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Beyond Hurt

Chapter 10/?

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A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the lapse in updating. I've been a traveling FIEND lol. Seriously. Borderline Nomadic. I will try to not keep y'all waiting so long for the next chapters. BY THE WAY, someone asked if they could send me dedicated fanart? It would seriously fucking MAKE my day if I got fanart from anyone. :))))

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To be fair to Marcus, he never once wanted to slow. On the contrary, he had urged Esca forward, randomly kicking his horse into a gallop that Esca would struggle to catch up with. And though the blond Britain was well aware of how risky this was for their child, he quelled his desire to spit protests at his lover with the thought that – should the rogue warriors catch up to them – all three of them would die.

Eventually, after a moment or so, Marcus would slow his horse, frustratedly placing a hand on his middle as if torn by the urges both to run and walk.

The forest was unforgiving; the trails were still muddy from the storm, and low hanging, water soaked limbs made for difficult maneuvering.

When Marcus turned to call out to him from the front of the trail, Esca was stunned momentarily by a gash over his brow than was trickling blood down his face from where a branch had caught him.

"Esca, do you hear me!"

Esca blinked. "Forgive me, Marcus. Your blood is a ghastly sight to me," he snapped pointedly, "You will need stitches for that wound."

Marcus rolled his eyes. "It is a scratch."

"Then you will need stitches for that scratch."

Marcus turned, giving up on whatever he'd intended to say in the first place. "I will have my stitches in Rome," he snarled, kicking his heels into his horse's flanks.

Esca clenched his jaw, knowing Marcus was right. They couldn't stop. Not until they reached the wall.

When the wind hissed through the trees just right, it carried with it the sound of the Seal Peoples' dogs from miles away, hunting them.

To an untrained ear, it sounded as though they were constantly plagued by unseen creatures. Esca wondered for a moment if Marcus could hear it as well, or if he thought it a phantom of his own imagination. But the roman's knuckles were gripping the reigns till they paled white, and he would not allow himself to slow, even for the blood soaking now into his shirt.

So he knew, too, that they were indeed being hunted.

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But when Esca's horse, surprisingly, was the first to collapse heaving in a clearing, he did not collapse alone. Marcus fell to his knees in the muddy field, having stepped off his horse to help his lover. Esca, still tangled in his horse's reigns, felt his eyes widen as he writhed free, clawing at the damp grassy earth until he had pulled himself into a run.

"MARCUS," he yelled, reaching him before he fell back to the ground. He strained to hold him upright, but managed to lower him to the grass gently.

"Marcus, my love," he whispered hoarsely, shaking his shoulder. Resting a hand on his jaw line, he pulled back one of his eye lids to reveal an unseeing stare, then leaned the side of his face over Marcus's pale, wind chapped lips, and listened.

He was breathing. His Roman was unconscious, but he was breathing.

After the initial warmth of relief had been replaced by a second dark sinking fear, Esca used both hands to pull up Marcus's shirt, placing an ear to his stomach.

A faint beating stirred inside.

Exhaling loudly, Esca was surprised to feel his fingertips shaking as he gently pulled Marcus's shirt back into place. And he calmed himself by gathering the unconscious Roman into his arms, dragging his large torso up until Marcus's powerfully broad shoulders were were resting against his chest. And in the dreadfully silent clearing, with not one bird calling from the hundreds of trees surrounding them, Esca held Marcus in his arms...

And waited.

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When Marcus woke, he was vaguely aware that the sky above him was moving. He was moving. He was stretched out on his back on a woolen blanket, over an uncomfortably stiff wooden surface. A wagon cart. Who was driving it? Where was Esca?

Immediately, Marcus tried to raise up into a sitting position, only to feel an uncomfortable swell in his head and a protesting lurch from the baby.

"Lie still, Marcus," said a raspy but kind voice. Marcus flinched at the sound, realizing that an old man was only an arm's reach behind him, peering over his shoulder at him curiously as he held the reigns in wrinkled by steady hands. Two mules, lazily flicking flies with their tails, were pulling Marcus and the old man. "Best be ready to hide, should we meet a stranger on the road."

