AN: This is an independent sequel to After the Tournament. That means it can be read as is or as a continuation of things started in that story, but only the book is a requirement for reading.
It was a lovely, late summer's day, but Crowley doubted the men gathered in front of him now noticed, intent as they were on him and the Rangers beside him.
Technically they were Rangers, too, at least they had been given the title and the oakleaf, but the difference between them and the men next to him where startling. For one the majority of them didn't wear the standard Ranger uniform; instead they wore a variety of colours and materials as well as weapons beside the ones issued by the Ranger corps. Many didn't even carry a bow, but had fancy swords at their sides instead. And none of them had gone through the five years of training and testing to become Rangers. These were men, who had all bought the oakleaf, but not earned it.
Crowley had to work to keep his face neutral; he couldn't look or sound like he despised them for buying the right to wear the oakleaf. He had to play this carefully.
A couple of the real Rangers stood at a casual distance, ready to shoot if any of the men in front of him should prove troublesome, but Crowley doubted they would be stupid enough to do anything despite how some of them seethed. They all knew the reputation of the Rangers and they knew that the men in front of and behind them were expert marksmen. He saw a few shoot sidelong glances at the Rangers standing farther apart.
Crowley clasped his hands together bringing all attention back to him.
"All right, men. Now that everyone are here, it's time we got things under way. We have a lot to do at this year's Gathering, so best we get started. King Oswald has kindly allowed us to make use of the facilities here at Castle Araluen to make everything easier to organise."
Crowley let his gaze travel over the men as he spoke. Some of them looked outright hostile, others mildly curious, some fearful. It was clear that most of them were wary of what Crowley had in mind and he smiled inwardly as he thought of how they were sure to dislike what came next.
"It has come to my attention that the standard of the Corps has fallen in recent years and that is simply unacceptable. I have been given the responsibility of reforming and restrengthening the Corps, and that means that every Ranger must prove their worth."
There was some rustling at his last words, but Crowley continued before anyone could protest. "Therefore this year you have all been called here for assessment. Some of the men here have already been assessed and have proven their skills, and they will help assess the rest of you. Those who pass the assessment will continue as Rangers."
"And those who do not?" one guy in deep green clothes asked.
Crowley meet his stare as he answered. "They will turn in their oakleaves and return to their homes."
There was a general murmur and some outraged exclamations at that.
"You can't take our oakleaves!"
"Who gave you the right to do this?!"
"This is a scandal!"
Crowley gave them a moment to quiet down before he raised his voice over the din. "Actually, I can. I am the Commandant now, and I have the mandate to choose who becomes Rangers and who stays Rangers, a mandate I've gotten from the King himself." He looked at each of them in turn without pity in his eyes. "Anyone, who haven't kept his skills up to an acceptable standard have no place in the Ranger Corps. If you are worried about getting kicked out, then perhaps you haven't trained hard enough. These men –" he made an encompassing gesture to the Rangers, who had proven themselves against Morgarath "have all proven themselves in recent months and passed the tests. Are you saying you will do less?" He raised an eyebrow towards the loudest protesters.
They quieted down some as they looked at the tough and grim faced Rangers facing them, but still grumbled. High born sons they didn't like taking orders from someone as young as Crowley and certainly not someone, who didn't even have an important family to his name. Many of them had seen him as an apprentice and snorted behind his back, because he couldn't afford to buy an oakleaf for himself. Now he was their Commandant, and they were afraid of what payback he might issue.
"I thought not." Then he smiled. "Very well, then let's move on. The assessment is fairly simple; you will go through a series of minor tests that will test different skill sets. This will be done in small groups." Some looked relieved at that piece of info, others still looked at Crowley in disdain. "As said before, the Rangers, who have already been assessed, will carry out your assessments. Each Ranger will focus on different skill sets, so you will be assessed by all in different ways.
Your combined score will determined whether or not you are deemed to have the necessary skills to be a Ranger. Understood?"
There was a moment of quiet as Crowley finished speaking. It was clear a lot of them didn't like it, but it was also clear they knew they had no other choice, but to comply. Otherwise they should never have come.
"Good. Then it is time to divide you into teams. Your name will be called and as it is spoken you will step forward and follow the Ranger responsible for your first test." Crowley pulled out the list of the teams and Egon stepped forward, ready to take the men to their first test. "Team One, " he called. "Narton, Siswick, Littlecreek. Team Two..."
