Hey, guess what, mates. Remember how I said there was another fandom I was writing a story for that was competing for the teeny tiny amount of time that I have with this one? Well I finished it, only for something else to barge in and take its place. But I've written over 8000 words since the last update, so I'm catching some headway! :D And I'm updating twice today because you guys are oh so loyal and I promised actual interesting stuff, which I am giving in both chapters! Enjoy!

~14~ Birds and Bees

Halt opened his eyes that morning hearing the same sounds he'd heard the previous night. The constant wailing of the distant yet imminent Cliffs of Clamour. They were louder, however, as there was a northbound wind, carrying the eerie din to the four companions.

"Papa, wassat?" asked young Crowley sleepily. The boy had sat up and was rubbing his face with delicate little fists.

"Yeah, Halt. Wassat?" Horace, too, was awake, and he grinned toothily for his cheek.

Ignoring the knight, Halt stood slowly, gently stretching out stiffened limbs as he addressed his son.

"Those are the cliffs, boy. We soon approach them."

Gilan yawned, having fallen victim to the dawn watch, and let loose a shudder, as though shaking away the morning dew. He'd had to listen to the ruckus ever since the winds picked up, about two hours earlier. It almost reminded him of the stone flutes in the Solitary Plains – an endless, unnerving wail of the winds hitting the jagged faces of the cliffs, and not only that, but the raucous cacophony of thousands of seabirds, all cawing and squawking from the countless nests and nooks gouged into the ancient stone...

The sounds swelled with the rise of the breeze, and all three of them shivered inwardly. It was a ghostly sound, haunting and swollen with portentousness. Crowley, however, just looked into the sky in wonder, as though he could see the din floating on the wind.

"It noisy," he said simply.

Ϯ Ϯ Ϯ

Julius wanted to fall to his knees and weep. He wanted to throw up his hands and thank every god in the heavens. He wanted to light enormous fires in their honour and toss in entire feasts of food as sacrifice.

Will Treaty had awoken!

The Ranger began to stir in the early afternoon, the cool, refreshing sea breeze seeming to do wonders for his fever. He only shifted feebly in the hearse coffin, the lid still off to let in continuous fresh air, but that was enough to make Julius' heart sing like a sparrow. And just when haunting chorus of the Cliffs of Clamour were heard upon the winds.

The call for water was demanded, and Niccolò hastened forward with a pail and clean cloth. Julius dipped the cloth and wrung it over Will's parched lips, dripping a slight trickle of life-giving fluids into his mouth.

Will groaned and opened his eyes, glancing fleetingly about in confusion. Julius gave him more water, which he sipped greedily.

"More," he rasped as the Toscan stopped, but Julius shook his head.

"Not right now. How do you feel?"

"Thirsty."

"Besides that."

Will regarded the physician levelly, with a hint of vexation. "Like I'm going to die."

Julius leaned back, searching through his satchel. "It would seem that the wargal venom had a comeback. I've seen it before. A person that falls ill may seem to go on the mend, but then will suddenly perish, their body's defences deteriorating in just a few short days." He gave Will a wry smile. "Thank you for not succumbing to that."

Will's return smile was as warm as a glacier's core. "You're welcome."

"Signore, we must continue," Giovanni grunted. "The Sterna Argento is not going to wait beyond dusk tonight."

"But of course, you are right," said Julius loftily, elated by how previously problematic factors were coming together into his favour. "We must make haste. Il signor Septimus does not like to be kept waiting."

Will saw Julius disappear from his skyward view. He figured that he was back in the coffin, sitting on the rear of the hearse. The smell of freshly-picked wildflowers wafted around him, their tantalizing scent reminding him of home. Perhaps that was because one such flower, honeysuckle, was in great abundance, and he could always distinctly smell the sweet aroma whenever close enough to Alyss...

His trance was interrupted by a great, fat bee that buzzed drunkenly near his face, and he froze warily, waiting until it passed. Will listened, and heard several more bees helping themselves to the fresh wildflowers surrounding the coffin.

Then he allowed his hearing to expand further from the limits of the flowers. He frowned, catching the rising and falling of a raucous din, in sync with the pitch of wind. He couldn't place it, exactly, but if he was to hazard a guess, he would propose it to be birds. A thousand restless birds.

Will felt the urge to sit up, but it was as though he was trying to lift several lead weights with him. He detected the muffled orders that Niccolò was to wait on the hearse with Will to keep an eye on him, and then saw the gangly youth clamber aboard to sit beside the coffin, looking uncomfortable.

"What is the Stern Ar...Argenta...?" Will began.

