There was nothing. No giant indistinct warrior in ancient armour. No enemy ready to attack.

There was just the starlit night and the gentle soughing of wind through the long grass. Slowly, he relaxed, rising from his crouch and lowering the point of the saxe so that it lay alongside his thigh.

Then he remembered why the shape had seemed familiar. The Night Warrior, the terrifying illusion that Malcolm had created in Grimsdell Wood, had looked like that. With that realisation, he allowed the last of the tension to flow out of his body. He dropped the saxe point down into the soft ground and slumped wearily.

Had he dreamt it? Had his imagination, fed by the thought of the barrows and the legends of ancient ghosts, simply created the situation? He frowned, thinking. He was sure that he had been fully awake just before he leapt to his feet. But had he? Or had he been in that deceptive state of half sleep, half wakefulness that so often took an exhausted mind and body? And had an old memory stirred within him?

He shook his head. He didn't know. He couldn't tell when he had woken fully. He walked to the horses. They definitely seemed alarmed. But then, they would. After all, he had just leapt to his feet unexpectedly, waving his saxe knife around like a lunatic. He approached Tug and Abelard now. Both of them stood tensed, ears pricked, alert and nervous. Tug shifted his weight from one foot to another. Kicker had relaxed again but Kicker wasn't trained to the fine edge of awareness that the Ranger horses were.

Tug made that familiar low rumbling noise in his chest. Often that was a sign of danger. Or that he was uncertain. Will stroked his nose, speaking gently to him.

'What is it, boy? Do you feel something?'

Undoubtedly, the little horse did. But whether it was some presence close by or whether he was simply reacting to Will's sense of alarm, Will couldn't tell. Gradually, as Tug settled down and his eyes stopped flicking from one point to another in the surrounding night, Will decided that it was the latter. Tug and Abelard were nervous and alert simply because they could sense the same sense of alarm in him. After all, they had made no warning sound as he lay, feigning sleep. Gradually, Will's own racing pulse settled and he came to accept that there had been nothing. It had all been the result of imagination, combined with exhaustion. The fact that the intruder had appeared to look like the Night Warrior finally convinced him that it had come from within his own mind and he felt slightly foolish.

He retrieved his saxe knife, replaced it in the scabbard and buckled the scabbard round his waist. Then he donned his cloak, shaking some of the damp from it first, slung his quiver over his shoulder and picked up his bow.

'Imagination or not,' he said softly, 'I'm not staying here a second longer.'

He tightened the girth on Abelard's saddle and mounted. Then, leading Kicker and with Tug trotting beside him, he rode quickly away from his temporary resting place. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled slightly but he didn't look back.

Behind him, in the darkness, the ancient, invisible presence that inhabited the hill slipped silently back to its resting place, satisfied that another interloper had moved on. Thirty Back at the camp, the hours passed slowly for Horace. Most of the time, Halt lay still. From time to time he would rouse himself to toss and turn, muttering a few words, none of which made much sense.

Occasionally, Horace would hear Will's name mentioned and, once, his own. But most of the time, Halt's mind seemed to be in a place a long way away and a long time ago. He mentioned names and places Horace had never heard before.

Whenever Halt began these muttered outbursts, Horace would hurry to kneel beside him. He kept a supply of cloths soaking in a bowl of cool water, because he noticed that Halt's tossing and turning usually coincided with an increase in his temperature. It was never as dry and burning as it had been on the first day but he was obviously uncomfortable and Horace would mop his face and brow with the damp cool cloths, crooning a wordless tune of comfort as he did so. It seemed to settle the Ranger down and after a few minutes of these ministrations, he would fall into a deep, untroubled sleep once more.

Infrequently, he would wake and become lucid. Usually, he knew who and where he was and what had happened to him. On these occasions, Horace took the opportunity to coax him to eat a little. He made more of the beef broth, using some of their smoked, jerked beef, soaking it and simmering it. It seemed quite tasty and he hoped it had some nourishment in it. Halt needed nourishment, he felt. He was looking weaker and weaker every time he awoke. His voice was no more than a thin croak.

Once, he was awake and conscious for over an hour and Horace's hopes soared. He used the time to get Halt to give him instructions on how to make the camp fire bread he called damper. It was simple enough: flour, water and salt, moulded into a shape and then left buried under the embers for an hour or so. Unfortunately, by the time it was ready to eat, Halt had slipped away again. Horace disconsolately chewed the warm bread by himself. It was doughy and thick but he told himself it was delicious.

He cleaned his armour and sharpened his weapons. They were already razor-sharp but he knew that rust could quickly form on them if he didn't give them constant attention. And he practised his weapon drills as well, working for several hours until his shirt was damp with perspiration. All the time, his ears were alert for the slightest sound from the stricken Ranger, only a few metres away.

He wondered where Will was, and how far he had gone. He knew that the Ranger horses were capable of travelling prodigious distances in a day. But Will had to allow for the return journey as well and there'd be precious little time to rest the horses in between. He couldn't squander their reserves of energy on a one-way trip.

He looked at the map and tried to project Will's path and progress on it. But it was a vain attempt. There were too many uncertainties. Trails could be blocked or obliterated. Fords could have deepened or rivers could have flooded due to rain kilometres away. A dozen different things could force a traveller to make a detour in unknown country. Will had said he would be back in three days. That meant he planned to reach Macindaw, and Grimsdell Wood, where Malcolm had his cottage, in just over one day. The return journey would take longer. Malcolm couldn't be expected to ride nonstop without adequate rest as Will could do. Will had allowed two days' solid travelling, with a full night's rest period in between. It would be tough on the elderly healer, but it would be manageable.

Horace realised that his stock of firewood was getting low. At least replenishing it would give him something to do. He checked on Halt, watching the Ranger sleep for several minutes before deciding that he wasn't about to stir. Then he took the axe and a canvas log carrier and headed for a small grove of trees two or three hundred metres away. There were plenty of deadfalls there that would supply him with dry, ready to burn firewood.

He gathered sufficient kindling, then looked for heavier pieces, cutting them into manageable lengths with quick blows of the axe. Every so often, he would pause and turn to look back at the camp site. He could make out the prone figure lying near the smouldering fire. Chances were, of course, that if Halt were to cry out, he wouldn't hear him at this distance. It was hard enough to hear him from across the camp fire.

Satisfied that he had enough small pieces for cooking and a supply of heavier, longer-burning logs to last through the dark hours, he laid the wood on the log carrier and pulled the two rope handles together, holding the branches and chopped logs together inside the stout canvas. With the axe over his shoulder and the log holder in the other hand, he trudged back to the camp.