Sorry about the long wait! This time of year is just crazy. Anyway, here's the second part at last.

DISCLAIMER: The parts of this from Kel's POV have text lifted directly or paraphrased from Lady Knight. The beginning of that section is marked with ^^^. I do not own even the writing in that case! As always, all Tortallans and Scanrans belong to Tamora Pirece; Jack, Ianto and Gwen and Tosh, the namesakes of the aerodynes, belong to the BBC. I own Anwen, though!

... yup, and the name changed. As it turns out, this is more about Ianto than Jack.

War: Into the Fire part 2

Haven was in ruins.

Lord Wyldon had ordered Jack to fly with Kel, but Jack champed at the bit; he flew ahead, far ahead into the darkness, scouting for Scanrans and flying his blue flag when he found none. The smoke that rose from the ruins clogged his nose, but he could see nothing.

Kel and her people were still marching. He'd left them in his dust; the sun had not yet risen. The night was cloudy and black as pitch, and it would be dangerous for him to land now. Jack did not care.

He engaged his flamethrowers, lighting the destroyed camp below, but only for a moment. The orange of the fire cast the ruins in harsh relief but Jack still did not care; he looked frantically for the fallen dyne—there must be a wreck, there must be—

"Easy, lover boy," growled a harsh voice over the engines. Startled, Jack yanked on the controls, turning the Gwen on a dime and flashing his fire again.

"Hey! Watch it!" Rikash shouted, diving sharply out of the way. Orange light bounced wildly off his steel feathers. Jack let out a gasping breath.

"Rikash," he managed. Then, louder, "Rikash! I had news of the Tosh—Ianto—?" He couldn't even articulate it, but the sight of the Stormwing was such a relief that Jack's lungs stuttered, unable to draw in air. He was alive. Ianto was alive.

"The Tosh went down," Rikash confirmed, gliding close to the cockpit. He smelled absolutely foul – clearly, he'd been playing with the bodies here. Jack tried not to feel sick. "One of those child-things got it, but Ianto's alive. He's vanished off into the woods, the idiot, but he's alive." Jack swiveled the flamethrower away from Rikash and engaged; the light from the fire lit the Stormwing's face. He wasn't lying.

Well, why would he lie? If Ianto were dead, Rikash would be, too. They were bonded, after all.

"Why are you here?" Jack demanded.

"So I could tell you," Rikash sneered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "We could hardly have you collapsing next to a burned out aerodyne when my brother's relying on you to find the refugees they took prisoner, can we?"

"Oh, you bastard," Jack grinned, both irritated at his tone and fiercely affectionate. "You clever, clever bastard."

"Sometimes I feel like the only one with a brain," the Stormwing complained. "I hope you have reinforcements coming."

If Jack could have hugged the stinking, disgusting creature he absolutely would have. "Of course I have reinforcements coming. Kel's on her way back with Company Eight and Six of the King's own, led by Wyldon."

"The Balding Bastard himself?" Rikash asked, sounding surprised. Jack laughed.

"Is that what Ianto calls him?" he asked.

Rikash huffed. "One too many malcontent grumbles."

"Of course," Jack grinned.

"How far behind are they?"

Jack looked over his shoulder as though he could see them in the darkness. "A few hours, at least," he said regretfully.

"And you're sitting here commiserating with me? Idiot. Go back and cover them; Ianto won't thank you if his reinforcements get killed in the night." Rikash scoffed. It was easy to forget sometimes that the Stormwing was a creature of battlefields, and understood, to the marrow of his silver bones, the workings of war.

Jack made a face. "Right," he said. "Come with me; you can give them a full report."

"I don't think so, no," the Stromwing drawled, starting to drift away from the cockpit. "If I come, they'll stop to listen. I want them to see the place for themselves. See you in a few hours, lover boy," he sneered, and caught an updraft, slowly soaring away.

Jack scowled and didn't dignify that with a response. He rolled to dip the Gwen's wing and then brought the dyne about to speed off into the night. He had soldiers to collect.

