Prisoner

Summary: Being a hostage sucked. An alternate ending to book 7 of Ranger's Apprentice.

Disclaimer: The great John Flanagan is the owner of this series of amazing novels. I am just a lowly teenage girl who gets crushes on non-existant characters and loves to write about them.

Yusal screamed in pain and fury as the arrow embedded itself in his arm, the blow softened just enough by his clothes to keep the muscle behind his skin from totally ripping apart. As he stumbled off the platform, sword forgotten, he watched as a few of his men were struck down by the deadly projectiles that came mysteriously from above. And then he saw it. A figure was shooting from one of the dilapidated watchtowers high on the cliffs. With this disruption, Yusal's prisoners were freeing themselves one by one, and outsiders were revealing their true colors as the Tualaghi's enemies, the Arridi and the Bedullin. Everything was falling before his eyes, and it was all the fault of that cursed archer! Gritting his teeth, he rose from his crumpled position, hidden behind the platform, and staggered out of sight, clutching his wounded left arm. There was still a chance that he could turn the tables on them.

Will cursed to himself, using words that only Halt could have involuntarily taught him. Yusal's dumb luck had just saved him from a painful death by arrow point. Now, he had disappeared from view. The shouts of the Arridi and Bedullins as they fought the Tualaghi alerted him to the fact that he could no longer worry about him. In a split second, he had aimed at the remaining enemies on the platform and shot them down one by one.

"Will!" a familiar voice rose above the hubbub. Allowing himself a grin, Will waved down at Horace and watched as he signaled for him to cut his restraints. Complying with the unspoken request, he let loose another arrow with a twang of his bow string. Even from high above, he knew that Horace would be complaining about the fact that he had not cut all of the ropes restraining him until he realized that there was a very sharp piece of metal to finish the job.

The Tualaghi still outshone the attackers in numbers as the townspeople fled as soon as they recognized that a battle was going on. Continuing his barrage of arrows, Will wondered how long it would take Hassan and Umar to realize that he was in a different tower. The cries of the rest of the Bedullin forces as they entered the marketplace told him that they had indeed seen him and had gone ahead with the attack. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief, when a sudden thought struck him. Firing a several more arrows in quick succession, he lowered his bow and turned towards the way he had come up to this vantage point.

Aloom was still down below, dying. Will had seen his wounds. Without the immediate attention of a doctor, he would surely bleed out before any help could be brought. Taking one last glance out the window to make sure that there was no pressing danger to Halt and the others, he slung his bow and began to make his way down the rafters.

"Foreigner!" Will froze on his perch as an unknown voice addressed him. "We know you're up there! Come down now!"

Should he stay silent? No, Aloom was probably in their clutches. He couldn't risk the chance of them hurting him further than he already was. With a swift motion, he jumped down from the rafters and landed softly onto the creaky steps. Several bandits turned sharply at the noise. Knees bent and ready to make a move, Will observed the scene before him. Regretfully, his hunch was right. Aloom was barely conscious as he struggled to stand on his own two feet as the Tualaghi restrained his arms behind him. The man who had betrayed their position was cowering in a corner like the whimpering fat whelp he was. The sound of the Tualaghi's heavily accented voice ripped him out of his thoughts.

"Foreigner, if you wish to see this Arridi scum alive in the next moments, I'd advise you to lay down your weapons."

"D…do no….t…..Will…." Aloom gasped, using the last of his strength to try and struggle away in defiance. This only earned him a weaker body that crumpled onto its knees as the blood continued to flow. The Tualaghi's grips were like iron.

Will did not deviate his sight as he tried to calm his frantic mind and think of a plan. On the outside, he continued to look like a mysterious foreboding figure; but on the inside, he was still a young ranger with doubts about his own competence as one. Sighing, he removed the comforting presence of his bow and placed it down. It wasn't like it would be of much use in the cramped quarters of this rickety stairway; but at the moment, it had been his only weapon on hand. Both his saxe and throwing knives were embedded in the men he had brought down previously. In fact, his saxe was only a few feet away, just out of reach.

'That's it!' Will realized.

The Tualaghi who had been addressing him all this time continued to stare at him in suspicion, even after the bow had been dismissed, "Oi! Is that all you have? Remove your cloak foreigner."

Seeing no real use for it anyway since he was already discovered, Will reluctantly took off the mottled linen cloak, releasing yet another one of a Ranger's comforts. As he did this, he inched imperceptibly closer to his target. Without his cloak on, his diminutive form rid the Tualaghi of their uneasiness and boosted their cockiness of having him outnumbered and unarmed. They sneered and snickered to each other as they made fun of him, but these were soon dispelled as he spoke in a voice that argued for no interruptions.

"What is it that you want?" he questioned. "Your leader, Yusal, will be taken out soon. What gain is there to hold a dying man prisoner?"

"I do believe there is a lot to be gained, foreigner," all eyes shifted to the new voice, which belonged to the blue-veiled leader of the Tualaghi. He entered from the doorway further down the steps. Though unseen, he was obviously grinning behind the ever present piece of cloth. "I believe this man makes a brilliant bargaining chip. You see, if you come with us, we won't kill him. It's your choice, of course. Who knows? We may just kill him here and take you anyway."

'Thought so,' Will commented sarcastically in his mind. The appearance of this man definitely threw a stick in his plans. Out loud, he said, "If I agree to this. You must leave him here, and send that man," he pointed to the cowering figure in the corner, "to find a surgeon. If he returns with one, I will go with you."

When he had indicated to the forgotten man, all heads had turned, giving him another chance to draw nearer to his target. As they returned to stare at him, it seemed as if he had not moved an inch if one was not paying close attention. At being addressed, the fat man had flinched back in shock, barely registering the task he had been assigned. But from the death stares given by both, Yusal and the unbelievably scary foreigner, he shakily rose to his feet and scrambled away as fast as he could to find a doctor. Once he had left, Yusal focused his sights, once again, on the archer that had ruined the execution.

"Now, are there any more 'demands' that you would like to make?" he asked in a mock polite tone.

A/N: Wee! What'll happen to Will now? I've always disliked how though Will gets into so many life-threatening situations, he's bodily damage is always at a bare-minimum. Get ready for the next chapter folks. ;)