My sincerest apologies for the length of time that this chapter took to get out. I have pretty excuses that I could lay at your feet, but they would just be excuses. Additionally, this is possibly the last chapter that you will receive until December. The reason, my fair lords and ladies, is that NaNo is upon us. National November Writer's month, and I have a WIP that I have been avoiding for far too long to write fanfiction. Wish me luck and maybe you'll get another chapter on All Hallows Eve as I hand out candy to the kiddies.

Chapter 12 - A Man's Honor

Lykopis had spent the better part of her morning glaring out from the overhang of the forge. The Roman woman was out there, walking through the different venders, fawning over the finer quality products and turning her nose up at anything that she could have found in higher quality in her precious Rome. And yet, it wan't her that Lykopis wanted to kill.

Dinadan walked beside her, a wide smile on his face, as the woman lead him around, showing him the different riches of her little market. She had aged, and the wrinkles around her eyes made Lykopis chuckle the first time she'd seen them. The skin hung loose around her chin and arms, and her hands were pale and wrinkled. Yet Dinadan looked to her as if the sun somehow shined from her dark hole.

It was nauseating.

"Ya buyin' something or you leaving?" a voice called from within the forge, and she winced. She had been haunting its shadows for the better part of the morning without stepping inside. Ethris had never stood for such loitering before. It was a wonder that it had taken him so long to lose his patience.

When she had first seen the smithy, still standing and still with Ethris's symbol on the overhang, it had warmed a part in her that she would not admit to.

"If you're not buying, leave before I make ya," that voice was as strong as ever but laced with age. Only half thinking, she pulled her ruck sack off of her back and fishing around to the very bottom. Clutching a soft velvet bundle, she pulled it out, and from within the folds, came a delicate metal chain and a deep black stone. Obsidian, he'd told her all those years ago, and the only think dark enough to remind him of her eyes. He'd given it to her to make good on a debt he'd thought he'd owned. Maybe he'd take it as payment.

A man's honor was a powerful thing.

"I'm in the market for a new sword," she said easily, turning away from the crowd, turning away from Dinadan. Her weight of her mother's sword had been missed since it had fallen into the ice.

"If its any sword your after, I have a few finished, but you don't look big enough to lift them girl," he said. When she ducked under the door frame and into the darkness, she saw he hadn't even turned from his forge. He was still a large man, with broad shoulders and large arms, but he had bent in his age. As if life had beaten upon his back until it had forced him forward.

The corner Jaris had once occupied was eerily empty. The boy had only not sat in his chair when he'd been in too much pain to sit.

"I don't buy anything from stock, and I have the time to wait."

"Custom is expensive, especially for little girls that cannot wield a blade," he said firmly. She chuckled at that. It had been the same thing he had said to her all those years ago, when she'd first entered his shop.

"I have payment," she responded. "And I am very specific. I will not buy anything that is not exact. I've heard you're the best for custom work, but if I am wrong, there is a smithy across town."

Of course, she'd been to that smithy the first time she'd been there. His work was passable, but it lacked the finesse that a weapon needed to be both lethal and beautiful. Her aesthetics had been the reason she had come to him instead all those years ago.

"Give me a moment, girl, and we'll talk," he said as he shifted something within the flames. Lykopis nodded and settled down against a small table. It was built solidly, with none of the craftsmanship that he showed his weaponry, but it was branded with his mark as well.

As she sat in the heat, she studied him. He was still a great man, she could see, but there was a weight to him that he should not have held. As he shifted his work from the heat and laid it on end in a barrel of water, she marveled at the site. A long blade, nearly as long as he was, and the span of two of his palms wide. It was a weapon she had never seen before, and with the way he heaved it, she wondered at what type of man could wield it with any success.

"Alright, girl, what blade are you looking for? A short sword perhaps. A short saber?" he looked at her once quickly as he wiped his hands, but his eyes soon returned. A line creased his brow as if he was studying her, and in a moment, she stood, drawing the scabbard of her mother's sword from her hip.

