The Rogue Tribe - Ranger's Apprentice

Chapter 11: Relapse and Reconnaissance

Halt was back, back on the very scene he had just left. And it was as if he'd never even gone.

The light was just starting to come through the trees in the early morning, and the birds chirped softly. A light mist had settled over everything, but the smoky haze of destruction had thinned only a little. His boot nudged aside a piece of bread, smooshed and dirty, trampled into the ground as he made his way through the destroyed and desolate campsite. Tables and benches were flipped over, broken in half, peppered with arrows stuck fast into the hard wood and gouged with various weapons. Platters of food had been swept off the tables, and were now slopped all over the ground, huge shanks of meat coated in dust, but still eerily warm and fragrant. Wilted greens had been stomped into the ground and pitchers of water and wine had been shattered, the ceramic pieces spread all around. Several platters had been used as shields, with arrows stuck in the wood, some hacked apart by Temujai sabers.

But the worst part was the blood.

The bodies of several Temujai were still there, abandoned by their own countrymen, laying where they had died in their own pools of blood. Most had multiple stab wounds from knives, and a few even had arrow wounds, stuck fast in their armour and rib cages. Their blood spread around them, shining red halos marking their deaths and sealing their fates. Their skin was waxy and pale, their lips blue tinted as their blood separated, and their eyes had clouded over to a milky white color. Halt gingerly stepped over an arm, splayed at an unnatural angle from the body of a dead Tem'uj. Halt glanced down at his face as he stepped over him, and he grimaced. He looked to be only a boy, with a small, skinny frame and minimal facial hair. Even in death, his eyes were wide and frightened. He looks like Will, Halt thought, and then immediately shook the image out of his head. Don't think like that. It doesn't help anything to worry.

"Will!" Halt turned slowly, looking for movement among the trees. "Will! Where are you?"

"...here..."

"Will! I'm coming!"

Halt whirled around frantically at the sound of his apprentice's voice, searching for where it had come from. He stumbled over the arm of the dead Tem'uj in his haste, but ignored it as he saw a hand waving feebly, and he hurried over.

It was Will. He lay on the ground, splayed and limp, a saber stuck fast in his chest with blood saturating the ground around him. His head lay back, his eyes shut, but he glanced weakly up as Halt scrambled over to him. His eyes flickered open, revealing the same brown eyes Halt had looked into daily for nearly a decade. A small, wane smile turned the corners of his pale lips upward, and he held out a shaking arm. Halt fell to his knees next to his young apprentice, his hands cradling his head and trying to staunch the steady flow of blood from his chest. "Will, oh god, Will, please, no - "

"Halt... Pull yourself together..." Will muttered, waving away Halt's scrambling hands with a weak flick of his fingers.

"What happened? Look at me."

Will looked up into Halt's eyes, blinking as he struggled to focus, his brown eyes glazing over. "I tried to save... Them... Are they - are they alright - " He gasped for breath and his eyes widened as he tried to sit up, his arms flailing towards two figures lying on the ground a few meters away.

Halt held him down, hissing, "No, stay still, I'll check..." He slowly rose up onto one knee and peered over to the two fallen, unmoving figures. It was an older Ranger, his face too slashed and bruised to identify, a saber cut slicing him open from shoulder to hip. He lay silent, still, and unmoving, clearly dead. Next to him lay the mangled body of a young boy in a poorly fitting Ranger's uniform, an arrow stuck in his throat. He had barely even bled, as he had died almost instantly, so he looked as though he could almost still be alive. Halt swallowed hard and turned back to Will, kneeling over him. "Will... They didn't make it."