A Secret Valley

When Will never shows at the Ranger's Gathering, Halt begins to get worried. He might be too late to save Will, though, as his former apprentice finds himself thrust deep into a secret plot to take over Araluen. Set after Book 11.

Chapter 1:

A twang of the bowstring alerted him that the arrow had been released, but as Halt looked to the tree trunk carved with an 'X', he saw that the archer had missed their mark. The arrow flew awry to the owner's wishes, hitting a bush near the trunk with a thud.

The archer turned towards the senior ranger, eyes full with resignation.

"Well, boy," Halt barked, "Are you trying to aim at the bush? Or can you just not see the tree clearly marked fifteen meters in front of you? I didn't know we were accepting blind apprentices now."

The apprentice began to stutter out an apology, his green eyes wide with fear, but Halt was in no mood for twitchy first year apprentices.

"Go fetch your arrows, boy," Halt said, his voice making it clear that his teaching session was over, "I'll be sure to tell Harold that you can only make a shot if the target is five meters wide and your hand isn't grabbing the bowstring like it's your lifeline."

"But Harold says that a bow is a Ranger's lifeline," the boy said meekly.

"Is that so?" Halt asked gruffly, "Well then I suppose you can tell Harold that you don't need any training with your saxe or throwing knife since you plan on only using your bow. Now go fetch your arrows, boy."

The apprentice nodded his head fervently before scampering off, pulling his arrows from the bush and the target.

Halt felt a small sense of satisfaction at seeing the apprentice act fearful to him, glad to know that despite his accumulating age, some people were still intimidated by him.

"Don't you think you might've been a bit harsh to young John?" Crowley asked from behind Halt, effectively ruining any satisfaction the ranger might have felt.

Halt wouldn't admit it, but he hadn't heard Crowley sneak up on him. The Ranger Commandment was deemed the best silent mover for a reason, though he would never admit it to Crowley's face.

"He only hit the target six times out of the ten arrows he shot," Halt brushed his old friend off, "the rest of them either went into the bushes or the ground in front of the stump."

"He is only a first year," Crowley reminded him. "And his unseen movement is impeccable for his age."

"Well, tell Harold he should teach his apprentice less about dancing around the woods and more about how to properly handle weapons."

"Aren't you just cheery today, Halt. Are you always in such a bad mood or have I just forgotten about your sunny personality?"

"Maybe I don't like being assigned to oversee first years." Halt grumbled.

"You are the best ranger I have with the bow," Crowley pointed out, walking closer to Halt as they watched John leave the archery range and return to the camping grounds.

Halt grunted.

"I planned to assign Will to him since the young man is one of our best shots as well," the Commandment admitted, "but…" Crowley wasn't quite sure how he wanted to finish his sentence without poking the very sensitive beast.

"But Will's not here." Halt finished.

Crowley turned to his friend, studying Halt's nearly emotionless facade. To another, the Senior Ranger might appear as unmoved as usual, but Crowley saw how Halt's eyebrows knitted and twisted together, showing his worry for his former apprentice.

"You say he left on a routine mission to pursue a group of four bandits just a week and a half ago?" Crowley asked.

The other man nodded, "I expected him back five days ago at most. He even wrote to Alyss, telling her that he would not be gone long."

The sandy-haired ranger hummed, "We would be hard-pressed to jump to too many conclusions just yet. Will is a smart young man—goodness, he might just be one of the greatest strategic thinkers the Corps has ever seen—he knows what he's doing, Halt."

"I know that, Crowley," Halt said exasperatedly, "But Will is still young and hasn't earned as much experience as us. As smart as he may be, there is always room to make mistakes if you're his age."

"Will could be late for a number of reasons. Perhaps he found himself tracking bandits that are a part of a bigger ring. Or maybe Will encountered another village with an impending issue that needed his help on his way back."

"I still don't like it. If he discovered that he would be gone longer than expected, Will would've most certainly sent a letter to either me or the Baron—especially since his mission was as close as it was to the Gathering."