"My weapon was lost in battle," she said, holding the scabbard out in front of her, over her palms. "I was accustomed to its weight and size, but it was awkward in my hands."

"Not made for you," he said, reaching out to take the scabbard. He studied it was a practiced eye. "Old and Amazonian, if my eyes aren't failing."

"They aren't," Lykopis agreed.

"Not made for you," he said. "Too broad for the length. I would have to see the handle to know if it fit your hands."

"It didn't," she admitted. The grip had been too small for her, but her mother had always been a delicate woman. Powerful and dangerous, but delicate. She glanced down at her own hands. Her fingers were longer than she recalled her mother's being narrower. Her palms were wider as well.

"You'll want the same build?" he asked. "I could-"

"No!" Lykopis said before she'd even made the decision. "No," she amended when he glared down at her. "Something else. Something that's-"

"Yours," he cut her off in turn. "Stay here, I have some models we will begin with."

"I have something else for you," she said before he could disappear. She pulled the new wolf claws and the broken harness from her ruck sack.

"What is..." he crossed back to her quickly, taking the weapon in hand and studying it for a long moment. "Just replace the claws?" he asked, and she nodded. "We will make you a sword as yours as these are."

"I would expect no less from you, Ethris," she said easily. He eyed her a moment before nodding and disappearing into a storeroom at the back of his forge. When he returned, her claws were no longer with him, and he had three swords in hand.

One was similar to her mother's in shape and size, and when he laid it across her hands, it felt wrong immediately. The balance was perfect, the hilt the appropriate side and width. There was no flaw in the design and yet, she had only given it a half spin to warm up her wrist before it was snatched from her and another put in its place.

This was lighter, narrow and elegant with nearly more of a point than an edge. She was a slasher. She was quick and delicate, but not so delicate. The blade was designed for poking holes, not tearing them. She was not naive enough to believe she could use such a weapon. She did not even rotate it in her hand before handing it back.

The final was reminiscent of Tristram's blade, delicate but deadly with a wicked edge that could be brought through flesh as if through silk. The weight of it was as perfect as the balance had been on the first two. As she brought it around in her wrist and finally across her in a quick slash maneuver, she'd made up her mind. It was comfortable, and it reminded her of the back up blade that Tristram had lent her. It could be used with just one hand, should she need her claws, and it fit her style of warfare.

"That then," Ethris said, taking it from her with an easy hand and laying it across his forge. "Short for you though. Your limbs are long enough to handle another inch at least."

"Two," she amended, and he gave her a look before agreeing and making marks on a sheet of parchment.

"I only work in quality. You'll not find a weak steel here, and that will force up the price," he said. "Whatever you decide on the pommel and cross guard will change the price. I don't work for free."

He looked up at her with a stern look.

"I have gold, but I have something you might be more interested in having back," she said, drawing the necklace from her pocket and dangling it out at the tips of her fingers. He gave it a fleeting glance before fixing it with a long stare. He reached out a hand and took the large black stone from her with shaking fingers. The stone was dwarfed by his hand, and it was only her presence that drew him from the study of it.

"I gave this to a girl years ago," he said, rubbing his thumb over the stone. "You've grown up."

"I have," she agreed. "That happens in fifteen years."

"Fifteen..." he trailed off before erupting into laughter. In one great burst of movement, he'd stepped forward and enveloped her in a hug that lifted her feet from the ground and made her spine creak and crack.

"Easy, Ethris," she said awkwardly, arms bound down at her sides. He'd always been a tactile man, throwing an arm over her shoulders roughly or cuffing her on the back of the head in a huff. Hugs were not something that Lykopis was overly comfortable with, but the joy in him was unquestionable.

"Ly," he said, setting her back down. "You should have said something sooner. I'd not have given you as much trouble."

"It's good to see you as well," she said, eyes flickering around the forge. "Although, it is more empty than I remember." His face fell from a jovality that was unrivaled to a grief that was all encompassing.