§
From the other side of that invisible dividing line between the Rangers, a Ranger in his end twenties stood carefully listening. He understood the desire to test all the Rangers and make sure they were good enough, because Lord knows, there were some unskilled among them. He didn't actually know Crowley as a person as he had only ever seen him at a distance at Gatherings, and when he had had the chance to buy the oakleaf and become a Ranger, Crowley had been a mere apprentice, so he hadn't ever sought him out to get to know him.
He was passionate about being a Ranger and wanted to prove his worth. Ever since he was young he had admired the Rangers and their skills with the bow and at stealth, but he had never been chosen as an apprentice, and had thought the chance passed. Then the old Commandant had committed treason and a bunch of Rangers had left in anger, leaving the Corps missing quite a few. And that had given him the opportunity to get his foot in and prove that he really could be a Ranger.
Of course, he had quickly learned that the Rangers were even better than he had known, and so he had spent every Gathering trying to garner as much from the old ones as he could. He felt pretty confident he could pass this assessment of Crowley's; for one thing he actually practised his skills, and secondly he had had the sense to wear the Ranger's equipment, not some flashy clothes and show weapons.
He snorted internally. Some of them wore colours so bright, they could be mistaken for peacocks. Good riddance to them, he thought.
No, his chances were good. He didn't know what the tests would be about, but he had some good guesses. Archery would certainly be one of them, unseen movement another. He felt he did well in both. But Crowley was dividing them into a lot of small teams, so they would most likely face a lot of different tests during the next couple of days. He finally heard his name called for Team Seven and stepped forward readily. He would prove himself to the Ranger Commandant once and for all.
§
Crowley let his paper roll back up as he finished calling the last names for Team Nine and they left following Halt. He smiled to himself. Those men were all of the opinion of their own superior importance; Halt would be a rude awaking in archery skills and grim sarcasm. He was sure Halt would shake them and their deeply held beliefs being both very young and very, very skilled.
Crowley, of course, wouldn't assess any of them directly, but he would keep watch overall and gather all the scores together. No one would have the chance to say he played favourites. The remaining Rangers would also keep watch of everything and make sure everyone played nice.
Crowley let his gaze travel around before he set out for Halt's group. After all, it would be too much fun to see them crumble before Halt not to start there.
§
"Bows out," Halt called, not bothering with any pleasantries. As far as he was concerned a Ranger should always have his bow at the ready and besides Crowley had already given them the introduction. It was time to get serious.
One of them took his bow in his hand, the other two exchanged glances; they hadn't brought their bows along.
"Um, we didn't know we would need the bow already."
"Yes, we thought this was just introductions," the other piped in.
Halt nearly made a face, but caught himself in time. Instead he raised an eyebrow and said dryly: "You didn't bring your bows? A Ranger's primary weapon?"
One of them bristled at Halt's tone; how dare this youngster speak like that to him? "It was just introductions," he said hotly.
"Introductions are over," Halt replied without humour. "We are not here to dally around."
Halt sized them up critically. No bows or quivers of arrows, flashy, impractical clothes, one even had a sword by his side. Halt doubted he actually knew how to properly use it. "Well, luckily I brought extra bows and arrows." He stepped over to a small pile covered with a large cloth and pulled two bows free, throwing one to each wannabe Ranger, both of whom barely caught it, caught by surprise. Then he handed each one a quiver of arrows. "There. Now let's get going."
Halt stepped back looking at the three of them. The one, who had actually brought his bow had a smug look on his face, the other two looked angry over the humiliation. Well, I'll soon get that smug look off your face, Halt thought.
"You get to start out with archery, one of the most important Ranger skills. The task is simple; you will shoot six arrows each at three different targets; 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet." Halt had wanted to shoot only at longer distances, but Crowley had insisted on the shorter ones, too. As far as Halt was concerned none of these distances should be any problem for a real Ranger, but then these clowns didn't look like Rangers nor did they act like it. Maybe they would be lucky to hit anything. "You take turns shooting. We'll start with the one, who remembered to actually bring a bow along." Halt nodded to the smug man, who stepped forward readily.
We'll see if you're any good now.
Halt immediately noticed that his stance was off; the placement of his feet wasn't quite right and he used his arm muscles too much when drawing back. He also snatched the release ever so slightly. He'll be lucky to hit anything like that, Halt thought to himself. He was slightly surprised to see the arrow actually hit the target. It was nowhere near the center being off both in elevation and to the left, but it had hit. He took much too long to nock his second arrow and send it after the first. This time a bit closer to the centre, but still way off. And we're only at 50 feet; I see why Crowley wanted the shorter distances, too.
