Ranger's Apprentice 1 & 2 Bindup (7 page)

Horace dropped his pack on the floor of the dormitory and fell across his bed, groaning with relief.

Every muscle in his body ached. He had no idea that he could feel so sore, so worn out. He had no idea that there were so many muscles in the human body that could feel this way. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was going to get through the three years of Battleschool training. He'd been a cadet for less than a week and already he was a total physical wreck.

When he'd applied for Battleschool Horace had a vague notion of glittering, armour-clad knights doing battle, while lesser folk stood by and watched in awed admiration. Quite a few of those lesser folk, in his mental picture, had been attractive girls – Jenny, his yearmate in the Ward, had been prominent among them. To him, Battleschool had been a place of glamour and adventure, and Battleschool cadets were people that others looked up to and envied.

The reality was something else. So far, Battleschool cadets were people who rose before the dawn and spent the hour before breakfast doing a severe course of physical training: running, lifting weights, standing in lines of ten or more to lift and hold heavy logs over their heads. Exhausted by all of this, they were then returned to their quarters, where they had the opportunity to take a brief shower – the water was cold – before making sure the dormitory and ablutions block were absolutely spotless. Quarters inspection came after that and it was painstaking. Sir Karel, the wily old knight who carried out the inspection, knew every trick in the book when it came to taking short cuts in cleaning the dormitory, making your bed and stowing your kit. The slightest infringement on the part of one of the twenty boys in the dormitory would mean all their kit would be scattered across the floor, their beds turned over, the rubbish bins emptied on the floor and they would have to turn to and start again – in the time when they should have been having breakfast.

As a consequence, new cadets only tried once to pull the wool over Sir Karel's eyes. Breakfast was nothing special. In fact, in Horace's opinion, it was downright basic. But if you missed it, it was a long, hard morning until the lunch hour which, in keeping with the spartan life in Battleschool, was only twenty minutes long.

After breakfast, there were classes for two hours in military history, the theory of tactics and so on, then the cadets were usually required to run the obstacle course – a series of obstacles designed to test speed, agility, balance and strength. There was a minimum time standard for the course. It had to be completed in under five minutes, and
any cadet who failed to do so was immediately sent back to the start to try again. It was rare that anyone completed the course without falling at least once, and the course was littered with mud pools, water hazards and pits filled with nameless but unpleasant matter whose origin Horace didn't want to even think about it.

Lunch followed the obstacle course, but if you'd fallen during the run, you had to clean up before entering the mess hall – another of those famous cold showers – and that usually took half the time set aside for the meal break. As a consequence, Horace's overwhelming impressions of the first week of Battleschool were a combination of aching muscles and gnawing hunger.

There were more classes after lunch, then physical jerks in the castle yard under the eye of one of the senior year cadets. Then the class would form up and perform close order drill until the end of the school day, when they would have two hours to themselves, to clean and repair gear and prepare lessons for the following day's classes.

Unless, of course, someone had transgressed during the course of the day, or in some way caused displeasure to one of their instructors or observers. In which case, they would all be invited to load their packs with rocks and set out on a twelve-kilometre run, along a course mapped out through the surrounding countryside. Invariably, the course was nowhere near any of the level roads or tracks in the area. It meant running through broken, uneven ground, up hills and across streams, through heavily overgrown thickets where hanging vines and thick underbrush would claw at you and try to pull you down.

Horace had just completed one such run. Earlier in the
day, one of his classmates had been spotted in Tactics I, passing a note to a friend. Unfortunately, the note was not in the form of text but was an unflattering caricature of the long-nosed instructor who took the class. Equally unfortunately, the boy possessed considerable skill as a cartoonist and the drawing was instantly recognisable.

As a result, Horace and his class had been invited to fill those packs and start running.

He'd gradually felt himself pulling away from the rest of the boys as they laboured up the first hill. Even after a few days, the strict regime of the Battleschool was beginning to show results with Horace. He was fitter than he'd ever been in his life. Added to that was the fact that he had natural ability as an athlete. Though he was unaware of it, he ran with balance and grace, where the others seemed to struggle. As the run progressed, he found himself far in front of the others. He pounded on, head up and breathing evenly through his nostrils. So far, he hadn't had much chance to get to know his new classmates. He'd seen most of them around the castle or the village over the years, of course, but growing up in the Ward had tended to isolate him from the normal, day-to-day life of the castle and village. Ward children couldn't help but feel different to the others. And it was a feeling that the boys and girls with parents still living reciprocated.

