A/N: *takes deep breath* Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry! D: I sort of forgot about this story for a few months or so, that's why I haven't posted anything. *dies of shame*

So, I've had a fiddle with the summary - I like the new one better, how about you guys?

Anyway, you may not remember, but I promised a three-days-three-chapters bulk posting. I'll still be doing that, albeit a little (lot) later than intended. But now, it's five days, with five chapters total! Chapter four ended up being a lot longer than I had anticipated, so I split it into three chapters. After that, I'll be doing a similar bulk posting for MftS, for those who read that as well. And after that, I'll try to make updates on this more regular.

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It had only taken Halt a few minutes to find the tracks of the men who had thrown Will into a ditch, seeing that they had rejoined the party he had just annihilated. He felt a savage pleasure that the men who had hurt his apprentice were already dead, with an intensity that would have worried him had he not been so worried about Will.

Of course, these men didn't really have any sort of skills at tracking or concealment, so their path was blindingly obvious. Halt could almost have tracked them with his eyes closed. Hopeful in the prospect that the trail would lead him to Will, and, stubbornly refusing to think that there was even the slightest chance that Will could be seriously injured or even dead, he sent a discreet signal to Abelard to pick up the pace. Tug followed quietly behind them.

.:':. .:':. .:':.

An hour passed before he burst out of the woodlands and on the side of a long, dusty road. Here, the tracks were faint, and Halt had to dismount to read the slight indentations on the hard road - which was compounded by the fact that it was a fairly well-used track. However, its main use seemed to be bringing produce to markets, so the marks on the road were all lengthways, with the exception of the men whose tracks he was following. They led clearly enough - to Halt, anyway - to the opposite side of the path, then doubled back. This had to be where they had left Will.

He gave Abelard and Tug the command to stay and crossed the road.

There was nothing there. Only the faintest of marks of where a body had lain, the slightest bend of the lay of a certain section of the grass. But it was exactly the right size to have been Will. He scouted around the sight, covering the area around the place where Will had been, but turning up with nothing. He checked the road to the side, finding the impressions of day old cart tracks, and it seemed that they had been responsible for moving Will, as none of the other tracks on the road were recent enough. He was hoping that whoever had found Will were good people, seeing as those who weren't didn't tend to pick up unconscious bodies from the side of the road. He shook his head and turned back to the tracks on the ground. Every moment he wasted could be putting Will in unnecessary danger. True, it was most likely that the folk who had picked Will up were of a kind sort, but it never paid to make assumptions.

The scenario started to play over in his head as he looked at the smudges and scuffs in the hard-packed dirt – almost undecipherable due to the road's much-used state, but still readable by someone of Ranger talent – here, where there were two sharp indentations about two metres apart, the cart handle had been dropped. Then the wheel tracks setting off again, pressing slightly deeper due to the added weight of Will.

Halt beckoned Tug and Abelard over, swinging lithely up into his own saddle and setting off down the road. As long as it followed a single path, he reasoned, there was no need to inspect every scratch and mark of the cart tracks. He had deduced that it was a large, cumbersome affair, unlikely to take kindly to being handled off-road. If he reached a fork in the road, he'd dismount and relocate the tracks. It was common sense – he'd make much faster time this way.

Any common passer-by would have been extremely confused by the scene that followed. Without any sort of discernable signal from Halt, the two horses shot off almost simultaneously, and, keeping within a quarter-metre of each other, would have left everything behind them in a billowing cloud of dust.

.:':. .:':. .:':.

The sun had lazily crawled its way to its peak noon mark by the time Halt's chosen path split. He felt that the countryside here looked familiar, and with a rising sense of hope he realised that this was the path to the farm owned by Liam's parents. Will was most likely in their hands, then, and with them, he'd be safe. After all, they had saved his son – they had seemed the sort of people who would return the favour. Will was safe, Halt told himself. He had to be.

Tug and Abelard seemed to recognise the area too. Their ears pricked forward and they neighed to each other, tossing their heads the way horses do. Halt allowed a rare smile to creep onto his face. "So, is he here, boys?" he murmured, patting Abelard on the neck. They both chose that moment to turn and look at him, a glint of confirmation in each of their eyes. He raised an eyebrow. "Okay then. Lead the way." He made a gesture up the path, where the farmhouse could be seen as a tiny box in the distance.

