Chapter Twenty-One: These Scarred Lands
Lykopis waited three days in the port city she'd come in and out of over and over again throughout her years until she finally gave up and purchased passage with the last of the coins at the bottom of a ruck sack. She hadn't expected Galahad to still be there, as they'd been further south and there were ports closer.
Izi had raved about the ocean. The fire haired girl was more alive on the water than she had been on land, letting the gruff sailors show her how to spit with the wind and the best way to get from forward to aft without getting in the way. While she wasn't as comfortable as Lark had been-climbing masts and on sails-the girl burned with energy, consuming what knowledge the deck hands had to offer and not afraid to attempt to use it, often incorrectly.
Lykopis did the work she'd done on every other passage with more deft and familiar hands, but it was the scarred beauty that the men took to like bears to honey. Without her mother's coddling, the girl stopped thinking on what she couldn't do and learned different ways to prove that she could.
Half of the crew was smitten by the time they'd made land, making her promise to visit the port as often as possible, as they'd be there every other week until the first real solid freeze. Izi had laughed and agreed, and when they set foot on Briton for the first time, the independence that she'd learned stayed with her.
Unfortunately, the self consciousness that came with being scarred and around new people did not remain vanquished, and she'd insisted they didn't need any more supplies and that the road would be all the better at dusk.
They'd been on the main road for hours before they encountered the rider. Aithon was in one of his moods, refusing anyone but Lykopis on his back, and so the pair of women walked on either side of the great destrier. Lykopis couldn't blame the beast. He'd been locked up for the voyage.
It was Aithon that heard the hoofbeats first, his black tippe ears darting forward and his head shooting upright. He'd danced sideways, eyes trained on the darkness until a rider came through. A blue painted woad, he dismounted quickly enough to startle Izi, who hadn't seen such paint in the past.
"Not on the road. Not at night," he said in broken English. Lykopis's eyes flickered back and forth from the man to Izi and finally to the trees lining either side of the road. "Come." The man gripped Izi's arm and pulled her toward the treeline, as if he was trying to hide her amongst the trees. Lykopis let the man drag her a few feet before Izi stopped him, digging her heals in and tugging back.
"Let me go!" she said, nearly ripping her hand from his grip.
"Castus want no one on road at night," he said, gripping her other arm and tugging harshly on the pair. Izi stopped fighting immediately, a pained little sound escaping her lips.
"Arthur will forgive me," Lykopis said, gripping the man's elbow tight enough to draw his attention. "He won't forgive you if I have to kill you."
There was a quick glint of metal as he released one of Izi's hands to touch his hip. The dagger that came forward was a simple thing, short and unadorned but sharp enough to cut open a belly, and that was all that Lykopis saw before she'd reached out and tried to grab his wrist. The cold bite of metal ran from her hand up the outside of her forearm to the elbow. A hot flood of blood ran down her arm even as she twisted and pushed him backward, distancing him from herself and Izi.
"Get on Aithon," she commanded the red haired girl, who stared wide eyed at the blood that dripped in a quick pit-pat-pit against the grass. Izi obeyed without question, and the destrier let her up onto his back without so much as a nip to her shoulder as she passed. The man stared at the pair of them, his face grim as his eyes went to Lykopis's forearm.
"Arthur's wolf," he said, eyeing her critically for a moment. "Dead wolf."
He had come forward in the way that all woads seemed to move, without thought to their own well being and head first. She'd see it so often over the years that it was almost too easy to side step and bring her clawed hand up and slashing across his shoulder. He hissed at her, one hand pressed against the three slash marks there.
"Need to do better," he said to her, flipping the dagger into his uninjured hand and coming forward again, side stepping with her this time. He caught the claws against the dagger, the blade sliding down to the metal bracing at the bottom. It twisted sideways, taking her arm with it. Without an arm to block her face, he slammed his closed fist against her temple once before she could free the claws and step out of his reach.
"Ride!" she shouted, and Aithon obeyed even if Izi did not. The grey beast was lost to the darkness, and Lykopis smiled at the man as he muttered in a language she couldn't understand but had heard countless times in the past. His eyes followed the horse until it disappeared in the darkness, and he came forward again.