They did not reach the ruins until morning, and by that time Jack was pulling at his hair in frustration. Wyldon ordered his people to fan out – Jack could see it from the dawn sky. He was not Wyldon's people, however, and he didn't take orders from Kel. Jack made a sweep of the ruins, hunting grimly for the enemy, but he knew he would not find them. He flew his all safe flag on the returning loop, before reeling it in and arching away, looking for the fallen aerodyne.

There. In the gray dawn light, it was easy to see, despite the mist of the early morning. Jack swallowed.

The Tosh Sato Mark I looked like an overturned ship. She was belly-up, wings spread eagle and torn to bits. Crossbow bolts from those killing devices bristled from her hull and tail, and planks of wood were ripped and scattered everywhere around her, as though she had been gutted. Gritting his teeth, Jack landed. The low morning mist swirled around the Gwen's wheels, and he jumped out as soon as his dyne stopped.

Kel had brought her people through the ruins of the camp to look for survivors, but Jack had more important things to do. He clambered over to the shattered Tosh and then let out a deep, relieved breath.

The Scanrans had taken parts, of course, but they did not know to take the engine. One of the killing devices seemed to have gotten to it first, if the twisted metal was anything to go by.

Good. Very good. The Scanrans would never be able to design a flying machine without an engine. Jack moved to collect what parts he could and then went still. Something red caught his eye.

There was blood on the hull of the dyne. He took a breath and shook himself. Ianto was alive.

The whole wreckage needed to be torched, of course, even the engine and the console, parts they would normally save. Jack pulled out the throttle for Ianto, and then wrenched open the back hatch to take out the flags. The throttle and the flags were sentimental, really, but he thought Ianto would appreciate them. He stuffed them into the Gwen's hold.

Jack clambered back into the cockpit and slowly taxied the Gwen over to the wreckage. Taking a breath, he engaged the flamethrowers.

That close to the nozzles, even the metal would melt. Jack held down the switch as the wood went up in flames, glowing blazing green from the copper they had used for wiring. He held the switch for a good five minutes before releasing it, letting the dyne burn on its own. At last, Jack backed the Gwen and taxied regretfully away from the burning Tosh.

From nowhere, Rikash swooped down and landed on the dyne's right wing. "Yes?" Jack asked impatiently over the sounds of the dyne's engine. The Gwen continued to trundle along the muddy, trampled ground.

"She's awfully stingy," the Stormwing complained. "I didn't touch her people, and if not for me, then Ironclaw Nation would've eaten the lot, Tortallan or Scanran." He licked a feather on his filthy right wing. Jack stared at him. It took him a moment to realize what the hell the Stormwing was talking about before he made the connection.

Scanrans. Rikash had been eating the bodies of the dead Scanrans, although he'd left the dead of Haven behind. Jack supposed Rikash thought he was being generous.

"Rikash, I don't think Kel likes it when people disrespect the dead, no matter their loyalties," Jack sighed. He'd seen a lot of wars. In the end he'd learned that soldiers were mostly just people, even the enemy. Rikash was family and he couldn't help what he was, but that didn't mean Jack had to like it.

Rikash snorted, either oblivious to Jack's grim expression or not caring. "Noble, that one," he said disdainfully. "Are you going to find my brother, or what?"

"As though there was any doubt," Jack scoffed. "Just had to make sure our Scanran friends can't make take out tech, and clear that I'm going with the Balding Bastard," he added with a smirk. The Gwen slowed to a stop at Haven's gates, or what was left of Haven's gates.

The great, solid wooden doors were hanging off their hinges, destroyed by some kind of battering ram. The walls, the gates—every building was streaked with soot, as though the Scanrans had tried to burn the place. Smoke still curled slowly out of doors and windows. The grounds were littered with the dead; Wyldon's men were starting to drag them out and lay them in lines.

It looked, to Jack's experienced eyes, like a battlefield. It looked like both World Wars on earth, like the Interstellar Skirmishes—which were not, in any way, shape, or form skirmishes—of the fifty first century, like Boeshane after an attack, like more wars and battles and slaughters than Jack could keep track of. It looked like everything looked after it was seized. It looked destroyed.

