Immediately before them, at the base of the ridge upon which they found themselves, the grass sloped gradually down. Then the land changed dramatically.
Gaunt, bare tree trunks rose from the flat ground, massed together in irregular ranks. Their bare limbs reached to the sky, jagged and uneven, devoid of any covering of leaves, twisted into weird shapes, as if in agony and supplication. There were thousands of them. Possibly tens of thousands, in close-packed ranks. And all of them dead, grey and bare.
To Will's eye, used to the soft green tones in the forests around Castle Redmont and Seacliff, the sight was unutterably sad and desolate. The wind sighed through the dead branches and trunks, whispering a forlorn sound that was only just audible. Without a cloak of leaves, and with their inner layers long devoid of sap, the branches didn't sway gracefully. They remained stark and stiff, their sharp, ugly lines unwavering as they resisted the gentle force of the breeze.
Will guessed that in a strong wind the dead limbs would crack and split by the dozen, falling to the ground below like so many warped, grey spears.
'What is it, Halt?' he asked. He spoke in almost a whisper. It seemed more suitable somehow, in the proximity of so many dead trees.
'It's a drowned forest,' Halt told them.
Horace leaned forward, crossing both hands on the pommel of his saddle as he surveyed the scene of utter desolation that stretched before them.
'How does a forest drown?' he asked. Like Will, he kept his voice low, as if not wishing to disturb the tragic scene. The grey, gaunt shapes stretching out below them seemed to demand such a measure of respect. Halt pointed to the distant glitter of the river, visible beyond the thousands of trees and a low ridge.
'I'd say that river must have flooded,' he said. 'It would have been many years ago and it must have been a particularly wet season. The floodwaters spread over the low ground and, basically, the trees drowned. They're not capable of living when their root system is under water and so, gradually, they died off.'
'But I've seen floods before,' Horace said. 'A river floods. The waters rise. Then they recede and everything goes back pretty much to normal.'
Halt was studying the lie of the land now and he nodded acknowledgement of Horace's statement.
'Normally, you'd expect it to happen that way,' he said. 'And over a short period of time, the trees will survive. But look more closely. The river is contained by that low ridge beyond the forest. Once the waters rose over that ridge and flooded down to where the forest stood, there was no way it could recede again once the rain stopped. And I suspect that the rain kept on going for some time. The floodwater was trapped there among the trees. That's what killed them.'
Will shook his head sadly. 'How long ago?'
Halt pursed his lips. 'Fifty, sixty years, perhaps. Those trunks look empty of life. They will have been quietly rotting here for decades.'
He had been looking for the trail down the slope as they were speaking. Now he saw it and urged Abelard towards it. The others followed behind him. As they reached the flat ground below their earlier vantage point, they realised what a formidable barrier the drowned forest was. The grey trunks were all the same shade and their twisted, irregular shapes made it difficult to distinguish one from another. They merged together in a grey wall. It was almost impossible to discern detail or perspective.
'Now, this is what I'd call a good ambush site,' Halt said. Then, a few seconds later, he swung down from his saddle and walked forward several paces, studying the ground. He beckoned the others to join him.
'Will,' he said, 'you saw the tracks Tennyson and his party left in the grassland once we got out of the forest?'
Will nodded and Halt gestured at the ground around him. 'Take a good look at these and see if you can find any difference.'
There was a thread of wool hanging from a low bush in the grass. Further along, something gleamed on the ground. Will went to it and picked it up. It was a horn button. A little further along, he saw a distinct, perfectly formed heel print in a soft patch of ground. The grass itself was heavily trampled and beaten down.
'So, what do you think?' Halt asked.
There was definitely something wrong, Will thought, and Halt's question seemed to confirm that the older Ranger felt the same. Mentally, he pictured the tracks they had seen at the top of the rise behind them. Vague impressions in the dirt, occasional bruised blades of grass, almost invisible to a follower. Now here, conveniently, there were threads, buttons, and a deep footprint – just the sort of thing that Tennyson's party had seemed to be avoiding only a few hundred metres away. And the line of visual clues pointed in one clear direction – into the dead forest.
