear all about the drowned forest."
Angie gave a very forced smile as Maddie and Horace closed rank on her. She gulped several times as well, wishing they would back up and continue their little banter. "Hi," she whispered waving with three fingers.
"She's the girl," Maddie said after a quick inspection turning to Will. Will nodded, but Angie saw him signal with his hand for Maddie to stop there.
Horace must have missed the sign, he plowed on through, "She looks like him."
Will and Maddie both covered their eyes with their hands and sighed. Angie perked up. Horace had said she looked like someone, he must know at least one of her parents. She was about to ask when the dog barked. The four people in the cabin all turned to look as a boy climbed the steps.
Angie felt her heart, which had just risen to her throat in anticipation of information about her parents, drop to the pit of her stomach. Standing in the doorway of the Ranger's cabin stood the battle school apprentice. Tall, lithe and equipped with a sword, shield and chain mail, his wolfish smile flashing.
Johnny Pritchard was the apprentice knight joining the Task Force.
"Ah, you found us," Horace clapped the boy on the shoulder drawing him into the cabin to present to Will and Maddie. "This is Jonathan," Horace started.
"Johnny, sir," the apprentice knight interrupted.
"Johnny, then," Horace nodded. "Johnny Pritchard, Sir Brian tells me he's a natural," the knight grinned.
Will looked at the boy then to his own apprentice. Angie's face was losing color and Will knew why. The battle school apprentice was the leader of the group that had bullied Angie while in the Ward.
Maddie seemed to pick up on the tension. "What's wrong," she turned to Angie, giving the girl an encouraging smile.
"Nothing," Angie whispered, her hand reaching for the twin oak leaves around her neck. She dropped her eyes to the floor and shuffled her feet. Maddie looked to Will, who turned to Horace.
"Angie, will you please go to your room and get ready to leave." Angie looked up at him, he could not read her expression, but she nodded and backed to her door. Once it had shut Will turned to the battle school apprentice. "I've a feeling Sir Brian sent you with a horse, why not take him round back and give him a good rub down before we get started," the boy looked to Horace.
Horace had by then picked up on the tension in the room and nodded for the boy to go. Closing the door once he saw that Johnny was leading his horse around back to the paddock. Will watched the boy through the window; then turned to look at Angie's door, making certain it had been shut all the way.
"What's going on," Maddie whispered following Will's gaze.
Will held up his hand for silence until he heard the distinct sound of Angie walking across her room, pacing like she always did when she was nervous. "Angie was bullied in the Ward," Will looked back to the window, where he could see the boy half heartedly combing his battle horse.
"What," Maddie shook her head, dismissing the question. "Johnny came from the ward didn't he?"
Horace and Will both nodded. Brian had told Horace that the boy had come from the Ward. That had been part of the reason Horace had chosen him to join the Task Force.
"From what I could tell, and if Angie's face is any indication, Johnny was the leader of the little gang."
"He seemed like such a nice kid," Horace looked over his shoulder to the window. "Brian says he the most agreeable boy, always on time, very polite."
"Well, we can't bring him along if he's just going to antagonize Angie," Maddie interrupted her father. Horace looked hurt, but Maddie stood by it. "This is just a test run isn't it? It's not like you've already told him he's in."
Horace looked at the ground shuffling his feet. "Dad!"
"I didn't know, Gilan said I could choose and they'd be in. I wasn't expecting this," Horace waved his hand toward the window, where Will could see that Johnny had given up on pretending to comb the battle horse and was trying to rope Tug.
"So what are we going to do," Maddie turned back to Will. No offense to her father, but Maddie tended to expect leadership from her former Mentor. Apparently so did Horace.
"We'll take them out. See how it goes," Will looked back to Angie's room. "If it gets out of hand, a few apprentices might have to rethink their futures."

A/N I am so sorry about the delay in the chapter release. But I've had one of those weekends where Life caught up with me and I was away from my computer. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!