"It is," he admitted. "Jaris has been gone for three weeks."

"Gone," she repeated the word.

"One of the nobles," Ethris spat the word as if it had burned his tongue. "Jaris was crossing the bridge outside of town. He had been out there. The miller's daughter took a shine to him, but he was uneasy on the bridge with his leg."

"He fell," Lykopis finished for him.

"He was helped to fall," Ethris said, voice still the dark of a storm over the Crimea. He stood and walked to the door, glaring out into the light of day. His dark eyes found Dinaden and for a moment, Lykopis felt something squeeze in her stomach. He was holding up a silk for his lady, draping it around her head and shoulders.

"Din wouldn't-"

"The woman's Commander husband," Ethris said darkly. "Always on his horse, that man, but there are ways to bring a man from a horse before his guards can kill you."

"Ethris-"

"I am alone, Lykopis. My wife is gone. My daughter was taken by the sea. My son was taken by a Roman. Let an old man have his peace." He fell silent then, and Lykopis could not find the strength to argue.

-A Man's Honor-

Tristram was uneasy. Riding was not friendly to his still queasy stomach, and Arthur was still more pale than anything. Dagonet was a silent sentinel, and the Lark was doing far more glaring at him than he was comfortable with.

Of course, it might have had something to do with his refusal to allow her to lead her own horse, but that was beside the point. It also might have had something to do with the fact that they had been riding for three days since they were attacked and still they were too far from the sea. Too far from a wolf that watched their backs and ended the lives of those that might have put a blade in them.

It was sobering, realizing that he relied on her presence so heavily. He normally didn't feel the uneasiness, mostly because he had more of his brothers around him. As much as he enjoyed being on his own, he also enjoyed knowing that the rest were together and had each other for support. Out here, on their own, it was just Arthur and Dagonet.

"Another day and we should make the harbor," Dagonet said from beside him. The soft strength in that voice was settling, and Tristram nodded. "Your wolf will be fine."

"She is not my wolf," Tris said just as easily. "But it wouldn't hurt to have someone watching your ass."

"My ass isn't what she's interested in," Dag said with the shadow of a smile. It was that smile that stopped Tristram's sharp tongue. "I wouldn't be in such a hurry."

"Eh?" Tris grunted.

"Imagine Lykopis and the Lark within striking distance," the big man said with a huff of laughter. Tris had to agree. That would be an interesting meeting, one that hopefully would go smoothly.

Of course, he was traversing Roman land, on a Roman horse with an ex-Roman slave on the same type of horse tethered to his saddle. His luck, or lack there of, had never listened to his wishes in the past.

The sun was rising behind them as they pushed the horses across a wide open plane. Per Dagonet, they were only an hours ride from the port. Arthur had been itching to settle into an inn with an actual bed. Tristram had agreed but spent the better part of the morning poking at the fact that Arthur had grown soft in Rome.

Lark had been remarkably quiet as they rode, and her sharp eyes darted back and forth with more and more agitation the further west they went. Finally, when the sea-side town came into view, she pulled hard on the reigns, forcing the beast beneath her up on hind legs. It gave an angry shriek and the maneuver nearly sent Tristram's own horse to ground.

"What are you doing?" Arthur drew his horse up quickly and brought it around his eyes finding Tristram's to assure that he was alright.

"I am not a moron," she spat, sliding off the side of her horse. Her hands were unbound, and the short sword at her hip made them all uncomfortable.

"I did not say you were," Arthur countered. "But if you don't tell me why you're-"

"I know where this is," she said, cutting him off mid sentence. "I am not so dull to not remember where she lives. You bought my life, Arthur Castus, and you promised to free it once we were on your land. You lie like the Romans!"

"Arthur is a man of his word," Dagonet said, voice firm and unwavering, as if simply by stating it, it was law.