'It all seems a little… obvious,' he said, at length. And the moment he said it, he realised that was what had been bothering him about these tracks. Suddenly, after leaving a trail that could be followed only by highly trained trackers, the party ahead of them were leaving tracks that even Horace could follow.
'Exactly,' Halt said, staring into the grey depths of the dead forest. 'It's all very convenient, isn't it?'
'They wanted us to find the tracks,' Will said. It was a statement of fact, not a question, and Halt nodded slowly.
'Question is, why? Why would they want us to find them?'
'They want us to follow,' Horace said, surprising himself slightly. Halt gave him a grin.
'Well thought out, Horace. That cloak must be making you think like a Ranger.' He gestured towards the forest ahead of them. 'They wanted to make sure that we knew they'd gone this way. And there's only one reason for them to have done that.'
'They're waiting for us somewhere in there,' Will said. Like Halt, he was gazing steadily into the grey wasteland that faced them, frowning slightly as he tried to discern some sign of movement, some out-of-place item, among the long-dead trees. He had to blink several times. The tree trunks merged together in his vision and seemed to blur into one mass.
'It's what I'd do,' Halt said quietly. Then, with just a hint of contempt, he added, 'Although I hope I'd be a little more subtle about it. Those signs there are almost an insult to my intelligence.'
'They're not to know that, of course,' Horace put in. 'None of them will have had much to do with Rangers before. They can't know that Rangers can see the tracks left by a sparrow flying low over a piece of rocky ground.'
Halt and Will looked at him suspiciously.
'Was that sarcasm?' Halt asked.
'Sounded like it to me,' Will agreed.
'Well, Horace, were you being sarcastic?' Halt persisted.
Horace tried not to grin. He didn't entirely succeed. 'Not at all, Halt. I was being suitably respectful in the light of your amazing skills. Almost inhuman, they seem to be.'
'That was sarcasm,' Will said in a definite tone.
Horace shrugged diffidently. 'More irony than sarcasm, I think,' he said.
Halt nodded slowly. 'Nevertheless,' he said, 'our sarcastic friend – no, make that our ironic friend – has a point. The Genovesans have no idea that we know the first thing about tracking. They may suspect it. But they're not taking chances with this…' He indicated the footprint, the thread and the horn button. '… this spoonfeeding.'
'So, what do we do now?' Horace asked.
'What we do now,' Halt replied, 'is that you take the horses back a few hundred metres and wait. Will and I will flush these damn Genovesans out.'
Horace stepped forward to remonstrate with the Ranger, his hands outstretched.
'Oh come on, Halt! All right, I admit I was being sarcastic – just a little. But that's no reason to leave me out of things. You can trust me!'
But Halt was already shaking his head and he laid a hand on Horace's forearm to reassure him.
'Horace, I'm not punishing you. And I trust you every bit as much as I trust Will. But this is not the sort of fight you're trained for. And you're not armed for it, either,' he added.
Without his realising it, Horace's hand dropped to the hilt of his sword,
sheathed at his side, in an instinctive gesture.
'I'm armed, all right!' he insisted. 'Just let me get to close quarters and I'll show these damned assassins how well armed I am! I think I'd like to have the murderer who killed Ferris at the point of my sword.'
Halt didn't release the young man's arm. He shook it gently to make his point.
'That's why I want you to wait back a little. This won't be a close-quarter fight. These men kill from a distance. Will and I have our bows so we'll be fighting them on even terms. But you won't get near them. They'll put enough crossbow bolts into you to make you look like a porcupine before you get within twenty metres of them.'
'But…' Horace began.
'Think about it, Horace. You won't be able to help if it comes to a fight. They'll be too far away. You'll just provide them with an extra target. And if Will and I have to keep an eye on you, we won't be able to concentrate on finding them and killing them before they kill us. Now please, take the horses back out of bow shot and let us do what we've been trained to do.'
