AN: Hello all. My apologies for taking so long to get this out. I had a Eurotrip to distract me. But, now I am sadly back State-Side and committed to writing this thing. Please note that it has taken on a bit of a life of it's own. I didn't intend this to go past 10 chapters. While the "Saxon Saga" won't extend past chapter ten, the second part my brain pan has concocted will probably run another 5-8 chapters after that. Then, perhaps, we can put this story to rest. As always, let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own King Arthur.

Chapter Seven - Death Grip

Lykopis watched from a distance as the knights pulled themselves up on their horses. A large caravan of men, women and children were with them, too many, she knew. Too many with the Saxons she'd seen coming down on them from the North. They would move too slow, and still, Arthur dallied. Dag carried a small boy from a stone building, and not far behind him Arthur carried a young woman.

Ever noble, Arthur Castus, ever doing what was right, for everyone but his men. She shook her head, sighing into the air. What good was it then, this anger, if it did nothing.

She flanked them as they rode out, the two injured being shuffled into a wagon, where Dag sat with them through the day's ride. Night fell, and she eased herself down against a tree, watching as Arthur followed the young woman he'd saved. She rolled her eyes skyward. The woman had just been with Lancelot not ten minutes before, talking in a hushed voice, chin thrust forward in a come-hither gesture that Lykopis had seen on the Roman woman that Dinadan had let himself be drawn back to.

She pulled her cloak around her more tightly; it was going to be a long, cold night.

She woke to a roar, and her sharp eyes took a moment to focus before she found the source. Dag, with his back to the wagon and the little boy held away from him, a blade at his throat, by the fat man they'd rescued from the wall. She didn't know his name, but the way he held the boy, made Dag roar with anger, put a fire in her belly.

She tightened the claws against his knuckles and slipped around the wagon, a short quick jump and tear and the first soldier would be dead. But so would the boy, because not even she was fast enough to split open the guard between her and the Roman and get to him before he startled enough to rip the boy's throat open.

The Roman woman cried at her husband, begging him to let the boy go. Dag roared again, egging the soldiers forward, and they came. Beautiful man, she thought, slipping quickly around the closest and around the Roman, gripping his wrist and twisting down and away, the boy dropping harmlessly to the ground as an arrow lodged deeply into the man's chest.

"Arthorius!" Bors's voice never shocked her. She wasn't sure why anymore. It ought to have, even as he threatened the remaining guards. The dead man lay on the ground at her feet, and she could almost feel Gawain and Galahad some few paces behind her. Arthur spoke to the guard, his sharp eyes flickering over them, catching her a moment but letting his gaze leave her again. She couldn't hear his words. Her ears had stopped working after Bors's shout.

Panic, maybe. Maybe this was panic.

Something was shouted. A command that she couldn't hear, didn't register. Bors was looking at her, his eyes soft and mouth twisted up in a frown. He was nodding at her, as though he was trying to tell her that something was alright. God, this was crippling, this tunneling-

Her craws were ripped down and away, dragging her entire being with her from the leather strapping around her wrist. She twisted, bringing a knee up easily, burring it into the stomach of the one that tried to take them from her. Her brother's curly head of hair doubled over, and she froze, taking several steps backward, eyes wide searching as he gasped for breath.

"Wolf!" Bors shouted at her, and that she heard, pivoting to fix him with a wide eyed stare a moment before bolting, into the woods and away. The trees ripped at her, grabbing and pulling. Her feet were slow, the snow or the undergrowth catching and ensnaring. She didn't get far.

"Stop your running," a voice said, hard and firm, right by her ear before she was tackled to the ground, a heavy body pinning her there. "Easy," it breathed heavily, nearly as out of breath as she felt. "Easy."

She complied with the voice, if only because she knew it, resting her forehead against the cold ground. She'd need to face them sooner or later. The weight left her, instead pulling her around and up to sit in front of him. Gawain stood there, a frown on his face and his axe at his hip, the other, lighter one in hand. The axes she'd had him made.

"You aren't in trouble," he said easily. "Just, give me your weapon and come back to the caravan. It isn't safe to be alone out here." She nearly laughed at him before she nodded. She stood on her own. No hand was offered. It wouldn't have been accepted if it was. He was taller than she'd thought he'd be this close, and she eyed him a long moment. Sooner or later.

