Wow, third chapter already! I hope I'm not rushing this fic. Maybe I should set a weekly release date for chapters or something. I feel like I update a bit sporadically. Any suggestions? Oh, and I really do appreciate reviews for anyone who is reading but not saying anything. ^^

888

Rohssan more than assured me that she could handle the shop while I was gone. She had, after all, been running A Fighting Chance a good deal longer than I had been alive. She even helped me pack for the trip, showing me how to stow a great deal in a small bag.

Abadon was in and out of the shop frequently over the next couple of days, keeping me updated on what was happening. His family had agreed to the trip, trusting their son's judgement. He would be supplying the horses, food, and a good deal of money for the trip. I would bring things such as cookware, flint and tinder, and a few other essential items.

We were ready to leave by the end of the week, and it was a good thing too, for I could see Abadon becoming more and more impatient to be on his way. I did not know what drove him, only that it must have been very important to hurry him so. The morning that we left, he seemed freer somehow.

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"Are you quite ready, Jared?" Abadon asked as I secured my bags Windy's saddle. It was the same beast I had ridden a week ago. Abadon had a different horse, one that was sleek and black and fierce looking.

"I will never be ready to ride a damn horse." I grumbled as I clambered clumsily into the saddle. Abadon laughed at me and swung into his saddle with a good deal more grace.

"Be careful you two." Rohssan had come to see us off. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, a concerned expression on her face.

"We will." I promised, waving at her and then flinching as Windy shifted her weight.

"Thank you for loaning me your apprentice." Abadon said cheekily. He waved to Rohssan as well and then nudged his horse's sides. The black started forward, and Windy followed.

"What is your horse's name?" I asked as we walked at a leisurely pace, which was about all I could handle.

"Necromance." Abadon replied.

We rode through the entire day, stopping only when the sun began to dip below the horizon. Abadon was good company, talking to pass the hours, telling different stories of his escapades, and laughing at himself as I laughed along with him.

We camped under the stars on that first night, surrounded by the soft sighing of the wind.

"Jared?" I heard a rustle as Abadon shifted in his blanket. "How did you come to be apprenticed to Rohssan?" He asked. I paused a moment to consider his question, weighing how much I should tell him.

"I lived on the streets when I was younger. I was miserable and underfed most of the time, so I decided that I despised my life and wanted a new one. So one day I went to a man named Phintias. He runs the First Edition in the market. I asked him for an apprenticeship. He took me in and I stayed with him for a year, learning to read and write. Then he recommended me to Rohssan and I went to her to learn how to fight." I finished the very abbreviated story of my life, leaving out only Lachance and his offer to the Dark Brotherhood. I hoped he wouldn't sense the half-truth.

"They just took you like that?" Abadon sounded faintly surprised. "The Gods must have been with you that day, my friend. Apprenticeships like that are difficult to come by. Abadon rolled over to face me, his eyes dark and unreadable.

"Are they really?" I asked, frowning thoughtfully.

"Very." Abadon replied quietly.

"Perhaps the Gods were with me indeed." I agreed. But in my mind, I thought back to Rohssan's mention of odd things happening around me. What had happened around me that was out of the ordinary? Well, other than Lachance coming to me. But no one knew about that. Or had someone found out somehow? No, because then I would have been arrested for murder…I was startled rather suddenly out of my reverie by a soft touch on my cheek.

"Sleep well, Jared." Abadon said, lifting a lock of hair away from my face.

"And you as well." I replied, touching his hand briefly with my own.

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I woke slowly the following morning, when the sky was tinged gray with the coming dawn. I drowsed comfortably for a few moments and curled my toes under my warm blanket. I was very warm, actually, warmer than I should have been.

I opened my eyes and discovered a chest clad in just a thin tan undershirt right in front of me. Abadon's chest. Somehow during the night, he had migrated over to my blankets, and was now sleeping peacefully right next to me, one arm thrown carelessly over my side. I don't know how it had happened, but I did know that I was content to remain there until Abadon woke, despite the overwhelming need to relieve myself.

