Burning bridge Chapter 3
Sorry for taking a long time in updating life got in the way! But still here is the next chapter and I really appreciate all the reviews I have been getting.
As soon as Duncan called for a break the serving maid as if on cue tottered through the door carrying a huge silver tray filled with varieties of refreshments piled on top of one another making Horace almost faint with giddiness who, restrained by Cassandra's arm stopped in time to see his mistake. The three rangers, who up until now were extremely exhausted from the long ride up to the castle with hardly any caffeine in their system, lunged at the poor woman who screamed in sheer terror and dropped the tray rather forcefully on the table, while running out of the room. The rangers took no notice of course and were busy wrestling with each other to get the shiny pot of brown liquid the three had come to love so much. The others in the room shook their heads at their vulnerability.
"As I said all you have to do is lure them in with a pot of coffee and probably all the rangers in the Kingdom would come along!" Cassandra said with much exuberance. The three rangers who were now all settled in their seats cried 'Aye' in unison and the rest of the room started laughing at the total devotion to the men's faces as they squeezed just the right amount of honey to make it taste perfect.
"Copycats." Halt grumbled from the corner of his mouth. Will looked up and smiled.
"We're only doing what we've been taught to do Halt, drinking coffee like this is part of our fate."
"Cut it out Will we're just full on addicted to the stuff." Gilan replied.
"I was trying to sound philosophical." Will said in an injured manner. Pauline smiled at the young man while helping herself to the food. She thought to herself again how men could want the strangest things.
"Alright everyone enough dilly daddle we've been going on for long enough." Duncan called out. Everyone took the last bits of food on the tray and waited for him to start reading but instead he gave the book to Cassandra who sat with a grin on her face. She had wondered the entire time what would happen with the secret messenger working for Morgorath and had practically wet herself with excitement. She read aloud now.
IT WAS CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT WHEN THE SINGLE RIDER REINED in his horse outside the small cottage set in the trees below Castle Redmont. The laden pack pony trailing behind the saddle horse ambled to a halt as well. The rider, a tall man who moved with the easy grace of youth, swung down from the saddle and stepped up onto the narrow verandah, stooping to avoid the low-lying eaves.
"Oh goodness that's me!" Gilan exclaimed. He knew he must have been in the book but it still came as a shock to him and he blushed. Jenny who was sitting beside him slid her hand into his and smiled at him cheerfully.
"No you don't say." Baron Arald replied sarcastically. Everyone laughed at Gilan's foolishness at times and in the end he did too.
From the lean-to stable at the side of the house came the sound of a gentle
nickering and his own horse's headrose as he answered the greeting.
The rider had raised his fist to knock at the door when he saw a light come on behind the curtained windows. He hesitated.
Gilan smiled knowingly at Halt who as ever kept his face blank. Will also smiled as he knew what was about to come next.
The light moved across the room and, a second or so later, the door opened before him.
"Gilan," Halt said, without any note of surprise in his voice."What are you doing here?"
"That's typical Halt for you." Duncan said while laughing.
"What would we do without his ever present knowledge?" Will chimed in. He burst into little fits of laughter while everyone else looked at him weirdly.
"Do everyone a favour and shut up Will." Halt said, his eyes twinkling dangerously. Will eventually stopped but continued hiccoughing a little.
The young Ranger laughed incredulously as he faced his former teacher. "Howdo you do it, Halt?" he asked. "How couldyou possibly know it was me arriving in the middle of thenight, before you'd even opened the door?"
Everyone else laughed at that and Horace added.
"Because Halt is eight foot tall and kills boars with his bear hands." The chorus of laughter continued harder only Halt found this less amusing. Cassandra gave everyone a pained look and continued reading.
Halt shrugged, gesturing for Gilan to enter the house. He closed the door behind him and moved to the neat little kitchen, opening the damping vent on the stove and sending new life flaring into the wood coals inside. He tossed a handful of kindling into the stove and set a copper kettle on the hot plate over the fire chamber, shaking it first to make sure there was plenty of water in it.
"I heard your horse some minutes ago," hefinally said. "Then, when I heard Abelard calla greeting, I knew it had to be a Ranger horse." He shrugged again. Simple whenyou explained it, the gesture said. Gilan laughed again in reply.
"Well, that narrowed it down to fifty people, didn't it?"he said. Halt cocked his headto one sidewith a pitying look.
"Gilan, I must have heard you stumbling up thatfront step a thousand times when you werestudying with me," he said. "Give me credit for recognizingthat sound once more."
Halt shrugged again at the simplicity of what he did, while everyone else shook their heads at Halt's smug attitude.
