The Ruins of Gorlan

Gilan protests that Will is too young for the dangers of the Kalkara hunt. Halt says he wouldn’t normally bring the boy, but Morgarath has hired the Skandians to fight with him, and Crowley can’t spare a single Ranger while the kingdom mobilizes for battle. Thus, Halt, Gilan, and Will are on their own. When they get near the Kalkara, Halt plans to send Will for reinforcements, which should keep him away from the monsters.

They travel rapidly, resting every few hours to eat and nap. Their destination is just beyond the Stone Flutes of the Solitary Plain, where the Kalkara have a lair. The Flutes are ancient stones with holes cut through them and set up in a circle, and the Plain winds make a loud “keening sound” through them. After two days, they arrive at the Plains, whose winds howl ceaselessly. Before long, they hear the Flutes’ harsh, dissonant sound and it makes Will edgy.

At sundown, they make camp but without a fire, lest Plainspeople or the Kalkara pinpoint them.

Will sleeps fitfully. Halt wakes him for the second watch. Per his training, he moves away a few dozen yards and hides next to a bush, where he can keep an eye on things. With a cowl hiding his head, arrows nocked and ready, Will scans the area, then the horizon, and repeats, always slowly to hide his own movement.

His ears tune in on the rustling of small animals. He thinks he hears large creatures nearby but realizes that, despite the constant wind and the keening of the Flutes, his trained ears are picking up his companions’ breathing from meters away. After four hours, Will wakes Gilan for the next watch. Exhausted from the tension of constant guarding, Will finally sleeps soundly.

In the morning, they continue the journey across the windy Plain. They pass the Stone Flutes at a distance; its sound keeps them on edge. A Plainsman, long-haired and in rags, suddenly jumps up and runs away, disappearing quickly in the tall grass. They let him go and continue, but no longer at a forced-march pace.

Will asks why Morgarath uses the Kalkara. Halt says they’ve already killed two of the kingdom’s best leaders, men who helped defeat Morgarath in the first war. Gilan says, “He’s destroying our command structure and getting revenge at the same time” (198). Morgarath has more scores to settle, including with Halt. The Kalkara, though, have a weakness: They always return to their lair after a kill. This gives the trio a chance to ambush them.

The trio makes camp. Late in the evening, they’re wakened by howling in the distance. The two Kalkara have a new assignment, and they’re on the move.

The trio waits till dawn to follow the Kalkara trail. The two giants leave a large wake in the grass. They travel in parallel, hundreds of meters apart, to avoid being trapped together. They’re headed northeast, but it’s possible the Kalkara are hunting Halt, so Gilan keeps track of one trail while Halt and Will follow the other.

They track the creatures to the Stone Flutes, but the Kalkara have continued onward. Where possible, the three raise their pace to a canter to keep up. They sleep, then continue the pursuit into woodlands. The Kalkara trails join up and continue northeast.

Halt reckons they’re headed either for the Gorlan Ruins—Morgarath’s old fief castle—or Castle Araluen, home of the king. Not far to the northwest lies Castle Redmont. If Will rides fast, he can reach Redmont in less than a day and request that Baron Arald and Sir Rodney meet Halt and Gilan at the Ruins, where they might be able to make a stand against the Kalkara.

Will must take both Tug and Blaze so each can rest from carrying a rider. Gilan reluctantly turns over his horse and gives Will the code words, “Brown Eyes.” Gilan will continue on foot and grab a horse where he can. Will checks his chart, mounts Tug, aims himself to the northwest, and starts off. Gilan tells Blaze to follow the boy.

Will canters relentlessly toward Castle Redmont. He switches horses regularly. As night falls, his imagination goes wild until every shadow hides Kalkara. Late in the night, he dozes in the saddle, then wakes to the dawn.

Near noon, the exhausted boy and the sturdy horses enter the castle at a gallop and halt at the baron’s tower. Sir Rodney, on his way to the baron, walks Will past the guards and upstairs to see the baron. Will gives them Halt’s message about the Kalkara’s trek toward the king. Will suspects, though, that the Kalkara are really meant to kill Halt.

Arald and Rodney decide to head out within the hour. The baron tells Rodney to muster 10 knights who will follow them. Will begs to come along: “Halt is my master, sir, and he’s in danger. My place is with him” (214). The baron agrees. Will grabs an hour’s shut-eye on a cot.

As he rides alongside the two knights, Will must slow down his own horses: Tired as they are, Tug and Blaze can make better time than the battle steeds. Baron Arald and Sir Rodney, armed with war lances, battle axes, and huge broadswords, clank noisily as they ride. At sunset, they opt for torches: They’ll make noise as they approach the Kalkara, but with light they can do it at full speed.

As they near the ruins, they hear the terrifying screams of the Kalkara. Will knows they’re hunting Halt. They see a flickering light ahead, a fire, and gallop toward it. Around them are the stone ruins of Morgarath’s old castle, torn down during his defeat in the last war. Next to the campfire crouches a Kalkara, clawing at several arrows in its chest. Halt fires at them quickly; it takes several arrows to open a hole that a final arrow passes through. The beast screams in anger and pain. It turns to the knights, its red eyes glowing dangerously.

Rodney and Arald charge forward and thrust their lances into the monster’s chest, pushing it back into the fire. In a burst of brilliant red flames, the Kalkara disappears.

