Will didn’t respond, only clucking to his annoyed bay stallion. “Colin, go help Treck. He’s behind the castle trying to catch that damn grey,” the Ranger ordered as Visra trotted nearer.
Colin nodded and started back the way they had come, Rowan silently on his heels. “Airagon, you okay?” Will asked as they slowed next to him and the black mare. The Ranger reached over, gently taking the reins out of Airagon’s hand. He looked at them, his eyes clouded and confused. “What happened to him?”
“They drugged him the same way they did you when they took you to Thornten. They make that in the tunnels and it can take some time to wear off,” the Ranger said, quietly. “Frell, ride ahead. Let them know that a raiding party got through the patrol, no surprise.”
Frell nodded silently, turning to canter ahead of them. “I don’t get why he didn’t blow the horn,” Will muttered, more to himself.
The Ranger let out a cold laugh. “His kind will die to seem the hero for a moment. You have to watch out for that kind, and don’t become one. I can’t always save you all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
When they reached the courtyard, they were greeted with an uproar. Sir Ross and Sir Rockwood met them at the gate, Rockwood looking concerned and Ross livid.
“Where is my squire, Ranger?” Ross snarled.
“Getting Airagon’s horse,” the Ranger purred, unconcerned as he slid off Visra.
“You thought that the priority right now?” Ross moved closer to the Ranger, his face red and snarling.
The Ranger, just barely shorter than the knight, stood his ground. “Do you think taking your anger out on me is a priority? Perhaps you should get a horse and help them out.”
“Is Rowan with him?” Rockwood asked.
“Yes, he opted to help. They can handle it,” the Ranger answered.
Rockwood put his hand on Visra’s sweaty neck. “Will, can I borrow your horse?” he asked, his voice struggling to stay calm.
Will dismounted, holding out his reins, “Of course.”
Rockwood swung into the saddle, turning Visra without a word and trotting back the way they had come from. “Frell,” Ross barked, “get off that horse!”
Frell seemed to sense that now was not the time to argue, barely having time to swing down and offer the reins to the knight before Ross was swinging up, kicking the horse back over the bridge.
“His temper is always pleasant,” the Ranger said calmly. “Now, Airagon, if you can get off of Hemcole, she needs rest.”
Airagon looked down at them, eyes still vacant, before allowing the Ranger to assist him to solid ground. Will stepped forward, swinging one of Airagon’s arms over his shoulders as the squire swayed. Novin pushed his way through the confusion, grabbing Airagon’s other arm to help.
“Will, with me. Leave Novin to take care of him,” the Ranger barked.
Novin and Will exchanged a look before the older squire nodded, shifting to take the rest of Airagon’s weight. Full of foreboding, Will followed the Ranger toward the barn.
Squires in the green and gold of Finnwick lazed on straw bales in the alleyway, springing to their feet with guilty looks on their faces as the Ranger strode in. “I don’t truly give a damn that you aren’t doing whatever it is you’re supposed to,” he said coolly.
The squires, confused and suspicious, didn’t settle but rather threw the Ranger and Will mistrusting looks. The Ranger ignored them, stopping at an empty stall and leading his black mare through the gate. “Hold her reins, won’t you?” the Ranger asked.
Will obliged, the mare and he exchanging suspicious looks. “Why a mare, Ranger?”
“Because they’re mean but they will never let you get away doing one thing wrong. Doing something wrong in my line of work means I’ll die,” he replied, unbuckling the saddle and slinging it to hang on the stall wall.
“But the stallions and geldings are faster,” said Will.
The Ranger turned; his eyes hidden in shadow but his lips twitching into a smirk. “You seem to think my job is a lot of running away from people. I don’t need faster, I need smarter, which mares are. Not unlike human women.”
Hemcole politely took a step away from Will, still eying him. Will, unsure what to say, lapsed into silence, looking over the mare. She was smaller, slighter, than the knight’s horses. Her black hair was broken by a star on her forehead and her long winter coat still held perfect snowflakes that hadn’t melted.
“Believe it or not, I didn’t bring you in here to critique my choice of horses,” the Ranger said, taking the reins from Will as he slipped the bridle off Hemcole. The mare nudged the Ranger gently before turning to the grain already waiting in her bucket. “From what I’ve understood; you and your friends are starting to figure some things out regarding the tunnels and what the King asks of me.”
Will felt his blood run cold. He opened his mouth, closed it. How could the Ranger know? They had been in this barn, but it had been nearly empty. “We…we’ve just been guessing is all.” he finally stammered.
The Ranger chuckled, patting Hemcole’s neck. “Curiosity without caution is dangerous, William. You should know that after following Rowan into the tunnel.”
“How did-”
“There are ears everywhere, Will,” the Ranger said, waving his hand in dismissal. “The important thing is that if I can hear you or have you heard, so can others,” he turned his face away from Will, looking back toward the barn’s open doors. “I need you three to start learning some caution. I don’t believe for a moment that Marl mistook Airagon for you. I do believe, though, that they’ve realized he’s loyal to us and he is a threat. Few people above ground know the tunnels well.”
