Halt's Peril

by John Flanagan

  'I still don't like the fact that you're going to draw their attention,' he said.

  Halt shrugged. 'Can't see any other way to do it. But believe me, I'm not going to be walking along pointing to my chest and saying, "Just put a bolt here, please." I'll be dodging from cover to cover. And the longer shadows will help. You just make sure that if they do try to shoot, you're ready to beat them to it. I'm damned sure I'll be trying to.'

  Will took several deep breaths. In his mind's eye, he could see the situation developing, with him slipping out to flank the Genovesans as Halt moved through the trees. It was a simple enough plan, and that was a good thing. Simple plans usually worked better than complex ones that relied on a sequence of events falling into place. The fewer things there were to go wrong, he'd learned, the better.

  He imagined one of the assassins rising from cover. Odds were, he thought, they'd have taken cover behind a fallen tree trunk. Their crossbows would be better suited to shoot from low-lying cover like that. Unlike a man armed with a longbow, they wouldn't have to rise to their feet to shoot. And they'd expose less of themselves than if they had to step from behind the cover of a standing tree to make their shot.

  Halt could see his young friend's mind working and he let him think it through. He was in no hurry to move. The shadows weren't long enough for his liking yet and he could see that Will was assimilating the plan of action, setting it in his mind to make sure there was no misunderstanding. After a minute or two, he spoke again.

  'We've got several things going for us, Will. One, these assassins won't be familiar with Ranger training or our skill levels. If they don't see you leave cover behind this tree, they'll assume you're still here – and that will give you an edge.

  'Two, they're using crossbows. It'll be relatively short range so we won't have any particular edge in accuracy. But, on the other hand, they won't outrange us.'

  The most powerful crossbows could outrange a longbow. But, firing a short bolt or quarrel rather than a longer, more stable arrow, they became less accurate the longer the shot travelled. In the restricted space inside the trees, they'd be on an even footing.

  'They're not using full-power crossbows in any event,' Will said. A really powerful crossbow had massive limbs and cord. It was re-cocked and loaded by use of a two-handed crank set into the butt. And it could take several minutes to ratchet the string back for each shot. The Genovesans used a less powerful version, with a stirrup at the front of the bow. The bowman placed his foot in the stirrup to hold the bow steady, then, using a two-handed tool that hooked onto the string, he would pull it back to the cocked position, using both hands and all the muscles of his back. The range was reduced but so was the loading time – to around twenty or thirty seconds. And the bowman had to stand erect during the procedure. They could release their first shots from behind low cover, he realised. But then they'd have to expose themselves to the Rangers' return shots.

  'They'll have to show themselves after the first shot,' he said.

  Halt pursed his lips. 'They may have more than one bow each,' he reminded Will. 'So don't take chances. But either way, we'll shoot faster than they will.'

  It would take around twenty seconds for the crossbowmen to reload. Then they'd have to aim and shoot again. Will could nock, draw, aim and shoot in less than five seconds. Halt was a little faster. By the time a Genovesan was ready with his second shot, the two Rangers could have over a dozen arrows in the air, all heading for him. The Genovesans had the advantage of shooting from ambush. But if they missed with their first shots, the odds suddenly swung in the Rangers' favour.

  Halt studied the forest around them for the tenth time. Moving his head slightly as he faced west, he could see the glare of the sun between the trunks. The shadows were longer now and visibility among the trees was becoming more and more uncertain. If he left it much longer, they'd be caught inside the trees in the gathering darkness. It was time to move.

  'All right,' he said. 'Remember: five minutes, then slip out through that gully.'

  Will grinned sardonically. It was more of a dent in the ground than a gully, he thought. But Halt didn't see the reaction. Again, he was studying the forest to the front and sides of their position. He rose from his kneeling position into a half crouch.

  'Let's invite these fellows to dance,' he said, and slipped silently out onto the path, a green and grey blur that quickly melded into the shadows of the forest.

  Twenty-one

  Halt's eyes were slits of concentration as he moved forward between the trees, following the narrow, indistinct path. He scanned constantly, taking in the ground ahead and to either side. He noted, with a sardonic smile, the occasional clues that had been left behind by the men he was following – a scrap of cloth snagged on a branch here, an all-too-obvious footprint there. He maintained the pretence of searching for these signs and following the tracks they had left. It wouldn't do to let his quarry know he was onto their little game, he thought.

  The ground was littered with deadfalls – branches and twigs that the wind had snapped off from the trees high above and dropped to the forest floor. They formed an almost continuous carpet beneath his feet and, skilled as he was at moving silently, even Halt couldn't avoid some noise as they cracked and snapped under his soft tread. He could do it if he moved slowly, testing the ground with each foot before he put weight on it. But moving slowly was too dangerous an option. He needed speed. By moving quickly, he became an indistinct, grey-toned blur sliding among the bare trunks – and that would make him a more difficult target. Besides, there wasn't much point in moving silently if he wanted the Genovesans to know he was here.