The younger Ranger spread his hands in a gesture of defeat. He unclasped his cloak and hung it over the back of a chair, moving a little closer to the stove. It was a chilly night and he watched Halt measuring coffee into a pot with some anticipation. The door to the rear room of the house opened and Will entered the small living room, his clothes pulled on hastily over his night shirt, his hair still tousled from sleep.
"His hair is always tousled, whether it's from sleep or not." Alyss added. She smiled at Will adoringly while he winked back at her cheekily. This went unnoticed to everybody else.
"Evening, Gilan," he said casually. "What brings you here?"
"Oh no." Will groaned. He remembered that embarrassing time all too well and he did not want to revisit it again. Everyone else apart from Halt and Gilan looked puzzled at this. Gilan decided to help them out.
"You'll see Will do something funny."
Gilan looked from one to theother in something like despair. "Isn't anybody surprised when I turn up in the middle of the night?" he asked, of no one in particular. Halt, busy bythe stove,turned away to hide a grin.A few minutes earlier, he'd heard Will moving hurriedly to the window as the horses drew closer to the cottage. Obviously, his apprentice had overheardHalt's
exchange with Gilan and was doing his best to emulate his own casual approach to the unexpected arrival. However, knowing Will as he did, Halt was sure that the boy was burningwith curiosity over the reason for Gilan's sudden appearance. Hedecided he'd call his bluff.
Everyone smiled at how curious Will was and how he tried to look cool while Will put his hands over his ears to escape the rest of it.
"It's late, Will," he said. "You may as well go back to bed. We havea busy day tomorrow."
All the men smiled at Halt's bluff while Alyss called him a mean man. Halt grinned at her and told her she should have known that years ago.
Instantly, Will's nonchalant expression was replaced by a stricken look. Thesuggestion from hismaster was tantamount to an order. All thought of appearing casual departed instantly.
"Oh, please, Halt!" theboy exclaimed. "I want to knowwhat's going on!"
Halt and Gilan exchanged a quick grin. Will was actually hopping from one foot to another as he waited for Halt to rescind the suggestion that he should go to bed. The grizzled Ranger kept a straight face as he set three steaming mugs of coffee on the kitchen table.
Everyone in the room burst into laughter as they could imagine Will's face while he Will groaned even more.
"Just as well I made three cups then, isn't it?"he said and Will realized that he'd beenhaving hisleg pulled. He shrugged, grinning, and sat down with his two seniors.
"Very well, Gilan, before my apprentice explodes with curiosity, what is the reason for thisunexpected visit?"
"Well that's rich I didn't exactly explode did I?" Will asked.
"You probably would have sooner or later." Horace replied jokingly.
"Well, it has to do with those battle plansyou discovered last week. Now that we know whatMorgarath has in mind, the King wants the army ready on the Plains of Uthal before the dark of the next moon. That's when Morgarath plans to break out through Three Step Pass."
The captured document had told them a great deal. Morgarath's plan called for five hundredSkandian mercenaries to make their way through the swamps of the fenlands and attack theAraluen garrison at Three Step Pass. With the Pass undefended, Morgarath's mainarmy of Wargals would be able to break out and deploy into battle order on the Plains.
"So Duncan plans to beat him tothe punch," Halt said, nodding slowly. "Good thinking. That way we control the battlefield."
Will nodded in his turn and saidin an equally grave voice, "And we'll keep Morgarath's army bottled up in the Pass." Gilan turned slightly to hide a grin. He wondered if he had tried to copy Halt's mannerisms whenhe was an apprentice, and decided that he probably had.
"Every apprentice feels the need to do that, it's just the effect I have on people." Halt said. Will and Gilan shook their heads at his sneakiness.
"On the contrary," he said, "once thearmy's in place, Duncan plans to withdraw thegarrison, then fall back to prepared positions and let Morgarath out onto the Plains."
"Let him out?" Will's voice went up in pitchwith surprise. "Is the King crazy? Why would…"
He realized that both Rangers were looking at him, Halt with one eyebrow raised and Gilan with a quizzical smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"How dare you Will! You doubted my actions?" Duncan exclaimed with an injured tone. Everyone knew he was laying it on a little thick. Cassandra dragged her dad down who had stood up to make his pathetic confrontation.
"Really Dad I'm reading. You can do that stuff later."
"Oh sorry dear." Duncan said rather chastened.
"I mean…" He hesitated,not sure if questioning the King's sanity might constitute treason. "No offense or anything like that. It's just—"
"Oh, I'm sure the King wouldn't be offendedto hear that a lowly apprentice Rangerthought he was crazy," said Halt. "Kings usually love to hearthat sort of thing."