Lykopis moved to meet him, the claws ready for him, but the world shifted at the last moment, something like a fog flashed in front of her eyes, and in the next moment, the pair of them were falling to the ground, the dagger and claws between them.
-RP: These Scarred Lands-
Tristram was bored.
That was all there was to explain it.
He wasn't home sick; that was for damned sure.
He was a liar. He knew it, and he was starting to think that everyone else knew it. That didn't stop the constant downturn he felt at the corners of his mouth or the annoying way that his drawing arm shook when he drew his bow. He knew his bow, and he knew himself though, so the tremor was easily accounted for before anyone else noticed. It only rankled the back of his mind.
The rides weren't helping. He'd spent the better part of three months just riding circuits between one of the ports and back. Most days, there would be no ship, and he could find a tree and lean back with a horse blanket and catch a few long hours of sleep.
Some days though, there was a new merchant or pilgrim every day and he spent long hours on the road, pushing his horse to make the trip in one day. The Woads made things worse. Dissent was building in the people, even those loyal to Merlin. Arthur was a good man, but they didn't see what he could do for them, even with Guinevere married to him.
A child in her belly might better things, and even Gawain had quietly made the suggestion to Arthur around the round table. Their commander had made a non-commital voice in the back of his throat before dismissing them only five minutes into their meeting.
Even Guinevere had made sounds about children underfoot, and though it was less a year since their marriage, Tristram had to wonder if perhaps something was wrong. His own uncle had a similar affliction, and it had been a quiet thing they did not discuss. He remembered it though, because his father, though younger, inherited his grandfather's lands and horse trade.
It was not such a difficult thing to get around though. Tristram knew of several brown-eyed and haired women that would lay with Arthur for the proper motivation. Guinevere's clothing could be altered until the child was born, and then, the woman could be paid to disappear. He hadn't raised the question to Arthur yet, but if the Woads grew any more up in arms about their king's lack of connection to the land, something was going to have to be done.
He shook the question from his head and let his mare pick her way down the road. It had been a long few days with little rest for either of them. He sighed and tried to relax into the saddle. He's seen Lark leading a group back a few weeks ago. She'd lain down flat on the horse's back, letting it carry her along the road. His mare could do such a thing, but he couldn't ride without the saddle, and he had little will to try and bend himself back over the leather.
The faint thrum of hooves caught his attention, and he sat forward, drawing his bow and pulling an arrow taught against the string. A grey shadow came through the darkness, lit by moonlight, and he very nearly let the arrow fly. It was a shock of red hair he noticed first though, and so he stayed his hand.
"Eh!" he shouted. "Stop!"
The great creature pulled up short, nearly sending its rider to the ground. Up close, only a few paces in front of him, he could easily make out the shaking form of a woman. It wasn't her that drew his eye though, but the coat of the horse she road and the familiar size of the animal.
"Aithon," he murmured, slipping from the saddle and redrawing the bowstring taught. "That is not your horse."
"If you're with that other man, I swear, I will gouge your eyes out before I die," the woman on the horseback said with such conviction that Tristram believed her.
"That is not your horse. Where is its master?" he asked, ignoring her threat and taking a step forward.
"And I'm to tell you? So you can go help him kill her?" He wasn't sure what happened then, but he had released the arrow and drawn another before he'd blinked. The woman held a hand to her cheek, fingers searching the flesh there for blood only to come away clean. A few of her red curls fell to the ground.
"I will not ask again," he said simply, words clipped with something he would not admit existed in his stomach.
"What's her name?" she asked, chin thrust upward in a quiet challenge.
"Woman, I am not a patient man. Where is Lykopis?" The words were hissed and harsh, he knew. The slip of a thing could not have taken the horse, even if she'd snuck up on his wolf-a task he knew well enough to be difficult.
"Down the road," she said immediately upon hearing the name. "A rider came out of the darkness and said we weren't to be on the road. He grabbed me and..Where are you going?"
"Get to the wall. Tell them I need Dagonet!"
"Wait!"
He ignored her as he pulled himself up into the saddle, burrying his heels into the mare beneath him, silently apologizing for the treatment. He would brush her out later and ride a different horse for a few days, but for now...well.
