The Burning Bridge Part 1

THE BURNING BRIDGE.

RANGER'S APPRENTICE.

JOHN FLANAGAN.

PROLOGUE.

HALT AND WILL HAD BEEN TRAILING THE WARGALS FOR three days. The four heavy-bodied, brutish creatures, foot soldiers of the rebel warlord Morgarath, had been sighted pa.s.sing through Redmont Fief, heading north. Once word reached the Ranger, he had set out to intercept them, accompanied by his young apprentice.

"Where could they have come from, Halt?" Will asked during one of their short rest stops. "Surely we've got Three Step Pa.s.s well and truly bottled up by now."

Three Step Pa.s.s provided the only real access between the Kingdom of Araluen and the Mountains of Rain and Night, where Morgarath had his headquarters. Now that the kingdom was preparing for the coming war with Morgarath, a company of infantry and archers had been sent to reinforce the small permanent garrison at the narrow pa.s.s until the main army could a.s.semble.

"That's the only place where they can come in sizable numbers," Halt agreed. "But a small party like this could slip into the kingdom by way of the barrier cliffs."

Morgarath's domain was an inhospitable mountain plateau that towered high above the southern reaches of the kingdom. From Three Step Pa.s.s in the east, a line of sheer, precipitous cliffs ran roughly due west, forming the border between the plateau and Araluen. As the cliffs swung southwest, they plunged into another obstacle called the Fissure-a huge split in the earth that ran out to the sea, and separated Morgarath's lands from the kingdom of the Celts.

It was these natural fortifications that had kept Araluen, and neighboring Celtica, safe from Morgarath's armies for the past sixteen years. Conversely, they also provided the rebel warlord with protection from Araluen's forces.

"I thought those cliffs were impa.s.sable," Will said.

Halt allowed himself a grim smile. "Nowhere is ever really impa.s.sable. Particularly if you have no respect for how many lives you lose trying to prove the fact. My guess is that they used ropes and grapnels and waited for a moonless night and bad weather. That way, they could slip past the border patrols."

He stood, signifying that their rest stop was at an end. Will rose with him and they moved toward their horses. Halt gave a small grunt as he swung into the saddle. The wound he had suffered in the battle with the two Kalkara still troubled him a little.

"My main concern isn't where they came from," he continued. "It's where they're heading, and what they have in mind."

The words were barely spoken when they heard a shout from somewhere ahead of them, followed by a commotion of grunting and, finally, the clash of weapons.

"And we may be about to find out!" Halt finished.

He urged Abelard into a gallop, controlling the horse with his knees as his hands effortlessly selected an arrow and nocked it to the string of his ma.s.sive longbow. Will scrambled into Tug's saddle and galloped after him. He couldn't match Halt's hands-free riding skill. He needed his right hand for the reins as he held his own bow ready in his left.

They were riding through spa.r.s.e woodland, leaving it to the surefooted Ranger horses to pick the best route. Suddenly, they burst clear of the trees into a wide meadow. Abelard, under his rider's urging, slid to a stop, Tug following suit beside him. Dropping the reins to Tug's neck, Will instinctively reached for an arrow from his quiver and nocked it ready.

A large fig tree grew in the middle of the cleared ground. At the base of it there was a small camp. A wisp of smoke still curled from the fireplace and a pack and blanket roll lay beside it. The four Wargals they had been tracking surrounded a single man, who had his back to the tree. For the moment his long sword held them at bay, but the Wargals were making small feinting movements toward him, trying to find an advantage. They were armed with short swords and axes and one carried a heavy iron spear.

Will drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the creatures. After following their trail for so long, it was a shock to come upon them so suddenly in plain sight. Bearlike in build, they had long muzzles and ma.s.sive yellow canine fangs, exposed now as they snarled at their prey. They were covered in s.h.a.ggy fur and wore black leather armor. The man was dressed similarly and his voice cracked in fear as he repelled their tentative attacks.

"Stand back! I'm on a mission for Lord Morgarath. Stand back, I order you! I order you in Lord Morgarath's name!"

Halt nudged Abelard around, allowing him room to draw the arrow he had ready on the string.

"Drop your weapons! All of you!" he shouted. Five pairs of eyes swung toward him as the four Wargals and their prey turned in surprise. The Wargal with the spear recovered first. Realizing that the swordsman was distracted, he darted forward and ran the spear into his body. A second later, Halt's arrow buried itself in the Wargal's heart and he fell dead beside his stricken prey. As the swordsman sank to his knees, the other Wargals charged at the two Rangers.