"Perhaps," Crowley conceded, "but Will is not the young apprentice you once taught. While it is fine to still care for the boy, maybe it is time to step back and give him some breathing room. God knows you can only take so many gray hairs, Halt."

"Fine," the gray-bearded ranger gave in, "but if he isn't back by the end of the Gathering, I am fully entitled to look for him."

"If he isn't back by the end of the Gathering," Crowley agreed, "I'll have the Corps be on the lookout for him."

Gilan across from Halt that night, the cooling embers of a fire rested in between the two rangers.

While Halt had overseen many first year apprentices as they worked to improve their aims with a professional eye on them, the young of the two rangers was tasked by Crowley to help the third years receive advice on their unseen movement. All of the apprentices he had watched were excelling in their ability to use their cloak to stay unseen, though one of them struggled to properly control their breathing, making Gilan able to see them due to the rising movement of their chest. He had given the boy a few breathing exercises and the problem seemed to have been solved.

"Any reason I saw Harold comforting his first year apprentice after the boy's archery session?" Gilan asked conversationally, taking a sip of his honeyed coffee. They had already enjoyed a nice roasted rabbit that Halt had shot to share between the pair, and now they were nursing a small cup of coffee each before going to bed for the night.

"The boy might as well have been blind for the amount of times he hit the target," Halt told his former apprentice, "just because we're apprenticing invalids now doesn't mean I have to be okay with it."

"Berrigan seems to get around on one-leg just fine."

"Berrigan is a retired ranger."

"He comes back to do a few missions every now and then, though," Gilan pointed out.

Halt snorted, "Spying for information is a bit different then combat."

"You've been impossible to talk to this whole day, do you know that?" And Gilan was speaking the truth. He posed the question to be playful, but he was secretly worried about Halt's slightly more than usual irritable mood.

The gray-beard ranger sighed, "Not you, too."

"Oh, has Crowley already beat me to it?"

"Maybe you two are both impossible to talk with," Halt said, though his eyes softened slightly as he met his former apprentice's concerned gaze. "I'm just a bit worried," Halt admitted, "It's not normal for him to be gone for so long without any word."

"Will is smarter than you give him credit for sometimes, Halt."

"So I've been told," the older ranger muttered.

"I think you still think of him as your young apprentice sometimes. You used to do the same thing with me, too, always nagging at Crowley to give me the easiest missions so that you wouldn't have to worry about me getting hurt."

"You were new, though," Halt argued, "Crowley and I both agreed to not give you any difficult jobs; I wanted to ease you into the transition of taking care of your own fiefdom."

"So you have nothing to do with how Crowley sent Merron to my fief to track down a few rogue Moonlarkers just a few months back because I was still recovering from my flu?"

Halt huffed, "Is Crowley discreet about anything he does these days?"

"I'm just making a point here, Halt," Gilan spoke, "You sometimes still see Will as the young boy you took in from the Redmont Ward and saved from Skandia. It's been a long minute since then, though, and I think you need to take a step back to see what a strong and capable ranger Will has become."

"I do see that he is a strong ranger," the senior ranger acknowledged, draining the rest of his coffee, "I wouldn't have chosen to teach either of you if I didn't think that you would make great rangers one day."

Halt was already standing from his seat on a stump as Gilan began to realize his teacher had just given him a compliment. It wasn't any day that the graying ranger gave out one of those.

"Get some water from the creek and pour it on the embers," Halt ordered his former apprentice, "Since you think you're such a capable ranger, you can cook our breakfast in the morning as well."

Gilan frowned, knowing that he had walked himself right into that trap. "You know, Halt, I think—"

"A dangerous pastime, that thinking of yours is."

Gilan picked up the rusty pail without another word and muttered under his breath all the way to the creek.

Author's Note: First Ranger's Apprentice fic! I absolutely love Will in this series, but Halt will always hold a special place in my heart. That old grumpy ranger is just too funny for his own good. This fandom is way too small for how good this series is, and I hope Flanagan continues to infatuate more people with his writing as it continues.