Just a plot bunny that started yapping to get out of the cage…
So I let it.
…
Will guessed there was another apprentice before him. Halt watched him too closely for it to have been Gilan. Even as he encouraged Will's independence and quipped sarcasm at every opportunity, he guarded his apprentice. There was a wariness in his eyes whenever he left, and for a full year he did not trust his apprentice to travel alone.
The incident with the Kalkara must have sent him into a full blown panic.
Will asked Gilan once if Halt had taken on any other apprentices. The absence of Gilan's smile told him enough.
"Lighten up, Will!" the gangly Ranger said with forced cheer. "You're doing fine. He's not comparing you to anyone."
But Halt was, and Will did not know if he was meeting or failing that expectation.
Remnants of another apprentice were everywhere. There was pain in Gilan's eyes every now and then, when they reached a certain space of forest or when he watched Will shoot an arrow straight and true. There was darkness in Halt's eyes on the nights he smoke late into the dawn. There was an old bow – even smaller than Will's – forgotten in the crevices of the broom closet.
Will showed his discovery to Gilan, and the reaction was worse than he expected. He wished he had left it to gather dust.
"Leave it alone, Will," Gilan said quietly, running his fingers gently over the cracked wood. "Don't show this to Halt."
He did not tease Will for the rest of the day.
More signs showed up. A tarnished hair clip, worn with use. A small Saxe knife, its blade snapped in half. A moth-eaten cloak that now housed a family of mice. It was barely long enough to reach Will's calves.
He found a harness that had been shoved into a corner of the hayloft. It cracked in Will's hands. The buckles were rusted with old blood.
He never breathed a word of it to Gilan.
Will tried to forget about the other apprentice. He tried to be the best apprentice Halt could ask for. He learned quickly, and he learned well.
He guessed now why Halt would not tolerate mistakes.
Time passed and Will grew; faster, stronger, smarter, keener. Halt still watched him, but the overbearing gleam had left his eyes. He knew Will could look after himself.
He still paused when they reached a certain space of forest. Will found the buckle of a matching saddle there. He stored it away with the other artifacts.
"He was tiny," Gilan said out of the blue one day. He looked at Will and tried to smile. "Even smaller than you. Couldn't even lift a hatchet."
Will looked at the stack of firewood, and guessed that Halt wished there were a lot more chores left undone for the sake of a boy too small to finish them.
As time went on, he learned more snippets about the other apprentice. He was eleven when Halt pulled him from the apprenticing school to start his training. A quiet child. Always smiling. Treated everything Gilan said like a hilarious joke. Worshipped Halt. Slunk around the woods like a cat. Too excitable to eat, so that Halt began packing mid-morning lunches just to keep him from falling off his horse. Tagged at Gilan's heels like a puppy; always watching, always listening. He trusted strangers.
Will supposed he never suspected the person who had pulled him from his horse and killed the poor beast.
Gilan never said a word about how the other apprentice disappeared. He didn't have to. Will found the rest of the saddle buried in an old bear cave near that one space of forest. There was a horse's jawbone and foreleg, with a broken arrowhead in the flank.
Will asked no more questions.
Halt rarely alluded to his loss. He was a Ranger through and through; death would make him more cautious, but he would not be crippled by it.
Sometimes Will caught him mourning, all the same. He would see it in the quick flash across Halt's eyes whenever Gilan was late. The tightening of his grip when Abelard skidded from the path. The clenching of his hands around a cloak that had been carefully stored away. The rattle of his mug when a rabbit screamed in the night.
The watchfulness in his eyes whenever Will left on his own.
When he was rescued from the Skandians, Will felt the terror in Halt's embrace. It was such a rare form of contact that he did not know how to react. He could only guess what was going through the Ranger's mind.
"Sir… we found another one."
The breathing stilled; the fingers went lax; the color leeched from Halt's face.
He did not run.
His face was set.
He would not hope.
They found the cell far below; marked with Morgarath's seal and barred with three iron bolts. The hinges were already busted and the door swung mournfully against the wall.
Will did not know if they had found a prisoner or a corpse.
Halt would not move. For agonizing minutes, he stared at the bony hand flung out, limp fingers curled around a bronze oakleaf.
He knelt.
Calloused fingers trembled as he brushed aside the matted hair.
The bundle of rags shifted, and filthy, grime smeared eyelids squinted at the Ranger.
"H-Halt?
Will had never heard his mentor cry.