-These Scarred Lands-
Gawain was the happiest he had been in months. Perhaps even years. He was tired, his legs ached from the saddle, and he had a raging headache from the babbling and worrying of the people that walked around him. But he rode beside his brother again, and the pup was far more an old dog than he had been when he'd left.
Gawain had just made the port when a ship came into harbor. He bemoaned the white sails that appeared on the horizon even as he sagged to the ground against a post and closed his eyes to nap. It would take hours for the ship to dock and unload, and he planned on spending those hours sleeping.
He dozed until a hard boot kicked him unceremoniously in the side.
"Lykopis make land before we did then?" Gawain recognized the voice nearly immediately, and shot upright, tackling the man around the middle and sending them both to the dirt in a mess of limbs and curses. Gawain laughed until he found himself in a head lock, tapping half heartedly at the elbow around his throat.
"Give," he hissed with the last of his breath, and Galahad let him go. "It is good to see you, pup!"
"You act as though you didn't know I was coming," Galahad said, sitting upright and pushing Gawain off of him. Gawain let himself be pushed and eased onto his backside in the dirt, staring at the younger man.
"I didn't," he said, the smile not leaving his face. "Arthur will be glad you're back."
"If Lykopis didn't tell you we were on our way, how did you know to be here?"
"I've been here every day for months," Gawain said darkly. "The Woads have been attacking travelers on the road. Arthur has taken it upon himself to send us out to the ports and escort travellers back."
"All of you?"
"It's only Arthur, Bors, Tristram, Dag and myself. Lark and Dinadan have been helping, but we only just cover the ports."
"Well, I will help once I get my people to the wall," Galahad said easily, as if it was a simple solution.
"Your people?" Gawain asked, taking in the thirty some men and women that had gotten off of the ship with Galahad.
"My village," Galahad said with a smile and half-shrug. "They needed somewhere, and I didn't think Arthur would mind." The smile fell and the shy boy he remembered surfaced. "I didn't think this through. There aren't enough-"
"Galahad, Arthur will take all the help he can get," Gawain cut him off. "The second barracks were finished for the Woads, but since things have worsened, Arthur has asked them to live outside of the fort."
"It's that bad?" he asked.
"Reminds me of before the Saxons," Gawain confirmed. "Only this time, we aren't allowed to kill them when they attack us."
"We'd best get back, then," Galahad said, turning to look at the rag tag group that was slowly putting itself together. Gawain stood back and watched as Galahad collected them all together, helping some onto horses or sledges. A woman stood away from the rest, silently watching as they gathered themselves. She was a hard thing, he could tell even from such a distance. She reminded him of Lykopis, and for a moment, he'd thought the woman was the wolf. There was an odd grey speckling to her that Lykopis never had though.
"Is she a problem?" he asked Galahad when he neared, leading his horse with an elderly man atop it.
"Anaxilea?" he asked, turning over his shoulder to look at the woman Gawain indicated.
"Woman's more trouble than she was worth!" the man on the horse said. "But she gave me this man, so I will complain little!" He reached down and clapped Galahad on the shoulder with a shaking hand.
"This is Dnaestre," Galahad said simply. "Father, this is Gawain." Gawain froze on the word father. He hadn't thought they'd have parents anymore, and that Galahad found his both warmed his stomach and made him uneasy. Did his father yet live? His mother had died years before he was taken, but his father...
"Gawain!" the man shouted the name, startling him from his thoughts. "A man I've wanted to meet." He found his hand stolen and clasped heartily for such a wrinkled old man.
"It is a good meeting," he said, eyes flickering to Galahad. "Then the woman is-"
"My mother," Galahad said simply, though his tone lacked all of the affection and reverence he'd used when he'd said father.
"A good meeting for later," Gawain offered, and Galahad only shook his head.
"We should get on the road," Dnaestre said. "The villagers are tired, and most of us haven't had a good meal in days."
"There is food at the wall," Galahad said and pulled on the horse's reigns to get it moving. "You have to wait for any more ships?"
"If I wait for anyone else, we'll have a parade from here to Hadrian's Wall," Gawain joked, untying his own horse and pulling himself sluggishly into the saddle. "I can't wait to see Arthur's face when we bring all these people in."
