I'm back. I know it's been a while, but I hope you enjoy the chapter none the less.

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It had been a month since Wyot had become Nyer's apprentice. He had been training every day with his bow and his knives. He had practised every single morning with all his weapons, starting with the bow and then his knives. The afternoons were usually filled with lessons about moving silently and unnoticeably and in the evening they would do more writing and mapping lessons.

All the days would usually follow this profile. Sometimes, however, Nyer would sprinkle in different activities. 'To keep it fresh, you always have to be ready for something unexpected when you're a ranger', Nyer had told him countless amount of times.

Today had started off normally. They had gone for a morning run, or rather, Wyot had gone for a morning run and Nyer had ridden on Cliff. After they had gotten home, Wyot had made breakfast. Nyer had thought him and he was getting pretty good at it. After breakfast, Wyot had trained with his weapons. This was something Nyer joined him in. 'You're never too old to learn', his mentor had said when Wyot had asked him about it.

Wyot had been blown away the first time he had seen Nyer train with his weapons. The ranger could shoot an arrow per second perfectly accurate. Wyot meanwhile was struggling to even hit the targets half the time.

Now, he had gotten used to the crazy speed and accuracy of Nyer's weaponry. Wyot had just shot all his arrows, and only 10 out of the 24 had hit the straw target. He had done better but it was definitely not a bad attempt. He looked at Nyer, who was just finishing his last arrow.

He had shot 24 arrows at 8 different targets while sitting crouched between the branches of an oak tree. All 24 had hit the center. As the ranger was climbing out of the tree, Cliff whinnied shortly. Wyot looked at Nyer, but the ranger seemed unbothered by the horse's warning.

Maybe he hasn't heard, Wyot thought. 'Cliff just whinnied', he said, trying to keep his voice down as low as possible, just in case.

Nyer nodded, walked up to the boy and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. 'I've heard it. There's someone coming. Cliff doesn't know who it is, nor if it's friend or enemy, but I'm expecting someone.'

'Who? Why is he coming? Wha…'

Nyer halted the stream of questions coming out of the boy's mouth by raising his hand. 'It's a friend, and she…' He put an extra accent on the she to show the boy he had been wrong. '… is bringing me something she repaired for me.' He followed up the first sentence with a second one. 'And a good lesson to keep in mind, never just assume something cause you think so. You can assume something logically, like assuming someone who's wearing a ranger cloak is in fact a ranger, but always question everything.' Wyot nodded fiercely.

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Two minutes later, a horse entered the open place with the ranger's hut. It was a simple, brown horse with white socks. It was fairly big and pretty clear that it was a workhorse.

The lady sitting on top of the horse was the complete opposite of her ride. She was quite short and had wavy, brown hair reaching halfway through her back. She was wearing a simple leather tunic with a brown shirt and brown pants.

As she dismounted her horse, she shouted a greeting to Nyer. 'Hi, Nyer!'

The ranger swung his bow across his shoulder and walked up to the woman to give her a hug. They exchanged a few words before letting go of the hug and walking up towards the house, where Wyot was still standing.

As they were walking towards him side by side, he could get a better look at the visitor. Though she had looked rather short when she had been sitting on her horse, she was actually a tad bit bigger than Nyer.

'Hi there', she said in a sweet voice.

'Hey', Wyot simply answered.

'So you're Nyer's apprentice', she asked him gently.

'Yes, I'm Nyer's apprentice. Nice to meet you.' He stuck out his hand. She shook it briefly.

'I'm Mila by the way', the woman said while glancing with a disapproving glance in Nyer's direction. 'I assume he didn't tell you?' She said it in a somewhat playful tone to show she was not really angry.

'I'm Wyot', the boy simply answered. But before Mila could ask some more questions, Nyer jumped into the conversation.

'If you two are done talking, we can maybe go inside instead of standing on the doorstep?'

Mila glanced at the ranger with a smile. 'Can't your legs handle a bit of standing', she teased him playfully.

Nyer couldn't really find a solid response off the top of his head, so he just shrugged and opened the front door. Wyot wanted to follow him inside but Nyer stopped him. 'You can take care of Mila's horse.' Wyot nodded and walked to the horse, who had been grazing in the open field around the ranger's hut.

As the boy walked away, Nyer walked inside the house. He quickly cleaned up some of the reports he'd been working on yesterday night to make room for Mila to sit at the big, six-person oak wooden table.

Mila meanwhile walked up to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, which had been left over from breakfast. Then, she took place across from Nyer and took out some objects from the bag she had been carrying.