"The Sterna Argento," Niccolò said hesitantly, his Toscan accent ringing thick. "The Silver Tern. It is our way off of Araluen."

A stir of apprehension ruffled unruly feathers in Will's chest. "How long?" he finally asked stickily; his voice was still rough from dehydration. His eyes watched yet another inquisitive bee until it vanished from view. He wasn't one for bees.

"No more than an hour or so. You should sleep." Niccolò looked away then, pretending to study the surrounding wood.

Sleep was sounding mighty fine right then, and the Ranger felt his eyelids sag closed. Maybe...just for a minute...

"Signore! Another king's patrol, heading our way!"

The cry was so loud and alarmed that Will's eyes snapped open in an instant, but he was yet too weak to sit up. He could only hear as the Toscans murmured nervously amongst each other, and Niccolò, sitting in the hearse over Will, was glancing about like a restless pigeon.

He heard Julius curse.

"From which direction?" he demanded of the scout.

"South, signore."

Another curse. "They're between us and the cove. Dannazione! And we are yet so close!"

Giovanni pushed in. "What is the problem, signore? All we must do is close the coffin and inject the Araluan swine with that foul concoction of yours again."

Will remembered the first time that had happened. He'd woken up from a living death, struggling to breathe, his tongue like a dead vole and his pulse weaker than a baby bird's. It was not a sensation he was willing to experience again. But he felt a flutter of hope at Julius' next words.

"He is still sick, idiota! If we put him under, he may not surface. Nay, he will not surface."

Giovanni's words grew tense. "Bash him on the head, then! He'll give us away to the Araluans if he isn't silenced, and we'll all be dead. It's our lives or his, Julius."

"Our lives are pointless without his!" the physician barked back.

"Signore, they come swiftly!" the scout persisted urgently.

Julius came to a decision. "Take your positions," he ordered. "Make yourselves look despaired. We shall bluff our way through, as we did before." As the Toscans scrambled to do his bidding, he himself clambered onto the hearse, dismissing Niccolò with a wave of his hand.

"You understand, Araluan," the physician hissed to Will, "that if you make so much as a peep, you will be condemning the lives of perhaps seven hapless men. You alert them to your presence, and we will have no choice but to slay them all." He casually smoothed the lapels of Will's disguise, a now useless ploy. "I'm sure you don't want that on your conscience, Ranger. I certainly wouldn't." He waved away a bee that had come to inspect his face, as was the curious disposition of bees, noticing for the first time how many had come to feast on the fresh wildflowers, picked as they were every morning so that they would continue to look the part of a funeral procession.

Will opened his mouth to retort, but the Toscan placed a finger on his lips, then held another to his own.

"Not a peep."

A moment after Julius leaped clear, Giovanni and Ettore lifted the coffin lid and hammered it into place, sealing the frustrated Ranger inside.

Not knowing that a bee had been sealed inside with him.

Pietra, Julius' lady, kneed her horse up beside the physician's and immediately summoned up the tears, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief beneath a black veil. The Toscan leader ignored her, focusing instead on the growing dust cloud to the south.

It took him a while to realize that his heartbeat was a giant's fist pounding at his rib cage. He could feel it throbbing in his neck, and he immediately took a deep breath. It did nothing. Their ploy was greatly hindered by the fact that their prisoner was conscious and aware of what was at stake. The Toscans had to rely on his sense of morality – his life, or that of seven others. If he was any kind of man they thought he was, he would pretend that death had claimed him, thus willingly and wittingly allow his chance of salvation slip past like silt through his fingers.

Julius rubbed his eyes vigorously, trying to make them look red and puffy as the patrol trotted up to the Toscans, just like the first had days ago.

"Halt, in the name of the king!" their leader predictably said. This time, it was a younger man, barely old enough to grow a decent beard. By this, Julius figured that it was either because his liege lord was a fool or that the man was notably clever, perhaps an incredible swordsman for one of his age. In any case, the Toscan knew that his tact would have to be perfect. And this time, he could not allow the patrol to open the coffin as he so readily permitted before.

"State your business," the sergeant ordered as Ettore halted the hearse. "What is your purpose so far from civilization?"

Julius manage to make his voice tremble slightly, as though he had been recently crying. "My lord, we are in mourning. We lost our good friend to a terrible disease, and seek to cremate his remains and scatter the ashes where he desired in his last will and testament."

"Is that so? It isn't a Ranger you're hiding in there?"

It was a close thing, but Julius just manage to turn his look of shock into one of confusion. "A Ranger, my lord? Why would we be cremating a Ranger?"

