Burning Bridge Read Free

was tantamount to an order. All thought of appearing casual departed instantly.
    “Oh, please, Halt!” the boy exclaimed. “I want to know what’s going on!”
    Halt and Gilan exchanged a quick grin. Will was actually hopping from one foot to another as he waited for Halt to rescind the suggestion that he should go to bed. The grizzled Ranger kept a straight face as he set three steaming mugs of coffee on the kitchen table.
    “Just as well I made three cups then, isn’t it?” he said and Will realized that he’d been having his leg pulled. He shrugged, grinning, and sat down with his two seniors.
    “Very well, Gilan, before my apprentice explodes with curiosity, what is the reason for this unexpected visit?”
    “Well, it has to do with those battle plans you discovered last week. Now that we know what Morgarath has in mind, the King wants the army ready on the Plains of Uthal before the dark of the next moon. That’s when Morgarath plans to break out through Three Step Pass.”
    The captured document had told them a great deal. Morgarath’s plan called for five hundred Skandian mercenaries to make their way through the swamps of the fenlands and attack the Araluen garrison at Three Step Pass. With the Pass undefended, Morgarath’s main army of Wargals would be able to break out and deploy into battle order on the Plains.
    “So Duncan plans to beat him to the punch,” Halt said, nodding slowly. “Good thinking. That way we control the battlefield.”
    Will nodded in his turn and said in an equally grave voice, “And we’ll keep Morgarath’s army bottled up in the Pass.”
    Gilan turned slightly to hide a grin. He wondered if he had tried to copy Halt’s mannerisms when he was an apprentice, and decided that he probably had.
    “On the contrary,” he said, “once the army’s in place, Duncan plans to withdraw the garrison, then fall back to prepared positions and let Morgarath out onto the Plains.”
    “Let him out?” Will’s voice went up in pitch with surprise. “Is the King crazy? Why would…”
    He realized that both Rangers were looking at him, Halt with one eyebrow raised and Gilan with a quizzical smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
    “I mean…” He hesitated, not sure if questioning the King’s sanity might constitute treason. “No offense or anything like that. It’s just—”
    “Oh, I’m sure the King wouldn’t be offended to hear that a lowly apprentice Ranger thought he was crazy,” said Halt. “Kings usually love to hear that sort of thing.”
    “But Halt…to let him out, after all these years? It seems…” He was about to say “crazy” again, but thought better of it. He thought suddenly of his recent encounter with the Wargals. The idea of thousands of those vile beasts streaming unopposed out of the Pass made his blood run cold.
    It was Halt who answered first. “That’s just the point, Will— after all these years. We’ve spent sixteen years looking over our shoulders at Morgarath, wondering what he’s up to. In that time, we’ve had many of our forces tied up patrolling the base of the cliffs and keeping watch over Three Step. And he’s been free to strike at us any time he likes. The Kalkara were the latest example, as you know only too well.”
    Gilan glanced admiringly at his former teacher. Halt had instantly seen the reasoning behind the King’s plan. Not for the first time, he understood why Halt was one of the King’s most respected advisers.
    “Halt’s right, Will,” he said. “And there’s another reason. After sixteen years of relative peace, people are growing complacent. Not the Rangers, of course, but the village people who provide men-at-arms for our army, and even some of the barons and Battlemasters in remote fiefs to the north.”
    “You’ve seen for yourself how reluctant some people are to leave their farms and go to war,” Halt put in. Will nodded. He and Halt had spent the past week traveling to outlying villages in