The end...? (Ranger's apprentice/ Brotherband fan-fiction)

Chapter 1

This story takes place after book 11 of The Ranger's apprentice, and after book 3 of The Brotherband Chronicles. I hope you'll like it :)

Deeply bent over Tug and Abelard’s necks, the rangers Will and Halt galloped through Araluen fief. Normally, they would travel a whole lot calmer, to give their horses their well-earned rest, but they didn’t have time for that at the moment: they had to get to castle Araluen as soon as possible. The Araluan army probably couldn’t stop the Scoti for more than a few days. Will and Halt immediately had to bring their royal friends to safety. Under normal circumstances, that would be the task of the local ranger, whilst they defended Redmont, but since Redmont had fallen and all of the other rangers were busy, they had divided the task to themselves.

                A few pedestrians backed away, startled, to give the passing rangers some space. Many refugees were on the road. Most of them were headed for castle Araluen as well, to hide and find the safety of the solid castle walls. Under normal circumstances, Will and Halt would help the refugees as much as they could, but sadly, these weren’t normal circumstances. There wouldn’t be refugees of course, if there had been normal circumstances.

                Will noticed Halt’s tense look at the horizon.  He followed his gaze and stifled the urge to gasp. A dark-grey column of smoke made its way up to the clouds, which were made of a dark shade of grey, too; it had been stormy weather for days. Will frowned. The Scoti couldn’t have reached the castle that fast, could they? Grimly, he straightened his face: the Scoti had done many more things he and the other rangers had thought of as impossible. Like capturing most of the kingdom in five days. Halt urged Abelard to run even harder and Tug adjusted his speed automatically. Do we really have to speed up like this? the small horse seemed to ask Will. Will didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he bent even deeper over Tug’s neck; he wanted to arrive at the castle as soon as possible.

                Will peered at the horizon, where castle Araluen soon turned up, and hoped the smoke didn’t mean Halt and he were too late. Horace wouldn’t give up without a fight, he thought, hoping this words would give him some courage. But of course he knew Horace couldn’t stand up against the entire Scoti army. Even he wasn’t strong enough to handle that on his own. Like he had done many times before that day, he wondered why rangers weren’t really magicians. What he wouldn’t have given then to transport himself – poof! – to his friends. Will noticed the refugees turned around here: a new larger amount of people ran as fast as they could, with their children in their arms, towards the rangers.

                They could here screaming in the distance and Will lost all hope: they were too late. Nevertheless he took his bow out and knocked an arrow to it. A group of Scoti on horses galloped about 150 meters away, chasing the refugees. Will aimed and shoot. One of the Scoti fell down from his horse, causing another one to trip over him. Most of the other horses tripped over the first two. It almost looked funny. Meanwhile, Halt had taken care of the rest of the group, even though they both knew one group more or less didn’t matter: there were thousands of others ready to take their place. Will got a hold of himself. Of course it mattered: they had just given the refugees a small chance. He refused to realise he had only delayed the inevitable.

                They had almost reached the castle by that point. Just a quarter of a mile or so, before they would arrive. In the meantime it had occurred to Will that the smoke did come out of the castle: one of the towers was being attacked and had half broken off. The other half was on fire. Stifling his desperation, Will searched amongst the refugees for King Duncan, Horace, Cassandra and the two year old child. Will couldn’t help smiling thinking of the little girl. Horace and Cassandra had named her Evanlyn, after the maid’s name Cassandra had used in Celtica. They kept her memory alive that way.