"Then you're more thick than you look," she spat. She paced as she spoke, legs eating up wide pieces of ground with each aggressive step. She looked nothing like a Lark then, Tristram though. She looked the part of a cornered predator. "I won't be her lark. I won't be his whore, and you'll have to kill me before I do either."

"Calm down," Tristram said easily, sliding out of the saddle. "We do not stay here. We make for Briton on the first vessel."

"You make for Briton on the first vessel with a coin purse for your troubles of delivering home a wayward slave!" she drew that sword at her hip, held out in front of her with an ease that only came with using it day after day for years. Dag's big long sword was unsheathed in a moment, and he was on the ground, between Arthur and Lark.

"Put it away, girl," he commanded. "You're making a fool of yourself."

"Better than letting you make a fool of me," she spat, dropping into a stance that they had seen her hold in the arena. It was a dangerous thing, unstudied but ready. "Kill me, send me to the dark gate, and ride along. You never found me in Rome."

"Enough!" Arthur shouted from atop his horse. "I told you that you would live to see freedom on Briton's soil. I made you this promise. I let you ride unbound, and I left a weapon in your hands. Do not repay my trust with bloodshed."

"Then do not repay mine with lies!" she shouted, taking a half step backward, eyes flickering between Arthur and Dagonet before finally settling on Tristram.

"This is where you were a slave," Tristram said after a pause. It was there, in the look of her eyes, that cornered and desperate look. The look of a predator turned into prey. Those dark eyes slid over him for a moment and then away, as if the admission was too much to swallow while looking at him. "You're not going to any Roman's villa, girl. You're going to Briton. You'll find a difference."

"This is true," Arthur said more than asked, but she nodded despite herself. There was a relaxing in her then, in the tension to her spine. "We will be there but a week before the next ship. If you'd prefer, you can camp outside of town."

"I would prefer to never see its like again," Lark snapped. "You swear to me, Artorius Castus, you swear to my on your precious honor, and if I am convinced, I will not kill you in your sleep."

"If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it days ago, when I was unconscious, Tristram was ill and Dagonet was too far away to have been any help to me." Arthur frowned at her a long moment. "We're wasting time here." He turned in the saddle and kicked his heels into the side of the horse he rode.

Dagonet looked at her a long moment before giving a grunt of disgust and sheathing his sword. "Should put the sword to her and be done with it."

"Eh," Tristram grunted. "No blood."

"Not this time," Dagonet agreed as he climbed into the saddle. Behind them, Lark still stood, hand on her sword and staring after them as if a child, lost.

"Mount up," Tris told her as he hauled himself up into his own saddle.

"I could not be that person years ago; I have not grown so much that I could do it now," she said, voice softer than anything he'd ever heard from her.

"No one asks this," he said easily and gave a tug on the rope that connected their horses. Considering it for a moment, he drew a his dagger and severed it, letting the end fall to the grass. "If something goes wrong, you run, in whatever direction you choose. Remember though, that Arthur is a good man, and there are few of them in the world."

The Lark mounted up, drew the rope up so it did not drag, and followed them across the last of the plain.

-A Man's Honor-

Lykopis held a length of steel in her hands, watching as Ethris measured the length and marked the steel with a piece of coal. "Palms," he commanded, taking the length from her. Across them, he rested a strip of fabric, measuring the span of them.

"Are you going to tell me what you're doing?" she asked. After they'd spoken about the blade itself and the style, he'd told her that her choice in the structure was over, that he was taking his right as the creator to finish the aesthetics. She supposed, if it pleased him, she could give him that. He'd spent the better part of three days alternating between her sword and that giant of a weapon that he had gotten the schematics of from a traveling tradesman.

She doubted that he'd stopped to sleep, but there was an energy to him that she could not deny.

"No," he said firmly. "You'll see in a week's time."

"A week?" she asked. Before, his work had taken days at a time, less for some of the early models of Bors's daggers.

"One week," he said firmly. "Do not rush art."

"I need a blade, not art," she countered.

"And I am telling you that a good blade is art." He paused. "Unless you'd like one of the stock blades."

