The Lost Stories is the eleventh and penultimate book[citation needed] in the series Ranger's Apprentice by Australian author John Flanagan.

A professor named Giles MacFarlane is overseeing an archaeological expedition when his assistant, Audrey, finds a little house in an area which is outside the village limits.

In the Republic of Aralan States (formerly the medieval Kingdom of Araluen), in Redman County, the archeologist Professor Giles MacFarlane and his team have excavated the remains of the famous triangular Castle Redmont.

There MacFarlane found a chest containing the Lost Stories of Araluen, chronicling what happened to Will, Halt and the rest after they returned from Nihon-Ja, giving the Professor the proof he was after.

After burying the woman and leaving the thieves to the crows, Halt takes Will to the Ward, an orphanage at Redmont Fief for those whose parents died in service.

Gilan narrows down suspicious cases until he finds a bloody and large-scale robbery that occurred in Highcliff Fief, which had also been missing its local Ranger.

At a tavern, Gilan meets the young widowed barker, Maeve, who informs him that Philip had racked up high gambling debts.

He dodges the bolts by dropping off his horse and then conceals himself in his Ranger's cloak, which can render a still wearer nigh on invisible because of its mottling.

As the normal wagon approaches the trees, Foldar sends a small ambush to draw off the escort and then attacks with a larger force.

Gilan explained that at night, he had switched the tax money again to the small wagon because he knew the informant would tell Foldar of the original plan.

Gilan reveals that the Baron was in league with Foldar, while Philip on his late night trips had just been working to repay the fief's treasury from which he had paid off his debts.

As the two Rangers return to their cabin in the woods, a castle Courier, Alyss, Will's unwitting crush, frantically gallops up and informs Will that Ebony, his dog, went missing three days prior.

Will realizes that Roamers, migrant performers and musicians who travel in familial bands and in whose wake missing things follow, probably took Ebony.

Spying on the Roamers again, Alyss devises a plan to take the place of an old servant woman name Hilde, disguising herself to look like the hag.

Will made sure that Alyss' disguise held, before taking the old woman to the nearby village and helping her make a new life at a friend's restaurant.

Will reviews a speech for the royal wedding of the knight Horace and Princess Evanlyn, two of his closest friends, in front Halt and his wife Pauline, the head Courier.

Halt informs Will of a mission to stop a group of moondarkers, shipwrecking gangs who lure boats onto dangerous coastlines and the steal the cargo, who had been moving up the coast.

Talking it over with Halt, the two Rangers conclude that there is a distinct danger because King Duncan and royal dignitaries from other countries would be coming to Redmont very soon for Horace and Princess Evanlyn's wedding.

The day of the wedding arrived and as Will gave his speech (albeit unwritten and unprepared because of the story "Purple Prose"), he realized that there was a gallery above the dance hall where assassins would have a perfect window of opportunity to strike.

Crowley then convinces Halt to join him as he goes to find the then-Prince Duncan and reform the Ranger Corps from the bedraggled, corrupted group it was.

Calling Old Bob, the horse breeder for the Ranger Corps, to take a look at the wound, Will learns that Tug will never fully recover.