Shambling and bearlike as they might be, they covered ground with incredible speed.

Halt's second shot dropped the left-hand Wargal. Will fired at the one on the right and realized instantly that he had misjudged the brute's speed. The arrow hissed through the s.p.a.ce where the Wargal had been a second before. His hand flew to his quiver for another arrow and he heard a hoa.r.s.e grunt of pain as Halt's third shot buried itself in the chest of the middle creature. Then Will loosed his second arrow at the surviving Wargal, now terrifyingly close.

Panicked by those savage eyes and yellow fangs, he s.n.a.t.c.hed as he released the arrow and knew it would fly wide.

As the Wargal snarled in triumph, Tug came to his master's aid. The little horse reared and lashed out with his front hooves at the horrific creature in front of him. Unexpectedly, he also danced forward a few steps, toward the threat, rather than retreating. Will, caught by surprise, clung to the pommel of the saddle.

The Wargal was equally surprised. Like all its kind, it had a deep-seated instinctive fear of horses-a fear born at the Battle of Hackham Heath sixteen years ago, where Morgarath's first Wargal army had been decimated by Araluen cavalry. It hesitated now for a fatal second, stepping back before those flashing hooves.

Halt's fourth arrow took it in the throat. At such short range, the arrow tore clean through. With a final grunting shriek, the Wargal fell dead on the gra.s.s.

White-faced, Will slid to the ground, his knees nearly giving way beneath him. He clung to Tug's side to stay upright. Halt swung down quickly and moved to the boy's side. His arm went around him.

"It's all right, Will." His deep voice cut through the fear that filled Will's mind. "It's over now."

But Will shook his head, horrified by the rapid train of events.

"Halt, I missed...twice! I panicked and I missed!" He felt a deep sense of shame that he had let his teacher down so badly. Halt's arm tightened around him and he looked up at the bearded face and the dark, deep-set eyes.

"There's a big difference between shooting at a target and shooting at a charging Wargal. A target isn't usually trying to kill you." Halt added the last few words in a more gentle tone. He could see that Will was in shock. And no wonder, he thought grimly.

"But...I missed..."

"And next time you won't. Now you know it's better to fire one good shot than two hurried ones," Halt said firmly. Then he took Will's arm and turned him toward the campsite under the fig tree. "Let's see what we have here," he said, putting an end to the subject.

The black-clad man and the Wargal lay dead beside one another. Halt knelt beside the man and turned him over, whistling softly in surprise.

"Dirk Reacher," he said, half to himself. "He's the last person I would have expected to see here."

"You know him?" Will asked. His insatiable curiosity was already helping him to put the horror of the previous few minutes to one side, as Halt had known it would.

"I chased him out of the kingdom five or six years ago," the Ranger told him. "He was a coward and a murderer. He deserted from the army and found a place with Morgarath." He paused. "Morgarath seems to specialize in recruiting people like him. But what was he doing here...?"

"He said he was on a mission for Morgarath," Will suggested, but Halt shook his head.

"Unlikely. The Wargals were chasing him and only Morgarath could have ordered them to do that, which he'd hardly do if Reacher really was working for him. My guess is that he was deserting again. He'd run out on Morgarath and the Wargals were sent after him."

"Why?" Will asked. "Why desert?"

Halt shrugged. "There's a war coming. People like Dirk try to avoid that sort of unpleasantness."

He reached for the pack that lay by the campfire and began to rummage through it.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" Will asked. Halt frowned as he grew tired of looking through the pack and dumped its contents onto the ground instead.

"Well, it strikes me that if he were deserting Morgarath and coming back to Araluen, he'd have to bring something to bargain for his freedom. So..." His voice died away as he reached for a carefully folded parchment among the spare clothes and eating utensils. He scanned it quickly. One eyebrow rose slightly. After almost a year with the grizzled Ranger, Will knew that was the equivalent of a shout of astonishment. He also knew that if he interrupted Halt before he had finished reading, his mentor would simply ignore him. He waited until Halt folded the parchment, stood slowly and looked at his apprentice, seeing the question in the boy's eyes.

"Is it important?" Will asked.

"Oh, you could say so," Halt told him. "We appear to have stumbled on Morgarath's battle plans for the coming war. I think we'd better get them back to Redmont."

He whistled softly and Abelard and Tug trotted to where their masters waited.