"Fine," she conceded in a huff. Outside, it was another bright day, and she had seen Dinaden twice as he walked through the market on his daily tour with his mistress.

"You should speak with him," Ethris said from the forge.

"And say what?" she asked. "Hello, if you remember, I lived with you in a forest. We made a blood pact we both broke. Tristram misses you?"

"If that is what you think you should say," Ethris said, but there was a tone in his voice that was half humor and half disbelief.

"I don't think I should say anything," she groused, glaring out into the heat of the day. "I think I should take that giant slayer of yours and put it through his head." Ethris chuckled behind her a long moment.

"That is meant for one man," he said. "Only one man."

"I will say something nice when they put you under the dirt," Lykopis countered. She glared over her shoulder at him as he worked at his forge.

"Sing something bawdy," he corrected her. "And have a drink for me."

"No," Lykopis growled back at him. She followed Din with her eyes as he walked through a silk stall with the woman. She was, if it was possible, older looking today. "Dagonet!" she said, and before Ethris could turn, she was gone from the forge.

Lykopis wove her way through the crowd, toward the large bald head that had turned away from her and made toward the docks. It was easy to move through crowds, it always had been. She was quick on her feet and people tended to avoid her when she glared at them. Of course, she couldn't cut a crowd like Dagonet could, but that was beside the point.

She made the docks a few minutes after he did, and she could easily spot his broad back as he discussed with one of the dock men. He was a stoic man, she mused, but something had angered him. His fists were clenched at his sides and there was a tension to his shoulders that had not been there before.

"The three men I told you about," she said as she approached. "One woman and three men for the coin I gave you plus labor on the vessel. Are we to have a problem?" she asked.

"You are with the wolf," the man said and smiled. "Ly is always welcome on my boat. A diligent worker, this girl. One more will be more rations though, more coin."

"We recruiting?" Lykopis asked, and Dagonet simply shook his head. "I know Tristram didn't talk to Din."

"Arthur purchased a slave while in Rome," Dagonet spat the words as if they tasted sour on his tongue.

"Arthur purchased...your Roman commander afterall," Lykopis snarled and left him to speak with the dock hand. Dagonet shouted something after her, but she ignored it. He did not pursue her, and if he'd had, she might have used the thin dagger at her hip on him. So in love with their Roman commander that they couldn't see that he'd just purchased another person to live and die by his order. That he'd purchased their lives with his Roman status.

She ducked under the overhang to the forge and kicked at a bucket that sat in her way. It tumbled sideways and flipped, sending small pieces of metal tumbling out into the dirt.

"Someone is throwing a child's tantrum," Ethris said from his work table. He was drilling holes in the claws to attach them, and he didn't even stop his work to look up at her.

"Arthur Castus has purchased a slave while away in Rome," Lykopis said darkly.

"And he will purchase the lives of many more men and women before his time as a leader is through," Ethris said easily. "There are many reasons to purchase a slave."

"Would you buy a life?" Lykopis snarled, turning toward him.

"I would if it meant saving it," he replied, finally turning away from his work to look at her. His dark eyes caught hers firmly. "You have spent the last three weeks convincing me of Arthur Castus's good qualities. Were you making up stories?"

"Men play at being better than they are," she said, turning away from his dark, accusatory eyes. "I should know better than-"

"When you were a child," Ethris cut her off. "I understood the mistrust of the world, the ease with which you jumped to conclusions. As an adult, I had hoped that you'd grown past that." He fell silent and went back to his work. Lykopis stared moodily out into the day. The long blade that Ethris had been working on for so long was complete and leaning against the doorway. She considered it a moment, considered pushing it over for spite. A childish gesture, she was sure, one that she might have done if he hadn't just chastised her.

Out in the market, something was brewing, and it took her a good long while to recognize the high maned red horse hair helmets of the Roman mounted guard.

"Someone important is in the market," she observed, and in a moment, Ethris was beside her, his big hand closing around the handle of the blade.