Kel was walking up on the ramparts; Jack could see her from the ground. She kept on touching things, as though in a fog, as though she didn't believe that it was real. She passed a killing device, ensnared in a net on the northern wall. The young knight touched the sharpened logs on the wall, like a child touching pickets on a fence.

Poor girl, Jack thought darkly. He'd lost squadrons before, faced horrific death counts on the losing sides of wars. Still, Jack had never lost a refugee camp before. He kicked open his door and slid down to land on the large right wheel of the Gwen so he could hop to the ground.

The bodies the men were dragging out were in pieces. Those killing devices, a small voice whispered in the back of his mind. Those killing devices had cut them up like jigsaw puzzles. Still, Jack had a strong stomach, and worse things had happened. Jack himself had been cut up like this, before. There was more important information to deliver.

"Lord Wyldon!" Jack shouted as he strode along the lines and lines of dead men and women. "Lord Wyldon!"

"Captain." The knight was standing in the center of a cluster of captains and sergeants, ordering them here or there. Somewhere behind, Jack heard Rikash's feathers jingle as he alighted on the muddy ground.

"I've received news that the Scanrans have taken prisoners," Jack said as he came to a stop before the knight, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the Stromwing. "And also that Captain Jones is alive and following them. He may have marked the way."

"Prisoners?" one of the sergeants asked.

"Refugees," confirmed Rikash, waddling forward to stand next to Jack. The wind blew and Jack wrinkled his nose at the stench. If Ianto were around, he'd never stand for it; he'd threaten to bathe Rikash if he needed to do it himself. "I watched them gather them up. Most of the camp." The Stormwing nodded to the burnt out shell of Haven. "Your refugees fought like animals."

"You saw them—and didn't help?" a soldier demanded, eyes flashing.

"I am a Stormwing," Rikash sneered, "Not a soldier. What do you want me to do, spit at them? Two hundred men? I don't think so." He unfurled a wing and pointed. "They went that way. Ianto will have marked their path."

Lord Wyldon looked at the Stormwing for a long, long time. He turned to look at the woods, eyes glassy as though doing some internal calculation. "They will have made it to the border by now," he said slowly.

The bottom dropped out of Jack's stomach. The border. The curse.

He started to swear, helplessly and violently. The men stared at him, but Jack kept on going, wanting to shout and yell in frustration. He'd go after them, of course, if he had to. He would. Even cursed, Jack would go after them—but he didn't know what would happen to him, once he crossed the border.

The thought was utterly, utterly terrifying.

"Captain Harkness!" barked Wyldon. Jack snapped his mouth shut and glared.

"What?" he spat.

"If you're quite finished?" the knight demanded.

"The border—" Jack started instead of apologizing.

"It doesn't matter," Lord Wyldon interrupted. "You're not going after them anyway."

Jack blinked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"We do not have enough resources to go after the refugees," Lord Wyldon said. "We are stretched thin as it is; Maggur's got that cursed pattern, remember? Two or three attacks at once. I want us at Mastiff before he strikes, if he hasn't already, and that means cleaning up this mess as fast as possible."

"I beg your pardon?" Jack demanded again, outraged. "We don't have enough resources? Ianto's the best resource we've got! He knows how to build aerodynes – do you really want to hand over someone that valuable to the enemy?"

Lord Wyldon gritted his teeth. "No. I am going to send a small squad to follow the trail the Stormwing says he has left. They will retrieve him, and return to Tortall—"

"If you think Ianto's going to leave those refugees, you're an idiot," Jack interrupted with a sneer.

"We do not have the resources, Captain Harkness!" The knight told him firmly. "I cannot afford to send an entire company to retrieve one man unless he is the king, and Captain Jones is decidedly not the king. What would you have me do? Leave Mastiff, leave Steadfast unprotected? What about new Giantkiller, still unfinished and vulnerable? What about Northwatch, and every town from here to the Emerald Ocean? We have a border to protect, Captain. The forces you want simply do not exist."

"I exist," Jack said desperately.

"You," Wyldon told him, and damn him for having been briefed about Jack's circumstance, "cannot cross the border."

.

.

The light stung Ianto's eyes when his captors lifted the bag from his head. He felt oddly calm, as though he hadn't been traumatized by the last time he'd had a bag over his head.