He relaxed his posture. "Come on," he murmured, turning his back to her to start his way through the wood they'd run through. "Arthur will want to speak with-"

She pushed him around and forward, gripping the axe from his hip and burying it deeply into the tree at his back. He held the lighter in hand threateningly, but when he moved to throw, his arm would not obey. The material of his thick woven shirt had been pierced through and pinned. She looked at him hesitantly for a long moment. "Later rather than sooner," she said, and disappeared into the wood, leaving him pinned to the tree by his own axe.

-Wolf's Moon: Death Grip-

Fulciana stood at the tree-line, hidden in a grey cloak, leaning against a birch, willing its strength into her body. She knew the wolf was a few steps behind her, watching with an edge to her posture that was not to be confused. But Fulciana didn't care for the woman at her back. Her husband was dead. Her son was alive, headed for Rome, where even if he was exposed to the darkest reaches of the empire, he would be safe under the wings of the Pope and the Catholic Church.

A mother's worries in her were gone, so far out of her hands that she was left clutching at air. Until the little one, until Lucan, with his large eyes and his questioning lips, begging reason as to why Dag was gone, why the big man had to leave him. And Fulciana found those questions in her own chest, buried deeply beneath the stirring of affection and the longing for the safety his arms provided when he'd helped her from the ground outside of their estate and again when he'd told her to follow the caravan to the wall, that she would be safe, that Arthur would follow.

Except something had sat sour in her stomach at that, because before, when he'd left little Lucan in the wagon, he'd always said that he would return, that he, Dagonet, would be back, and that because of that, the little one had no reason for concern.

So she had slipped from the wagon the first time it rounded a bend in the trail, into the wood and away from the safety promised to her. She'd traded her fine, fur lined cloak for one of grey, one that would blend with the wood and keep her red dress hidden. The wolf had started ghosting her footsteps she knew not how long ago, but now, she stood beside her, watching as the Saxon leader first marched into view.

"They will die here," Fulciana murmured as more and more of the men came into view.

"Not all of them," the wolf said, and Fulciana turned to look at her for the first time, without pieces of branch in her way. The woman's dark eyes were sharp and focused, sliding over the group of men and then back, across to the Saxon line.

"Even one death is-"

"Acceptable," the wolf breathed. "One death is acceptable."

"Not if it is the one you look for, the one you are here to follow," Fulciana countered, and the woman looked down the short path to Dagonet.

"Five men, down there, five of them, I would die for," the wolf said. "I will die before any of them." She turned those dark eyes to Fulciana. "Would you die for the one that has you here, hiding in the trees?"

Fulciana did not answer, and she instead looked after the men as they drew their bows, firing the first volley of arrows at the Sarmatians. It was such a long way and...

"Their bows are not strong enough," the wolf said even before the arrow skittered to the ice at their feet.

"Then why do they draw?"

"Because Sarmatians are strong. Their bows are stronger, and they know that drawing that string should be difficult each time." The arrows released, and found their mark, snuffing out life at each pointed tip.

"They can't kill them all before they cross the ice." Fulciana sagged against the tree as the Saxons advanced across the ice, which hissed and popped but held firm.

"No, they cannot," the wolf said. She slipped around Fulciana through the trees, and the Roman woman felt so very alone at that moment, standing in the tree-line, watching as the Sarmatians drew their weapons. Something lit in her feet then, and she was walking forward, taking staggering steps as Dagonet lifted his sword for combat. Her eyes followed his, and the big man dropped the blade in favor of his war hammer. His first steps made her heart fly, and with it, so went her feet.

Her heart was beating, she was sure, deep in her chest, but she felt it in her throat, in her stomach, and up into her temples. Someone shouted her name as she ran past the line of Sarmatians that shouted for their healer to return to them, and a hand nearly snagged her elbow. Instead, it ripped off the grey cloak, leaving her to run across the ice in her dress and slippers, both blood red against the grey and white of the land. She slipped against the ice a moment, watching as the hammer came down again and again as the Saxons drew their crossbows, close enough now that a bolt would find purchase in flesh far more easily.

One arrow flew, lodging through his calf, making him roar with anger but spurring him on, slamming the weapon into the ice again. Another caught his shoulder, turning him slightly in her direction as she slipped yet again but caught herself. A moment later, she was in front of him, standing with her back straight, arms out, as if begging those across the ice to come to her. Something sharp exploded in her chest, and that was the last coherent thought she had.