"You're not seeing anyone's face," Galahad said. "You look like you haven't slept in days."
"Two," Gawain confirmed. "Dag's been worse. I think he's been sleeping in the saddle instead of pushing his horse."
"I'm sure Bors is taking that well," Galahad said, walking alongside Gawain's horse as he led his own. The people followed behind them, sporatically spread out along the road.
"He's had Vanora to distract him, but she's angry enough about it for the both of them." Gawain paused a moment. So much had happened since the pup had left that he sorely knew where to start. "He married her."
"While I was gone?"
"While you were gone," Gawain confirmed, smiling down at the younger man. "I think Vanora finally decided that she might as well marry him; she was stuck with him, afterall. Can't hope all her children are someone else's."
"Lancelot might disagree," Galahad said, and the pair of them laughed a long moment at that. "I'd have liked to have been there."
"You would have enjoyed it. Where is our First Knight?" Gawain asked. He hadn't seen the familiar head of dark hair in the crowd.
"He didn't wait at the port."
"Of course he didn't wait." Gawain sighed, staring out at the road in front of them. The morning sunlight made everything seem soft and hazy, the rays splintering in mist. "Maybe he will find his way back to us."
"Arthur's the only one that could put up with him!" Galahad said, nodding his agreement. The whole while they'd rode, the people had followed soundlessly behind them, somber and tired. Dnaestre had sat in the saddle, swaying with each step the horse took, as if he wasn't quite settled there. Still, the man hadn't fallen out, but the way his left foot fell limply out of the stirrup told a dark story.
He let himself be drawn into the lull of morning and ignored the quiet murmurings that had started up behind them about the walk.
-RP: These Scarred Lands-
Tristram was not panicking. He'd just ridden hard for the better part of two hours before reaching the port, turned and gone back the other direction, eyes searching the grass and brambles beside the road the best he could in the early morning light. On the first pass, he'd only been able to see what was in the road, even with the half full moon hanging overhead.
The morning light made it easier to see, and he was almost back to where he ran into the red haired woman on the road. For a moment, he wondered at what he might have missed. Was she just not on the road? Had he just not seen her yet? Was the woman lying?
He was a better judge of character than that, though. Or at least he had been.
He rounded a curve in the road, drawing his mare up quickly. A big black horse stood there, cropping at the grass on the edge of the dirt pathway. He slipped from the saddle even as his mare took her last few steps to slow herself. There was a woad saddle on the animal's back, and as he pressed his fingers against it, it was cold. His eyes slid down one side of the road, through the thick grasses, and up the other, locking on a brown slump of something just on the edge of the treeline.
His boots caught on the brambles and grasses, ripping and tearing at him as he ran toward the shadowed form. It was a large man, slumped forward on something in the grass. As Tristram gripped his shoulder and rolled in, the body was cool to the touch. Something sluiced and resisted slightly as he pulled the man over. Four long bone claws slipped from deep in his stomach, and as he dropped the body on its side, all he could see was blood.
Blood on his hand from the man's shoulder.
Blood on the four wolf claws.
Blood on a grey hood.
Blood on her.
He crouched down, bloodied fingers going to her throat, waiting, pressing, waiting. Something faintly thrummed beneath his fingers, but he couldn't tell if it was his own pulse or hers. There was a dagger at her hip, burried deeply enough to protest being drawn from her flesh. Blood came forward sluggishly from the wound.
"Wolf," he growled, brushing the hood back from her face with her hair. Blood from his fingers made little lines against her forehead there, where he'd touched her. Her skin wasn't as cold as the man's had been, but there was no response when he tapped the side of her face. Something hot swelled in his stomach, just beneath his ribs, and his fists clenched. For a dark moment, he thought about drawing his knife and turning it on the corpse beside him. It would do little good though, and he reached out a shaking hand to heave the woman from the grass.
She was a slight creature, but any body was a heavy body, and he slung her over his shoulders to his mare. She danced sideways a moment, eyes wide and ears pricked forward at attention. She calmed quickly though, and let him lay Lykopis over the saddle.