"Are you Ianto Jones?" growled a voice in rough Common. A hand gripped his hair and forced his head up. Ianto met the brown eyes of his blonde, bearded captor. He was a tall, muscular man, crouching beside Ianto, coiled like a snake to spring. There was an axe holstered in his belt, and Ianto knew him from hours and hours spent spying, and meeting after meeting with George Cooper.

Stenmun Kinslayer, Blayce's bulldog. Hatred boiled up somewhere beneath Ianto's heart. This man was the Yvonne Hartmann of Tortall – the man who facilitated the creation of those child things, the way Yvonne had opened the crack that let the Cybermen into earth. Stenmun brought children to Blacye, and Ianto had been after him. There was a reason the Tosh had those four weapons. It was almost funny that he'd captured Ianto, instead of the other way around.

"Who?" Ianto asked mildly. The man holding his hair wrenched hard, jerking Ianto's head to the side so when his captor struck him, it was a clean blow. Pain bloomed in his jaw.

"Are you Ianto Jones?" the question repeated.

Right, like this was somehow persuasive. "My name's Connac," Ianto managed, strangled from the pain and the odd angle of his neck. "I have no idea who Ianto Jones is."

"Tie him up, take him," said his captor to someone else in Scanran. "He's our man."

Shit, Ianto thought, still in that strange calm. The bag went back over his head, and he was in darkness again.

He wondered where Anwen was.

.

. ^^^

The graves were finished by dark. While the convict soldiers made supper outside Haven's ruined gate, cooking flatbread and some ducks and chickens, Kel and the other soldiers buried their dead, murmuring prayers as they filled the graves first with bodies, then with dirt.

After supper everyone sat around the fire and told stories of the fallen. Their best whittlers cut names into the planks that would serve as headstones.

Kel prowled, unable to sit. Captain Harkness paced just on the edges of the firelight, muttering and hissing and growling to himself. He was disobeying orders just by being here, she thought gloomily, watching him. Earlier in the day, there had been reports of metal monsters on Giantkiller road, and Captain Jack had rushed off to kill them along with Company Eight. Meanwhile, Kel had found some survivors at last; Merric and his squad had been distracted by a small column of Scanrans while the camp had been attacked. Merric was badly wounded, pale from blood loss but healing now, aided by her healer and long time best friend, Neal.

Captain Harkness had returned to Haven from Giantkiller road later in the day, eyes wild, the belly of his aerodyne scorched from battle. The four killing devices had been a trap, he'd reported, voice cold and flat. Company Eight was in bad shape, and there had been no humans on the road, only those things. He'd killed them.

Wyldon had given Kel orders in the shadow of the Captain's report. She was to bury her dead and bring her troops to Mastiff, and if Mastiff had been attacked, she was to go to Steadfast.

Harkness had been ordered to fly to Steadfast to give the news. He had done so, but he'd returned to Haven within the hour, after Wyldon had left for Mastiff with Merric and Neal and the remains of Companies Eight and Six. Now he paced, talking sometimes in quiet tones with the Stormwing who perched on the wing of the Gwen.

Rikash Moonsword, that was his name. He was the one and only Stormwing at Haven; Kel had seen him fighting other Stormwings to keep them away. He was unpleasant, and Kel would never, ever trust a Stormwing, but she supposed that he was better than the alternative. He was only one Stormwing, after all. That was one too many, but at least there was not a flock of them here and Ianto had been fond of him, for some unimaginable reason. Rikash used to perch on the roof of Ianto's quarters like an absurd weathervane.

Ianto had followed the refugees, Kel thought somewhere in the back of her mind. Ianto had marked the way.

Was this the moment the Chamber had spoken of, when her path to Blayce the Gallan was made clear? During her Ordeal of Knighthood, the Chamber had given her a vision of Blayce the Childkiller and his horrific machines, and told her to fix it. She hoped this was the moment, because she was about to destroy all she had worked for to recapture her people. If she could.

Kel regarded Captain Harkness. He loved Captain Jones with everything he had, that much was painfully obvious. He was disobeying orders simply by being here. It was clear that he planned to go after the other Captain. Did he know what he was risking?