The next shot didn't hit the mark at all; it burrowed itself in the ground a couple of meters short of the target. He then overdid it and lifted the bow too high, but the arrow stuck in the very edge of the target, off centre. The last two shots were painfully slow and Halt had to grit his teeth together not to tell the man to hurry up; the speed with which they shot was also part of the assessment. Neither arrow hit, both landing too short. The man shrugged philosophically as if nobody was expected to actually hit the 200 feet target.
Halt noted down his hits and misses and then nodded to him. "All right, go pick up your arrows. Warton, get ready."
Halt made a few more notes, then put his papers away as Penton returned with his arrows in hand.
"Shoot." Halt didn't feel the need for more words, but Warton was still slow with his first arrow. This doesn't look good, Halt thought. He was right. Warton did hit the target, but was way off centre. His second arrow wasn't much better. Halt had to suppress the desire to shake his head. Then by some dumb luck he hit the second inner ring on the 100 feet target.
"Did you see that?" he exclaimed as if he was some great archer, looking to his team mates. "A great shot."
"Drop the bragging and get on with it," Halt said gruffly.
Warton looked at him with distaste; he had clearly hoped to get some praise for his lucky shot, but Halt wasn't going to give him any, so he nocked another arrow and sent it flying. It went wide and long. He shrugged in a 'it can happen for the best' manner, and aimed for the last target. Neither arrow hit, both going wide and short.
Once again Halt quickly noted down the hits and misses and sent Warton to collect the arrows.
"Riverfolk, at the ready."
The same scene played out as before, or at least it felt that way to Halt. Much too slowly Riverfolk sent his arrows flying, both arrows hitting fairly close to each other on the first target, but to the right of the centre and too high. As the first he managed to get both his arrows into the second target, but only barely. Even so the other two mumbled appreciation of his skills. Halt made a face, but none of them noticed. Again he missed the last target completely, both arrows flying too far to the right.
As Riverfolk returned with his arrows Warton slapped his shoulder.
"Well done. Four out of six is a great result."
Riverfolk looked back with pride evident in his face and voice. "Yes. I wished I had gotten the last one, but it's a tricky shot." The other two nodded agreement.
It finally became too much for Halt.
"Shut up! Shut up all of you!" They looked at him in surprise as he glared at them. "You think four out of six is good? You're being assessed for be privilege to be Rangers; at these distances you should hit six out of six, not barely half of that!"
They were starting to look offended at Halt's outburst, and Penton took a step towards Halt. "You think it's so easy, do you? Then why don't you do it yourself? Oh right, you don't want us to see what – "
That was as far as he got before Halt swung his bow into his hand, nocked an arrow, sent it flying, and then in quick succession sent two more at each of the targets before they could do anything more than blink in confusion and surprise.
"Wha – " Warton began, then his jaw dropped. All Halt's arrows were in the centre of the targets and it had happened in the blink of an eye.
The look in their eyes changed and they suddenly looked at him warily.
"That," Halt said, "is what we expect of a Ranger. To actually be able to hit a target. You'll get a second change to improve on your performance; this time it's four arrows for each target."
With that Halt turned around and stalked out on the range to get his arrows back. Stupid, arrogant, soft shelled, idiots!
§
A short distance away Crowley stood watching the show and nearly doubled over laughing at Halt's obvious frustration, shaking with suppressed laughter. He shook his head slightly; Halt was no diplomat, that's for sure. But then again, Crowley had wanted them to be shaken up and Halt had certainly achieved that.
He didn't think he needed to watch any more of this, however entertaining it might be, and instead drifted away to see how badly the other teams were doing. He was humming to himself as he went to check on Berrigan and the knife tasks.
§
Norris was watching his current team with stoic silence and stillness. Not that they would have noticed him even if he hadn't been completely still; they were too noisy and too obvious in the landscape. The fact that only one of them actually wore the Ranger cloak didn't help either; the regular clothes stuck out like a sore thumb. He had thought they would be bad at unseen and unheard movement the moment he looked at them and he was right; they were horrible at it.
Norris had moved himself around along the path they were to take and each time they passed him he had no trouble spotting them, usually hearing them before they came into view. It was ridiculous that these men had ever called themselves Rangers, Norris thought.
After they had passed him a fourth time he decided he might as well get to the end area and see how they did there. Their goal was to move through the forest unseen and unheard and then retrieve a small item from a clearing before making their way out again. Norris would observe them along the way, with one of the other Rangers doing the same, and then they would both note down how they did. All in all it was a fairly simple and straightforward task, but that didn't mean it was an easy one. Easy wasn't for Rangers.
