The Icebound Land recap

Will and Evanlyn are carried north to Skandia as captives of the jarl Erak. In Araluen, Halt is refused permission to go after his apprentice, so he deliberately insults King Duncan in public until he is banished for a year, which frees him to leave; Horace goes with him. In Skandia the two prisoners are made slaves in the Oberjarl Ragnak's hall, and Evanlyn must hide that she is Princess Cassandra, because Ragnak has sworn a blood oath against Araluen's royal house. Will is sent to the slave yard and given warmweed, the drug that keeps the labourers docile, and is steadily hollowed out by it. Crossing lawless Gallica, Halt and Horace are trapped as unwilling guests of the warlord Deparnieux; Halt manoeuvres him into a formal challenge and Horace kills him. Erak helps Evanlyn get Will out of Hallasholm before winter, and she takes him to a mountain cabin and forces him through withdrawal, while Halt and Horace push north still searching.

Previously: Will, an orphan ward of Castle Redmont, was apprenticed to the Ranger Halt and trained as one of the King's scouts, and helped destroy the Kalkara that the exiled rebel lord Morgarath sent to murder Araluen's commanders. When Morgarath finally invaded, King Duncan sent the Ranger Gilan into neighbouring Celtica with Will and Will's friend Horace, a Battleschool apprentice, to call in Celtic troops. They found the country emptied and one survivor, a girl called Evanlyn who said she served Princess Cassandra, and discovered that Morgarath's Wargals had enslaved the Celts to build a bridge across the gorge protecting Araluen's flank, so that an army could take the King's forces from behind. Gilan rode back to warn the army; the other three burned the bridge. Horace escaped and reached the army, but Will and Evanlyn were captured by Skandian mercenaries under the jarl Erak and taken away by sea. Halt destroyed the Wargal flanking column, and Horace killed Morgarath in single combat, ending the war. Afterwards it emerged that Evanlyn is really Cassandra, King Duncan's daughter and the heir to Araluen. She and Will are being carried north to Skandia, where captives are worked as slaves, and Halt intends to go after them.

Will and Evanlyn are prisoners aboard Erak's wolfship on a long, punishing voyage north, with storms, cold and a crew who treat them as cargo. Evanlyn holds to her story that she is Princess Cassandra's maid, since a servant is worth a modest ransom or a sale while the heir to Araluen would be worth something far more dangerous. In Araluen, Halt asks King Duncan to release him from duty so that he can go after his apprentice. The King, rebuilding a kingdom after the war and unable to spare a senior Ranger, refuses him. Halt does not argue the point, which anyone who knows him would find ominous.

Halt finds the one route out that the King cannot block. He appears in public and insults Duncan deliberately and repeatedly, in front of witnesses, until the King has no choice under his own law but to banish him from Araluen for a year. It is exactly the outcome Halt wanted, and it costs him his position, his standing and his friendships to get it. Horace, refusing to let him travel alone, contrives to go with him, and the two of them cross to Gallica, the lawless country between Araluen and the northern seas, where central authority has collapsed and self-appointed warlords hold the roads. Will and Evanlyn's voyage continues north.

The wolfship reaches Hallasholm, the Skandian capital, and the two captives are handed over to Borsa, the Oberjarl's administrator, and set to work as slaves in Ragnak's great hall. Evanlyn learns how close to death her secret has brought her: Ragnak, the Oberjarl, has sworn the Vallasvow, a blood oath against the royal family of Araluen, and would be bound to kill her if her name were known. Erak, who captured them, quietly keeps an eye on both. In Gallica, Halt and Horace make slow progress through a country of bandits and petty warlords, where Horace's skill with a sword repeatedly settles matters that talking cannot.

Will is taken out of the hall and sent to the yard, the heavy-labour gang that hauls timber and stores for Hallasholm, where the work is brutal and the slaves are kept compliant with warmweed. The drug takes hold quickly. Within weeks Will is docile, incurious and interested in nothing except his ration, and the boy who trained under Halt is effectively gone. In Gallica, Halt and Horace fall into the hands of Deparnieux, a wealthy and sadistic warlord who takes them to his castle at Montsombre and keeps them there as guests who are not permitted to leave, intrigued by Horace's ability and unwilling to release either of them.

Evanlyn, still working in the hall, sees what has been done to Will and realises he will not survive another season in the yard. She has no allies, no money and no way north or south, and the Skandian winter is closing in, which will shut the country down for months. At Montsombre, Halt plays a long game with Deparnieux, flattering his vanity and studying his household while the weeks pass, aware that every week costs Will something. Neither prisoner can simply be fought free: Deparnieux has a private army, and the two Araluens have to be given a way out that the warlord's own code will not let him refuse.

Erak decides to act. He arranges for Will and Evanlyn to slip out of Hallasholm with supplies and covers their absence, and Evanlyn takes Will up into the mountains to an abandoned hunting cabin before the snow closes the passes. Will is by then barely functional and wants only the drug. In Gallica, Halt manoeuvres Deparnieux into issuing a formal challenge that his own reputation obliges him to honour, and Horace fights and kills him, which frees them both and ends the warlord's hold on the district. With the road finally open, they turn north.

Snowed into the cabin, Evanlyn brings Will through warmweed withdrawal on her own: days of sickness, shaking, rage and pleading, with nowhere to go for help and nothing to do but hold him there until it passes. By the end of the book the worst is over and Will is beginning to come back to himself, though he is weak and both of them are stranded deep in enemy country with the winter still ahead. Halt and Horace, out of Gallica at last, are pressing north to search for him. The two parties have not met when the book closes, and Evanlyn's real identity remains a secret that would be fatal in Ragnak's country.

Erak, who has watched what the yard has done to Will, arranges for the two captives to get out of Hallasholm, with supplies and a direction rather than an escort, and covers their disappearance. Evanlyn takes Will up into the mountains to an abandoned hunter's cabin as the Skandian winter closes the country down. Will arrives barely able to function, wanting nothing but the drug, and Evanlyn keeps him there and brings him through the withdrawal herself: days of shaking, sickness and fury, with the two of them snowed in and no help within reach. By the end of the book the worst of it is behind him and he is beginning to think and act like himself again, though he is weak and the two of them are stranded far from any friendly territory with the winter still to survive. Halt and Horace, free of Deparnieux and out of Gallica at last, are moving north towards Skandia to look for him. The two parties have still not met when the book closes, and Evanlyn's identity remains a secret whose exposure in Ragnak's country would be fatal.