Did Kel even want to involve him? She certainly didn't want him to risk his status for her sake. What she planned was treason, after all. Lord Wyldon had ordered her not to go after her refugees.

But Captain Harkness was going to go after Captain Jones. Captain Jones, who had marked the way.

Kel strode up to the shadows cast by the aerodyne, deepened and darkened in the night. The light from the fires cast Rikash's wings in a strange light, so the Stormwing glinted orange and black every time he moved. Captain Jack was standing by the right wing, in the darkest shadow, looking up at Rikash, perched on the dyne. When Kel approached, Jack turned his head to see her. In the darkness, his features were indistinct, his eyes barely visible.

Kel stopped just outside the shadow, the fire at her back. "I have a preposition for you," she told Jack softly.

.

.

Really, Jack should have not been surprised.

The small squad Lord Wyldon sent to retrieve Ianto was Sergeant Dom's, and they greeted him cheerfully when he landed the Gwen in the ruins of old Giantkiller.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jack demanded as soon as the Gwen's engines stopped growling. Above, Rikash circled, the sun glinting off his steel wings.

"We're here for the same reason you are," said Sergeant Domitan of Masbolle, sitting at the head of his squad in the ruins, "We want to help Kel. What do you think we're doing here?"

"You're committing treason, you know," Jack told him, unsure if he trusted him. Dom could be here to arrest him and Kel, for all Jack knew.

"Oh, don't worry! We're under orders to retrieve Captain Jones. You're the one committing treason," Dom replied cheerfully.

"Going to arrest me, then?" Jack growled, ready to slam the Gwen's door shut. Where was Kel? She'd said they were going to meet up here—

"Nah," Sergeant Dom grinned cheekily. "I told you. We're staying to help Kel. The plan's to get Captain Jones out of Scanra, and rescue the refugees along the way. They're in the same spot, after all."

Jack stared at him.

Kel had friends. Kel had a lot of friends, and powerful friends at that. He'd forgotten.

Rikash fluttered to perch on the burnt-out shell of a training barrack and started to laugh.

As it turned out, all of Dom's squad, some of Kel's friends from when she was a page, the boy she'd hired as a manservant and even Lord Wyldon's squire were there, all refusing to leave her. They'd brought more animals and a horse for Kel. Her manservant road her roan monster of a gelding, whereas her friends had brought a little brown mare from Mastiff that she called Hoshi.

Jack started to find the humor in it all, really. Kel ranted at her friends, talking about treason and how they were throwing away their lives, and they all stubbornly stayed by her side.

"Captain—" she started at one point, looking at him. Jack shrugged, sitting on the wing of the Gwen.

"It's their choice, Kel," he said easily.

"Besides, we can't lose with an aerodyne!" Owen of Jesslaw, Lord Wyldon's squire and apparently a friend of Kel's, said cheerfully. "It's going to be a jolly fight."

Jack stared at him. He thought of Owen Harper, who shared this boy's name, and could not keep himself from laughing.

They set out on the trail of the refugees. Jack flew high, and the growls of his engines accompanied their march. "So much for secrecy," muttered one of the men, and then, above them, Jack banked and dived, flying swiftly away. Below, he saw a patrol from New Giantkiller; when they heard his engine they followed, riding hard to catch up.

"Oh, I don't think so," Jack murmured. He led them away from Kel and her people, as quickly as he could.

"Rikash," Jack called, looking up. The Stormwing, flying close by, drifted over to him.

"Yes?" he asked.

"There's a Tortallan patrol here," he gestured below, "Tell Kel to take a sharp turn Northeast; I'm going to lead them to the south," Jack shouted over the engines.

"If that's the plan," The Stormwing said offhandedly drifted away.

"Right," Jack muttered, feeling useless. He looked down at the galloping patrol of Tortallan soldiers. "One rogue aerodyne, coming up." He pulled the throttle.

Firing on his own people was idiotic. Instead he dove to little above the treeline, and he saw the patrol pick up a canter. They must be looking for him, Jack thought with grim humor.