"Not cremating him, you fool! Kidnapping!"

The young sergeant sounded rash, impatient. Julius began to wonder if he hadn't earned his title, and it was only because of a parent of noble blood that he was permitted to lead a road patrol at all.

The physician could see, from the corner of his eye, some of the Toscans glanced at each other fleetingly. Pietra hesitated in her weeping, but then renewed her act with fresh vigour, as though outraged.

"How dare you!" she wailed. "My husband lies dead in a box, and all you can do is get in his way of a well-deserved rest, accusing us of kidnapping—!"

"Be calm, my child," soothed Ducio, playing the priest. "I'm sure they mean no offence and will now gracefully allow us to proceed."

"Not until I see what is in the coffin," the sergeant growled, kneeing his horse forward.

Julius grasped at the first thing that came to mind. "Oh, I wouldn't do that, my lord," he warned. He felt bolder as the idea sidled up to him. "The disease that took young Godfrey Jonsson is a terrible, terrible thing indeed."

"Is that so?" The haughty Araluan tried to look unconvinced, but he stopped his advance.

Julius nodded solemnly. "Aye. It was something I had never seen before, and that our priest had witnessed only in the rarest of cases. A fungal parasite that ate away Godfrey's flesh, gave him boils, rendered him blind, and caused his fingernails to rot on his hands."

"Leprosy?" the sergeant asked, cocking an eyebrow smugly in an attempt to look educated, but Julius could see his hands tightening on the reins. His men were shifting nervously.

"No," the physician replied, shuffling through his memories for other foul side affects of even fouler diseases. He found that he was enjoying himself. "Not like any leprosy case I'd ever seen. Godfrey shed almost a hundred pounds in just three weeks. He vomited blood and his teeth fell out if he coughed too hard." Julius lowered his voice, leaning towards the Araluan intently. "And just before he died, his testicles withered and fell off."

The sergeant paled until he was a sickly shade of grey. Julius had to rein in a grin.

"Is—" The Araluan's voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "Is it contagious?"

Julius nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes. It is by pure fortune – and by the grace of God – that none of us have contacted it...yet."

The sergeant swallowed, trying to straighten and square his shoulders. "Then we shall not play with chance. Where are you taking him to cremate his remains?"

"To the sea," was the vague reply. "And as it is a private ceremony, we would appreciate it if you didn't accompany us. Godfrey was very dear to us all..."

Will knew the hearse had stopped, but the jolting his heart caused made it seem he was still moving along on the bumping, jostling road.

He lay there in complete darkness, palms sweating, moisture speckling his brow. Slowly, he moved his hand up to brush away the damp; the dead don't sweat. As he did so, he heard the low tone of voices from the outside, no doubt belonging to Julius and the patrolmen.

This is my chance to escape, he thought. All I have to do is make a sound...

But he couldn't bring himself to do it. The lives of at least seven men stood precariously and unknowingly on the brink of destruction. All it would take was Will's small sound to over-tip the balance and send them crashing over the edge like an avalanche.

And so he remained there, trying to swallow his heart back down and resisting the urge to move his hands from where they lay on his chest. As part of the gruelling Ranger training, he had learned how to hold still for hours at a time, when the punishment for exposure meant certain demise.

But when there was a bee involved, he might as well be trying to stand barefooted on a bed of pulsing embers.

He heard the little insect buzzing somewhere around his midriff. His eyes widened for a moment in the darkness, but then he immediately closed them. A bead of sweat slithered tauntingly down his temple, like the fingertip of a teasing lover, but he did not move to brush it away.

Leave me be...leave me be...

He never told anyone about his fear of bees, probably because he wasn't afraid enough to actually call it a fear. At least, that's what he told himself.

He heard nothing for almost a minute, but then he felt a slight tickle on his ankle.

You've got to be kidding me...

Will's forehead creased, his mouth tasting like brittle parchment. The bee was making its way up his pant leg. Why his pant leg?

Just hold still...still...

In a jolt of reminiscence, he recalled when Halt had concealed himself while Will was but a first-year apprentice. The old Ranger was having his ward attempt to spot him in the foliage, to prove the effectiveness of mottled Ranger cloaks. Unfortunately, Halt had decided to conceal himself standing on a nest of red ants. And not only was Will inexperienced, his vision was no more evolved than any other human being's, so he could simply not see Halt. Not for a long time.

Ultimately, Halt said that he was simply teaching him, "What not to do" in the art of concealment. That was to say, stand on a nest of angry red ants for long periods of time.