She put six objects on the table. Four of them were smaller, the other two were much bigger.

Nyer grabbed one of the smaller objects and removed the leather sack that it had been sitting in. What he saw was a small but deadly weapon. It was similar to a knife, with a normal hilt made of leather. But were the normal saxe- and throwing knives had a straight blade with a cutting edge, this weapon had a round spike about the same thickness as the hilt with a sharp tip at the end. So it could only be used for thrusting. And where the other two knives had parry bars to block incoming swords from hitting the hands, this one had similar round points at both sides of the knife where the parry bar would normally be. These went to the side like a normal parry bar but eventually curved up like cow horns.

Nyer looked at the weapon with a lot of interest. 'Is this what they came up with', he asked Mila.

She nodded. 'Its best use is defending against swords. You can catch a sword in between the main pike and one of the horns and twist it to let the opponent lose the sword, or knife for that matter. It can be used for thrusting and throwing. And, they're working on a design where you can let the sides pop out with a button but first it had to be tested. So all the rangers got one.'

'Your father had put a lot of work in them, they look and feel very nice', Nyer commented.

'He's a blacksmith, he does his job well.'

'I can see that.'

As Nyer finished his sentence, Wyot walked in through the front door. He wanted to tell Nyer he had put the horse away, but only then saw the new weapons on the table. So he changed his mind and instead asked: 'What are those?'

'They're our new weapons, but I don't believe they have a name so I'll call them hornknives from now on', Nyer answered while picking up two of the weapons and giving them to the boy. 'Those are yours.'

Wyot took them from his mentor and came to the same conclusions as Nyer just before. These were small dangerous weapons only used for thrusting and effective in catching opponents' swords. While the young boy was admiring the new weapons in his hands, Mila had taken out some leather sheaths for the new hornknives. She gave two to Nyer and left the two others on the table.

When Wyot was done, he put his two new knives in their sheaths as well before turning his attention to the last two packets on the table. 'What are those', he asked his mentor.

Nyer took one of them and took it out of the leather bag. It was an axe. And though it was a simple design, it looked impressive. It had a wooden handle, with at the end at each side of the handle a half moon of dangerous sharp steel. At the top of the stick itself, there was a short but sharp spike, made of steel as well. Nyer took it in his hand and swung it around once.

'It's my battle-axe', he simply answered his apprentice.

Wyot looked at the weapon with disbelief. 'You told me rangers couldn't wear axes and swords', he said reproachfully.

Nyer looked back at his apprentice. 'I've never said we couldn't, I've said we didn't. It takes too much time to learn. But all the older members still wear axes and swords because they were once part of the nobles. When king Herbert united the fiefs and created the ranger corps, he chose mostly kids of loyal barons to represent the corps, because they already knew a lot about fighting and tactics. But because most of them were already trained as knights, they still wear axes and swords.'

Wyot understood the logic behind that answer. But there was one thing that didn't add up. 'The ranger corps was founded 25 years ago, you can't be one of the old rangers.'

Not for the first time, Nyer was amazed at the attentiveness to detail the boy had at a such young age. It will really help him in life, he thought, before answering the boy's question. 'I'm not one of the old rangers, I was born 2 years after the corps was founded, but I did learn how to work with an axe at a young age, so I could keep it.'

Wyot nodded. He wanted to ask another question but Nyer had already turned back towards Mila and was talking with her. The three of them talked a bit more about all kinds of things. Wyot found out Mila was the son of the blacksmith who worked at Whitby castle. They also talked a bit about Wyot's training as well as about of the recent developments in the kingdom. Wyot did notice that Nyer, although he was more talkative than he had been the entirety of last month, was never actually talking about his work. He guessed even a close friend couldn't know what the rangers were up to.

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Mila left an hour later. It was nearly noon and Wyot walked up to the kitchen when Nyer stopped him. 'Grab your weapons, the hornknives as well, and some spare clothes.'

'Why?'

'We're going on a trip', was all Nyer answered, before going to his own room to grab some clothes.

Ten minutes later, they were standing a the edge of the small grass field with their house. Cliff was saddled, and the ranger's spare clothes, food and other necessities were in the saddlebag. They were both wearing their ranger's cloak, as well as a belt with on one side the throwing and saxe knife in their specially made double-scabbard. On the other side of Wyot's belt, the two new hornknives in a similar double-scabbard. Nyer had his hornknives at the back of his belt because his axe took up the place on his left hip and his other two knives sat on his right one. Wyot had his saxe and throwing knife at his left hip so it was easily accessible with his right hand without making too many wild gestures. Both rangers were equipped with a full quiver and their bows. Two extra quivers were positioned on Cliff's back.