The Choosing ceremony was peculiar to Ward members only. Horace was one of twenty new recruits that year, the other nineteen coming through what was considered the normal process – parental influence, patronage or recommendation from their teachers. As a result, he was regarded as something of a curiosity, and
the other boys had so far made no overtures of friendship or even any real attempt to get to know him. Still, he thought, smiling with grim satisfaction, he had beaten them all in the run. None of the others were back yet. He'd shown them, all right.

The door at the end of the dormitory crashed back on its hinges and heavy boots sounded on the bare floorboards. Horace raised himself on one elbow and groaned inwardly.

Bryn, Alda and Jerome were marching towards him between the neat rows of perfectly made beds. They were second year cadets and they seemed to have decided that their life's work was to make Horace's life miserable. Quickly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, but not quickly enough.

‘What are you doing lying in bed?' Alda yelled at him. ‘Who told you it was lights out?'

Bryn and Jerome grinned. They enjoyed Alda's verbal sallies. They weren't anywhere near as original. But they made up with their lack of verbal invention with a heavy reliance on the physical side of things.

‘Twenty pushups!' Bryn ordered. ‘Now!'

Horace hesitated a moment. He was actually bigger than any of them. If it came to a confrontation, he was sure he could beat any one of them. But they were three. And besides, they had the authority of tradition behind them. As far as he knew, it was normal practice for second year to treat first year cadets like this, and he could imagine the scorn of his classmates if he were to complain to authority about it. Nobody likes a crybaby, he told himself as he began to drop to the ground. But Bryn had seen the
hesitation and perhaps even the fleeting light of rebellion in his eyes.

‘Thirty pushups!' he snapped. ‘Do it now!'

His muscles protesting, Horace dropped full length to the floor and began the pushups. Immediately, he felt a foot in the small of his back, bearing down on him as he tried to raise himself from the floor.

‘Come on, Baby!' It was Jerome now. ‘Put a bit of effort into it!'

Horace struggled through a pushup. Jerome had developed the skill of maintaining just the right amount of pressure. Any more and Horace would never have been able to complete the pushup. But the second year cadet also kept pressing down as Horace started back down again. That made the exercise all the harder. He had to maintain the same amount of upward pressure as he lowered himself, otherwise he would be driven hard against the floor. Groaning, he completed the first, then started another.

‘Stop crying, Baby!' Alda yelled at him. Then he moved to Horace's bed.

‘Didn't you make this bed this morning?' he yelled. Horace, struggling up again against the pressure of Jerome's foot, could only grunt in reply.

‘What? What?' Alda bent so that his face was only centimetres away. ‘What's that, Baby? Speak up!'

‘Yes … sir,' Horace managed to whisper. Alda shook his head in an exaggerated movement.

‘No sir, I think!' he said, standing upright again. ‘Look at this bed. It's a pigsty!'

Naturally, the covers were a little rumpled where Horace had dropped across the bed. But it would have
taken only a second or two to straighten them. Grinning, Bryn cottoned on to Alda's plan. He stepped forward and kicked the bed over on its side, spilling mattress, blankets and pillows onto the floor. Alda joined in, kicking the blankets across the room.

‘Make the bed again!' he yelled. Then a light gleamed in his eye and he turned to the next bed in line, kicking it over as well, scattering the bedclothes and mattresses as he'd done to Horace's.

‘Make them all again!' he yelled, delighted with his idea. Bryn joined him, grinning widely, as they tumbled the twenty beds, scattering blankets, pillows and mattresses around the room. Horace, struggling still through the thirty pushups, gritted his teeth. Perspiration ran into his eyes, stinging them and blurring his vision.

‘Crying, are you, Baby?' he heard Jerome yell. ‘Go home and cry to mummy then!'

His foot shoved viciously into Horace's back, sending him sprawling on the floor.

‘Baby doesn't have a mummy,' Alda said. ‘Baby's a Ward brat. Mummy ran off with a riverboat sailor.'