Rodney says, “we did it,” but the baron replies, “Halt did it,” and they merely finished the job (222). Will finds Halt’s broken longbow among the rubble. They hear more screams.

Earlier in the day, Halt knew the Kalkara were hunting him when their trails suddenly separated to right and left. He hurried to the ruins, prepared a pile of oil-soaked wood, lit torches, and waited. The beasts saw him and he ignited the bonfire and stood apart from it. They came forward quickly. He had just fired the arrows into the first Kalkara when its partner got to him and smashed his bow.

He scrambled away, then turned and tried to fight the beast with his knife, but the creature’s eyes hypnotized him with terror, and only with a massive effort could he turn away. The Kalkara swiped at him with its claws, slashing his leg and knocking away the knife. Halt barely escaped. He hid in the old courtyard, made a hasty bandage for his leg, sat, and waited.

When Will and the knights arrive and dispatch the first Kalkara, Halt jumps up and runs to warn them of the second beast, but the other Kalkara is too fast. Halt turns, closes his eyes against the beast’s terrifying stare, and hurls his throwing knife perfectly, catching the creature in one eye. It screams in pain, then continues after Halt, who scrambles across the rubble.

Baron Arald pulls his broadsword and rushes forward. Halt jumps off a wall and the Kalkara follows, knocking out Halt. Arald swings his sword at the creature’s head, but it ducks and slashes its talons at the baron, seriously wounding him. Rodney swings his ax at the Kalkara, knocking it back. The knight prepares another swing but stops, frozen in place by the beast’s fearsome eyes. The Kalkara screams in triumph and prepares to kill the three men.

Will runs to a torch, douses an arrowhead in its pitch, lights it, and fires at the Kalkara, who sees the launch, turns, and catches the arrow in the chest. The guttering arrow flames back to life, fed by the monster’s oily matting of hair. The Kalkara tries frantically to put out the flames, but they spread quickly and engulf the creature, who runs about, screaming in agony. “And then the screaming stopped and the creature was dead” (231).

Will and Rodney tend to the baron and Halt. In the morning, Gilan arrives on a borrowed plow horse. Seeing that Halt will be ok, he retrieves Blaze from Will and gallops off to his fief. The others return to Castle Redmont—on the way, Will returns the plow horse—and for the next several days the castle is busy with war preparations. Will takes on much of Halt’s work of messaging and summoning soldiers while his mentor recuperates.

Horace sets up a dinner at the Wensley Village inn. He, Jenny, Alyss, and Will attend. George begs off because of a rush of wartime paperwork. Villagers at the restaurant stare at Will, whose heroism is the talk of the fief. The yearmates press Will about the battle. He admits he was terrified, and he credits the baron and Sir Rodney for their brave attack against the Kalkara.

Will asks Horace about Battleschool. Horace says things are much better since Halt helped him with the bullies, but he still gets into trouble. Will notices that Horace is much less boastful than he used to be.

Jenny wants to dance and Horace jumps at the chance. Will asks Alyss to dance, but she senses his uncertainty and diplomatically begs off. She tells him they’re all proud of him, and that “I’m proudest of all” (236). She surprises him by kissing him.

Hundreds of people, including all the knights, ladies, and Craftmasters, gather in the Great Hall of Castle Redmont. Shyly, Will enters with Halt. Jenny waves, and Alyss blows him a kiss. He walks down the center aisle as the audience applauds. Baron Arald greets him and presents him to the people, saying, “He has proven his fidelity, courage and initiative to this fief and to the Kingdom of Araluen” (239). Led by Horace, the crowd cheers.

The baron offers Will what the boy first wanted, a place at Battleschool. Sir Rodney seconds it; the crowd roars, loudest among them the knights and apprentices, led by Horace. Arald presents Will with his own sword and shield, a boar’s head emblazoned on the shield as his coat of arms, in honor of his first act of bravery.

Will pulls the sword and hefts it: It feels light and perfectly balanced. Its edge is keen. The boar’s head appears on its pommel. It’s everything he dreamed of, but Will turns to the baron and says, “I am a Ranger, my lord” (241).

The baron asks if he’s sure. Will thanks him and Rodney, and says he means no offense, but repeats that he is a Ranger. The baron and Rodney are delighted by Will’s unbending loyalty to his teacher. Arald shakes the boy’s hand, and Will walks back down the aisle to more applause.

As he reaches the end of the aisle, he notices the always-serious Halt standing to one side, “And he was smiling” (242).

At Halt’s cottage, the teacher gives Will a bronze amulet in the shape of an oak leaf. It’s attached to a chain. Halt explains that apprentices wear this around their neck, and that full Rangers wear a silver version. Normally, the bronze amulet is awarded after an apprentice’s first Assessment, but Will has earned it already.

Will asks his teacher if he made the right decision about turning down Battleschool. He fears he’s letting down his father, a knight who died in battle for the kingdom. Halt explains that Will’s father was a sergeant who died protecting another. His defense was so ferocious that he killed three Wargals and the others fled, the first time Wargals ran from battle. Will’s father perished of his wounds, but he saved the other man: It was Halt himself.

The sergeant’s dying request was that Halt see to his pregnant wife. She died giving birth to Will and Halt brought baby to Baron Arald, who raised him.

Will touches the bronze oak leaf. He knows now that he made the right choice. Despite the preparations for war, “strangely, for the first time in his life, he felt at peace” (249).