The struggle was all too evident on the young warrior's face. It went against the grain for him to retire and leave his friends to do the difficult and dangerous task that lay before them.
Yet deep in his heart, he knew Halt was right. He could be of no help in the coming engagement. He would, in fact, be a hindrance or, worse still, a distraction for his friends.
'All right,' he said reluctantly. 'I guess what you say makes sense. But I don't like it.'
Will grinned at him. 'I don't like it either,' he said. 'I'd much rather stay back with you and the horses. But Halt hasn't given me the choice.'
Horace smiled at his old friend. He could see the light of determination in Will's eyes. It was time for them to take the fight to the Genovesans and Horace knew that, in spite of his protests to the contrary, Will was ready to do just that.
Feeling worse than useless, Horace reached for Tug's bridle. 'Come on, boy.'
For a moment, the little horse resisted, turning an inquiring eye on his master, and giving vent to a troubled neigh.
'Go along, Tug,' Will said, accompanying the order with a hand signal. The little horse trotted reluctantly after Horace and Kicker.
'Abelard, follow,' Halt said. His horse tossed its head rebelliously but turned to follow the other two horses back from the rows of grey, twisted tree trunks.
Horace turned and called softly back to his friends. 'If you need me, just call and I'll…'
His voice trailed off. There was no sign of the two Rangers. They had simply disappeared into the drowned forest. Horace felt a thrill of nervousness go up his spine. He glanced at Tug.
'Gives me the creeps when they do that,' he said. Tug shook his head violently, vibrating his shaggy mane in agreement. 'Still,' said Horace, 'I'm glad they're on our side.'
Tug regarded him out of one eye, his head cocked to the side. That's what I was trying to tell you, he seemed to be saying. Twenty Will and Halt, separated by about five metres so they wouldn't offer a grouped target to the Genovesans, slipped silently into the dead forest. Their eyes darted from side to side, quartering, seeking, going back again as the two Rangers ghosted from one piece of cover to the next, searching for that one sight of movement or flash of colour that would give them a warning.
Will searched from left to centre, then back again. Halt went from right to centre then reversed his scan. Between them, they covered the entire one hundred and eighty degrees from their extreme left and right to their front.
Every so often, without creating any predictable pattern, one or the other would spin suddenly to check their rear.
They had progressed some forty metres into the forest when Halt found a larger than normal piece of cover. A tree had grown with multiple trunks and now it provided enough protection for the two of them. There were also two other features in the topography close to the tree that had taken his attention. Checking their back trail and finding it clear, he gestured for Will to join him. He watched approvingly as his former apprentice slid between the trees, taking full advantage of every piece of cover. He seemed to be a blur, never clearly visible, even to Halt's trained eyes.
They crouched together behind the spreading trunks. Now that they were within the forest, Will realised that the trees had a sound of their own. Normally, in a densely packed forest, he would expect to hear the gentle soughing of the wind through the leaves, the call of birds and the movement of small animals. Here, there were no leaves, no birds or animals. But, despite what he had thought earlier, the trunks and limbs moved slightly, groaning and creaking in protest as their dry joints were forced to give by the ever-present breeze. Sometimes one bare limb rubbed against a close neighbour with a cracking, shrieking noise. It was as if the forest was groaning in its death agony.
'Ugly sound, isn't it?' Halt asked.
'Gets on my nerves,' Will admitted. 'What do we do now?'
Halt nodded to the narrow path that lay through the trunks in front of them. It wound and twisted from side to side as it found its way around the massive grey trunks. But it always returned to its original direction, which was south-east.
'I see they're still leaving a clear trail for us to follow,' he said.
Will glanced in the direction he indicated. He could see a small fragment of cloth trapped on the sharp end of a broken branch.
'I see they're not being any more subtle about it,' he answered. Both of them kept their voices low, only just above a whisper. They had no idea how close the enemy might be.