Abadon was one of those people who woke all at once. There was no gentle drift from sleep to wakefulness, no slow coming of awareness. One moment he was breathing deeply, relaxed in sleep. The next his deep green eyes were open and staring down at me.

"Good morning." He greeted without the slightest trace of awkwardness. He sat up, and the sudden lack of his warmth had me shivering.

"Morning." I replied, never having been one partial to the early hours of the day.

"Sorry about that, I tend to gravitate towards warm things." Abadon stretched slowly, the bones in his back and shoulders popping audibly.

"It's quite alright." I said, getting up without further ado. I wandered away towards the bushes to empty my bladder.

"When I came back, Abadon had buried the remains of our previous night's fire and had stowed away the blankets. He handed me bread and cheese silently and went to see to the horses, his own breakfast in one hand.

I ate slowly, my sleep-fogged mind clearing as I did. The day was overcast and crisp, with the scent of rain in the air. It would be nice for riding, providing that no rain actually fell.

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Of course, it rained later in the day. There was no warning of it, just a sudden, torrential downpour of fat, wet droplets. Necromance whinnied unhappily and Windy bore it stoically. Abadon scowled.

"Lets ride up around that bend and see if there's any shelter. If there isn't, we can ride back to that cave we saw a while ago." He called over the pounding of the rain.

I nodded, wanting nothing more than to get out of the miserable weather and change my clothes. As we approached the bend however, Windy stopped and refused to move one more step, the abrupt cessation of movement nearly throwing me from the saddle.

"What's wrong?" I leaned around after I regained my balance and patted her neck, trying to soothe her nervous twitching. I looked over at Abadon, who had the hand on the hilt of his sword. The scuffling of feet and Necromance's angry neigh was all the warning we had.

The attackers came from both ahead and behind us, four of them and an archer off to the left. Abadon drew his sword and wheeled Necromance, going for the two behind us. I slid one knife out from the wrist sheath I was wearing and went for the one on the left in front of me. He was tall and lean, carrying a heavy hammer as though he knew how to use it. The weight of it, however, made him far, far too slow.

As he swung, I threw myself off of Windy and hit the ground in a tight roll as my horse bolted off to the left. The big man staggered, attempting to stop the progress of his weapon. He regained his footing a moment later and came for me again, this time with his shorter, slighter friend to back him up. The short one was the one I kept a wary eye on, for I could see no weapons on him. I suspected hidden knives or a hand to hand expert.

The taller one swung again and I ducked, rolling around behind him and slicing my knife across the backs of his ankles. He collapsed with a cry and my knife between his ribs silenced him forever.

I was left with the shorter one, a dainty wood elf with long brown hair. He grinned at me, displaying the tips of sharply filed teeth. I circled him warily, not daring to spare a glance to see how Abadon was doing, though I could hear cries of pain and the grating of steel on steel behind me.

I blinked and in the next moment, the man was gone. I could hear a snicker off to my left, and only that noise saved my life. I twisted to the right, wincing as I felt a cold blade score along my left shoulder. It stung, but was not deep. The elf shimmered back into existence, the tip of his short dagger bloodied.

"Bastard." I muttered, feinting to the right and lunging into the left. I buried my knife in his thigh and rolled to my feet behind him, barehanded. The elf cursed and shimmered out of existence again. I backed up hastily, glancing to my sides and listening intently. I saw a single flower bend and break as something heavy squashed it. I darted towards the disturbance, another knife in my hand. I felt it slide home with a satisfying thump as the blade sank in to the hilt. The elf shrieked and appeared again, dropping his dagger and burying his teeth in my forearm. I yelled and tried to shake him off, hot blood dripping onto the ground. How was the creature still alive? My knife pierced the area where his heart should have been!

Despite the mortal wound, he held on, shaking his head like a dog and pummeling me with his fists. I drew my third and last knife and stabbed him over and over again until he shuddered and went limp. The sudden weight of his corpse on my arm dragged me to the ground.