  He slipped into the cover of a thick, grey trunk. Over the years, long past the time when the trees had drowned, some undergrowth had taken hold in the forest floor and a clump of buckthorn had established itself about the base of the dead tree. The green leaves and the grey trunk of the tree would match the random colouring on his cloak to conceal him.

  He crouched, scanning the forest ahead. Long years of training made sure that his head barely moved as he did so. It was his eyes that darted from side to side, seeking, testing, consciously changing their depth of focus to search from close in to further out. His face remained in the shadow thrown by the deep cowl. The Genovesans, if they were watching, would have seen him dart behind the tree. But now they would have lost sight of him as he blended in and, so long as he didn't move, they would be uncertain if he were still there or not.

  All of which meant they would be looking for him, and not Will. He felt a grim sense of satisfaction knowing that Will was backing him up. By now, Halt thought, his young student would have begun to move, snaking away from the three-trunked tree they had sheltered behind, crawling low-bellied along the shallow gully to the shelter of the fallen trunk.

  He couldn't think of anyone he would rather have with him. Gilan, perhaps. His unseen movement skills were second to none in the Corps. Or Crowley, of course, his oldest comrade.

  But, skilled as they both were, he knew Will would always be his first choice. Crowley was experienced and calm under pressure. But he couldn't match Will in unseen movement. Gilan might move more stealthily than Will, but there was very little in it. And Will had an advantage that Gilan didn't. His mind moved a little quicker and he was inclined to see the unconventional alternative faster than Gilan. If the unexpected occurred, he knew Will could act on his own initiative and come up with the right solution. That wasn't to denigrate Gilan's worth at all. He was a fine Ranger and highly skilled. Will just had that slight edge in making a decision quickly and getting it right. Gilan would think about a situation and probably come to the same conclusion. With Will, it was an instinctive ability.

  There was one other point, and it was a very important one in the current situation. Halt knew, although Will probably didn't, that Will was a better shot than either Crowley or Gilan.

  In fact, he thought, with a grim smile, that might prove to be the most important point
of all.

  He waited a few more seconds, letting his breathing and his heart rate settle. In spite of what he had said to Will – that he had done this sort of thing before – he didn't like the idea of intentionally drawing the enemy's notice. Moving as he was through the trees, his back crawled with the expectation that any second, a bolt might slam into it. The very idea of moving so that his enemy could see him went against all his deeply ingrained training. Halt preferred to move without anyone ever seeing him, or ever being aware that he was there.

  He knew that in these conditions, and with his cloak, he was presenting a very poor target. But the Genovesans were skilled marksmen. They were more than capable of hitting a poor target. That's why they were so highly paid by those who hired them, after all.

  'You're wasting time,' he muttered. 'You just don't want to go back out there again, do you?'

  And the answer, of course, was no. He didn't. But there was no alternative. He surveyed the path once more, picked out his route for the next five or ten metres, then glided quickly out from behind cover and went forward into the grey maze of dead trees.

  Belly to the ground, using elbows, ankles and knees to propel himself forward and never rising higher than a completely prone position, Will slid out from behind the multiple-trunked dead tree. It was a technique called the snake crawl and he'd practised it for hours on end as an apprentice, sliding through low cover, trying to remain unseen by the keen gaze of his teacher. Time and again he would feel he was getting the technique right, only to have his ego dashed by a sarcastic voice: Is that a bony backside I see sticking up out of the grass by that black rock? I think it is. Perhaps I should put an arrow in it if its owner doesn't GET IT DOWN!

  Today, of course, there was more at risk than a sarcastic ribbing from his teacher. Today, Halt's life, and his own, were dependent on his being able to keep that errant behind down, close to the ground with the rest of his body. He crawled slowly, moving the loose branches and twigs out of his path as he went. Unlike Halt, he couldn't afford to make the slightest noise. True, the forest was maintaining its litany of groans and scrapes and creaks. But the sharp sound of a snapping twig would tell a keen listener that someone was on the move out here.

  Flat to the ground as he was, he found his vision focused on the short blades of grass only a few centimetres away from the tip of his nose. His world became this tiny space of dirt and grass and grey branches. He watched a small brown beetle hurry past, only centimetres from his face, ignoring him completely. A file of ants marched steadfastly over his left hand, refusing to be diverted from their purpose. He let them go, then edged forward slowly, carefully brushing a branch to one side. It made a small noise, magnified by his raw nerves, and he paused for a moment. Then he told himself that nobody could have heard that slight scrape over the background noises of the forest and he continued. The shelter of the fallen tree trunk was only a few metres away by now. Once he was behind that he could afford to move more swiftly – and more comfortably. There'd be no need to maintain this belly-to-the-ground posture when he was concealed behind the metre-thick tree trunk.

  But for now, he resisted the urge to hurry into the cover of the trunk. Doing that could well undo all the work he'd put in so far. A sudden movement could draw attention. Instead, he concentrated on the old technique he'd taught himself as an apprentice, trying to sense that his body was actually forcing itself into the ground beneath him, becoming conscious of its weight pressing into the rough grass and dirt and sticks.

