Disclaimer: Ranger's Apprentice and all associated characters belong to Mr. John Flanagan. I have no intention of making them my own.
Note: This is the second part in a three-part series. The first part was For You and the third part (which will be posted later) will be For Us.
You're breathing heavily.
You haven't ran like this in ages. At one point or another, you think that you should've taken Abelard- even if it meant having to ride bareback because of the missing saddle. You would've been able to catch up faster.
You lose sight of him- not that you'd had a good view of him in the first place. Rain and darkness had obscured his running- no, sprinting- figure, but you'd been able to keep sight on him when the lightning flashed. You know you're too old to be chasing after him. You'll never catch him. You'd have a better chance of finding him if you ran back to the camp and saddled Abelard. Then, in the morning you'd be able to track him.
You decide to keep going, though. Just for a bit longer, you think. Maybe he'll slow down. I'll catch up. You know it's unreasonable and that he won't slow down, but the part of you who'd come to call that man a son keeps going- even when the cold and emotionless Ranger has stopped.
You'd lost sight of him a long while ago. You almost give up right then- until you find his cloak, soaked and damaged, lying in the mud. You stop and immediately pick it up. It feels heavier than it should, but you chalk it up to it being soaked by the rain and mud. It's then that you decide to return to camp.
When you get there, you realize that water hadn't been the only thing adding weight to the cloak. You find a journal- a ripped, torn, and just straight up damaged journal. But you can tell it's been written in multiple times, so you believe it to be worth holding on to.
You hide the book under the lean-to you'd built earlier that day to keep out the rain. It's fairly dry under there, but you're still soaked from your late night run.
In the morning, you leave immediately. You know his trail will be hard to follow, and that if you don't hurry you'll lose Will. So you pack up, leaving behind the things that you could easily replace and go on without, and leave without another glance.
You keep Abelard at a steady canter, only stopping when you realize the cloak hadn't been the only thing he'd dropped off his persona. You find his quiver. It's damaged and many of the arrows are unusable, but it's still his. You skim through the journal along the ride, and you realize it's Will's. There aren't many recent entries. But the entries that you do read answer your questions. They fill you with a sense of hope… and a sense of regret.
Will hadn't been responsible. The farmer had been working with the Scotti- trying to start an uprising. By law, he would've been hung. And by hanging him, they would've only turned him into a martyr.
You speed Abelard up.
You keep reading, though, even though it's difficult with the speed you have Abelard at. You find more info about the farmer- about the plot Will had uncovered. You pull Abelard to a complete stop when you come across the reason he'd brutally killed that farmer- no, that traitor. "For me…" You whisper, "He did it for me…"
The farmer had a list of names- people the Scotti wanted dead. At the top of his list, your name is written in a way that it stands out. You know that you should be disgusted- that your son had killed someone in your name. But you know the Scotti- if Will hadn't done it, the Scotti would've murdered every name on that list in an even more brutal fashion. With that in your heart, you keep going.
You feel like you ride for hours, when finally, you see a form lying in a ditch. The pit you'd been feeling in your stomach triples in size. Without even stopping Abelard, you dismount. You slide down into the pit, and immediately are checking the form to see just who this person was.
Your heart breaks when you realize it's Will.
You scrape away the dirt and mud away from his face. He looks unconscious. Your training tells you to check his neck- to check for his pulse.
There isn't one.
Your breath catches in your throat. You can't breathe. You're crying. You haven't cried in what feels like centuries. You pull the body close to you, crying and screaming at the sun. Yelling curses- yelling about he hadn't been responsible, he'd been trying to protect you, that he was doing his duty to the kingdom. No one is there to hear you, but you don't stop.
You only stop crying and yelling and screaming when your voice is gone.
But you have to leave him. You can't take him with you- no matter how you try, you wouldn't be able to take him back to Redmont- back to his home, the place where he belonged. But as you begin the long journey home, two thoughts remain in your mind.
The first- that he was innocent. You have evidence. His journal will prove it to everyone else.
The second- that he did it for you.
He did it for you.
-Renegade Inspiration
Live long and prosper, my friends.