Will focused now on his current predicament. The bee was now somewhere around his knee, having crept its way up where his pant leg wrinkled like a tunnel. If Halt could withstand half an hour of a hundred nibbling ants, he could last five minutes with a single bee...

Except that bee was wandering perilously close to his inner thigh, where the skin was exceptionally sensitive and ticklish.

Dear God.

It was involuntary when he twitched. A particularly violent tickle sent a lightning strike of nerves through his entire leg, and he clenched his muscles. The bee did what was natural in the fear of being crushed, and stung.

Will made no sound. At least, not vocally. He did, however, kick, and the resulting thud was heard from the people standing around the hearse.

The muffled and barely perceivable thud would not have been noticed by the Araluan sergeant. It shouldn't have been. It was just a small sound – might have been the driver shifting his feet in the cockpit. In this, it would be safe to say that Will was not responsible for the consequential carnage that day. No, the blame fell to Niccolò, along with three other Toscans, who automatically looked to the coffin when the Ranger within involuntarily kicked the wooden side.

"What was that?" the sergeant demanded, instantly cured from his revulsion of Godfrey's supposed disease.

"What was that what?" asked Julius smoothly, trying to look surprised. But the Araluan wasn't paying him any more attention.

"Open it up," he ordered of Ettore, the hearse driver. He then indicated to one of his men. "Look inside."

What little respect Julius had for the sergeant drained like sewage into a slimy pit. Still wary of a skin-eating and mortal disease, the Araluan was willing to put his loyal men at risk before himself.

"My lord," Julius protested. He felt desperation claw at his belly like ravenous rats. "The disease! By opening that coffin, you risk the lives of every man and woman here, including yours—"

"Open the goddamn coffin!" the sergeant blared, used to having his way in the presence of lesser men.

Pietra began to wail afresh, sounding very convincing.

"Shut up, wench!" the Araluan barked at her, and Julius fumed.

"Mind your tongue around the ladies, sir!"

The sergeant drew his sword, his horse tossing its head nervously at the rising confrontation. "Open the coffin, you sod, or by God lose your tongue!"

"I will not allow you to endanger our very souls with your selfish exploits! Be gone with you, daemon!" Ducio the priest bellowed, holding up a hand to ward off evil. But he made no move to stand between the coffin and the offender.

"I'll have you all arrested for treason if that coffin is not opened at once!" the sergeant very nearly screamed.

Silence fell. Julius regarded the man with a level stare, revealing no emotion to compromise his inner turmoil.

"As you command, my lord," he managed to say without too much notable vehemence. He nodded to Ettore, who miraculously managed to look convincingly repulsed by the order. He even went so far as to put a cloth over his mouth after wedging the edge of the coffin open with a pry bar. Then, he hesitated, looking to Julius as if in confirmation.

The Toscan physician nodded, and the coffin lid was kicked away.

The Araluen sergeant recognized a living man playing dead as soon as he stood up in the stirrups to see inside. However, he had no chance to say anything before a gladius sword slid into his back and burst out his front in a shower of blood.

The man gargled, grasping at the wide blade as though to pull it out even as he slid sideways from the saddle. His horse balked and squealed at the smell of fresh blood, bolting away before its rider even hit the ground.

With bellowing cries of outrage, the Araluans drew their weapons and charged. Giovanni, having been the one to slay their sergeant, turned on the lead soldier and met his sword with his own bloodied gladius. There was a reverberating clang as the blades met and bounced apart. The soldier continued the charge, but as he did so, Giovanni slashed down with his sword, cutting a gash in his horse's flanks. The beast screamed and the rider lost control, but the Toscan was already focusing on the next Araluan soldier.

It was a massacre. Outnumbered and surrounded, the brave king's men fought valiantly even as they died, one after the other. Each held their own for as long as they could, the hellish din created filling the air and drifting north on the wind.

Ϯ Ϯ Ϯ

Halt perked. Abelard had reacted to something. The horse's ears twitched, on full alert, a deep rumbling let loose in his chest.

"Still," the Ranger said softly, and Horace brought Kicker to a stop beside him.

The knight longed to ask, "What is it?" yet knew that he would get no answer but a warning glower. Halt was staring south, towards their destination, where Abelard's ears were pointing. Horace strained his own hearing, standing up in the stirrups and closing his eyes as he listened to the wind.

There. Through the everlasting wails of the Cliffs of Clamour, the telltale sound of metal clashing on metal. Something was happening up ahead, loud enough for the sounds to be carried over a mile on the wind.

Halt prepared to move.

"All haste," he said.

Okay, that was a pathetic amount of action -.- Next chapter is shorter but has more happening! Good thing I'm updating twice XD