Horace threw open one door, and then another, cursing to himself.

How does Will always build armies out of nothing? He plots and schemes, and uses any men he can find.

So where in the hell is the Redmont garrison?

He had searched every single barrick in the castle, peered into every bedroom, and even pulled aside curtains and sheets. The green-clothed Celts were still up on the ramparts, that much he knew. And from what he'd seen, they hadn't been causing any trouble.

There had been a few Redmont soldiers in their usual stations; outside the Baron's quarters, closing off certain hallways, and even some in the various kitchens and servants quarters who weren't on duty that day. But when Horace had asked them what was happening, none of them seemed to know anything.

"My Lord, last I saw it was our regular morning shift up on the walls today. No green coats anywhere, except for where they usually are. Is anything wrong?" one of the men had asked, fear in his eyes. He was speaking to Sir Horace, the premier knight of the realm, champion of their Princess Regent, soon-to-be Queen. If there was anyone to impress, it was him. And if there was anyone to be scared of when something was potentially wrong, it was also him.

Horace had waved him off, sensing his nervousness. "I just arrived a few minutes ago, and there were only Celts on the wall. Where would the morning shift have gone if they were dismissed for a break?"

His suspicion was that the Celts had volunteered to cover the wall that morning, offering the Redmont garrison a rest for the few hours before the shift change at noon. Of course, if this Cuinn character was planning anything for this morning, like assassinating the King, perhaps, it would be a very convenient thing to have his own men in control of the wall, and by extension, the gate and the drawbridge.

For this reason, Horace suspected that whatever Cuinn was planning was happening now, or, just maybe, had already happened. Why else would the Celts have volunteered to cover the garrison?

Either way, he needed to find the Redmont Garrison, Will, and the King, all within the next ten minutes.

Or less. That would be even better.

Horace weighed his options in the hallway outside the last of the servants quarters he had searched. He could keep looking in places the men might be resting in, he could ask people as he passed by them if they knew, or... he could go straight to the wall and ask the Celts himself.

But what would Will say? Asking them directly is the same as offering yourself as a target. If they're in on Cuinn's plan, they'll raise the alarm that you're back and stick you full of swords like a pincushion. Then they'll hunt me down, finish me off, and Cuinn will carry the King's dead body out with him as he leaves with a cheerful wave to everyone else.

Horace knew becoming a pincushion wasn't an option. Jeopardizing Will and the King was even less of an option.

But speed was of the essence, and Horace didn't do complex plans. He found that they didn't usually work in times like these anyway. With such a narrow window of time, and so many things to do, he just needed to set out and do them.

Operation Pincushion, he decided to call it. He knew Will and Halt would love it later, if he ever got the chance to tell them.

He set off at a quick stroll through the hallways, ascending until he reached the narrow passages that lead to the upper wall.

Here we go.

He pushed the door open, and the bright morning sun blinded him briefly. It was just rising over the tops of the trees now, and the Celts were standing at attention in their places along the front wall.

But to Horace's surprise, a few meters behind them, at the back of the wall that looked over the inner castle sat the Redmont garrison, or at least, most of them. They were gathered up in circles, sitting comfortably on the stones around the small fires that provided warmth and light when it was dark, or when the morning breeze was cold like it was now. They were chatting and smiling, sharing a few laughs, and seeming to enjoy themselves. As soon as they caught sight of Horace, they all froze suddenly, and then scrambled up to their feet to stand at attention.

"Sir Horace, pardon our behavior," said the captain, stepping forward and giving a sharp salute. His face, battle-hardened and wrinkled from plenty of years in the line of duty, was apologetic and determined. "We were told that the King of Celtica had requested that his guards take over the garrison duty on the front wall for this morning shift. We were sent orders to take the shift off only a few minutes ago. We were all just gathering our belongings and saying goodbye."

Horace frowned, recognizing the man's voice. He looked more intensely at his face, and then he realized who it was. "Jonathan? Is that you?"

A faint smile cracked the older man's lips. "Yes, sir, it's a pleasure to see you again. It's been more than a few years, hasn't it?"

Jonathan had been the captain of the Redmont garrison for as long as Horace could remember. Even back to his earliest days in the Ward, Jonathan was always standing guard from the early hours of the morning until noon, and he was the commander of all the soldiers at Redmont. He had started at a young age, and now, even though he was in his late sixties, he obviously hadn't lost his spark. He looked strong and fit, experienced and a bit weathered. After all, being the commander of the garrison in such an important and large fief as Redmont was meant that you were a battle-hardened, trusted soldier, and selected by the Baron himself.

If there was anyone Horace was willing to trust, it was Jonathan. He had known him since he was a child, and he was a trained and trusted warrior.

Maybe that's how Will does it. He finds some men, and with a bit of luck, makes an army out of them. No sneaky plan required.