Jerome bent down to him again. ‘Is that right, Baby?' he hissed. ‘Did Mummy run away and leave you?'

‘My mother is dead,' Horace grated at them. Angrily, he began to rise, but Jerome's foot was on the back of his neck, thrusting his face against the hard boards. Horace gave up the attempt.

‘Very sad,' Alda said, and the other two laughed. ‘Now clean this mess up, Baby, or we'll have you run the course again.'

Horace lay, exhausted, as the three older boys
swaggered out of the room, tipping footlockers over as they went, spilling his roommates' belongings onto the floor. He closed his eyes as salt perspiration stung its way into them again.

‘I hate this place,' he said, his voice muffled by the rough planks of the floor.

‘Time you learned about the weapons you'll be using,' said Halt.

They had eaten breakfast well before sun-up and Will had followed Halt into the forest. They'd walked for about half an hour, with the Ranger showing Will how to glide from one patch of shade to the next, as silently as possible. Will was a good student in the art of unseen movement, as Halt had already remarked, but he had a lot to learn before he reached Ranger standard. Still, Halt was pleased with his progress. The boy was keen to learn – particularly when it was a matter of field craft like this.

It was a slightly different matter when it came to the less exciting tasks like map reading and chart drawing. Will tended to skip over details that he saw as unimportant until Halt pointed out to him, with some acerbity, ‘You'd find these skills would become a little more important if you were planning a route for a company of heavy cavalry and forgot to mention that there's a stream in the way.'

Now, they stopped in a clearing and Halt dropped a small bundle to the ground that had been concealed beneath his cloak.

Will regarded the bundle doubtfully. When he thought of weapons, he thought of swords and battleaxes and war maces – the weapons carried by knights. It was obvious that this small bundle contained none of those.

‘What sort of weapons? Do we have swords?' Will asked, his eyes glued to the bundle.

‘A Ranger's principal weapons are stealth and silence and his ability to avoid being seen,' said Halt. ‘But if they fail, then you may have to fight.'

‘So then we have a sword?' Will said hopefully.

Halt knelt and unwrapped the bundle.

‘No. Then we have a bow,' he said and placed it at Will's feet.

Will's first reaction was one of disappointment. A bow was something people used for hunting, he thought. Everyone had bows. A bow was more a tool than a weapon. As a child, he had made his fair share of them himself, bending a springy tree branch into shape. Then, as Halt said nothing, he looked more closely at the bow. This, he realised, was no bent branch.

It was unlike any bow that Will had seen before. Most of the bow followed one long curve like a normal longbow, but then each tip curved back in the opposite direction. Will, like most of the people of the Kingdom, was used to the standard longbow – which was one long piece of wood bent into a continuous curve. This one was a good deal shorter.

‘It's called a recurve bow,' said Halt, sensing his puzzlement. ‘You're not strong enough to handle a full
longbow yet, so the double curve will give you extra arrow speed and power, with a lower draw weight. I learned how to make one from the Temujai.'

‘Who are the Temujai?' asked Will, looking up from the strange bow.

‘Fierce fighting men from the east,' said Halt. ‘And probably the world's finest archers.'

‘You fought against them?'

‘Against them … and with them for a time,' said Halt. ‘Stop asking so many questions.'

Will glanced down at the bow in his hand again. Now that he was becoming used to its unusual shape, he could see that it was a beautifully made weapon. Several shaped strips of wood had been glued together, with their grains running in different directions. They were of differing thicknesses and it was this that achieved the double curve of the bow, as the different forces strained against each other, bending the limbs of the bow into a carefully planned pattern. Maybe, he thought, this really was a weapon, after all.

‘Can I shoot it?' he asked.

Halt nodded.

‘If you feel that's a good idea, go ahead,' he said.

Quickly, Will chose an arrow from the quiver that had been in the bundle alongside the bow and fitted it to the string. He pulled the arrow back with his thumb and forefinger, aimed at a tree trunk some twenty metres away and fired.

Whack!

The heavy bowstring slapped into the soft flesh on the inside of his arm, stinging like a whip. Will yelled with pain and dropped the bow as if it were red hot.

Already, a thick red welt was forming on his arm. It throbbed painfully. Will had no idea where the arrow had gone. Nor did he care.