-Wolf's Moon: Death Grip-

Lykopis watched Fulciana stand in front of Dag as the Saxons shook themselves from their stupor at having the woman sprint out onto the ice. She drew her bow, firing as quickly as she could at the archers, but still Fulciana caught an arrow to the chest. The woman swayed on her feet, the red of her dress hiding the blood that was sure to be blossoming beneath that shaft and another now, low on her pelvis. Two more caught the woman before the ice shattered and gave way like Fulciana's knees. The woman turned, the ice cracking beneath her feet, and her lifeless eyes caught Dag's face one more time before the big man roared and reached out to her, hands unable to snatch up the red fabric before she was lost to the ice.

He fell to his knees, reaching into the water, shouting the woman's name, as another arrow flew by his ear. Arthur and Bors were on the ice, screaming the giant's name, pulling at him as he struggled against him. Lykopis stared one long moment as the ice cracked backward, toward the Saxons, and yet still they fired, still they were a death threat, looming on the horizon. She closed her eyes, pulled the claws against her knuckles, drawing her mother's sword from her back, and stepped out of the shadow of the tree-line.

Across the field of ice and death, she knew her brother stood, and Gawain, and Tristram, and Bors, dragging the still shouting Dagonet. There was nothing for him there, beneath the ice, and yet still, he lunged toward it as though it held the only thing in the world he cared for.

Chaos bloomed. The ice cracked. She slipped through the Saxon line far easier than she'd thought possible, with the wolf pelt against her skin and the claws against her knuckles, blood spilled easily. Men that would have scrambled back, out of the danger of the ice, fell to her claws before falling to the water.

She brought her mother's blade up, readying it for another slice through flesh, but a hand caught her, forced it back and twisting, sending the blade skittering along the ice before falling into the water. Something exploded low in her stomach at the sight, and the wicked twisting of her wrist was ignored as she slashed at the man's face. He spat at her, holding his cheek as three gouges bled beneath his palm. He dropped her wrist, swearing as another of his men took an arrow and was forced back into him. Lykopis looked long and hard at the water where the sword had vanished. Another arrow skimmed her shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood.

Across the ice, Tristram glared at her, and she glared back, the arrow his, a warning. Move.

-Wolf Moon: Death Grip-

Tristram leaned forward in the saddle. They'd been riding for the better part of the evening, catching up to the caravan, and in all that time, Dagonet had been silent, riding on his great mare, refusing anything but Tristram's deft fingers removing the arrows before he brushed him off. Tristram had seen the look on the big man's face. Had seen it in a still pond or in the shine of his own blade.

It was the face of a man that welcomed death, and as much as he wanted to remain there, watchful as he always was, something else itched the back of his mind. The last he'd seen the girl, she'd been pinned beneath her own horse, glaring at him. He'd not killed her, but he'd surely enough left her there to live or die on her own.

Then, he'd caught the shine off of a sword. It had drawn his eye, and he'd notched an arrow, sending it into the flesh of a man that had snuck behind her. He fell as she slipped her blade through another Saxon. A wolf, she was, amongst a pack far too large for her to defend herself. Their leader caught her wrist, twisting it back and around. The blade was lost, and Tristram swore as she stared after it a long moment, slack faced and useless. He drew another arrow back, felling another who threatened Bors, Arthur and Dagonet, and in the moment that he was turned away, she had slashed him, brutally, across his face. He smiled grimly for a moment, ending another who had come to his leader's side. He fell backward, and she had an out, a path he'd cleared for her, and yet still she stood, staring down into the water, where her sword had gone.

He knocked another arrow, anger igniting low in his stomach, mixed with something he couldn't place-wouldn't place. He let the arrow fly, skimming her arm through the wolf pelt. Her eyes snapped up to him, across the distance, and in the next moment, Dagonet was in front of him, and his wolf was gone.

He'd been riding with the rest of the knights since they'd mounted up, all too silently elated to be rid of the Saxons on their trail and headed toward their freedom. It was only Dagonet's mood that kept Galahad from shouting his joy, and Tristram kept glaring at the pup just in case.

"Tristram," Arthur called him, and Tris reigned his horse in, pulling her round and back to his Commander. "I know you have not slept since the-"

"I will scout," Tris said firmly, urging the horse onward. He was tired, but he was far more relieved to be out on his own. He pushed his mare far more fiercely than he'd needed to in some time, and she rebelled by running his thighs into tree trunks that she could have lead him safely through and ducking under branches. "Eh," he chided.

"Serves you right," her voice cut through the silence, and he stilled, pulling his mare back to a stop.

"You are a fool," he said.