The road was flat and well worn, with tufts of tall grass stubbornly growing in the center between the two wheel ruts. Dense trees on either side cast them in shadow so that the open sky at the end made a tunnel like illusion. And after swiveling his head around, Marcus was certain Esca was not on the road with them.

"Where is my companion?" Marcus sputtered, trying to recall his last memory with uncertainty. There was a haze over his thoughts.

The old man shrugged with a sort of half smile, "He is to join us after dark falls in the valley. So he says."

Marcus stared at him blankly. "Who are you?"

The man grinned to himself as if flattered, "Me? My name is Tallius. I am no one. I am a farmer and occasionally an inn keeper for oddly shapen travelers like yourself."

"You jest at my form?" Marcus quipped, feeling his skin heat up.

The old man did not take his eyes off the road, "Your form? No, my son, I jest at the humor the gods must find in sending me another... of that which I should never have seen in a lifetime."

"What is your meaning?" Marcus pulled suddenly at his shirt, as if to hide the obvious roundness on his torso. When he looked up, Tallius was glancing back at him again.

"I do not think you could hide such a swelling, even if your shirt fit as it should," He chuckled. "And certainly not if your hands protect it in your sleep, which yours do..."

Upon seeing the frustration heating behind Marcus's weary eyes, the old man explained.

"I live just close enough to wall to speak this language with you now. But be not mistaken, I am no Roman," he sighed staring long down the empty winding forest road. "I will never be a Roman."

"You do not fancy our military ambitions?" Marcus frowned curiously.

The man shook his head. "I have met many exiles from your country, my friend, as many find their wandering ways to my farm. I have met Christian heretics, escaped slaves, and would be emperors who were cast out of Rome and hunted by fearful rulers.. But oddly enough I have also encountered a man with child, who had escaped in the night through Hadrian's wall."

Marcus's lips parted in surprise, "He was indeed pregnant, this man? You are sure of it?"

"I am certain, my friend," he exhaled, an unreadable expression crossing his features. "So you are not as alone as you must feel."

Marcus shook his head, promising himself that he would interrogate the old man on the issue later. "I feel most alone without my companion, Esca," he muttered. "Did he say when he would return?"

Tallius shifted until he was facing him again, "We are heading to my home, just north of Hadrian's Wall, where he will meet us after dark."

"You must know that we are being hunted, then, Tallius," Marcus said slowly. "Myself, Esca, and this child."

"I do indeed," Tallius said grimly, "I had heard of the pregnant male roman slave and his treachorous lover weeks ago through gossip... but only last night did two bounty hunters appear at my door. Seems they were called in from the western coast to track the pair while the Seal People held a proper funeral..."

"Ikaro and Jamus," Marcus realized.

"And so your blonde friend knew you would be tracked to my home," Tallius changed the subject quickly, seemingly to keep Marcus's thoughts from dwelling on the bounty men. "He galloped into the woods with the horses to lead them on a false trail."

"Sounds like Esca," he muttered. But the Roman's hands were wringing anxiously as he sat and stared down the road, and Tallius could see that his words were useless to Marcus's feeling of sudden isolation.

"Do not worry yourself into harming your child, Marcus, from what I understand, you had fainted in the clearing where I found you both. I would not wish you to do so in my care..."

Marcus bit the inside of his cheek and did not reply. Fainted? Staring suddenly at his hands, the Roman tried to remember. He could feel the dried blood on his brow, and he remembered arguing about the cut. He remembered Esca's horse collapsing and then...

Nothing.

An uneasy feeling gripped his gut like a coiling snake, and even the baby seemed to squirm uncomfortably. He had fainted? Marcus had never fainted in his entire life, and here, on the run from savages, in unclaimed territory at the worst possible moment – he had fainted? He lay back down against the woolen blanket, pulling his arms tight around himself in embarrassment. How much more of his dignity would this pregnancy cost him?

And what if Esca didn't return by nightfall?

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Eeeek! WILL Esca be able to return? Can Tallius be trusted? And why is Tallius risking his life to help them? Can't wait for y'all to figure that one out, it's gonna be kind of a jaw dropper if I decide to go with what I'd originally imagined... Mwahahahhaha!

Tune in text time, folks! Please review, I love reviews... They make me grin like a fool.

-AW&HL