"Bradan!" a woman's voice shouted, and Tristram flinched. He hadn't heart her in the wood. He'd almost not seen her as she charged through the brush, eyes wide with fury, a short blade held high above her head. She'd have severed him from shoulder to balls if he'd had let her. He took his bow from across his back without thought, knocking an arrow and drawing back. The fletching protruded from the woman's left eye a half moment later and she fell, face first in the grass.
He thought about taking the black horse for himself, but Lykopis would not stay in the saddle on her own. He pulled himself up into the saddle, securing her over his legs. The mare was used to such things, had been for many years, and she picked her own way on the road, avoiding dips and easing around turns in a smooth canter.
"You'd best wake up, wolf," he said, one hand on her back. She did not answer.
As he rode, he could not get the image of the woman out of his mind. She'd come from the wood, he'd reacted in a moment, and in the next, an arrow was through her eye socket and into her head. A killing shot. A shot he had made easily in the past.
His arm had not shaken.
-RP: These Scarred Lands-
Arthur had just finished his own ride to the near port and was handing his horse over to a stable boy by the gate. A shout took up behind him, by the guard, and he turned. A large grey destrier came through, one he recognized in a moment. A woman fell from the back of it as the horse reared and danced, afraid of the guards that surrounded him.
"Easy!" he shouted, and the guards backed off. The woman skittered backward like a crab, avoiding the horse's hooves. She'd a shock of red hair, and one wide, green eye stared out at him, wide with fear.
"Easy," he repeated, holding both hands out toward her in a gesture he hoped would calm her. It worked, as she stopped trying to back away and stood.
"This is Hadrian's Wall?" she asked, eyes flickering between him and the guards.
"This is, lady," Arthur said.
"Then you know her; you know the wolf. You've got to help her, please," she said, tears welling in that one green eye he could see. Her hair had fallen down the other half of her face, making her look more misserable, if it were possible.
"I know Lykopis, and you ride her horse. I gifted her that horse when she left here months ago," he said, nodding. The woman relaxed, shoulders slumped and head hung.
"She told me to get on the horse. I thought she'd get on with me, but she couldn't get away. And Aithon just bolted when she shouted at him."
"Aithon is a good horse. He was trained to follow commands," Arthur said. "What happened?"
"We got into the port last night, and I wanted to keep moving. She said she knew the road. She said that it was peaceful here now," the red haired woman paced back and forth, hands thrown out at her sides. She turned back toward him, one shaking hand coming up and pushing her hair from her face. The warped scar and white eye made him flinch, and in a moment, she'd dropped her hand, shaking the hair back into her face, staring at the ground. "She said that you made peace with the people here; that we'd be safe on the road. We didn't think-"
"You should have been safe. My knights have been riding the roads to and from all of the ports every day. You should have passed one of them, in the night."
Her head shot up at that, nodding.
"A man with a bow," she said. "He knew her. He knew Aithon."
"Did he have marks here?" Arthur asked, ghosting his fingers across his own cheeks. It wouldn't do for Tristram to go, not with the way he'd been lately, and not if Lykopis was in trouble.
"I don't know; it was dark. He was angry, when he saw the horse. He asked me where Lykopis was. He knew her," she said. "He said to get to the wall, that he'd need someone here...Gods, I can't remember the name."
"Calm down," Arthur said, mind racing. If Lykopis was hurt, and Tristram had sent the woman ahead, he'd have asked for a healer. Their own healer, Dagonet, was on the road. The woad healers had all left with the uncertainty of their alliance. There was the fort healer, but Tristram trusted the man little, and he often preferred to suffer until Dagonet could look him over.
"Call the surgeon!" he said to one of the guards, who nodded and ran off into the village. Arthur gripped Aithon's reigns and let the stable boy take the horse.
"You're going to help her," the woman said firmly, staring him down. "You've got to help her."
"We will," Arthur soothed, and took the woman's elbow. "Let's get you settled." Arthur sighed as he lead the woman toward the barracks. He'd settle her in one of the rooms and see that the surgeon was ready. He quietly hoped that Lark or Dinadan returned before Tristram. At least that way, there would be someone to distract the scout. Distraction. Arthur chided himself at that. They'd have to knock the scout out, if Lykopis didn't come through the gate on her own power.