{Ranger's Apprentice} "A Mission to Skandia"

Chapter 9: Spying

"Are you ready?" Halt asked softly. 

After they came out of the hall, they had gone over their respective weapons and then immediately set out to the north-eastern borders. Several hours of cutting straight across-country at the Ranger's force march pace later, they had already sighted a camp fire twinkling in the night. Quickly, they did a scour of the surrounding area and found no one. And now, it was time for them to go closer to the fire and see what they could find.

Will nodded, then strung his bow in one smooth movement. "You always ask me that," he said with a grin, "it's not as if I'm still an apprentice or something."

Halt grunted something that Will did not catch, then strode off into the night without another word to his former student. With a raised eyebrow, Will followed him.

"You take the right side and see what you can find, I'll take the left." Halt said quietly.

As he stepped towards the trees on the left side, a shout rang out in the night. Beside him, he sensed that Will froze in place and slide his gaze towards him in a sideways glance. Halt also froze.

A branch cracked, the sound seeming to come from mere inches of where he stood. Another shout rang out somewhere farther away, deeper among the trees, and then a light appeared. A torch.

"They should be somewhere here, I saw a shadow pass through a few seconds ago." A voice said, startlingly close to Halt. Who, of course, still did not move. It did seem surprising to him though, that the voice held no accent of the Temujai, and is in fact in perfect Araluan trading tongue.

"Right. Well, then, where are they now." Another voice said, the tone somewhat sarcastic. This one held considerably more of the accents of the Eastern Riders.

"They're Rangers," the first voice said, "You shouldn't expect to be able to see them at all times."

"But we need to catch them! Our plans will be screwed if the accursed Atabi stay around in this area. Lord Ka'zhak has already sent a message to the Shan that men can be sent in two weeks. We're trying to take this part of Skandia, and the Atabi here will only hinder us."

"Come on, let's go on a few meters, maybe they've moved on."

Several more cracks, passing them, then silence. With Ranger training imprinted in their very brains and their bodies, neither of the Rangers moved. They stayed absolutely still for another five minutes before finally relaxing and meeting each other among the trees.

"Did you hear all that?" Will said, still keeping his voice quiet.

Halt nodded. "Will, you notice something about these people?"

"Only one of them is Temujai," Will replied, without hesitation. "You've noticed it too?"

Again, Halt only nodded. Now was not the time for sarcastic remarks. He had expected Will to be able to hear the lack of accents as well. "You know what this means? They have people who are helping them, and these people must be people Erak thinks he can trust. That, I think, is why there is trouble among the archers."

Will frowned. "You think there's a traitor among the Araluans?"

"It's not impossible."

"But why would any of those archers be traitors..."

Halt shrugged slightly. "Oh, and there's another thing. They know we're here. They know we're Rangers, and if our assumption is correct, that the Araluans are working with them, then they would know about us, about the way we fight."

"With all those Temujai, I suspect they already know a lot anyway. We should go back to Hallasholm. I have a bad feeling, Halt."

Halt considered this for a moment. "Not immediately. I still want to take a quick look at the camp."

"Halt!" Will said sharply, while managing to keep his voice low at the same time. "Do you have any idea how close we were just now to being caught?"

"We would have taken the two of them easily."

"Yes," Will said grimly, "but that's the two of them. There will be way more than two down there at the Temujai camp. But you're right of course, we do need to see. So I'll go. You go back to the capital."

"Are you out of your mind?!" With the effort of keeping his voice down, Halt spluttered, so furious was he. "If I'm not going there, I'm not letting you go there alone."

"Oh, for god's sake, Halt, I know about the Temujai. I can deal with this. Really. Trust me. Someone needs to warn Erak. They just said that men are coming here in two weeks. The Skandians need to prepare."

"Will..." Halt began, but somewhere in the forest a horn sounded out, followed by a quick rapping of drums, then silence.

"Halt, go! There is no time left!" Without waiting to see if his mentor is doing what he told him to, Will turned and melted away into the trees.

"Will!" Halt gasped in a whisper. But he knew that there was no choice left for him.

(A/N: Oh no! Mission unsuccessful! I think that doesn't exactly count as a cliff-hanger...no actually, I think that was completely not one...I am so sad~~~)