The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice, #1)

by John Flanagan

His mother died in childbirth. His father died a hero. Please care for him. His name is Will.

Arald often said that girls made the best recruits to the Diplomatic Service.

“Tell me,” he said to the eager girl, “what would you do with a turkey pie?” Jenny smiled dazzlingly at him.“Eat it,” she answered immediately.

“And just this last spring he climbed up to our third-floor study and turned two rabbits loose during one of our legal debates. Most disruptive. Absolutely!” “Rabbits, you say, Scribemaster?” said the Baron, and Nigel nodded emphatically. “A male and a female rabbit, my lord, if you take my meaning?” he replied.“Most disruptive indeed!”

“Well, yes,” said the Baron. “We all know how rabbits are.” “And, as I said, my lord, it was spring,” Nigel went on, in case the Baron had missed the point.

the least he could do was face his punishment like a man. Like a warrior. Like his father, he thought. The Ranger studied him for a moment. Will thought he saw a brief flicker of . . . recognition? Then the eyes darkened once more.

The Baron’s voice stopped him. “Will? This time, use the stairs.” “Yes, my lord,” he replied seriously, and was a little puzzled by the way the Baron rolled his eyes to the sky and muttered to himself again. This time, he could make out a few words. It was something about “jokes,” he thought.

Will hesitated.“Well, sir,” he began uncertainly,“I just wanted to ask you . . . what does a Ranger actually do?” “He doesn’t ask pointless questions, boy!” said Halt. “He keeps his eyes and ears open and he looks and listens and eventually, if he hasn’t got too much cotton wool between his ears, he learns!”

“Hmmm. Not bad. Can see my own face in it,” he said, then added, without a hint of a smile, “May not be such a good thing.” Will said nothing. With anyone else he might have suspected it was a joke, but with Halt you simply couldn’t tell.

“At the time, King Herbert felt that to remain safe, the kingdom needed an effective intelligence force.” “An intelligent force?” said Will. “Not intelligent. Intelligence. Although it does help if your intelligence force is also intelligent.

“My father died in that battle,” Will added in a quieter voice, and Halt cast a curious look at him. “Is that so?” he said. “He was a hero. A mighty knight,” Will continued. The Ranger paused, almost as if he were deciding whether to say something or not. Then he simply replied: “I wasn’t aware of that.”

Will was conscious of a sense of disappointment. For a moment, he’d had a feeling that Halt knew something about his father, that he could tell him the story of his heroic death. He shrugged to himself.

As Karel called the basic cadence, Rodney had noticed that Horace was adding an occasional stroke to the sequence, and yet managing to do so without falling behind in his timing.

“No, no, no,” he said definitely. “You can’t be him. Why, the Ranger Halt is as tall as two men—and as broad. A giant of a man, he is! Brave, fierce in battle, he is. You couldn’t be him.”

Halt reined in Abelard in a shower of snow and hurled himself to the ground, throwing his arms around the shaking boy. Will, overcome with relief, buried his face into the rough cloth of the Ranger’s cloak. He didn’t want anyone to see the tears of relief that were streaming down his face.

“You saved my life,” he said.“ That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Horace, we may have fought in the past,” he said. “But I don’t hate you. I never hated you.”

Horace nodded once, a look of understanding coming over his face. Then he seemed to come to a decision.“I owe you my life, Will,” he said in a determined voice.“I’ll never forget that debt. If ever you need a friend, if ever you need help, you can call on me.”

Then the full import of Bryn’s words struck him. They were going to give the same treatment to Will—for the ridiculous reason that they felt his action in saving Horace had somehow belittled them and their Battleschool.

He remembered his promise to Will: If you ever need a friend, you can call on me. It was time to make good on the promise.

Which was Alda’s second mistake of the day. Halt was small. But puny was not a word that entered into it. In addition, Halt had spent a lifetime fighting far more dangerous adversaries than a second-year Battleschool apprentice.

“I take it these are the three who gave you those bruises?” he asked. Horace said nothing for a moment, then realized that his continued silence was ridiculous. There was no reason why he should shield the three bullies any further. There never had been a reason. “Yes, sir,” he said decisively. Halt nodded, rubbing his chin.

His backside was raised invitingly in the air and Horace paused and looked a question at Halt. The Ranger made a little gesture toward Jerome. “Why not?” he said. “An opportunity like that doesn’t come every day.”

Once you best a man, never gloat. Be generous and find something in his actions to praise. He won’t enjoy being bested, but he’ll make a good face of it. Show him you appreciate it. Praise can win you a friend. Gloating will only ever make enemies.

Sometimes, he thought wryly, a reputation for being right all the time could be a heavy burden.

“Always assume an enemy knows you’re there and that he will attack you,” he said.“That way, you tend to avoid unpleasant surprises.” He smiled grimly to reassure the boy.“It can still be unpleasant, but at least it’s not a surprise.”

Ranger horses might recover quickly. Ranger apprentices took a little longer.

Surprisingly, she leaned closer to him and whispered, “We’re all proud of you, Will. And I think I’m proudest of all.” And she kissed him. Her lips on his were incredibly, indescribably soft. Hours later, before he finally fell asleep, he could still feel them.

“It is possible, of course,” said Halt quietly,“to want to do two different things at the same time. Then it just becomes a choice of knowing which one you want most.”

“Don’t judge a man’s quality by his position in life, Will. Your father, Daniel, was a loyal and brave soldier. He didn’t have the opportunity to go to Battleschool because he began life as a farmer. But, if he had, he would have been one of the greatest of knights.”

Then, as the Wargals retreated, he sank down on one knee beside the man he’d been protecting, still trying to shield him, even though he knew he was dying himself. “He had taken half a dozen wounds. But it was probably the first that killed him.”

“They weren’t friends,” said Halt.“Up until that moment, he had never laid eyes on the other man.” He paused, then added, “Nor I on him.”

“You?” he whispered.“You were the man he saved?” Halt nodded.“As I said, I only knew him for a few minutes. But he did more for me than any other man, before or since. As he was dying, he told me of his wife, and how she was back at their farm alone, with a baby due any day. He begged me to see that she was looked after.”