Horace knew even if this wasn't the exact same way Will had procured small armies in the past, it would have to do for now. There wasn't exactly an abundance of options.

Horace held out a hand, and Jonathan shook it firmly, smiles on both their faces. "It's been far too long. I'm glad to see you're still here, doing a fantastic job as usual. Don't worry," he added, for the other soldiers' benefits, "you haven't done anything wrong. I've just got to talk to the Captain about something quickly. You can enjoy yourselves however you like."

The other men, heaving internal sighs of relief, turned back to each other and continued their original conversations.

Horace pulled Jonathan off to one side. "We don't have much time, but I need you and your men's help right now."

He nodded immediately without question. "Of course, sir. What would you like us to do?"

That was the lovely thing about trained soldiers--they did what they were asked to do without asking any questions. This particular quality was incredibly useful in situations like this one, where they had minutes to figure everything out.

"I'll explain everything as we're going, so I'll answer your questions soon. But somewhere here, in the castle, Ranger Will is trying to find the King of Celtica. One of the Celts in his council is going to try to assassinate him, we think, and we're trying to stop it from happening before it's too late."

To Horace's surprise, Jonathan nodded. "Sir, that makes sense. It's not traditional for foreign soldiers to volunteer to take over the garrison, and even stranger for them to be sent orders telling us to leave. Look at this," he said, pulling a sheet of paper out of his pocket. It was a small slip with the seal of Redmont on it, the same stationery that Baron Arald used. On it was scrawled in messy writing, The Celtic envoy is to replace the garrison for the morning shift, by order of the King of Celtica. Use this time at your leisure. The regular schedule will resume at noon. Baron Arald of Redmont.

Horace squinted as he realized that Arald's signature didn't look right. In fact, the handwriting of the entire document didn't look right. It was too colloquial, too lazy to be a real written set of orders. Having seen plenty of reports from Baron Arald, someone trained in the rigors of Battleschool to write formally worded reports, Horace knew his handwriting, signature, and writing style quite well.

The document had been forged.

Jonathan nodded when Horace said it. "My thoughts exactly. I've seen the Baron's orders for decades now, and this is not what his handwriting looks like. He would also never tell us to use this time at our leisure."

"He's much too hardened from Battleschool to ever tell one of his troops to have fun. He doesn't even tell me that, and I'm not his knight," Horace chuckled.

Jonathan smiled back. "Precisely. So who forged it?"

Horace shrugged. "Probably Cuinn, but I'll leave that for Will to find out later. He's better at this kind of deception and lies than I am."

Jonathan looked over his shoulder, and all around the wall. "Where is Ranger Will, by the way? The King is probably in his chambers and shouldn't be too hard to find, it's still quite early."

"That's what I thought, but if it had been that easy, Will would have found us by now. It's been ten minutes now, plenty of time for him to check the King's private quarters. So something else must be wrong."

Jonathan subtly gestured to a few other men sitting nearby, and they joined in a little circle, speaking quickly and quietly. "Here are my lieutenants, I want them to hear this if we're going to be able to help you, sir."

Horace nodded. "The orders you all received were forged. We need to find Ranger Will and the King, wherever they are in this castle before the King is assassinated. We have reason to suspect it's happening now, or very soon, considering that someone lied to force you all to abandon your posts and leave them to these Celts."

The soldiers nodded. "Understood, sir. Should we leave a few of us to keep an eye on these greencoats?"

"Yes, it's impossible to know if they're in on it too."

Glancing over the others' shoulders, Horace could see the Celtic soldiers on duty starting to notice them. They were staring over at them, and whispering to one another. Sure enough, just as Horace had finished speaking, a green-coated captain came walking towards them at a fast pace. "Excuse me, sirs, but is anything wrong?"

Horace smiled easily at him, and Jonathan did the same. "Nothing so far. Just a routine inspection is all. I wasn't expecting to see any Celtic soldiers up here on the walls of an Araluen castle. I saw the orders, but I wanted to ask who had sent you?"

The man nodded smartly. "One of the Councilmembers, called Lord Athol, gave us the orders. He had them approved by Baron Arald."

"And why were you assigned here? We have a regular garrison that doesn't need any assistance."

The other man's eyes narrowed only a fraction, but Horace noticed it and the hair on the back of his neck bristled with a warning. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong, sir? Why are you doubting our orders?"

"You didn't answer my question, Captain." His hand crept along the hilt of his sword, brushing the leather against the tips of his fingers.

The captain saw Horace's hand, and gulped slightly. "We were assigned here by Lord Athol, like I said before, to stand guard while an important meeting was held in the throne room. We weren't told what it was about, and we get ordered to stand guard for meetings like this all the time. Lord Athol always likes us to provide extra security when the King is out and about."

"A meeting? At seven in the morning?" Horace said, raising an eyebrow.

