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

Chapter 14: Alliances Tested

Alaric followed the Ranger in silence through the passages of the Skandian fortress. Halt was clearly mad and worried at the same time. The knight could sense it in the tense way he held himself, but made no comment on it. At length, they entered an empty guest room.

Turning, Halt closed the door behind them, then leaned against the door. He did not speak at once. Instead, as the knight watched him leaning against the door, his shoulders sagged, and he knocked his head gently against the wooden door, his eyes shut tight. It took little effort for Alaric to see what the Ranger was thinking about.

Taking a step closer to him, he once again put a hand on the man's shoulder. As a knight under the teaching of Horace Altman, he had often been told stories of the Rangers and thus was never frightened of them in the way the common people often were, but before this time he had always revered them. And this one especially. But that day, seeing the sagging shoulders, and the unspoken pain of having to put some other country above the life of one whom he sensed that Halt loved as a son, he realized that every man had one weak point, a time when they need the care of others. And that did not in the slightest lessen his respect for the man; rather, it increased, as he had seen how strong Halt had been, how carefully he had managed to hide his personal feelings.

"He will be alright," Alaric whispered softly. "You did teach him, after all," he added a bit louder, in a playful tone.

Very slowly, Halt raised his head again and looked at him. "I'm so sorry, Alaric. I should not have brought this on you."

Alaric shook his head to this, but said nothing.

"I'm fine." Halt stated quietly, and stepped away from the knight. "And I do have important things to discuss with you."

Again, Alaric remained silent.

Taking a deep breath as if to consciously force-push Will from his mind, Halt finally continued, "I have a bad feeling about the Temujai's attacks using the Araluans. This has several meanings in it; first, they want to show us how much control they have, showing us plainly that the archers have betrayed the treaty. Whether the archers themselves think they are betraying it on behalf of the kingdom of Araluen or in spite of it, we do not yet know. The second thing is that I have a strong feeling the Temujai will not be using the same tactics as before this time. You know of the battle tactics from last time?"

Alaric nodded dutifully. Now that they were back into realms of talk that he understood, he had relapsed back into the knight apprentice mode. "Yes. Master Altman taught us once about it."

Halt nodded approvingly. "I think that most likely they will be trying hit and run attacks this time. At least for now. They will try to attract our attention away from this city. We must not let them."

"You know," Alaric said with a slightly rueful grin, "You would be better off telling Erak about this, not me. I don't exactly control the army, even though I did help count it."

Halt shook his head. "That's another thing. It's true that Erak probably still trusts me more than Borsa, but as hilfmann, that snake's tongue still has considerable weight in the entirety of Skandian politics. My fear is that Borsa, for whatever reason he has, will eventually manage to poison them all into believing that we are traitors. What I really needed to tell you is that you must not give him reason or leverage to do so. Do not cross anything he says too directly, I beg of you."

Slowly, Alaric nodded. "And...you have a plan to deal with this Borsa situation?"

Halt ran a hand through his rough, already messy hair. "That's the problem. I don't, actually. It's impossible to remove him without raising an even higher suspicion. And with those Araluan archers, there honestly is nothing we could do except hope that my old friendship with Erak will hold."