"Military," he agreed before going quiet. His sharp eyes studied them for a long while before his hand slipped from the handle and he returned to his work bench. "Not yet," he said firmly.

"If you're eager to die, just sit there and I'll get one of your blades and put it through your chest," Lykopis said.

"It's not an eagerness to die. It is an eagerness to see justice," he corrected. "I am an old man, Lykopis. My wife is gone to childbirth. My daughter has been lost to the sea. My son was taken from me by that Roman." He paused, drawing a long breath as if it would strengthen him. "I have my forge and I have my trade. I would trade them both for the freedom that the shadow of my family casts over my head."

"Family is good at that," she said darkly, turning back toward the market place.

-A Man's Honor-

Lark was pacing outside of the city gate, glaring at Tristram as he snickered at her discomfort. They had been on the edge of the city for three days. Arthur and Dagonet were in town, making preparations. Tris had his own preparations to make, and Lark had insisted that she would not be left tied to a saddle.

The hoof beats of Roman horses sounded on the road behind them, and Lark flinched, turning her back to the caravan as it passed through. Tristram did not hide the amusement in his eyes at her discomfort.

"Quiet or I'll cut the tongue from your head," she snarled, shouldering past him. He followed in the shadow of her footsteps, one hand resting comfortably on the hilt of his sword.

"It hasn't changed," Lark murmured as the road led into the town, becoming the main street that passed along one side of the market. The venders had all changed, surely enough, but there were still silks and cottons weaves, men selling leatherware and vegetables. If she sniffed, she was sure she could smell the savory scent of meat being roasted somewhere within the market.

"Nothing really changes," Tris said easily from beside her, eyes combing through the market at a lazy pace.

"No, I suppose it really does-"

"What?" he asked, catching the sharp off cut of her words and the stiffening of her back. He did not miss the way that her hand strayed to one of the daggers that she had on her person before she moved forward through the crowd, slipping between people as easily as if she'd done it all her life. "Lark!" he shouted after her, but she did not pause, did not turn.

He pushed his way through the crowd, but the woman was smaller and the people did not move for him as they seemed to for her.

"Ethris!" A familiar voice shouted from not far away. There was a shout and an ear splitting scream from a horse a half moment later. He was relieved when he finally managed to push his way through the crowd, finding her standing back, the dagger loosely in her hand, face slack with shock. She stood on the edge of an empty ring of space, only occupied by a dead horse, laying motionless on its side, a monster of a blade buried through its neck and upward, into the belly of his rider.

A man stood not two paces off, staring with a look of determination on his face. The rider groaned low once before blood bubbled up from his mouth and to the cobblestone ground below.

"No!" a woman screeched, and a few moments later, a Roman woman was pushing her way through the ring of bystanders. Her hair was long, curling around her in grey streaked waves. There were lines around her eyes and mouth, declaring her age even before the sagging in her arms and the wrinkles in her hands. Her face was contorted in agony at the site before her, and she fell to her knees in a pool of the blood, bright red and turning the dirt between the cobblestones to mud.

"What's going on here?" another asked, and Tristram did not need to see him to know him. Dinadan had always sounded the same, and when he came into view, there was no doubt in his mind. There was no doubt, but there was disgust as he knelt beside the woman, hands on her shoulders in a comforting gesture, the gesture of a lover.

"That's..." Lark trailed off as she stared at the woman. "Marggoria."

"Who is-"

"Arrest him!" the Roman woman shouted, thrusting one bloodied hand out at the aging man. "Take his head for this!" There were no tears running down her face. The sorrow had vanished, and in its stead was rage.

"Ethris!" the name was said again in that familiar voice, and in a moment, Lykopis was in front of the elderly man, her claws tight against her hand, completely repaired. The hood was pulled down over her eyes in such a way that he had not seen in weeks. She looked through the eyes of the wolf at the four men who came through the crowd toward the big man.

