And Horace bowed his head and wept. Maybe from fear. Maybe from anguish. Maybe from relief that his friend continued to live.

Maybe from all three. Thirty-one Exhausted, slumped in the saddle, Will reined Abelard in to a stop. The ride through the night since they had left the barrows was a blur in his mind: a constant sequence of holding to the steady, disciplined lope for two hours, then dismounting and walking for quarter of an hour, then mounting the spare horse and setting off once again at the same steady lope. He had stopped twice for short rests, with no further interruption to his sleep. The rests had revived him a little. But they also served to let the aches and stiffness in his muscles really set in. Each time he restarted, he suffered several minutes of agony until his senses became dulled to the discomfort.

Now, he was almost at the end of his journey. Or at least, the first part of it. To his left, he could see the solid bulk of Castle Macindaw. To his right lay the dark mass that delineated the beginning of Grimsdell Wood.

For a moment he was tempted to ride to the castle. He would be welcomed there, he knew. There would be hot food, a hot bath and a soft bed. He looked at Abelard. The little horse stood, head down and weary. Tug, who hadn't been carrying Will's weight for the past two hours, looked a little better, but still tired. Even Kicker, who had carried no load so far, would be leg weary. If he went to the castle, the horses would be cared for, fed and watered and stabled in comfort.

He could possibly send a messenger to Malcolm while he regained his strength and energy. Surely Orman, the castle lord, must have some way of contacting the eccentric old healer, he thought. Just a few hours. Surely it wouldn't do any harm?

The temptation swayed him – literally. He realised he was actually swaying in the saddle as his eyes became harder and harder to hold open. Any moment, he'd crash to the ground and lie there on the grass, and he knew if that happened, he might not have the strength, mental or physical, to rise again.

He shook himself, tossing his head violently, blinking his eyes rapidly, to beat back the drowsiness that threatened to engulf him.

'No!' he said suddenly, and Abelard's head raised, ears pricked, at the sudden sound of his voice. The horse wasn't as tired as he seemed, Will realised. He was simply conserving his strength against the need for further effort.

Will knew, in his heart, that if he were to go to Macindaw, he would be delayed – and by far more than a few hours. He would have to explain the situation, answering a hundred questions, and then convince Orman to send a messenger into the woods.

Assuming that such a messenger could find Malcolm's cottage – and there was no certainty of that, beyond Will's assumption that the castle lord must have some way of contacting the healer – he would then have to convince Malcolm of the urgency of the situation. And that urgency would be reduced by the mere fact that Will had not come himself. Delay would mount upon delay and then it would be dark and too late to set out. It could cost him hours and he knew Halt didn't have that time. Halt could die because his apprentice had decided a few hours on a feather mattress were more important than his closest friend's life.

It would be quicker if he went to Malcolm himself to explain the situation. And if the healer showed any reluctance or hesitation about dropping whatever he might be doing and riding for two days to assist someone he'd never met, Will would simply grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him along.

The decision made, he sat a little straighter in the saddle and turned Abelard's head towards Grimsdell Wood.

It was some time since he had last been here but gradually it came back to him and he began to recognise landmarks. This was the spot where he had rendezvoused with Alyss when they first set out to reconnoitre Malcolm's home. Or Malkallam's lair, as they thought of it at that time. Inside the tree line was a small clearing where he had waited and shot at Jack Buttle, wounding the murderer in the upper leg but causing no serious damage.

'Should have held my aim higher,' he muttered to himself.

Abelard's ears twitched. What was that?

It appeared that in Halt's absence, the horse had decided he should share his thoughts with Will. Or maybe Will had simply come to know him better and could divine his thoughts more clearly.

'Nothing,' he replied. 'Just ignore me.'

He dismounted stiffly, groaning at the pain the movement caused him. He loosened Abelard's girth and patted him on the neck.

'Good boy,' he said. 'You've done well.'

There was plenty of grass in the clearing. He tethered Kicker to a young sapling. The lead rein would give the big horse room to move and graze if he chose to. Abelard, of course, required no tether. Will simply held up a hand, palm outward, then pointed to the ground.

'Stay here,' he said quietly. The horse tossed his head in acknowledgement.

He'd decided to ride Tug into the almost senseless tangle of Grimsdell Wood. He wasn't completely sure that he would be able to find his way to Malcolm's cottage. The trails he had followed previously might well be overgrown by now. New trails might have been formed. He thought he knew the way, but it would help to have Tug's extra senses along as well. Briefly, he thought of the dog, Shadow, and wished grimly that she was with him. She would find the cottage without hesitation.

He tightened Tug's saddle straps and mounted, groaning again as the stiff muscles were stretched and racked by the movement. He hesitated, looking at the wall of trees around them. Then he thought he could make out the faintest trace of a trail. It seemed vaguely familiar. He was sure that was the way he and Alyss had gone last time.

'Let's go,' he said to Tug and they rode into Grimsdell Wood.

The path was obviously a trail left by small animals, who stood closer to the ground than Tug. Consequently, about a metre and a half from the ground, it was obstructed by overhanging branches, vines and creepers that all conspired to delay Will's progress, forcing him to duck under them or cut them aside. He saw several clumps of the ubiquitous stay-with-me vines and avoided them carefully.

The canopy of the trees overhead grew so close together that there was no sight of the sun, and few of its rays penetrated to the forest floor. He rode in a dark, half-shadowed world and, with no idea where the sun might lie, he quickly lost all sense of direction. He thought bitterly of his seeker needle, miles away in the pack he had left behind at the camp site. In his hurry to find help for his stricken master, he had forgotten how treacherous Grimsdell Wood could be and had blindly assumed that he would be able to find his way through it once more.

He sensed that Tug was feeling the same confusion – undoubtedly because of the fact that he couldn't see the sun and had no way of judging his own direction. The trail they followed wound and twisted and doubled back so that after a few minutes, there was no way of knowing exactly where they were heading. All they could do was keep going.

'At least we don't have to contend with Malcolm's bugaboos this time,' he told Tug.

The first time he had entered this wood, Malcolm had lined the way with frightening signs and sounds and flashing lights that appeared then disappeared. There was no evidence of them now. As that thought struck him, he realised that this possibly meant Malcolm felt more secure in the woods these days. And perhaps that meant that his network of watchers was no longer deployed among the trees. And that was a disadvantage. If word got back to the healer that the Ranger Will had returned, he would undoubtedly send someone to guide him to Healer's Clearing. But if there were no watchers, he could wander aimlessly all day and nobody would be any the wiser.