'Temujai?' Horace said to Will. 'The Temujai are thousands of kilometres away!'

Will shook his head sadly, urging Tug to increase his pace.

'Not in his mind,' he said grimly. He understood now. Something had caused Halt to lose all sense of the situation and time. He was seeing enemies and events from the past. From a few months back and from years prior to that, all hopelessly jumbled in his mind.

'Halt! Wait for me!' he called.

Then, suddenly, he set Tug to a full gallop as his mentor threw up his arms, let out a strangled cry and fell crashing to the ground beside a thoroughly alarmed Abelard.

And lay there, unmoving. Twenty-five 'Halt!'

The anguished cry was torn from Will as he urged Tug into a full gallop. Reaching the still figure lying in the long grass, he threw himself from the saddle and knelt beside him. Abelard stepped nervously beside his master, his head down, trying to nudge Halt with his muzzle, looking for some sign of life. The little horse nickered constantly, but there was a whine of anxiety in the sound – a note that Will had never heard before.

'Still, Abelard,' he said quietly. He gestured with the back of his hand to wave the horse away. 'Get back, boy.'

The horse wasn't doing Halt any good and his stepping and nudging could only get in the way. Reluctantly, Abelard paced back a few steps. Although he would normally only respond to Halt, he was intelligent enough to recognise that his master was incapacitated and that Will was next in the chain of command. Reassured by the calm tone of Will's voice, he stopped making the small, distracted noises and stood still. His ears were pricked upright, however, and his eyes never strayed from Halt.

Halt was lying face down and, gently, Will rolled him over. He moved the cowl back from Halt's face. His eyes were shut and his face was deathly pale. He didn't seem to be breathing and for a moment Will felt a surge of horror rush through him.

Halt dead? It couldn't be! It was impossible. He could not imagine a world without Halt in it.

Then the still figure gave a shuddering sigh and began to breathe again and Will felt relief flood through his system. Horace arrived, swinging down from the saddle and dropping to his knees on the other side of the fallen Ranger. The concern was obvious on his face.

'He's not…' He hesitated.

Will shook his head. 'He's alive. But he's unconscious.'

Halt gave vent to another shuddering breath that seemed to shake his entire body. Then his breathing settled a little. But he was breathing raggedly, and taking only shallow breaths. That was why, Will realised, he was being racked by those great shuddering sobs every so often. He needed the extra oxygen in his lungs.

Quickly, he stood and removed his cloak, folding it to form a makeshift cushion.

'Lift his head,' he told Horace. The tall warrior gently raised Halt's head clear of the grass and Will slid the folded cloak under it. Horace lowered Halt's head onto it. He studied the still form of the Ranger, his sense of helplessness showing on his young face.

'Will,' he said, 'what do we do? What's happened to him?'

Will shook his head, then leaned forward and gently raised one of Halt's eyelids with his thumb. There was no reaction from the unconscious Ranger. But as Will studied his eye, he noticed that the pupil remained dilated, even though the day was relatively bright. He knew that it was an automatic reaction for the pupil to close down when exposed to sudden bright light. Apparently, Halt's system wasn't reacting to normal stimuli.

'What is it?' Horace asked. He hoped that the fact that Will had done something, anything, was an indication that he had some idea of what the problem might be. Again, Will shook his head.

'I don't know,' he muttered.

He allowed the eye to close again. He put one finger on Halt's throat, feeling for the pulse in the large artery there. It was fluttery and uneven, but at least it was there. He sat back on his haunches, pondering the situation. All Rangers were trained to administer basic medical treatment in the event of a colleague being wounded. But this was beyond bandaging and stitching. This wasn't a wound he could isolate and…

A wound! The moment he had the thought, he was reminded of Halt's constant rubbing and scratching at the minor wound to his forearm. He gripped the sleeve of Halt's jacket, along the line that he had stitched up only the night before, and ripped the stitching apart, letting the sleeve fall back away from his arm.

The bandage was still in place. A slight stain showed on it where blood had seeped through the material before the bleeding stopped. He leaned forward and sniffed lightly at the wound, then recoiled hurriedly, with an exclamation of disgust.

'What is it?' Horace asked quickly.

'His arm. It smells foul. I think that might be where the trouble lies.' Mentally, he berated himself. He should have thought of that sooner. Then he dismissed his moment of self-criticism. The wound had seemed like a minor one. There had been no reason to suspect any connection between it and Halt's current behaviour. He drew his throwing knife and slid the razor-sharp edge under the end of the bandage. Abelard rumbled a warning.

'It's all right, Abelard,' he said, without lifting his eyes from his task. 'Settle, boy. Settle.'

Tug moved to stand close to his companion, brushing against Abelard and offering comfort and support. He nickered gently, as if to reassure Abelard that Will had the situation well in hand. Will wished that he felt the same confidence.

He slit the bandage and lifted it away from Halt's arm. The cut ends opened easily but where the bandage lay over the wound, it seemed to have stuck. That puzzled him a little. He didn't think there would have been enough blood from the wound to have dried and stuck the bandage in place like this. He was loath to simply rip the bandage away. He didn't know how much extra damage that might do.

He put a hand out to Horace.

'Get me a canteen,' he said and the tall youth hurried to fetch the canteen that was tied to the saddle bow on Kicker. Abelard was closer but in his current state of nervousness, Horace wasn't sure how he would react if he was approached. He handed the canteen to Will, who began to pour water carefully over the bandage, letting it soak through and loosen whatever it was that was causing it to stick to the wound.

After a minute or so, he tugged gently at the edge and felt it give a little. Halt stirred, moaning quietly. Abelard whinnied.

'Easy,' Will said gently. 'Easy there.' He wasn't sure whether his words were addressed to Halt or Abelard. He decided he was talking to both. Horace knelt again, eyes wide and fascinated as he watched his friend gradually work the bandage loose from the crusted, dried matter that surrounded the wound.

It took several minutes' soaking and gently easing the cloth away but eventually it fell clear and they could see what they were faced with.

'Oh my god,' said Horace quietly. The horror in his voice was obvious. Will made an inarticulate sound in his throat and, for a moment, turned his eyes away from the terrible sight of Halt's arm.

The graze itself, which he might have expected to have dried and scabbed over by now, was still weeping. The flesh around it was coated with a discoloured mass of oozing, vile fluid. The rotting smell that Will had noticed earlier was now all too evident. Both young men instinctively recoiled from it. But perhaps worst of all was the flesh of the rest of the arm. It was swollen to almost half again its normal size. No wonder Halt had been rubbing and scratching at it for the past day, Will thought. And the entire swollen forearm was discoloured. A sickly yellow around the wound gradually gave way to a dark blue tone, shot with bands of livid red. He touched Halt's arm gently with one forefinger. The skin was hot to the touch.