“So, you think they are trying to capture him?” Will asked. He thought of Airagon, bewildered and disorientated. “They want to know what he’s told us, don’t they,” it wasn’t a question, but the Ranger nodded slowly, eyes still trained on the door.
“I recommend you and your friends find a place no one will hear you when you have to discuss these matters because I already know telling you not to will be useless,” the Ranger picked up the saddle, opening the stall gate and stepping out. “In terms of what I am doing for the King, that isn’t a concern of yours, or Rowan or Colin. Understood?”
“What if I can help?” Will blurted, tripping as he hurried to follow the Ranger out of the stall.
The Ranger sighed, looking down at him. “No one can ever say you don’t try, Will. The best way you can help me right now is to keep your nose to yourself, along with your thoughts. You keep working as a squire; train, saddle horses, learn to defend yourself and to fight. Perhaps then we can discuss you being of help,” with that the Ranger walked toward the tack room, never glancing back at Will.
***
Airagon had to stay in the healing chamber overnight. Despite the head healer insisting that he needed rest and to be left alone, Will, Rowan, and Colin attempted to sneak upstairs to visit, carrying as much food from the dining hall as they could. They were halfway up the stairs before Sir Laster, on his way down, caught them and told them off.
“What part of he needs rest are you three too thick to understand?” Laster growled, grabbing Rowan’s collar as he tried to sneak past. “No. Downstairs, right now.”
“You know, I seriously hate him,” Rowan said conversationally as Sir Laster left them at the foot of the stairs, stomping toward the dining hall.
“I don’t think he’s got much of a fan club,” Colin said, readjusting the napkin full of cheese under his elbow. “We should probably find a place to eat.”
“Yeah, preferably someplace people won’t bother us,” Will said, glancing up and down the seemingly empty hall. “I’ve got stuff to tell you two if we can’t talk to Airagon.”
He felt guilty for withholding what the Ranger had said for so long. Every time throughout the rest of the day that he thought he could tell them what the Ranger had said, they had been interrupted or he had had the feeling that someone was w
atching him. Even now, in the empty hall, the hair on his neck stood on end.
“I bet the hall of records will be empty right now,” Rowan said, ripping off a chunk of the bread he was holding and cramming it in his mouth. “Wo cod ga tere,” he tried to speak through his full mouth.
Colin gave him a disgusted look. “Do you ever consider how you’ll be as Lord of Lonric? Because, right now, I’m not impressed.”
Will stifled his laugh as Rowan tried to argue, but was unable to make a legible noise over his food. “Hall of Records it is, then,” Will said, leading the way back through the dining hall. No one made to stop them, the room too crowded now for anyone to notice three squires skirt the edge of the tables before slipping through the door to the stairwell.
The hall of records was dark and cold, the only light that of the moon filtering through the high windows. Colin emptied his arms onto the small circular table in front of the fire before sinking to his knees beside the hearth, unsheathing his dagger and pulling a flint from his pocket. Will and Rowan sank into two of the cushioned chairs, sorting the food and unfolding the napkins as plates.
“Anyway,” Rowan said as if no time had passed since the topic, “my father will probably outlive me. He likes to remind me that his father died very old and I’m always risking my neck. So, he thinks it will be up to my sister to get married for someone to actually run Lonric. Which works for me.” He offered Will a piece of bread as the sparks from Colin’s dagger finally caught on the parchment he had thrown into the grate, “because I plan to stay here and be a knight. You and me, Will.”
Colin stood, brushing dust from his tunic as the fire started to consume the dried wood, spreading light and warmth through the small room. “Perhaps you two will decide you want to come live in Lonnac.”
Rowan pulled a disgusted look. “And work for you?”
Colin wadded up an empty parchment, throwing it at Rowan’s face. “Do the world a favor and shut up,” he laughed.
Will watched the fire, barely hearing his two friends bicker as the flames danced, red, gold, and orange. “Will?”
He started, looking between them. “What?”
“You seem a little out of it,” Colin observed. “You have since we got back. Is that because we saw Marl? You do know…just because he’s your father does-”
“No,” Will cut him off. “It had nothing to do with Marl,” the two friends exchanged a doubtful look. “I’m serious!”
“Then what is it?” Rowan demanded.
“It’s the Ranger,” Will lowered his voice, running a hand through his hair. He still felt a paranoia that they were going to be heard. “He found out what we were guessing.”
“You told him?” Colin asked, looking shocked.
“No, that’s the thing. He had me help him unsaddle Hemcole when we came in and he wanted to tell me that we needed to be more careful, that other people would hear us,” Will lowered his piece of bread, untouched, to the table.
“Maybe those guards in the barn?” Rowan suggested.
Colin shook his head. “The Ranger isn’t trusted by that many people who aren’t from Alamore, they wouldn’t tell him.”