"Huh no offense. That's such a typical Will thing to say." Cassandra muttered. Will smirked at his own foolishness and at Halt telling him off. It had been a long time since that happened.
"But Halt…to let him out, after all these years? It seems…" He was about tosay "crazy" again,but thought better of it. He thought suddenly of his recent encounter with the Wargals. The idea of thousands of those vile beasts streaming unopposed out of the Pass made his blood run cold.
"Trust me Will; they make my blood run cold too." The baron reassured him.
It was Halt who answered first. "That's just the point, Will— after all these years.
We've spent sixteen years looking over our shoulders at Morgarath, wondering what he's up to. In that time, we've had many of our forces tied up patrolling the base of the cliffs and keeping watch overThree Step. And he's beenfree to strike at us any time he likes. TheKalkara were the latest example, as you know only too well."
Gilan glanced admiringly at his former teacher. Halt had instantly seen the reasoning behind theKing's plan. Not for the first time, he understood why Halt was one of the King's most respectedadvisers.
"Too true, too true." The king muttered. Everyone agreed with him.
"Halt's right, Will," he said. "And there's another reason. After sixteen years of relative peace, people are growing complacent. Not the Rangers, of course, but the village people who provide men-at-arms for our army, and even some of the barons and Battle masters in remote fiefs to theNorth."
"You've seen for yourself how reluctant some peopleare to leave their farms and go towar,"Halt put in. Will nodded. He and Halt had spent the past week travelling to outlying villages in Redmont Fief to raise the levies of men who would make up the bulk of the army. On more than one occasion, they had been met with outright hostility — hostility that melted away as Halt exerted the full force of his personality and reputation.
"I think I have quite a nice personality." Halt said innocently.
"Of course you do dear." Pauline replied while shaking her head to the others. Everyone guffawed at Halt's shocked face after that.
"As far as King Duncan is concerned,now is the time to settle this," Gilan continued."We're as strong as we'll ever be andany delay will only weaken us. This is the best opportunity we'll have to get rid of Morgarath once and for all."
"All of which still begs my original question," Halt said. "What brings you here in themiddle of the night?"
"Orders from Crowley," Gilan said crisply. He placed a written dispatch on thetable and Halt,after an inquiring look at Gilan, unrolled it and read it. Crowley was the Commandant of the Rangers, Will knew, the most senior of all the fifty Rangers in the Corps. Halt read, then rolled the orders closed again.
"So you're taking dispatches to King Swyddned of the Celts," he said. "I assume you're invoking the mutual defence treaty that Duncansigned with him some years ago?"Gilan nodded, sipping appreciatively at the fragrant coffee. "The King feels we're going toneed all the troops we can muster."
"Damn right he was about that." Arald muttered.
"Aye he was right by far." Horace responded.
Halt nodded thoughtfully. "I can't fault his thinking there," he said softly. "But…?" He spreadhis hands in a questioning gesture. If Gilan were taking dispatches to Celtica, the sooner he got on with it the better, the gesture seemed to say.
"Well," said Gilan, "it's anofficial embassy toCeltica." He laid a little stress on the last wordand suddenly Halt nodded his understanding.
All the people in the room apart from the Rangers and Couriers emitted confused looks.
"Why would that affect you getting on with the mission?" Jenny asked Gilan.
"Read on darling, it's explained in the book." Gilan smiled.
"Of course," he said. "The oldCeltic tradition."
"Superstition, more like it," Gilan answered, shaking his head. "It's a ridiculous waste of time as far as I'm concerned."
"Of course it is," Halt replied. "But the Celts insist on it, so what canyou do?"
Will looked from Halt to Gilan and back again. The two Rangers seemed to understand what they were talking about. To Will, they might as well have been speaking Espanard.
"It's all very well in normal times," Gilan said. "But with all these preparations for war, we'restretched thin inevery area. We simply don't have the peopleto spare. So Crowley thought…"
"I think I'm ahead of you," said Halt, andfinally, Will could bear it no longer.
"Well, I'm way behind you!" he burst out. "What onearth are you two talking about?You arespeaking Araluen, aren't you, and not somestrange foreign tongue that just sounds likeit, but makes no sense at all?"
"Wow Will not even I am that impatient." Horace said shocked.
"Well they were being very close mouthed what did you expect me to do?" Will asked.
"Still a little on the loud side aren't we?" Halt asked mildly.
"Shut up." Will replied in turn.
"Well on the note of Will's over eagerness this chapter is finished." Cassandra said while closing the book and noting the number.