He stood, looking at the sky. There were still three or four hours of daylight left. If the trail remained as easy to follow as it had been so far, there was no reason why he shouldn't reach the raiders' camp that evening.

He rode on. The path widened a little and although it was still gradually climbing uphill, it tended to wind and twist less than it had previously. There was no need to proceed slowly. He could see where the trail led and there was no chance in the next hour or two of catching up with the raiders. They were at least two days ahead of him. So he let Tug fall into an easy lope, eating the kilometres beneath them.

As the day wore on, the black cliffs came closer. Just after midafternoon, the sun dropped behind them, throwing the surrounding countryside into shadow. When he estimated that the escarpment was an hour's ride away,

Will eased Tug to a halt. He dismounted and rested the little horse for ten minutes, splashing some water from his canteen into a small folding leather bucket so the horse could drink. He took a mouthful himself and chewed on a piece of dried smoked beef. He smiled quietly as he thought of Horace's grumbling over such rations. Will quite liked the taste of smoked beef. The chewing, of course, was another matter altogether. He might like the taste but the consistency was similar to an old boot.

He remounted and walked Tug forward. From here on, it would pay to proceed cautiously. On the evidence so far, it was unlikely that the raiders would have an outer screen of sentries around their headquarters, but it never hurt to be careful. He nudged Tug in a signal and the horse walked soft-footed, picking his way carefully as he had been trained to do, his hoofs making barely a sound on the damp earth of the track.

Once again, it was his nose that gave him warning. The unmistakable, penetrating smell of fresh woodsmoke wafted through the trees to him. They were riding along the crest of a gully and the black cliffs were ahead, seeming close enough to touch. They were only one or two hundred metres high, he saw. Not the biggest cliffs he'd ever come across. But their sides were sheer, glistening black rock. They'd be unclimbable if there wasn't some tenuous winding track leading to the top. The smell of smoke was stronger now and he thought he caught the faint sound of voices. He brought Tug to a stop and slipped down from the saddle.

`Stay here,' he said and moved silently up to the next bend in the trail. He had resumed his Ranger's cloak when he left camp that morning. Now he ghosted among the trees, taking advantage of the uncertain afternoon light that made him almost impossible to discern.

At the bend, he stayed in the shadow of the trees and found himself looking across the wide gully to an open space at the foot of the cliffs. Tents were set out in uneven, ragged lines and fires gleamed among them. He could see men moving among the tents, or sitting round the fires. He estimated there must be at least one hundred and fifty men camped below him. Armed men, he saw. He thought about the way the people of Craikennis had dismissed the threat of a raid, and their confidence in their own numbers. If a band this size attacked a town like Craikennis, the defenders would have little chance of resisting.

He slid to the ground, his back against a tree, and studied the camp for the next hour, until night fell. He gradually identified the largest, central tent in the camp. Judging by the number of men coming and going there, it must be the leader's headquarters. Equally important, as dusk was falling he watched the picket line being set – a half circle of sentries who took up their positions where the open ground gave way to the treeline again. Even this group, overconfident as they might be, wouldn't settle for the night without some form of guard.

He noted one man who had moved a little further into the trees than his neighbours. From his elevated position, Will could see him easily. And he could see that the man wouldn't be visible to his fellow sentries. Perhaps he had found a more comfortable spot to spend his hours on watch. Or perhaps he preferred not to be constantly under the eye of the guard commander.

Either way, it was a mistake – and one that Will planned to take advantage of.

Chapter 19

After Will had left for Duffy's Ford, Halt and Horace broke camp and took the high road that headed north-west to Mountshannon. They saw only a few other travellers along the way: a single rider on a tired-looking, elderly horse and a small group of traders walking alongside a wagon pulled by a mule.

Halt greeted the traders politely as they rode past. There was no response. Four pairs of eyes followed the two riders suspiciously. Halt's bow and the fact that Horace wore a sword and rode a battlehorse were sufficient reasons for their mistrust.

The grey-bearded Ranger sighed and Horace looked at him, a question in his eyes. It was unlike Halt, he thought, to show emotion so easily.

`What's up?' he asked.

`Oh, I was just thinking,' Halt said. 'This used to be such a friendly place. People would stop and chat on the road if they met. And a road like this would be covered in travellers, all on their way to somewhere or other, all with important things to be done. Now look at it.'

He indicated the long empty road. It ran in a straight line at that point and Horace could see for perhaps a kilometre in either direction. Ahead of them, the road was deserted. Behind, there was only the plodding cart and its four attendants, becoming smaller and smaller with each passing minute.

If they expected traffic on the road to increase as they neared Mountshannon, they were disappointed. The wide, dusty- highway continued to stretch empty before them.

Gradually, the forest on either side of the road gave way to open farmland. Here, the fields were in slightly better shape than those they'd passed when they first arrived in Clonmel. And the farms themselves weren't deserted. They could see occasional figures moving in the farmyards, although the yards themselves were barricaded in the now familiar way and it was rare to see anyone moving too far from the farm buildings.

`Things don't look quite as bad here,' Horace ventured.

`There haven't been any raids in this area so far,' Halt reminded him. 'People are a little more confident this close to a large village like Mountshannon. And the farms themselves aren't so isolated.'

There was a warning shout from a farmhouse they were passing and they glanced across at it, in time to see two men running in from a field where they had been stacking hay to take shelter behind the barricaded farmyard wall. They still carried their pitchforks, Halt noticed.

`A little more confident,' he repeated. 'Not a lot.'

Mountshannon was similar to Craikennis, although considerably larger. One main street held the principal buildings of the village – an inn, and the buildings of the various traders that would be found in any sizeable centre: blacksmith, wheelwright, farrier, tool maker, harness maker and general store, where the ladies of the town could buy cloth and yarn and dried foodstuffs while their menfolk could buy seed, tools, oil and those hundred and one items that were always needed on a working farm.

The store was only a stopgap measure, of course; the main trading would take place in a weekly market.

Small lanes ran off the main street, linking to a network of back streets that ran more or less parallel to the high road. These were lined by houses, where the town's population lived. As in Craikennis, the majority of the houses were single-storey, roofed with thatch and constructed with whitewashed clay set over timber frameworks. The inn was two storeys, as was the farrier's building. There was a hay loft there, with a derrick projecting over the street to raise and lower the heavy hay bales stored inside.