"And you are welcome," Lykopis countered.

"You could have died there. You'd have been dead, and no one would have even known who to tell to mourn you." He stopped himself. "No one would have known what name to put on your grave marker."

"There wouldn't have been a grave maker. What name would you have given me?" She asked, a feral smile on her lips.

"Wolf," he said simply, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Then it would have been as accurate as my own," she said. "Lykopis is the name my mother's people gave me, and Atanea is the name my father's used, your people."

"Lykopis," Tristram rolled the name on his tongue a moment before nodding. He turned the mare back toward the caravan. "Dagonet survived the arrows."

"I saw." She walked along side him as he let the beast pick it's way through the undergrowth. For a moment, he considered letting her ride in his stead, or maybe behind him. She would not have agreed, even as she slowly eased herself over a fallen log, much slower than he'd ever seen her move in the past. "I will be pleased when this is all over."

"Our service to Rome?" he asked.

"The chasing your sorry asses across the countryside," she countered, but there was an ease in her that he had not seen before, one that made him relax in the saddle despite the awkwardness to her movements, the way she seemed to be more stiff than he'd ever seen her.

"You will take your brother home?"

"I will remind him of his home," she said, staring off into the trees. Something like pain flickered across her face as she took another step, but it was gone so quickly, he ignored it. "It is his decision as to whether or not he chooses to return to that life." She paused a moment. "I would not want to return. I couldn't."

"To a dull life, where you would marry and raise sons," Tristram said, smirking down at her. "Perhaps you would keep a goat for the milk."

"And you? Perhaps you will settle down, marry a woman that has grown fat waiting for her men to return, and keep a farm."

"Perhaps," he murmured, his eyes catching the signs of the caravan. They had not been so far away then. "Perhaps I will stay here. I will not leave until I have spoken with him, either way."

"You'll have to leave the island for that, now," Lykopis said. "His tastes have drawn him back to the mainland."

"His tastes?"

"The Merlin says that he was alone, and that a Roman woman called his soul." She shook her head. "He is a fool."

"He has been alone," Tristram said, his eyes sliding sideways. "You are not the kind he chased as a child."

"I'm not the kind any man chases," Lykopis countered, a smile on her lips. "It has taken me a very long time to assure that was the case." Tristram chuckled. "Goodbye then," she said, as a caravan straggler came into view.

"Eh?"

"Nothing changes until he is free, and even then, I might not see you again. So goodbye, and good luck with Din." Tristram nodded, and kicked his mare forward into a trot. He knew she would fade into the tree-line, far enough away that only his sharp eyes would only catch her on occasion, and only if he was watching.

-Wolf Moon: Death Grip-

Dagonet stood out on the ice, staring down at the blood droplets that had melted little pools into the ice before they'd frozen over, becoming just another part of the monster that he'd sworn to either defeat or die at the hand of. He'd done neither, not really. He'd stepped out to defend what he'd loved. Everything he'd loved. All of it, from his brothers to his honor to a woman that had more strength than he'd ever seen one have.

And yet, he'd failed. That woman, with a quiet strength cowed by a roaring anger, that woman had thrown off her master's shackles, rose up, stood between him and death and like a specter of death, she had turned to him as the ice cracked, a smile on pale, blood flecked lips, and had been lost to the waters below.

He bent forward, running a finger over the stained ice. It had frozen solid, and he could no more dip his fingers into the blood than her could her hair. It was beyond him, taken from him, turned into something else, something beautiful but untouchable.

"Dag?" Bor's voice startled him, and he pivoted to look at the man, who was so uncharacteristically calm that it nearly scared him.

"I was scouting the rear to assure that we weren't followed," Dag said simply. "We can't expect Tristram to watch us from all directions. He could use a rest. He hasn't-"

"Tris is used to resting on his horse; he's more comfortable there," Bors interrupted. "You haven't slept."

"I haven't been tired," Dag agreed, standing up and leaving the blood-glass behind.

"C'mon," Bors gripped his elbow in a strong hand and tugged him along the ice. None of them liked it, Dag supposed, none of them were comfortable standing on something that could have taken everything away so easily. "G'nna have frost bite on m'ass."

Dag let himself be tugged over the ice until they were on solid ground again, with no churning death beneath the surface that their feet walked upon. Even as he left the cold chill leave his feet, something crept up in his chest, cold and hard and dead. Fulciana had fallen into the ice. It had been her body that had frozen, but that thing that had taken her life had crept up into his chest, settled in his lungs and in his heart, and had solidified.

