For three days, the world narrowed down to the steady crunch of pine needles beneath tired boots and the heavy, dripping canopy of the eastern frontier. Old Fergus did not offer words of comfort. He did not ask after Ronan’s raw grief, nor did he apologize for the silence that stretched between them for hours at a time. In the brutal calculus of the border, words were wasted breath, and sorrow was a luxury for those safe behind stone walls. Instead, old Fergus taught through action, turning the harsh wilderness into a living classroom.
Watching him glide through the underbrush, Ronan began to understand the strange irony of the name the villagers used. Back home, leaning against the stone lintel of the forge or trading heavy haunches of venison, everyone called him old Fergus, a title born of his silvering beard and the deliberate, unhurried pace he kept on village lanes. But out here in the deep woods, that moniker was a total illusion. Though his face bore the weather-beaten lines of age and his hair was iron-grey, his body was coiled with the lean, effortless power of a man still in his absolute physical prime. Here, old Fergus possessed a lethal, ghost-like grace, shifting through the shadows with a swift, silent fluidity that made any notion of frailty vanish entirely.
On the second morning, kneeling in the damp moss beneath a canopy of hemlocks, old Fergus pointed to a faint depression in the leaf mold.
"Look," old Fergus said quietly, his breath pluming in the crisp air. "A boot heel scuffed the dirt. Not human. A deer, or something heavy dragging a limb. You read the forest by what it tries to hide."
He showed Ronan how to identify the subtle bruising on forest vegetation, the difference between the fresh sign of a foraging boar and the dead, weighted drag of an undead scout. He taught him the sharp, bitter smell of hemlock-water and the sweet, numbing sap of silver-leaf that could staunch a bleeding gash if boiled into a paste. Every step was a lesson in staying invisible, because in these woods, being seen meant being hunted.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
By the third night, the exhaustion had settled deep into Ronan’s bones, pulling tight against his healing stitches.
They made camp in a shallow hollow beneath a granite ledge, keeping the fire small, feeding it only dry hardwood that burned without thick smoke. While the coals glowed a dull, angry orange, Ronan unbuckled the heavy swordbelt his father had forged. He drew the long, battered blade from its scabbard, letting the firelight catch the uneven fuller.
Feeling foolish and utterly unmoored, Ronan tried to mimic the stances he had seen the castle soldiers use. He stepped forward clumsily, his lanky arms trembling under the blade's weight, swinging the heavy steel in an awkward, top-heavy arc that nearly threw him off balance.
A quiet huff came from across the fire pit.
Old Fergus sat sharpening a skinning knife with a smooth piece of slate, his pale eyes watching the boy's awkward movements without mockery.
"If you swing like a woodcutter out here, the first bandit or stray ghoul you meet will take your head off before your back foot hits the dirt," old Fergus said, testing the blade's edge with his thumb.
Ronan lowered the sword, flushing hot with embarrassment, staring down at the dirt.
Old Fergus slid his knife back into its sheath and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Kid. I'll teach you the way of the sword. But a blade is a close-quarter panic. A real Ranger lets the forest do the killing long before steel leaves leather."
Old Fergus gestured toward the dense brush beyond their tiny camp.
"You need to hunt your first kill," old Fergus continued, his voice steady and low. "To walk this path, you have to feed yourself from it. We need to craft you a bow, a proper composite warbow, once you have the back for it. But you aren't ready for a 100-pound pull yet."
Old Fergus stood up, dusting ash from his boiled leather trousers, and looked down at Ronan with a hard, evaluating squint.
"Tomorrow, we start you on a practice bow. Time to see if you can pull string as well as you can stare at dirt."