Yes, I'm back," he said, "And look who I ran into."
Horace grinned at him. "i hope you ran into him hard."
"As hard as I could.

Looks like he's lost a guinea and found a farthing," Horace said, then added, unnecessarily, "Will, I mean."
Halt turned in his saddle to regard the younger man and raised an eyebrow.
"I may be almost senile in your eyes, Horace, but there's no need to explain the blindly obvious to me. I'd hardly have thought you were referring to Tug.

Halt regarded him. He loved Horace like a younger brother. Even like a second son, after Will. He admired his skill with a sword and his courage in battle. But sometimes, just sometimes, he felt an overwhelming desire to ram the young warrior's head against a convenient tree.
"You have no sense of drama or symbolism, do you?" he asked.
"Huh?" replied Horace, not quite understanding. Halt looked around for a convenient tree. Luckily for Horace, there were none in sight.

Isn't that someone we know?" asked Horace. He pointed to where a cloaked figure sat by the side of the road a few hundred meters away, arms wrapped around his knees. Close by him, a small shaggy horse cropped the grass growing at the edge of the drainage ditch that ran beside the road.
"So it is," Halt replied. "And he seems to have brought Will with him.

Would you have done that in his place? Would you have left him and gone on?"
"Of course I would!" Halt replied immediately. But something in his voice rang false and Horse looked at him, raising one eyebrow. He'd waited a long time for an opportunity to use that expression of disbelief on Halt.
After a pause, the Ranger's anger subsided.
"All right. Perhaps I wouldn't," he admitted. Then he glared at Horace. "And stop raising that eyebrow on me. You can't even do it properly. Your other eyebrow moves with it!

He shook his head. He didn't know. He couldn't tell when he had woken fully. He walked to the horses. They definitely seemed alarmed. But then, they would. After all, he had just leapt to his feet unexpectedly, waving his saxe knife around like a lunatic.