“He’s not trusted by that many people in Alamore either,” Rowan countered. “Look at Laster?”
“Laster has an attitude with everyone,” Will leaned back, his eyes drifting toward the fire again. “He thinks that someone is letting information out. He thinks that someone told Marl to come after Airagon, that that wasn’t a mistake.”
“That could have been Vonnic,” Rowan said, waving a dismissive hand. “He knew about Airagon and he was a traitor for some time.”
Will nodded slowly. “I guess so…”
“We just need to be more careful when we discuss this,” Rowan said.
“Or we need to just stay out of it,” Colin replied, his expression unreadable. “We are twelve, you know, not necessarily the people the Ranger needs helping him.”
Rowan gawked at Colin. “How could you let it go that fast? Don’t you want to know?”
“Of course, I do, but I don’t want to jeopardize the Ranger’s assignment or Airagon or Robin,” Colin said.
“What if we could help the Ranger?” asked Will.
The other two looked at him, eyebrows raised in similar looks of confusion. “And how, exactly, would we do that? We don’t have swords unless our knights let us, we don’t even fight that well yet,” said Colin.
“We also don’t have all the duties the knights do right now,” Will pointed out. “We could help without being missed-”
Before either of the other two could respond, an ear-piercing roar of fury rose up from the floor below. They looked frantically between one another then leapt to their feet, sprinted down the stairwell and into the dining hall. They froze in the doorway, confused as they looked around the hall. Their line of sight was blocked because it seemed everyone in the hall had stood, unmoving, staring toward the doors of the entry hall. For a room filled with knights, squires, and soldiers, an eerie silence had fallen. Dread made Will’s blood run ice cold through his heart and veins. Tension filled the room, a tangible thing that threatened to shatter into chaos at the slightest touch.
A harsh voice shattered the timeless silence in another howl of anguish and anger. “They will pay for this!”
Rowan took a tentative step forward and the soldiers in their way parted slightly. Colin, the tallest, raised onto tiptoe. The blood rushed from his face, leaving him pale as he landed down again, catlike, and turned.
“What’s going on?” Rowan had started to lift himself as well but Colin clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“Not the time,” he hissed, he pushed Will and Rowan back, out of the crowd.
“What’s happened?” Will asked. He wondered if his heart, slamming inside of his chest, would be able to rebreak his ribs with the force of its own beating.
“It’s Sir Dannix,” Colin shook his head, running a shaking hand through his golden hair as it fell forward over his forehead. Will and Rowan waited in silence, neither wanting to say what they both knew now. “He’s been killed.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“They will pay for this!” King Giltor exploded. The crowd shifted, a sea of uncertain men at arms. “Mount up! We ride for Thornten!”
“No!” King Revlan barked, his voice stilling the surge of movement that had started.
“I can’t take not seeing what’s happening,” Rowan muttered. He grabbed Will’s arm, pointing to a bench to their left. The two stepped up, standing on the bench, Colin uncertainly following.
Will’s stomach clenched painfully. Sir Ross had stepped to block the body from sight, so only the boots were visible. Even so; they were smeared in clotted and frozen blood. A strangled cry made him turn his attention as Treck pushed his way forward, running for his knight. Sir Ross caught him, blocking him from the dead man.
“It’s too late, Treck,” Ross’s whisper, intended just for the squire, carried in the again silent room.
King Giltor and King Revlan were facing one another, standing in a circle made by the onlookers around the body. “They have killed my chief advisor,” Giltor said, his voice shaking in his attempt to control it. “They used him as a message, King.”
“I see that,” the King replied. His eyes moved around the hall, locking, for a moment, on the three squires standing on their bench before he focused again on Giltor. “But you are trying to play into their hand.”
“Into their hands!” Giltor threw his own hands in the air in his outburst. “Damn their hands and damn your slow attacks! You are so focused on the defense, on finding out what they’re planning, that you are giving them these openings to just pick off my men! Notice it wasn’t your Ranger or Sir Ross,” he gestured wildly in Ross’s direction, “that was killed. It was my knight!”
“And no one is more sorry than I that he’s died defending us in Alamore,” the King said. He nodded toward Sir Ross. “Take the squire and Sir Dannix away.”
Laster stepped from the crowd before Ross could release Treck, placing a hand on the older knight’s shoulder and whispering something. He crouched beside the body, picking up the tall corpse as tenderly as a child, his face unreadable.
“Leave him!” King Giltor screamed. “Remind people why we have to attack!”
Sir Laster raised his eyebrows. “I take my orders from the throne of Alamore,” he growled.
King Giltor reached for his sword at the same time that Sir Ross did, moving Treck behind him in a swift motion.
“Enough!” Revlan roared.
Will could feel the hum of low voices in his chest as the crowd shifted, uneasily. He glanced at Rowan and Colin, both of whom were clearly nervous.
Ranger of Kings (William of Alamore Series Book 1) Page 29