‘That hurt!' he said, looking accusingly at the Ranger.

Halt shrugged.

‘You're always in a hurry, youngster,' he said. ‘That may teach you to wait a little next time.'

He bent to the bundle and pulled out a long cuff made of stiff leather. He slid it onto Will's left arm so that it would protect him from the bowstring. Ruefully, Will noticed that Halt was wearing a similar cuff. Even more ruefully, he realised that he'd noticed this before, but never wondered about the reason for it.

‘Now try it again,' said Halt.

Will chose another arrow and placed it on the string. As he went to draw it back again, Halt stopped him.

‘Not with the thumb and finger,' he said. ‘Let the arrow rest between the first and second fingers on the string … like this.'

He showed Will how the nock – the notch at the butt end of the arrow – actually clipped to the string and held the arrow in place. Then he demonstrated how to let the string rest on the first joint of the first, second and third fingers, with the first finger above the nock point and the others below it. Finally, he showed him how to allow the string to slip loose so that the arrow was released.

‘That's better,' he said and, as Will brought the arrow back, continued, ‘Try to use your back muscles, not just your arms. Feel as if you're pushing your shoulderblades together …'

Will tried it and the bow seemed to draw a little easier.
He found he could hold it steadier than before.

He fired again. This time, he just missed the tree trunk he'd been aiming for.

‘You need to practise,' said Halt. ‘Put it down for now.'

Carefully, Will laid the bow down on the ground. He was eager now to see what Halt would produce next from the bundle.

‘These are a Ranger's knives,' said Halt. He handed Will a double scabbard, like the one he wore on the left-hand side of his own belt.

Will took the double scabbard and examined it. The knives were set one above the other. The top knife was the shorter of the two. It had a thick, heavy grip made of a series of leather discs set one above the other. There was a brass crosspiece between the hilt and the blade and it had a matching brass pommel.

‘Take it out,' said Halt. ‘Do it carefully.'

Will slid the short knife from the scabbard. It was an unusual shape. Narrow at the hilt, it tapered out sharply, becoming thicker and wider for three quarters of its length to form a broad blade with the weight concentrated towards the tip, then a steep reverse taper created a razor-sharp point. He looked curiously at Halt.

‘It's for throwing,' said the Ranger. ‘The extra width at the tip balances the weight of the hilt. And the combined weight of the two helps drive the knife home when you throw it. Watch.'

His hand moved smoothly and swiftly to the broad-bladed knife at his own waist. He flicked it free from the scabbard and, in one smooth action, sent it spinning towards a nearby tree.

The knife thudded home into the wood with a satisfying
thock
! Will looked at Halt, impressed with the Ranger's skill and speed.

‘How do you learn to do that?' he asked.

Halt looked at him. ‘Practice.'

He gestured for Will to inspect the second knife.

This one was longer. The handle was the same leather disc construction, and there was a short, sturdy crosspiece. The blade was heavy and straight, razor-sharp on one side, thick and heavy on the other.

‘This is in case your enemy gets to close quarters,' said Halt. ‘Although if you're any sort of an archer, he never will. It's balanced for throwing, but you can also block a sword stroke with that blade. It's made by the finest steelsmiths in the Kingdom. Look after it and keep it sharp.'

‘I will,' the apprentice said softly, admiring the knife in his hands.

‘It's similar to what the Skandians call a saxe knife,' Halt told him. Will frowned at the unfamiliar name and Halt went on to explain further.

‘It's both weapon and tool – a sea axe, originally. But over the years the words sort of slid together to become saxe. Mind you,' he added, ‘the quality of the steel in ours is a long way superior to the Skandian ones.'

Will studied the knife more closely, seeing the faint blue tint in the blade, feeling the perfect balance. With its leather and brass hilt, the knife might be plain and functional in appearance. But it was a fine weapon and, Will realised, far superior to the comparatively clumsy swords worn by Castle Redmont's warriors.

Halt showed him how to strap the double scabbard to
his belt so that his hand fell naturally to the knife hilts. ‘Now,' he said, ‘all you have to do is learn to use them. And you know what that means, don't you?'

Will nodded his head, grinning.

‘A lot of practice,' he said.