The Icebound Land is the third book in the Ranger's Apprentice series.
In the previous two book, Will, an orphan, was taken in to be Halt's , a Ranger, apprentice. As the days progressed, Will learnt a lot from Halt, but there was danger on the horizon. Morgarth, the Lord of Rain and Night, having been previously defeated by the Kingdom and banished, have gathered an army of Wargals, and is planning another attack. Will , Horace and Evanlyn discover a major part of Morgarth's plan that could prove fatal to the Kingdom. As they has no time to alert the Kingdom, they decided to sabotage the plan, but Will and Evanlyn were captured by Skandians in the process.
In the third book, Will and Evanlyn were brought to Skandia in the Skandians' wolfship, where they waited for a big storm to subside. Meanwhile, Halt had received news of Will's capture and vowed to rescue him, but King Ducan refused to grant him permission. Halt had no choice but to devise a plan and was banished from all the Kingdom's lands for a period of one year as a result, which was exactly what he wanted. Will had, at that time, found out that Evanlyn was actually Princess Cassandra, the daughter of King Ducan of the Kingdom. On the way to rescue Will, Halt was joined by Horace, seeing the determination in his eyes, Halt agreed.
Will,meanwhile had found out that the leader of the Skandians, Ragnak, had swore a vow of Vallasvow against King Duncan and his family for the loss of his son, who had fought with Morgarth against the Kingdom. Will realised that he and Evanlyn was in more danger than they thought, and his resolve to escape became more determined. That very night, they tried to escape on a skiff, but they failed as the skiff began to leak water, they had no choice but to row back to shore, where Jarl Erak was waiting for them, angrily. Will was devasted to learn that their plan had failed all because thay had forgotten to place a cock to plug the hole at the bottom of the skiff.
Halt and Horace had landed in the port city of La Rivage, where tha King of that city was weak the the officials corrupted. They got stopped by a knight on a bridge, demanding them to pay him a tribute to corss the bridge. Horace challenged him to knightly combat and won, knocking the other knight unconscious. The knight's belongings, under the rules of chilvary, now belonged to Horace. Since that first encounter, Halt and Horace had been stopped by half a dozen other knights for 'tribute' and all were defeated by Horace.
Will and Evanlyn had reached the home of the Skandians and were given to the master of Ragnak's kitchen as slaves. Will realised that being a yard slave was not just uncomfortable, it was downright dangerous. On his third day there, Will had stopped a slave from whipping another slave. That slave, Egon, promised to 'remember his name'. Egon then got another slave to get Will addicted on warmweed, on the pretext that it will get him warm. Erak, having seen the state of Will addiction, felt a wave of sadness, and decided to help Will and Evanlyn escape.
Horace, meanwhile, had gained a reputation as a knight that this brought him to the attention of the local lord, Deparnieux, who used trickery to capture them. Halt and Horace were disgusted at the way Deparnieux treated those who dared disobeyed him or caused him displeasure.
Erak met Evanlyn and gave her some silver coins and a dagger to help her in helping Will to escape. Evanlyn managed to help Will escape and for some reason, Erak followed them. It was made clear later in the book, when Erak made for the harbour and untied a small skiff and set it adrift, probably so as to help them escape by sea.
Deparnieux had, at first thought that Halt, with his uncanny ability with the bow and his ablity to 'blend in' with the surroundings, was a sorcerer, and it would not do to anger him, but at the same time, he wondered if Halt had any powers or not, thus he set a number of tests, each one more revolting and disgusting than the previous one, just to test Halt's reactions.
Halt and Horace, however, had seen that Deparnieux ruled by fear, and he would not reject any challenge to him in fear of losing the fear he had instilled in his men. Halt and Horace manipulated Deparnieux into engaging in mortal combat with Halt in front of all the people and his men. Needless to say, Halt won.
While one day, Evanlyn went hunting, aftering trying to wean Will of the drug from his system, she saw a man riding on a horse, Will's horse. Meanwhile, Will , back at the cabin, was back to normal.
No comments:
Post a Comment