As soon as Nyer had checked the bags, they went on their way. They walked for a couple of minutes before they came to the bigger road. Normally, they would go left here to go to the castle or village, but now they took a right turn.

They walked mostly in silence. Though Nyer did point out tracks for Wyot to identify or other meaningful things. After a minute or ten, Nyer took another sidetrack from the main route. This one, just like the one to their house, was barely visible to the untrained eye. Wyot would have walked straight past it. Nyer had shown him most of the smaller paths around the forest already but this one was new to Wyot.

The path was just as meandering as all the other paths but eventually, after a couple of hours, it led out to a group of houses. They were randomly scattered across a clearing in the forest. All the houses were made of wood with straw rooves, a combination that was easily accessible and so used nearly everywhere.

'Where are we', Wyot asked his mentor. He had never seen this place before, and he couldn't recall seeing it on maps either.

'This is what we like to call Oakfield', Nyer answered. He spurred Cliff to walk forward. Wyot followed his mentor on foot.

'Why are we here? And why isn't it on the map?'

'We have to pick up something.'

'What do we have to pick up?'

'You'll see.'

Wyot wanted to ask so many more questions but decided to shut up. If Nyer didn't want to tell him, there was no use in asking. So he just walked along Nyer and Cliff towards the group of houses. When they came closer, Wyot could see that not all the houses were actual houses, some were stables. And as they came closer to the first house in the group, Wyot noticed some fenced-off fields in the back.

Out of nowhere, the first house door flew open. A tall, young man stood in the doorway. He was wearing simple woollen clothes with a leather tunic and leather boots. His hair was ash-blonde and he had a short trimmed beard. He looked at the two newcomers and stepped out into the open. 'Hey ranger', the man greeted Nyer.

Nyer had already jumped off his horse and greeted the man back: 'Hi John.'

John gestured for the two men to follow him. As they walked past the first house, Wyot could see that all the other buildings were actually stables. But they were positioned so their open side was looking at the different fenced-off fields in the middle of them.

Inside those stables, he could see a lot of horses. Some of them were running inside one of the fenced-off areas so Wyot could get a better look at them. Most of the horses looked kind of similar. They were hay coloured, had darker manes and were not too big. Although they were not small either.

But some of the other horses were completely different. Wyot saw a completely black horse and he also saw some grey and brown horses.

John walked ahead and opened one of the gates to one of the fields. They walked in and the horseman walked to one of the boxes. He came out with a beautiful horse, already saddled. It was a very light brown horse, with darker brown manes and darker brown spots. The base colour and colour of the spots seemed to blend nicely with each other and there weren't any harsh lines.

'He's called Torch', John said. Wyot looked at Nyer and at John, he wanted to make sure he had understood it correctly.

Nyer simply nodded and Wyot put one foot in the stirrup and jumped on top. He had never really ridden a horse so he had no idea what to do. But so far it had gone great, so Wyot grabbed the reins and pressed the stirrups gently into Torch's flanks. He started walking slowly.

The small fenced-off area was not big enough to go any faster and Wyot ended up where John and Nyer were standing pretty quickly again. 'It's amazing.'

'Yes, I know, you can come off now, it's time to eat.' Nyer looked to his left, where John had been standing. 'Can you show him real quick how to de-saddle the horse, then I'll go inside and make us some food.'

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Twenty minutes later, they were sitting inside John's house, eating a lovely deer steak with some fresh salad and potatoes. It was an excellent meal and John's company was nice. Though he did only seem to be able to talk about horses.

It was because of that, that they ended up talking about Torch. 'Yeah, he's a really good boy, he has some Hibernian in him you know.'

'What do you mean?' Wyot didn't really understand what John was saying. He had never actually owned a horse before and had no idea what the horseman was talking about.

'Well, Torch's mom was one of our better horses and I bred her with a Hibernian horse. Did you know that our original horses came from Belgae, they…'

But Wyot couldn't help but interrupt him, it was a good excuse to go to another subject, and he had actually never heard of Belgae before. 'What is that, Belgae?'

This time, Nyer answered: 'A territory between Gallica and Teutlandt. They have been part of both nations and right now they're fighting for their independence, for the millionth time. They're very good fighters. In fact, the great Toscan emperor Coltonus once said: "Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest and strongest." And the Belgae are at war with Teutlandt for the last 50 years, while being 10 times smaller. And they're winning.'

'And they have great horses', John tuned in, diverting the subject yet again. And Wyot nearly couldn't stop himself from laughing.