The symbol of the Rangers is an amulet in the shape of an oak leaf worn on a neck chain. Halt explains: “We all wear them in the Ranger Corps, either silver or bronze” (243). Bronze is for apprentices, and silver is for full Rangers. Normally, trainees don’t earn an amulet until they’ve undergone an Assessment; Will’s Assessment is postponed during the Kalkara danger, but, by killing one of the monsters, Will acquits himself so nobly that Halt gives the boy the amulet early. The leaf shape symbolizes the forests through which Rangers travel and the natural world in which they can disappear.

Will’s home for the first 15 years of his life, Castle Redmont stands on a hill at the center of a forested fief ruled over by the powerful, yet kindly, Baron Arald. The hilltop castle “was a massive, three-sided structure, facing roughly west and with a tower at each of the three corners” (47). It’s built of nearly indestructible ironstone that seems to glow, at dawn or dusk, with red light; hence, the castle’s name. Will’s yearmates become apprenticed to several of the castle’s Craftmasters, while