  He felt completely vulnerable because, for once, he was effectively unarmed. In order to crawl completely prone, he had to unstring his bow, pushing it through two small retaining loops on his cloak, made for the purpose. Trying to crawl with a strung bow in these conditions was risking that a branch or twig or even a clump of grass could become snagged in the angle where the bowstring met the notched end of the bow. And the strung bow covered a much wider area of ground, making it more susceptible to snagging. Now it was held firmly in a straight line along his back, a straight piece of yew wood that would slide smoothly past snags and obstructions.

  For the same reason, he'd hitched his belt around so that the buckle and his double knife scabbard were placed in the small of his back, beneath the cloak. Again, it made for smoother, quieter progress. But it also meant that if he were discovered, he would waste precious seconds trying to draw either of his knives.

  It went totally against the grain to move in the presence of enemies while he was disarmed this way. He particularly regretted the need for the bow to be unstrung. As the old Ranger saying went, an unstrung bow is a stick. It had been a joke when he'd first heard it, five years ago. Now there was nothing amusing about it at all.

  At last, he made it into the shelter provided by the horizontal tree trunk. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief. There had been no cries of alarm; no sudden, searing agony as a crossbow bolt buried itself into his back. He felt the tension along his back ease a little. Without realising it, his muscles and flesh had been bunched instinctively, in a vain attempt to lessen the pain of such a wound.

  Rising slightly from his totally prone position – although not too much – he began to make faster progress. When he was further away from the track, he rose carefully to his feet, slid behind the largest tree he could find, and restrung his bow. He felt another lessening of tension. Now he wasn't the one at risk any more. The Genovesans were.

  Halt was down on one knee, pretending to study another intentional sign left by the Genovesans. In fact, though his head was lowered, his eyes were raised as he searched the tangle of grey trunks and dim shadows ahead of him.

  Briefly, among the trees to his left, he saw a slight movement, and perhaps a hint of dull purple in the shadows. He remained unmoving. Crouched as he was, he made a poor target for the crossbowman, if indeed he was out there. Odds were, the assassin would wait until he rose to his feet and gave him a larger target.

  He glanced left. The trees he had been passing for the last few metres had been narrow – a new grove when they had been wiped out by the flood. Some were little more than saplings and none of them provided the sort of substantial cover he would prefer. He smiled grimly. Which, of course, was why the Genovesans had chosen this spot to leave another clue. They would know that a person following them would stop and kneel to study it, then rise to his feet once more.

  And in that totally vulnerable moment, he would be a perfect target for them. Halt's eyes sought that source of movement and colour again but he saw nothing. That made sense. Once he stopped, the crossbowman would have brought his weapon up to the aiming point. That was the small flash of movement he'd noticed. Now, he'd be stock-still again, crossbow trained on the spot where he'd expect Halt to rise to his feet. Halt tensed his muscles, preparing to move.

  He glanced to his left, saw one tree that was marginally thicker than its neighbours, although not thick enough to fully conceal him. Nevertheless, he thought, it would have to do. He hoped Will had got into position by now. He'd glanced far left a few times – not enough to make the Genovesans aware of it – and had seen no sign of him.

  Which could mean he was out there. On the other hand, it could mean he had been delayed by some unforeseen event. He might be nowhere in sight. Then Halt felt a sense of certainty. This was Will he was thinking about. He'd be there.

  Without warning, he launched himself sideways off his bent right knee, rolling smoothly into the partial shelter of the tree he had picked out. And waited, nerves tense and screaming.

  Nothing.

  No dull smack of a crossbow string being released. No vicious, triple-barbed bolt whirring overhead to thud into the trees behind him. Nothing. Just the eerie groaning of the dead trees as they moved and twisted and rubbed against each other. That told him something. The Genovesans weren't going to be tricked into a rushed shot by his sudden, unexpected movement. Their discipline was too good to allow that.

  Alternatively, he thought, he might have imagined tha
t small movement in the trees. There might be nobody there at all.

  Yet somehow, he knew that they were there, waiting. Some sixth sense told him this was the time and the place. The combination of factors – the obvious clue on the trail, the thinning trees – told him that they were just a few metres away, waiting for him to make his next move. He lay prone behind the tree. For the moment, he was concealed. But as soon as he started to rise to his feet, he'd be visible. He glanced around. He could crawl to a larger tree but the nearest was some distance away. And the thinner growth of trees here meant he'd be badly exposed if he tried to move.

  Which was, he told himself for the second time, precisely why the Genovesans had picked this spot. Because now he was certain he had seen that movement. It was a perfect ambush site. And he was in a helpless position. He was relatively safe for the moment and would remain that way so long as he hugged the ground. But he couldn't see. He knew if he raised his head to study the situation, he'd be inviting a crossbow bolt between the eyes. He was stranded here and, effectively, blinded. All the advantages lay with the Genovesans. They had seen where he had gone. His sudden movement, rolling to the side, must have told them that he knew they were there. All they had to do was wait for him to move and they had him cold.

  No matter how he thought it through, the situation got no better. If he remained here, sooner or later one of the assassins would move to flank him, while the other kept his crossbow trained on the spot where he lay concealed. He thought with grim humour of the discussion he'd had with Will only an hour or so earlier.