"You're the one who'll be directing them once we're fighting. It's as well they get used to following your orders from the start."

Will remembered another piece of advice the Ranger had given him. "Men work better when they know what you have in mind," he told the young apprentice. "So make sure you tell them as much as possible."

He stepped up onto a raised platform that had been placed here for the purpose of addressing the entire group.

"We'll break for today," he said in a raised voice. "Tomorrow we'll shoot as one group. So if I've picked any technical faults in your shooting today, practice getting rid of them before the evening meal. Then get a good night's rest." He started to turn away, then turned back, remembering one thing more. "Good work, all of you," he said. "If you keep this up, we're going to give those Temujai a very nasty surprise."

A growl of pleasure rose from the hundred men. Then they broke off, heading back for the warmth of the halls and lodges. Will realized that it was later than he'd thought. The sun was touching the tops of the hills beyond Hallasholm and the shadows were lengthening. The evening breeze was chilly and he shivered, reaching for the cloak that he'd hung from the platform railing as he'd directed the shooting.

A half dozen boys had been assigned to help and without orders from him they gathered the arrow bins and arrows, putting them under cover in one of the store sheds that fronted the practice field. Will couldn't help noticing the admiring glances they cast his way as they went about their work. He was only a few years older than they were, yet here he was, directing a force of one hundred archers. He smiled to himself. He wouldn't have been human if he hadn't enjoyed their hero worship.

"You look pleased with yourself," said a familiar voice. He turned and realized Horace must have approached while he had been talking to the men. He shrugged, trying to act diffident.

"They're coming along quite well," he said. "It's been a good day's work."

Horace nodded. "So I noticed," he said. Then, in a worried tone, he continued, "Evanlyn hasn't been here with you, has she?"

Will looked up at him, instantly on the defensive. "What if she has been?" he asked, an argumentative tone creeping into his voice. Instantly, he saw the worried look clear from Horace's face and realized he'd misinterpreted the reason for his friend's question.

"Then she has been here?" Horace said. "That's a relief. Where is she now?"

Now it was Will's turn to frown. "Just a moment," he said, putting a hand on Horace's muscular forearm. "Why is it a relief? Is something wrong?"

"Then she hasn't been here?" Horace asked, and his face fell again as Will shook his head.

"No. I thought you were being:you know:" Will had been about to say jealous, but he couldn't quite manage it. The idea that Horace might have something to be jealous about had too much of a sense of boasting about it. He saw instantly that such thoughts were far from Horace's mind. The apprentice warrior had hardly seemed to notice Will's hesitation.

"She's missing," he said, in that same worried tone. He cast his hands out and looked around the empty practice field, as if he somehow expected to see her appear there. "Nobody's seen her since midmorning yesterday. I've looked everywhere for her, but there's no sign."

"Missing?" Will repeated, not quite understanding. "Missing where?"

Horace looked up at him with a sudden flare of asperity. "If we knew that, she wouldn't be missing, would she?"

Will put up his hands in a peacemaking gesture.

"You're right!" he said. "I didn't realize. I've been a little tied up trying to get these archers organized. Surely somebody must have seen her last night. Her room servants, for example?"

Horace shook his head miserably. "I've asked them," he said. "I was out on patrol most of yesterday myself, keeping an eye on the Temujai approach. We didn't get back in to Hallasholm till well after supper time, so I didn't realize she wasn't around. It was only this morning when I went to find her that I found out she hadn't been in her room last night and that nobody had seen her today. That's why I was hoping that maybe you'd:" The sentence tailed off and Will shook his head.

"I haven't seen hide nor hair of her," he told his friend. "But it's ridiculous!" he exclaimed after a short silence. "Hallasholm isn't a big enough place for someone to go missing. And there's nowhere else she could have gone. Let's face it, she can't have simply disappeared:can she?"

Horace shrugged. "That's what I keep telling myself," he said morosely. "But somehow, it looks as if she has."

U NITED NOW IN THEIR CONCERN FOR E VANLYN, THE TWO apprentices headed for Halt's quarters. All of the Araluen party had been assigned rooms in the main hall. As Halt was their leader, he had been given a small suite of three rooms. At the door, Will knocked perfunctorily and heard Halt's gruff reply: "Come."

As they entered, he took in the fact that Erak was in the room with Halt. It was hard to miss the bulky Skandian. He seemed to fill most spaces he occupied. He was sprawled in one of the comfortable, carved wood armchairs that decorated the room-doubtless liberated on some wolfship raid down the coast. Halt was standing by the window, framed against the low-angled light of the late afternoon. He looked quizzically at the doorway as the two boys entered hurriedly.

"Halt," Will began urgently, "Horace says Evanlyn's disappeared. She's-"

"Safe and sound and back in Hallasholm." A familiar voice finished the sentence for him. Both boys turned to the speaker. Standing a little back, in the shadows of the room, she hadn't been evident as they'd entered.

"Evanlyn!" Horace exclaimed. "You're all right!"

The girl smiled. Now that his eyes were accustomed to the darker part of the room, Will could make out that her face and clothes were smeared with grease and dirt. Her eyes met his and she smiled at him, a little wistfully. Then she upended the flask of juice that she had in her hand and drank greedily from it.

"Apparently," she said, setting the flask down. "Although I have a thirst on me that I doubt I'll ever quench. All I've had to drink in the last eighteen hours was a little rainwater that made its way through the canvas covers over the:" She hesitated and looked to Erak to supply the word she was after. The jarl obliged.

"Forepeak," he said, and Evanlyn repeated the word.

"Forepeak, exactly, of Slagor's ship," she said. Will and Horace exchanged puzzled glances.

"What in the devil's name were you doing there?" Will asked. Halt answered for her.

"The devil's name is right," he said. "It seems our friend Slagor has sold out to the Temujai-and he's planning to betray Hallasholm to them."

"What?" asked Will, his voice cracking with surprise. He looked at Evanlyn. "How do you know?"

The girl shrugged her slim shoulders. "Because I heard him discussing it with the Temujai leader. They were barely two meters away from me."

"It seems," Halt put in, by way of explanation, "that your old friend Slagor sailed down the coast yesterday to a rendezvous with the Temujai Shan-one Haz'kam. And since our traitor obviously didn't trust his new allies too far, he insisted on all negotiations being carried out on board his ship-just to keep Haz'kam's retainers at a distance."

"Which is how I came to hear it," Evanlyn finished. But now Horace was scratching his head in bewilderment.

"But:what were you doing on the ship?" he said.

"I told you," Evanlyn replied. "Eavesdropping on Slagor and the Temujai."

Horace made an impatient gesture. "Yes, yes, so you've said. But why were you there in the first place?"