"Ly, no," the elderly man said, reaching one hand forward to grip her shoulder only to close around air. The men came forward, meeting her halfway. A short blade, half made and unbalanced came forward in her other hand, and was buried into the chest of one of the guards.

"Damn it, Lykopis," Tristram murmured, moving forward only to be pushed back as Lark lunged forward, toward the Roman woman, who still knelt in blood. The Roman guard's body hit the ground just as Lark threw herself forward, that dagger in her hand as deadly as the half sword in Lykopis's.

Tris did not know what happened then, in that next moment, because he could only see Dinadan sitting there, looking over his shoulder at the Lark, who had given some sort of war cry that the scout's ears did not hear. Din between the Bloody Lark and the Roman. Lykopis between the man and three guards. Tristram's entire life there, torn in two directions and begging the end of everything.

Another moment of deafness and paralysis. Another Roman on the ground, his throat ripped out. Dinanadan pinned beneath the Lark, that blade at his throat, something snarling out past her clenched teeth. Her eyes were not on him though, as he lay there, struggling against that knife, but on the Roman woman.

His hand found the hilt of his sword, and in a moment, it was free. People fled from his side quickly, and he took half a step before that grey wolf pelt was in front of him, tackling Lark sideways and rolling with her for a moment before they separated, Lark rolling forward a few more feet. Tris glanced over to the two other Roman guards, both dead on the ground before taking a step forward, hands outstretched, one holding his sword in a gesture that was lost as long as the blade was there.

"That is enough!" Came a shout from the crowd that parted as though shocked. Arthur came through the path they made, face a stoic mask of command, Dagonet at his side. The big man gave Tristram a brief nod of recognition as he slid forward, pushing Lark behind him with one strong hand. The woman hissed something at him but went, tucking the dagger into her side.

"God be good," the Roman woman said, rolling her eyes toward the heavens a moment. "Sir, this man has slain my lord husband. You must-"

"I must do nothing," Arthur said firmly. "I have no legal power in this land, and I will not step into a responsibility that I do not have." His dark eyes found Lykopis and he shook his head slightly. "I would have thought better of you."

"Ethris is my friend, and fool though he is, I will not watch him die here."

"Ly, I know the consequences, and I am-"

"A damned fool!" she shouted, turning back toward him and brandishing the sorry excuse for a sword at him before tossing it at his feet.

"This man must die," the Roman woman said firmly. Blood dripped from the front of her dress and her arms.

"For killing a man that killed his son?" Lykopis growled, turning back toward her, those claws of her tight against her knuckles. Tristram did not miss the uneasy way that she held herself, the willingness to be there, in front of a man he did not know. To defend Dinadan, a man neither of them knew any longer.

"Is this true?" Arthur asked the woman.

"My husband kills many men. It is his divine right."

"No one has the divine right to kill," Lark said from behind Dagonet. "Just like no one has the divine right to enslave." She stepped around the big man, and Dinadan stood quickly, putting himself between the woman and Lark.

"Stand down, fool," Lykopis growled at him, and he glared over his shoulder at her.

"You didn't command me before; you don't command me now," he said.

"She saved you from a woman," Tristram said darkly, annoyance flaring low in his stomach. Dinadan ignored Tris and took a step back, wrapping his arm around the aging woman beside him.

"Such a pretty Roman bird, sitting in a cage, singing the song she was taught to sing," Lark said, voice light and teasing, that dagger still at her side, though sheathed.

"I am not a bird," the woman said, chest puffing out.

"But you'd like to keep a bird, right? Keep a bird in a cage?"

"That is enough," Arthur said, turning toward her.

"Leave Maggoria alone!" Din told her, face a dark scowl. "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but if you're not going to see justice, then leave a widow to mourn. Take your men and leave the people to their own justice."

Tristram scoffed under his break and shook his head at that. Lykopis turned and fixed him with a look that blatantly said See? And this is what I lived with.

