Chapter 6 continued

Once Will managed to recompose his features he gestured at Horace to continue reading and tactfully ignored the sniggering of Gilan and Cass. It wouldn't do for either one of them to have a bruised eye.

Gilan shook his head. "I didn't ask him anything. I followed him one day when he left our castle and headed into the forest."

"WHAT?" Everyone spluttered apart from Lady Pauline who seemed as calm as ever and Alyss who had to quickly recompose her expression of shock. Halt coughed slightly to hide his laughter and Will and Horace smiled at the rest of the Araluans while acting unsurprised themselves.

"What were you thinking?" Jenny squealed.

"Honestly I have no idea" Gilan laughed. "It was probably one of the most insane things I have ever tried to do in my life."

"More importantly what did Halt do?" Cassandra asked and the rest of the crowd swivelled in their seats to look at Halt, who as always kept a blank face. Horace decided to read again so they knew.

"You followed him? A Ranger? You followed a Ranger into the forest?" said Horace. He didn't know whether to be impressed by Gilan's courage or appalled at his foolhardiness. Will sprang to Gilan's defence.

"Gil's one of the best unseen movers in the Ranger Corps," he said quickly. "The best, probably."

"I wasn't then," said Gilan ruefully. "Mind you, I thought I knew a bit about moving without being seen. I found out how little I actually did know when I tried to sneak up on Halt when he stopped for a noon meal. Next thing I knew, his hand grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and threw me in a stream."

Cassandra roared with laughter in a very unlady like manner as did the rest of the people gathered. Gilan smiled again and Halt's mouth had twitched up at the corners as he remembered a fifteen year old lanky boy and his shocked face as he was drenched in water. He sighed quietly and thought of how long ago that happened. A small hand wrapped around his perfectly as if made for him alone and saw Pauline looking at him as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. How did she do that?

"Alright everyone I want to hear the rest of the story." Duncan said after stopping himself from laughing finally. Everyone stopped after a while and the story was continued.

He smiled at the memory of it.

"I suppose he sent you home in disgrace then?" asked Horace, but Gilan shook his head again, a distant smile still on his face as he remembered that day.

"On the contrary, he kept me with him for a week. Said I wasn't too bad at sneaking around the forest and I might have some talent as an unseen mover. He started to teach me about being a Ranger —and by the end of the week, I was his apprentice."

"Wow that was unexpected." Arald exclaimed. Others nodded in agreement. Halt seemed to always surprise them with his twists and turns.

"How did your father take it when you told him?" Will asked. "Surely he wanted you to be a knight like him. I guess he was disappointed."

"Will not all fathers expect their sons to be a knight." Arald shook his head at the young man he had come to admire.

"Well I thought they did at the time, mind you I didn't really have my father as living proof to know whether I was right or not." Will joked. He looked at the faces before him and realised they had taken his words seriously, after all not many people joked about their dead parents. There was an awkward silence in the room, though since Alyss was like Will she understood his meaning and said.

"He's joking everyone." There was a sigh of relief as they realised this.

"You might not have known your father but he was a good man." Halt said gruffly. Most of the people in the room turned in shock.

"You knew him?" Arald asked.

"Continue reading Horace." Halt said quickly averting attention from himself. He didn't want to get into this discussion now.

"Not at all," said Gilan. "The strange thing was, Halt had told him that I'd probably be following him into the forest. My father had already agreed that I could serve as Halt's apprentice, before I even knew I wanted to."

Horace frowned. "How could Halt have known that?"

"Exactly how did Halt know that?" Alyss asked smirking at his unexpected nature. Halt shrugged nonchalantly.

"I don't know it's just something I feel Will, Gilan you both get what I mean." And indeed the two ex apprentices did know what he was talking about as sometimes they felt the same way when in training. An instinct that controls your movement, your thoughts most of the time benefitting you.

Gilan shrugged and looked at Will meaningfully. "Halt has a way of knowing things, doesn't he, Will?" he asked, grinning. Will remembered that dark night in the Baron's office, and the hand that had shot out of the darkness to seize his wrist. Halt had been waiting for him that night. Just as he'd obviously waited for Gilan to follow him.

"Wait what was this?" Alyss asked. No one apart from Halt, Arald and Will knew and personally Arald loved it. The feeling of being made privy to a secret and then the look of pure desperation as people tried to figure out what happened made him feel giddy inside.

"There there Alyss it's just a secret we've been keeping for a while now." The rest were curious now at the Barons words and he had to hide a smile. Alyss frowned. She'd find out somehow, her and Will were bound to be alone at some point and then she'd get it out of him. She then thought of how crazy and evilly twisted she sounded and shook her head. Regardless she needed to know what happened.

He looked deep into the low embers of the fire before he answered. "Maybe, in his own way, he is a kind of a sorcerer," he said.

"Of course he is everyone knows that!" Cassandra claimed.

"After all he is eight foot tall." Alyss added.

"And he can kill boars with bear hands" Horace said. There was a general chorus of laughter that spread across the room while Halt looked noticeably unimpressed and Pauline couldn't help herself.

"It seems I've married a sorcerer God save me" The laughter increased even more at that and Halt scowled at his wife then immediately stopped as he realised she excelled even more so than him at that department.

The three companions sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, thinking about what had been discussed. Then Gilan stretched and yawned.

"Well, I'm for sleep," he said. "We're on a war footing these days, so we'll set watches. Will, you're first, then Horace, then me. ‟Night, you two."

And so saying, he rolled himself into his gray-green cloak and was soon breathing deeply and evenly.

"That's it the chapter's finished." Horace said. Duncan looked out towards the sky and saw a red haze spread out across the horizon. It was almost evening he knew and after dinner they would have to separate into their own quarters.

Hey guys thank you for being so patient, I've had exams all week and I still have more the next week but hopefully when the Christmas holidays start I'll be updating much more often. Don't forget to review otherwise I'll make Halt eat his own quiver in this story!