§
The man was good with his knives, Berrigan noted. Good and arrogant. He had an air of superiority about him, which he didn't like much, but considering his team mates he couldn't really blame him; the other two were dreadful. Didn't know how to hold the knives properly or throw them right. It was more luck than skill if they got a knife to stick in a target.
He suppressed the urge to shake his head; he needed to keep neutral for now. Of course, he was on his first team; there might be better people on the other teams, but somehow he doubted there would be a lot of them; the look he had gotten at them when they were all gathered didn't get his hopes up for a lot of actual candidates. He knew this was mostly to get things sorted in a diplomatic manner, where they at least got the chance to prove themselves before they were officially kicked out of the corps, but he knew it was also to ensure they knew that the Rangers that remained were people to reckon with, people with real skill. And if a few should prove they actually had the skills needed? Then great. They were badly in need of more Rangers; a dozen Rangers wasn't much to cover the whole of Araluen.
"All right," he called. "Next up we'll do a speed exercise. You'll throw both your knives in rapid succession at each their target. No more than three seconds between each throw."
He was met with two pair of slightly panicked looks and one confident nod.
All right, let's see if you are as good as you think you are, he thought, as he waved a hand to indicate he should start.
He was. He wasn't as fast as Berrigan, but he kept within the three second rule and both knives went into the targets. One was ever so slightly off centre, but otherwise the throw was good.
Berrigan had them all do the exercise five times for comparison, taking notes all the time. Brennan and Mealy both failed rather spectacularly, but the last team member had potential. If he was equally good in the other disciplines he might actually stay a Ranger. Berrigan frowned slightly. Of course, the arrogant way he looked at the other two was something he hoped only applied to the situation at hand and not in general. They didn't need Rangers with bad attitudes.
§
The teams were all taken through different tasks during the morning, rotating through four before the midday meal. The meal had been prepared by three teams under the supervision of the castle kitchen staff, who had agreed to assess their cooking skills on behalf of the Ranger Commandant. The kitchen staff made sure the Rangers got something edible, but not that it was perfect, which was why they all had to chew their way through overcooked and undercooked meat, vegetables, and bread, some of it scorched. Some of the wannabe Rangers complained about the food, but quickly shut up when they were told they would be on dinner duty later in the day.
"Well, at least it's not all bad," Berwick said, though he didn't sound too happy. The morning hadn't given him great confidence that they would be able to find any proper Rangers among the ones they now assessed, but he had spent the last couple of months with way too much work and had started hoping they might get some extra hands after this.
"Says you. This is so overcooked I can barely bite through it." Halt made a face. "I'll have to steal into the kitchens for something proper to eat later if this is what we have to expect for dinner, too."
The others mumbled agreement. While edible, most of it wasn't great, and they didn't look forward to a poorly done dinner later on.
"At least it's only two days," Crowley said reasonably. "They'll go through most of the tasks today, and the rest tomorrow. Then we can compare notes and make the announcement on who stays and who goes."
"You mean, you can make that announcement," Halt said. "And don't expect any to stay; I'm not seeing impressive shooting out there."
Crowley made a shooing motion. "Getting ahead of yourself there, Halt. Save it for tomorrow when all have been through."
Halt grumbled a bit, but didn't comment further. He wasn't sure if he was more disappointed or glad to see how bad these men were; after all it was nice knowing they didn't actually have the skills to cause trouble once Crowley gave them the boot.
They ate on in silence, with the occasional 'pass me the salt' or 'pass me the bread. No, the other bread, not the scorched one' and casual glances at the wannabe Rangers. They all knew it would be a long afternoon taking them through more tasks and assessing each team.
§
Crowley had declared they would start with one of the theoretical assessments after lunch, so every team got the same task; tactics and battle planning. It wasn't the easiest of the theoretical tasks, but one that they should be able to fulfil fairly easily; at least it should be fairly easy for a Ranger. While Egon, Farrel, and Leander led that task Halt ghosted down into the kitchens and helped himself to some proper food. He was already grumpy enough from seeing so much poor shooting; he didn't need to be extra grumpy, because of poor food and hunger.
As Halt left with bread and cheese in hand he met Berwick in the door. He grinned at him, then stole into the kitchen himself to find some food. Halt allowed himself a small smile. He wondered just how many Rangers would be visiting the kitchens for food. He felt sure Crowley would probably be one of them no matter what he'd said at lunch.
He was right. Crowley had seen Halt go in and had hidden himself so Halt wouldn't notice him. Being very good at unheard movement was a definite advantage he had. Even so he didn't risk going in himself until he was sure he wouldn't be meeting another Ranger in the door. The lunch really had been dreadful.