"Come," Arthur said firmly to his people. "We will camp on the outskirts of town until the ship is prepared. I suggest, sir, that you accompany my men." He considered Ethris for a moment with a stern face. "We can speak of what happened once cooler heads have prevailed. Lark, Lykopis, you two will come with me."

"She goes nowhere," Dinadan insisted, pointing at Lark, who stared at him, a smirk on her lips and her hand on the hilt of that dagger again.

"Ready to die, boy?" she asked, only to grunt as Dagonet closed a hand around her shoulder and tugged her backward after Arthur, who had ignored Dinadan's demand and was walking away.

"Get your blade before we leave," Ethris said to Lykopis as he followed Arthur. The wolf nodded once and disappeared back through the crowd that parted for her. The forge was not far, and she had taken the blade, her pack and as many of Ethris's things that she could before heading toward the door. The obsidian stone flickered in her mind, and she turned back, rustling through a chest of his things before coming up with the stone necklace.

She slipped out of town and ringed around the outskirts until she found where Arthur had made his camp. By the time she arrived, Arthur was standing in front of the woman, speaking to her in a low voice. She glared at the woman a long moment before stepping out from around their horses to stand beside Tristram.

"I do not like her," she said easily, glaring at the woman.

"She won't like you," he retorted with a smile. "I don't think she likes anyone."

"Dinadan's head is even further up his ass than I had thought."

"He will learn," Tristram said, lips in a tight frown. "He only learns when there is pain involved, and I...well, he'll learn."

"She'd have killed him," Lykopis said, glaring at the woman again.

"She has killed many men, and many men would have killed her, given the chance." Tristram shrugged a shoulder, as if the idea was just another cloud, casting a shadow over the land.

"That's Arthur's slave," Lykopis realized and scowled at the commander.

"Eh," Tristram said, catching her attention. He cuffed her lightly in the back of her head and pulled the hood up across her eyes again. "Arthur saved her life, and a wolf doesn't fear a lark."

"A wolf fears nothing," she agreed, staring out the eyes of the animal. "A lark?"

"She refused to sing for a Roman woman when she was taken as a slave. As punishment, they sent her to Rome to fight in an arena. She has forgotten her name, and she is as comfortable with Lark as any other thing."

"The Roman woman's slave?" Lykopis asked, but she was nodding as if she already knew. "She didn't want Dinadan, he was just in the way."

"Arthur is speaking to her. He gave me the distinct privilege to keep you here until he has his turn with you."

"With me?" she asked.

"You killed four guards and stood between them and a man that killed a Roman Commander." Tristram smiled down at her. "You didn't think that was going to be forgotten?"

"Arthur is not my commander. He is not my owner or my lord." She turned from him and clenched a fist, drawing the claws against her skin.

"No, but I am the man that kept you from being killed," Arthur said, far closer than she had last noticed him. He had left Lark to stand beside Dagonet a short way off, across a burned out campfire.

"I am more difficult to kill than you'd imagine," she countered, glaring at him. "She wouldn't have killed me, just as those guards didn't."

"And some day, maybe I will stand by and allow that battle to finish someday, but today, I need you to keep a level head. When we're back on Briton soil, we'll settle your differences."

"I have no difference to settle, as long as she leaves Dinadan alone," Lykopis said loud enough that her voice would carry. The other woman glanced at her a moment before Dagonet nudged her firmly in the shoulder. Finally, she nodded, her wild hair falling forward across one of her shoulders.

"I have nothing to settle with a love sick girl," she said, a smirk on her lips. Lykopis narrowed her eyes behind her mask. "Poor thing doesn't know when her lover is fucking a Roman whore." Lykopis shook her head and glared at Tristram.

"I still don't like her," she said and turned away to listen to Ethris explain his situation to Arthur. Tris watched after her, a frown drawing the corners of his lips down for a moment. Vaguely, he was aware of Dagonet reaching out and snapping his hand against the back of Lark's head.

"The wolves don't mind his smell overmuch," Dagonet said. A short silence followed before Dag's rough laughter sounded.