The captain shrugged. "I do admit it's out of the ordinary, but it's not my place to question my orders, sir."

Horace had no idea if this captain knew anything, or if he was lying through his teeth.

"If I order you to leave your post, and return to your King, would you do it?"

The guard gave him a strange look. "Who are you to give me orders? You're just an Araluen knight."

Jonathan stepped forward, his face cold and hard. "You're speaking to Sir Horace, the Oakleaf Knight, champion and husband to Cassandra, the Princess-Regent and future Queen, of Araluen. He's also the Captain of the Araluen Royal Guard and a seasoned fighter and commander. If there's anyone to give you orders, it's him."

Horace put a hand on Jonathan's arm to hold him back. "Yes, all of that is true. But more importantly," he drew his sword in a blur, leveling the point at the captain's neck, who turned white with fear. "Will you surrender, or are you going to make me fight you?"

The captain swallowed hard, his gaze darting from the tip of Horace's sword to his face. After a few seconds of furious thought, his gaze darkened. He opened his mouth and yelled, "Attack!"

Calmly, without any hesitation, Horace dropped the sword lower and plunged it easily into his side, slipping between two ribs.

Now he knew. The captain had been lying through his teeth the whole time. But at least the tricky bit was over. Now it was Horace's favorite part of Operation Pincushion: the fight.

Calling it a fight might not have been fair though, considering the Celts weren't very interesting opponents. They ran, yelled, tried to charge at him clumsily, and did all sorts of silly things. But Horace, with Jonathan at his side, cut them all down with ease in a matter of minutes.

Staring at the sea of unconscious and injured Celts that littered the stone floor of the rampart, Horace looked sidelong at Jonathan. "Nice job there. You're excellent with a sword."

Jonathan only smiled and gave a small bow. "Not nearly as good at you, sir, but I appreciate your kindness." He turned away briefly, calling to the rest of the Redmont garrison, all of whom had participated in the fight. "You ten! Stay here and man the wall like you always do! High alert, the Celts are up to something, so don't let any of them leave and sound the alarm if you see anything suspicious. The rest of you, follow me and Sir Horace!"

The group of men, around twenty, formed up behind Jonathan, and Horace grinned at the scene before him.

I've done it. I've made an army in fifteen minutes. Operation Pincushion has to set some sort of record. Take that, Will.

"I'm thinking we should go check the throne room that captain mentioned, whatever meeting that's happening in there must be interesting if they require extra security," Horace said over his shoulder as they jogged down the narrow stairs in single file.

"I was thinking the same, sir. That's the most likely place the King will be. And knowing Ranger Will, he's probably already found him and we can meet him there."

"Knowing Will, he's probably got this whole mystery solved by now in the time it took for me to even find you. But maybe we can still offer some help with our numbers, in case anything went wrong."

Jonathan nodded grimly as they reached the ground level. "He's a great Ranger, but he can't fight off all these Celts on his own if he wants to save the King. I'm assuming that's where we come in?"

"He does the talking and the figuring out, and then we come in and do the whacking."

Unknown to Horace, Jonathan smothered a laugh behind him.

"Whacking indeed, sir, that's our specialty."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alyss turned away, pressing her hands to her ears. She couldn't watch it. She just couldn't.

Mercifully, Will didn't scream. He didn't make any noise at all. Her eyes fixed on the wall, her hands pressed to her head, and tears blurring her vision, she almost didn't notice the hand that gently brushed against her upper thigh. It did it again, a bit harder, and Alyss's eyes snapped down to meet Halt's.

His eyes were open.

His lips moved, and Alyss quickly shifted her hands to cover her face, as if she was crying, and leaned over so her ear was closer. From any angle, it looked like she was hunched over in sadness, and no one would notice that she was speaking to Halt.

"What are they doing to Will? Who's the traitor?"

She choked back a sob, but whispered back, "They're burning him, and it's Athol. He tricked us, he's going to kill Will, us, and the King, and he might even get away with it."

Halt shifted slightly on the ground, reaching his hand into his belt pocket. He withdrew his strikers, and offered one to Alyss. "Here, take it."

Alyss shook her head slightly. "Will already gave me one. And I have my saber under here," she patted her skirt, where the slit was that hid the hilt of her saber.

A ghost of a smile passed over Halt's face. "Smart boy," he murmured to himself. "Let me get my bearings, and we'll figure something out. Don't worry," he said, gripping Alyss's hand tightly. "It's going to be alright."

She nodded faintly, but he knew she didn't believe him.

They both knew they had already run out of time. It was only a matter of if Horace would come.

Because if he didn't, they knew they'd lose everything.

********************

A/N Thanks for reading! We're almost there now, congrats for getting this far! I've been getting some really lovely comments over the last few weeks, thank you to everyone! Your kind words really do mean the world to me, and it warms my heart to know that you're enjoying all my hard work. You're all the best readers ever. <3