'No indeed,' Halt agreed. 'I've seen plenty of footprints along the way, too. You'd swear they were made by a giant, from the depth of them.'
Will reached down and felt the ground with two fingers. The grass was short here among the dead trees and the ground beneath it was dry and hard. 'Not as if it's soft ground, either.'
'No. This ground dried out many, many years ago. They're doing it intentionally again. Letting us know exactly which way they've gone.'
'And which way they want us to follow,' Will said.
A faint smile creased Halt's face. 'That too.'
'But we're not going to do that?' Will said. It seemed logical to him. If your enemy wanted you to do something, it only made sense to do something else entirely.
'We're not,' Halt agreed. 'I am.'
Will opened his mouth to protest but Halt held up a hand to forestall him.
'If we seem to be doing what they want, they may grow overconfident. And that can only be good for us.' As he spoke, his eyes were scanning the forest unceasingly, searching for any trace of movement, any sign that the Genovesans might be close.
'True,' Will admitted. 'But I…'
Once again, Halt's upraised hand stopped him in mid-sentence.
'Will, we could be in here for days searching for them if we don't do something to make them show their hand. And all the while, Tennyson is getting further and further away. We've got to take a risk. After all, we're only assuming they're here in the first place. What if they've second-guessed us – left all these convenient signs so we'd think they're trying to lure us in, and then high-tailed it out of here, leaving us creeping around trying to find them – and wasting hours of daylight doing it.'
Will frowned. That hadn't occurred to him. But it was possible.
'Do you think they've done that?' he asked.
Halt shook his head, slowly and deliberately. 'No. I think they're here. I can sense them. But it is a possibility.'
Behind them, a branch moved with a louder than normal, drawn-out groan of tortured wood. Will spun round, his bow coming up as he did so. Once again, he felt that tight knot in the pit of his stomach as he wondered where the enemy were, when they might show their hand. Halt leaned a little closer, his voice even quieter than before.
'I'm going to wait an hour or so. We've got a good position here and we're covered pretty well from all sides. Let's see what they do now they know we're here.'
'Do you think they'll move?' Will aske
d.
'No. They're too well trained for that. But it's worth a try. In an hour, the sun will be lower and the shadows deeper and longer in here. That'll work for us.'
'Them too,' Will suggested, but Halt shook his head.
'They're good,' he said. 'But they're not trained for this the way we are. They're more used to working in cities, blending into crowds. Plus our cloaks give us a big advantage in here. The colours match the surroundings a lot better than that dull purple they wear. So we wait for an hour and see what happens.'
'Then what?'
'Then I'll move on again, following that very obvious trail they're leaving.' Halt saw Will's quick intake of breath and knew the young Ranger was about to protest. He gave him no opportunity. 'I'll be careful, Will, don't worry. I have done this sort of thing before, you know,' he added mildly. And he was rewarded by a reluctant smile from his apprentice.
'Did I say something amusing?' he asked.
Will shook his head, seemed to ponder whether he should say anything, then decided to go ahead.
'Well, it's just that… before we left Redmont, Lady Pauline spoke to me. About you.'
Halt's eyebrow shot up. 'And exactly what did she have to say about me?'
'Well…' Will shrugged uncomfortably. He wished now he'd decided against bringing this up. 'She asked me to look after you.'
Halt nodded several times, digesting this piece of information before he spoke again. 'Touching to see she has so much faith in you.' He paused. 'And so little in me.'
Will thought it might be best if he said nothing further. But Halt wasn't going to let the matter drop.
'I assume this instruction was accompanied by some sort of statement along the lines of: "He isn't getting any younger, you know"?'
Will hesitated, just too long. 'No. Of course not.'
Halt snorted disdainfully. 'The woman seems to think I'm senile.' But in spite of himself, as he thought about his tall, graceful wife, he smiled fondly. Then he recovered himself and came back to business.
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