From the trees several hundred meters away, carefully down-wind so that the Ranger horses would catch no scent of an intruder, unfriendly eyes were upon them. Their owner watched as the two Rangers rode away from the scene of the small battle. Then he turned south, toward the cliffs.

It was time to report to Morgarath. His plan had been successful.

1.

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. From the lean-to stable at the side of the house came the sound of a gentle nickering and his own horse's head rose 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. 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?"

The young Ranger laughed incredulously as he faced his former teacher. "How do you do it, Halt?" he asked. "How could you possibly know it was me arriving in the middle of the night, before you'd even opened the door?"

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," he finally said. "Then, when I heard Abelard call a greeting, I knew it had to be a Ranger horse." He shrugged again. Simple when you explained it, the gesture said. Gilan laughed again in reply.

"Well, that narrowed it down to fifty people, didn't it?" he said. Halt c.o.c.ked his head to one side with a pitying look.

"Gilan, I must have heard you stumbling up that front step a thousand times when you were studying with me," he said. "Give me credit for recognizing that sound once more."

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 antic.i.p.ation. The door to the rear room of the house opened and Will entered the small living room, his clothes pulled on hastily over his nightshirt, his hair still tousled from sleep.

"Evening, Gilan," he said casually. "What brings you here?"

Gilan looked from one to the other 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 by the 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 overheard Halt'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 burning with curiosity over the reason for Gilan's sudden appearance. He decided he'd call his bluff.

"It's late, Will," he said. "You may as well go back to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow."

Instantly, Will's nonchalant expression was replaced by a stricken look. The suggestion from his master was tantamount to an order. All thought of appearing casual departed instantly.

"Oh, please, Halt!" the boy exclaimed. "I want to know what'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.

"Just as well I made three cups then, isn't it?" he said and Will realized that he'd been having his leg 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 this unexpected visit?"

"Well, it has to do with those battle plans you discovered last week. Now that we know what Morgarath 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 Pa.s.s."

The captured doc.u.ment had told them a great deal. Morgarath's plan called for five hundred Skandian mercenaries to make their way through the swamps of the fenlands and attack the Araluen garrison at Three Step Pa.s.s. With the Pa.s.s undefended, Morgarath's main army of Wargals would be able to break out and deploy into battle order on the Plains.

"So Duncan plans to beat him to the punch," Halt said, nodding slowly. "Good thinking. That way we control the battlefield."

Will nodded in his turn and said in an equally grave voice, "And we'll keep Morgarath's army bottled up in the Pa.s.s."

Gilan turned slightly to hide a grin. He wondered if he had tried to copy Halt's mannerisms when he was an apprentice, and decided that he probably had.

"On the contrary," he said, "once the army's in place, Duncan plans to withdraw the garrison, then fall back to prepared positions and let Morgarath out onto the Plains."

"Let him out?" Will's voice went up in pitch with 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.

"I mean..." He hesitated, not sure if questioning the King's sanity might const.i.tute treason. "No offense or anything like that. It's just-"

"Oh, I'm sure the King wouldn't be offended to hear that a lowly apprentice Ranger thought he was crazy," said Halt. "Kings usually love to hear that sort of thing."

"But Halt...to let him out, after all these years? It seems..." He was about to say "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 Pa.s.s made his blood run cold.

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 over Three Step. And he's been free to strike at us any time he likes. The Kalkara were the latest example, as you know only too well."

Gilan glanced admiringly at his former teacher. Halt had instantly seen the reasoning behind the King's plan. Not for the first time, he understood why Halt was one of the King's most respected advisers.

"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 Battlemasters in remote fiefs to the north."

"You've seen for yourself how reluctant some people are to leave their farms and go to war," Halt put in. Will nodded. He and Halt had spent the past week traveling 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.

"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 and any 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 the middle of the night?"

"Orders from Crowley," Gilan said crisply. He placed a written dispatch on the table 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 a.s.sume you're invoking the mutual defense treaty that Duncan signed with him some years ago?"

Gilan nodded, sipping appreciatively at the fragrant coffee. "The King feels we're going to need all the troops we can muster."

Halt nodded thoughtfully. "I can't fault his thinking there," he said softly. "But...?" He spread his 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 an official emba.s.sy to Celtica." He laid a little stress on the last word and suddenly Halt nodded his understanding.

"Of course," he said. "The old Celtic tradition."

"Superst.i.tion, more like it," Gilan answered, shaking his head. "It's a ridiculous waste of time as far as I'm concerned."