Ranger’s Apprentice

“Let’s go and find Will,” said Halt

Evanlyn!” he said. “Thank God you’re safe!”

And, saying it, he wondered why her eyes had filled, and why her shoulders were shaking as tear after tear spilled uncontrollably down her cheeks.

and as breathtakingly beautiful as he knew he would always remember her to be, no matter how long he lived or how old they might both become

But where was the green-eyed blond girl who had come to mean so much to him?

He was small and stocky, she realized, like his horse, and something about him spelled danger

But somehow, she would find a way. She would never give in. And it was that strength of purpose and ability to adapt that would make her a great ruler, if she were ever to make her way back to Araluen

The arrow arced in underneath the slanted shield and punched into the breastplate exposed there, with barely a check to its speed and force.

Deparnieux heard it. A dull impact of metal on metal—more a metallic thud than a ringing tone. He wondered what it was. Then he felt a small core of intense pain, a bright flare of agony, that began in his left side and expanded rapidly until it engulfed his entire body.

He never felt the impact as his body hit the grassy field.

Then may the best man win!” shouted Deparnieux mockingly, and this time Halt did reply.

“I plan to,” he called back

You’re going to fight an armored knight with nothing more than a bow and you tell me to relax?”

“I’ll have one or two arrows as well, you know

Hullo, Will. I’m back,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. She always tried, living in the hope that one day he would answer her