It grew rapidly larger as they cantered forward, dirt and dust flying from under their hooves, Tug's gait a little quieter due to his lower carry weight. No one was in the fields, but that made sense; most people would be having lunch now, when the sun burned its brightest. It seemed this family was no exception.

If it were any other time, Halt would feel a little bad about disturbing honest folk while they were eating, but his urgency to verify Will's safety overrode any such emotions. He dismounted in one smooth, practiced motion and knocked firmly on the door.

Once again, it was Ava who answered the door. Her eyes were slightly red-rimmed and worry creased her face. At the sight of the grizzled Ranger on her doorstep, her eyes widened and the tears threatened to slide over her cheeks once more. Halt felt his heart sink. This didn't look good.

"Is Will here?" he asked.

The tears spilled over as she shook her head, biting her lip. "No, he's not here."

"Ava? Who's at the door?" The voice of David floated out from somewhere inside the small farmhouse. She held up a trembling hand to gesture to Halt to wait for a moment, then half-turned back inside to give a response.

"It's the Ranger who found Liam."

"Oh." The reply was muted, and Halt felt his heart drop through the bottom of his soft leather boots. None of this was boding well at all.

"Do you know where he is?" Halt urged Ava.

Silently, she nodded, the tears now coming at an increased pace. She stepped outside, motioning for Halt to follow. His had flickered the signal to stay at Tug and Abelard, and they obediently dropped their heads and started grazing. Ava gave them a fleetingly curious glance but otherwise continued to a point that lay south-west to the farm, hiding the horses from view.

Halt's step faltered as he saw that she was leading him to a rectangular mound of recently turned dirt, a simple pile of stones heaped at one end. He glanced a question at her and she nodded solemnly, stepping back a few paces to give him some space.

He stared down at the grave, not wanting to believe what was in front of him. He barely noticed as Ava quietly slipped away and headed back to the farmhouse.

At some point, he could never recall when, he realised the strange sticky feeling on his face was his own tears, coursing down his cheeks in a constant flow. For some reason, the tears made it all seem real. He fell to his knees, silent sobs wracking his body which he did nothing to hold back. Will deserved every tear that Halt shed for him, and a million more. He fisted his hands in the dirt of the grave, already growing damp with the relentless stream welling from the corners of his eyes.

It wasn't fair. Will had struggled to make it through his imprisonment in Skandia, and then strived to get better faster than was even possible, just so he wouldn't let his master down.

Will deserved so much more than what he'd been given. Instead, he'd been buried in an unmarked grave, so young, in a place he barely knew. He should have been around for decades more, constantly nattering off at tangents and getting under Halt's feet, his naturally joyful and likeable personality getting him out of any real trouble. He should have had many more adventures ahead of him, then died after a long and happy life. He should have been surrounded by the people who loved him as he was lowered into the ground. That should have been so far into the future, long after Halt himself was dead and gone.

The master shouldn't have outlived his apprentice.

Suddenly, Halt glared at the cloudless, brilliant blue sky with a vengeance. It shouldn't have been so bright and cheerful on such a terrible day. The sky should have been almost black with heavy, rain-swollen clouds, precipitation pouring out of them in a torrent that felt more like you were standing under a waterfall than standing in a downpour. The clouds should have been punctuated by flickering tongues of lightning and accompanying roars of thunder so loud that the ground would shake. The wind should have been howling like it felt the agony that Halt was feeling.

But most of all, Halt should have been able to protect him. He should have seen that Will wasn't ready for field work just yet. It would have been an exceedingly traumatic experience – no person would be able to properly recover in the time Halt had given. But, Will being Will, he had done the best he could and covered up where he hadn't completely succeeded to please his mentor. Halt had been naive enough to fall for it. He'd been so happy at having his apprentice back, still in one piece, that he'd been blind to the fact that Will wasn't actually okay. And on top of that, he should have realised that the bandits had set up a trap for them. This self blame was almost worst of all, a shame that settled heavily on his shoulders like a sodden cloak of misery.

The only thing worse was the knowledge that Will was gone, and he was never coming back.

.:':. .:':. .:':.

A/N: *le gasp* I killed Will? Oh noes! That wasn't a nice thing to do, especially when it's the first chapter I've posted in months! DX

But let it be known: this is not the end. There will be many more chapters before I'm done with this story (and I mean more after the four I'm bulk-posting). Wait and see – I think you'll be interested where I go with this. And with that mysterious comment, I bid you farewell. *sweeps a Phantom of the Opera cape around herself*