Was death the damnation? Was death the worst thing that could claim him? As they mounted their horses, Dagonet knew the truth. The sadness, the hardship, in death, was not in the deceased, but in the living.

He barely recognized when his horse followed Bors's into a trot, taking the land far faster than the caravan ever could.

He rode into camp, settled himself in the fading light, and pretended to sleep.

-Wolf's Moon: Death Grip-

She glared down at her side, exposed to the air and stained red with blood. Tristram's arrow had warned her a half moment too late, and as she bolted, the man who lead them had managed to bring his blade up, catching her side clear from her ribs down to her hip. The wound wasn't deep, and there was nothing that would kill her. The damnable thing would not stop bleeding.

She'd tried to pack it, as she'd done in the past when she couldn't see well enough to suture, but even that had failed. Now, the edges had reddened, and the stubborn flesh would not stop weeping. Tristram had rode out early in the morning, and she had not been able to catch Bors's attention. She eyed the caravan a long moment, knowing that Dag sat, tucked away in the wagon, where Bors had made him settle when he'd woke the next morning with a fever. The big man would help her, suture the wound closed and send her on her way. If she could get to him.

The group had been up and moving for several long hours, and the knights seemed to rotate themselves through the wagon every so often to check on the big man, rest their horses and keep him company. She glared down at the wound once more and let her tunic fall back into place. She tucked the wolf hood back and removed the claws from her wrist. It felt naked without the leather around her wrist and the cool chill of the claws against her skin.

She slipped into the wagon easily enough, and the big man's eyes found her quickly.

"What?" he asked, voice edged with something that she couldn't quite place.

"You are the healer, are you not?" She asked him, raising the side of her tunic enough to expose the wound. He nodded, gesturing her forward with a finger and drawing something from a leather satchel.

"It is not deep," he said easily, pulling the edges together.

"The bleeding won't stop."

"It will hurt," he cautioned her. His eyes glanced up at her a long moment, as if gauging her ability to tolerate the pain. They fell down her face to the cloak she wore. Deft fingers picked up the hood, pulling it down and across her eyes. She stared out at him for a moment before he pushed it back. "Though, I am not sure that matters."

The needle met flesh time and time again, and for several long minutes, Lykopis was lulled by the sharp prick of pain followed by the dull dragging of the thread through skin.

"You helped with Lucan," he said easily. "I'd thought you were a villager from Marius's estate at first." He paused, as if waiting for her to correct him. She did not. "But Bors called to you. Called you wolf, and suddenly his superstitions were not so out of his character."

"He is loud," she agreed. "But he has watched for me over the years."

"Why do you follow us?"

"Why are you sulking?" She countered, fixing him with a hard look. He ignored both her question and the absence of an answer.

"There," he said, bending to cut the thread with a sharp pull of his teeth. She nodded, eyeing the flesh. "It is infected, but if you are careful with cleaning, it should heal."

"I will be-"

"You!" Gawain's sharp voice froze her, and she turned to glare at him as he blocked the wagon.

"You," she countered, standing up as much as she could in the wagon.

"I couldn't get loose until Galahad showed up to cut me out." He groused at her. "You owe me a shirt."

"You owe me a lot more than a shirt," she countered. His hand was on his axe, the lighter one, the one that he could throw and end her life in a moment. Her claws were still tucked away in a pouch, and with her mother's blade gone, she was without a weapon. It was later then.

"He owes you nothing, girl," Dag countered, and nudged her with his boot. "Be gone, the pair of you. Arthur will want to know what her alliance is, especially so close to the Saxons."

"I look like a Saxon," Lykopis said with distaste. Gawain eyed her a long moment before gesturing her forward. He'd learned his lesson and backed out of the wagon, the axe in front of him.

"Out with you," he told her, and she stepped out easily enough, flanked quickly by Lancelot, who recognized her in a moment.

"The little assassin," he murmured, but there was a quirk of his lips. "Or Tristram's little wolf."

"Tristram has a bigger mouth than you, it seems," she said. Gawain looked on confused for a moment before calling to Arthur. Galahad was drawn by the shouting, and soon too, Bors sat astride his horse, looking on with a child like glee at her discomfort.

"Eh, wolf!" He shouted at her.

"Gabbing housewives, the lot of you," she finally said, eyeing him a moment. Arthur was there in the next, and the look her leveled her with was far from welcoming.

Well, fuck, then; later was now.