I winced and tried to pry his mouth open. His jaws were locked too tightly around my arm though, and I couldn't get his mouth open with one hand. I looked away from the elf and towards Abadon. He was finishing off the last bandit, a second dead by his feet. Necromance was trampling the archer into the ground.

I brought my gaze back to the corpse latched onto my arm and tried once more, futilely, to get it loose. Then I sighed and braced myself as I took up my knife once more. I sliced away his cheeks to bare his teeth, and reversed my grip on my knife. With the heavy weight on my pommel, I struck his teeth twice on each side, shattering them. His jaw cracked and split under the strikes as well. Once the bones were broken, it was easier. I cut off his broken jaw and slid the teeth out of my arm. When that was gone, I slid my arm off of his upper teeth as well.

I staggered to my feet and snatched my knives out of the dead body, backing away from the dead elf as quickly as I could and holding my injured arm close to my chest. I backed right into Abadon as he walked down the road towards me. I nearly fell, but his hands on my shoulders steadied me.

"Jared, are you alright?" He turned me around and his eyes widened a fraction of an inch as he saw the ruin that had been a perfectly good arm. His eyes traveled to my left shoulder and he brought his hand away from the cut I had received there. There was blood staining his hand.

"Come, let's get back to the cave." He looped an arm around my waist and led me slowly up the road to where Necromance and Windy were waiting for us.

888

Abadon got a fire going with deadfall he found stored in a corner of the cave, left my some previous friendly traveler. I sat and shivered in my wet clothes, blinking owlishly and feeling rather slow.

When the fire was finished, Abadon took off the horses' bridles and saddles and let them wander. He took up the leather saddlebags and came over to me, setting them down by the fire.

He stripped my shirt off of me silently, in a calm, businesslike manner. He tended to my shoulder first, cleaning the shallow slash and spreading a cool, mint scented ointment onto it. He wrapped it in clean bandages and tied them neatly and tightly. Then he looked at me.

"I need your arm, Jared." He said gently, taking my left hand in one of his and uncurling the fingers of my right hand from the wound. I let go as he drew my arm towards himself slowly. He poured clean water over it, rinsing all of the blood away. It continued to bleed slightly, but not as badly as it had been earlier. I winced as he probed at the bite with his fingertips.

"There's a tooth in here, Jared. Brace yourself." Abadon picked one of my knives and cleaned it off. He used the very tip of it to lever the tooth out of my flesh. He grimaced and tossed the offensive thing into the fire. I watched him, biting my lip until it bled to keep from shrieking like a child.

"There, that's all I can do for it. We're only a day out of Skingrad. We'll get you a proper healer there." Abadon rinsed the ragged, raw wound out once more and spread the cooling ointment onto the skin around it. Then he wrapped it tightly and put everything away. He sat back on his heels and regarded me intently.

"It's alright Jared." Abadon drew a clean shirt out of one of the bags, one of his shirts, and began to blot my skin dry. He rubbed it over my hair until that was mostly dry as well. Then he got out another shirt, mine this time, and helped me pull it on carefully. I got up and changed my pants myself, then sat down as close to the fire as I could without burning myself. I was shivering violently from the cold and the pain that radiated off of my arm.

A soft weight settled around my shoulders as Abadon draped a blanket over me. He sat down next to me, staring intently into the fire. He had let his hair loose to dry, and it now clung to his skin damply. He looked different with it down, more vulnerable.

"Do you want anything to eat?" He asked suddenly. I shook my head mutely. Abadon sighed and rose to his feet. He began to lie out the blankets we used to sleep on. When everything was neat to his standards, he came back over to me.

"Come on, you should get some rest." He said quietly. He helped me up and led me over to the blankets. When I was settled down, he covered me securely and then went back to sit by the fire. The last thing I saw before I drifted off was his shadowed profile outlined against the flickering light.