The Ruins of Gorlan recap

Will, a slight, quick orphan raised as a ward of Castle Redmont in the kingdom of Araluen, wants a place in Battleschool and is refused as too small for it. Instead he is taken as apprentice by Halt, the fief's grim Ranger, and learns that the Rangers are not sorcerers but the King's scouts and intelligence corps, trained in concealment, tracking, the knife and the longbow. While Will learns the craft and makes an unlikely peace with Horace, an old tormentor now at Battleschool, the exiled rebel lord Morgarath sends two Kalkara, huge beasts whose stare paralyses with fear, to murder Araluen's senior commanders ahead of a war. Halt and his former apprentice Gilan track the creatures to the ruins of Morgarath's old castle at Gorlan. Halt kills one; when the second overpowers him, Will destroys it with a burning arrow. The kingdom's command survives, and Will, offered the Battleschool place he once longed for, chooses to remain a Ranger's apprentice as Araluen prepares for war.

In the kingdom of Araluen, five orphaned wards of Castle Redmont reach the age at which they are offered craft apprenticeships. Will, the smallest and quickest of them, has always wanted Battleschool, believing it the only way to live up to a father he was told died a soldier. At the Choosing, Baron Arald's Battlemaster Sir Rodney turns him down as too slight, while Horace, a big ward who has bullied Will for years, is accepted. Alyss is taken by the Diplomatic Service, Jenny by the kitchens and George by the scribes, leaving Will the only one unplaced. Halt, the fief's silent and widely feared Ranger, hands the Baron a note about Will, and Will finds himself apprenticed to him instead. Before this, the reader has seen the exiled rebel lord Morgarath in his mountain stronghold, deciding that the way to beat Araluen is to kill the men who would lead its army, and sending out two of his creatures to do it.

Will moves out of the castle to Halt's cottage at the edge of the forest and starts an apprenticeship nothing like the one he imagined. The Rangers turn out not to be sorcerers at all but the King's corps of scouts and intelligence gatherers, one to a fief, answerable to the King through their Commandant. Their reputation for magic is a useful side effect of what they actually do: move unseen in mottled cloaks, watch, and shoot better than anyone else in the kingdom. Halt teaches by setting tasks rather than explaining, and Will spends his days on unseen movement, on drawing a bow far heavier than he expected, and on knife work. He also learns that his old rival Horace is finding Battleschool much harder than he expected.

Will's training deepens: camouflage, silent movement, tracking, and constant archery practice. He is given a horse of his own, Tug, a small shaggy Ranger horse who is faster and cleverer than he looks and will not accept a rider who does not know the proper greeting. At Battleschool, Horace is being systematically bullied by three second-year cadets who make his life miserable and who he cannot report without appearing to whine. Will and Horace, thrown together on a boar hunt in which each of them ends up owing the other his safety, finally put down their old feud and become friends.

Lord Northolt, the most senior commander of the King's army, is found murdered, killed by something no ordinary man could have faced. Halt's former apprentice Gilan, now a Ranger in his own right and a rare swordsman among them, arrives at Redmont, and between them the Rangers identify what did it: the Kalkara, enormous half-legendary beasts that Morgarath keeps and that arrows barely touch. Halt concludes that Morgarath is picking off Araluen's commanders one by one in preparation for war, and that Baron Arald is on the list. Meanwhile the bullying at Battleschool comes into the open, and Horace faces the three older cadets and beats them, which ends their careers there and confirms how good he is going to be.

Rather than wait for the Kalkara to reach Redmont, Halt takes the hunt to them. He and Gilan ride out to intercept the creatures before they can reach their next target, working out where they must be heading and what might actually kill them, since arrows plainly will not. Will is sent away with messages and orders to stay clear of the pursuit, and Horace goes with him. Neither of them is willing to leave the two Rangers to face the creatures alone, and they follow the trail instead.

The hunt converges on the ruins of Castle Gorlan, Morgarath's own seat before his rebellion, now a wreck in a deserted fief. Halt and Gilan set their ambush there and discover how little effect their shooting has: arrows lodge in the creatures' hides without stopping them, and the fear a Kalkara's stare produces is close to physical, holding a man in place while it closes. Halt's answer is fire. Will and Horace, still following against orders, are close enough behind to see what the two Rangers are facing.

In the final confrontation Halt kills the first Kalkara, but the second reaches him and the terror of its gaze leaves him rooted and unable to shoot. Will arrives, sets an arrow burning and shoots the creature, which catches fire and dies. Both Kalkara are destroyed, and with them Morgarath's plan to behead the kingdom's command. The attempt has told Araluen what it needed to know, and the fiefs begin preparing for the war Morgarath clearly intends. At Redmont, Will is honoured for what he did, and Baron Arald offers him the Battleschool place he had wanted all his life. Will turns it down and stays Halt's apprentice, and his friendship with Horace, unthinkable a few months earlier, holds.

Halt and Gilan corner the two Kalkara near the ruins of Morgarath's old castle at Gorlan. Ordinary arrows do almost nothing to them, and Halt's plan depends on fire. He brings one creature down, but the second reaches him, and the terror of its stare leaves him unable to move or shoot. Will, who was sent away with dispatches and disobeyed, arrives in time to set an arrow alight and put it into the creature, which burns and dies. Both Kalkara are destroyed and Halt and Gilan survive. Morgarath's attempt to murder Araluen's senior commanders before a war has failed, but the attempt itself tells the kingdom that he is preparing to move against it, and the fiefs begin arming. Back at Redmont, Will is publicly honoured for what he did, and Baron Arald offers him the place in Battleschool he wanted more than anything a few months earlier. Will refuses it: he is a Ranger's apprentice and intends to stay one. Halt, who is not given to praise, is plainly satisfied. Will's friendship with Horace, impossible at the start of the book, is settled, and the question of who his father was remains open.