'Come on, Halt. Selethen says it's time we were moving.'
Gilan placed a gentle hand on the older man's shoulder. Halt had remained where he stood when Will left, staring across the heat-shimmering ground, willing his apprentice to travel safely.
He started at Gilan's words and finally turned away from his vigil. He was a little surprised, and quite touched, to see that Gilan had saddled Abelard for him. But he was still heavy-hearted as he walked to where his horse waited.
Abelard and Blaze seemed to sense Tug's absence as well, he thought. In other horses, that might have been a fanciful notion. But Ranger horses, like their riders, were a close-knit breed. And, of course, Abelard and Tug had been in each other's close company for nigh on five years. Halt sensed the restlessness in his own horse, the urge to turn towards the north where he sensed his young friend had gone. He patted the soft nose and spoke gently.
'He'll find him, boy. Never fret.'
But as he said the words, Halt wished he could believe them himself. He was worried and apprehensive for Will – in no small part because his apprentice had gone into a countryside about which he, Halt, knew little himself. Normally he would have been able to advise and counsel him of the dangers he might face. This time, he was allowing him to venture into a great unknown.
He swung into the saddle and glanced around the faces of his companions. He saw his own doubt and worry reflected there and he realised that for their sake, if nothing else, he must adopt a more positive stance.
'I don't like it any more than you do,' he told them. 'But let's look at the positive side of things. He's well armed. He's well trained. He's got a good horse. He's an excellent navigator and he has his Northseeker and Selethen's map. What can go wrong?'
Their spirits lifted a little as he listed the positives. Will was capable, intelligent and resourceful. Any one of them would trust him to come through in a crisis. All of them had, at one stage or another. There was a general lightening in their mood as the Arridi outriders clattered out of the camp.
But as he turned Abelard's head round and headed away from the direction Will had taken, Halt had a gnawing feeling that there was an element he had left out of his calculations.
Chapter 23
In days to come, Halt would berate himself savagely for the problem that Will was about to face, and for the danger it placed his young friend in. He should have known, he told himself. He should have realised.
When Halt thought about it, with the crystal clarity that comes of hindsight, he realised that he had spent years living in a castle named Redmont – or Red Mountain. It was so called because the rock that comprised its massive walls lent the castle a reddish tinge in the afternoon light. The rock was ironstone, and it contained a high percentage of iron ore.
Halt knew that Will would be travelling through an area named the Red Hills. In his own mind, he told himself he should have made the connection: ironstone, Redmont, iron ore and Red Hills.
The hills were, in fact, the site of massive deposits of iron – so rich that at times the ore itself was visible in large veins on the surface. The red coloration was the result of rust forming. The problem for Will was that as he rode among these huge iron deposits – and some of the hills were almost completely composed of iron ore – his magnetic Northseeker needle would deviate from the earth's magnetic field as it was attracted to the metal all around him.
Selethen knew of the iron, of course. Most of the iron and steel the Arridi used was quarried from this area – principally because it was so easy to access, requiring no deep shafts or complicated equipment. But the Arridi knew nothing of the secret of the Northseekers and the three Rangers had been careful to keep them hidden. So Selethen had no way of knowing that Will's navigation would be severely affected by the iron as his needle deviated first one way, then the other.
Between them, the two men had the knowledge that might have kept Will safe. But neither of them realised, so neither of them said anything.
It might have become apparent to Will if he simply rode with his eyes glued to the Northseeker. If that had been the case, he might well have noticed that from time to time the needle swung and deviated wildly. But that wasn't how he was trained to navigate cross country. After all, one can't ride through potentially dangerous territory staring down at a magnetic needle.
Instead, Will would rein in and hold the Northseeker at eye level until the needle settled to its final position. Then he would turn the graduated ring round the rim of the Northseeker until the needle coincided with the N mark. Then, peering through the aperture sight on the side, he would line his eye with the NE marking, all the while keeping the Northseeker facing the N marking. Looking through the aperture site, he would search from a prominent landmark maybe five or ten kilometres away, then ride north-east towards it. As he reached that landmark, he would repeat the process, finding another landmark that lay to the north-east of his position and riding towards that.
The fact that each time he went through this process, he was in fact deviating further and further to the east of his desired course was never apparent to him.
Had he been in Araluen, he might have sensed the sun's position wasn't quite right and become aware that there was a problem. But he was lulled by the knowledge that, this far south, the sun would appear to be in a different position. He trusted the Northseeker, as he had been taught to do.
And the further he rode, the further off course he became.
Once he had passed through the Red Hills, the problem was solved and the needle returned to a true North position. But by then the damage had been done and he was miles from where he thought he was.
He'd rested during the middle hours of the day, as Selethen had taught them. There was no shade to be found, with the sun almost directly overhead and very few trees larger than a shrub anywhere in sight. He pitched his small one-man tent to create a haven of shade and crawled into it, leaving the ends open to allow air to pass through. Not that there was much movement in the desert air at midday.
Arrow, unfortunately, had to put up with the direct heat of the sun. But the horse was bred to it.
Sitting cross-legged under the cramped shelter, Will spread out Selethen's chart and studied it for perhaps the tenth time that day.
He marked his starting position then, with his forefinger, traced a line to the north-east, through the Red Hills and onto the barren, sunbaked plain where he now found himself. Estimating the distance he had covered, he selected a point on the map.
'I should be… here,' he said. He frowned, looking back along the north-east track. If that were the case, he should have seen a prominent landmark late in the morning – a large flat-topped hill close by to the east of his track.
But there had been no sign of it. He thought that he had sighted such a hill an hour previously, but it had been a dim, shimmering sight in the overheated distance. And it had lain well to the west of his track.
Could he have gone so far off course? He shook his head. He had been meticulous in taking his bearings and selecting the landmarks that he rode towards. He could accept that he might be several hundred metres off course. Even half a kilometre. But in all his navigation training exercises he had never made such a large error.
The flat-topped hill that he thought he'd seen must have been five or six kilometres to the west of where he was now. He tapped the map thoughtfully. Of course, he told himself, there might well be more than one flat-topped hill in the desert. In fact, there certainly would be. Perhaps the one Selethen had marked had been worn down by wind and weather until its shape wasn't quite so well defined. He folded the map and put it away. That must be it, he told himself. He must have simply missed it. There were other landmarks he'd see the following day – a balancing rock and a line of steep cliffs, pockmarked with eaves. He'd just have to keep a keener eye out for them.