The Burning Bridge

Will and Horace are sent to the neighboring kingdom of Celtica on what looks like a diplomatic errand. What they find instead is an empty country — and the first evidence that the warlord Morgarath has been building an army the kingdoms of the continent have refused to take seriously.

The Burning Bridge is where the series lifts the curtain on its real stakes. The scope goes from “apprentice Ranger doing his first real missions” to “apprentice Ranger inside the opening engagement of an invasion.” It ends on a cliffhanger that resolves directly into book three.