He led them on a merry chase until their horses tired. It wasn't as though they could catch him, after all. Did they really think he was just going to land and let them take him prisoner? That was a laugh.

They followed him a few miles away before they fell behind, and Jack looped back to Kel's people. Rikash fluttered up to him.

"Taken care of?" he asked wryly.

"Nothing to worry about," Jack sighed.

"Good," said the Stormwing, and flew down to report the news.

.

.

The party moved slowly. During the night, Captain Harkness landed on the road when he could and slept with the men, or if he couldn't, he would disappear to find a field, where he camped alone. It was obvious that he delighted in landing, however; Ianto's markings on the trees were very clear, and Kel could almost smile when she saw Jack touch the burns in the bark, because sometimes Ianto left messages.

Still alive, they'd say. This way –IJ

Jack would smile sadly at them, and sometimes trace the 'I' of Ianto's initials with a finger when he thought no one was looking. During the day, he took to the air, following Kel and her men as they marched on.

Over here, Ianto would write.

To the north.

Still alive.

And then as they moved deeper and closer to the border, one was just curses.

"Think he kissed his mother with that mouth?" Dom asked wryly while some of the men chuckled uneasily.

"Bastards!" Neal swore suddenly, and Kel turned to look.

There was a woman crumpled on the roadside. Her skirts were stained with blood, and there was a white handkerchief laid respectively over her eyes. Kel dismounted and strode over to crouch beside her. She removed the handkerchief, knowing, somehow, that she would recognize the woman's face. She did – it was the young, pregnant wife of one of the Hanaford loggers. Yollane was her name, and she had worked in the kitchen, sometimes.

Neal dismounted and crouched to examine the body. "Dead over a day," he said, green eyes dull. He, too, had known her, after all. Neal, aside from being Kel's friend, had been the healer at Haven. "She lost the baby. I'd say she hemorrhaged—bled out. It happens, sometimes, if there's no healer." He gritted his teeth.

Kel swallowed and gently replaced the handkerchief. "Ianto must have found her," she murmured. "She wasn't alone."

A hundred yards down the road, the woman's husband was lying below the tree. He had a noose around his neck, but it had been cut down. Another handkerchief had been laid respectfully over his eyes.

"We don't have time to bury them," Kel whispered.

"What was your wishful of doing?" asked Uinse, one of the surviving convict soldiers who had followed Neal and the others to help Kel.

"Place him with her, please," Kel replied. "Even if we can't bury them, at least they can be together."

They moved on. Farther down the road, hoof prints in the mud became visible, and there were grooves marked in the trees, as though an inexperienced mage had started throwing fire wildly. There was a Scanran, dead, with a knife projecting between his eyes, and there was dried blood on the dry, uneven ground. Kel gave a signal and Dom's squad fanned out, searching the area. Above, Captain Harkness was still flying his all safe flag, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.

"What's this?" Dom asked, frowning down at the clear signs of struggle.

"It doesn't look good," Neal muttered.

"Lady," said Tobe, the young boy who worked as Kel's manservant. He was sitting on Peachblossem, Kel's bad tempered roan gelding, eyes fixed on the woods. Kel was convinced that the boy had some kind of horse magic, like Daine the wildmage; there was no other way Peachblossem would tolerate him.

"Tobe?" she asked.

"Lady, there's a horse in the woods," he repeated. "She's scared."

As though confirming his words, there was a crack of a branch and a rustle, followed by a high pitched squeal.

"That sounded like a horse." Dom glanced at Tobe.

Above, the aerodyne growled. Silver glinted out of the corner of Kel's eye. She looked up.

Rikash Moonsword was spiraling down with a concerned look on his face. The light winked off his wings and the bronze pendent around his neck. He landed, clawed feet scraping on the stones in the road. Kel resisted the urge to say something sharp. For all that she didn't like Stormwings, Rikash was an ally. "That's Anwen," he said.

"Who?" Neal asked.

"Ianto's horse," the Stormwing sneered. He looked into the woods. "Anwen!" he shouted.

"You idiot!" hissed one of the men. "Shut up! Do you want to get caught?"

"Oh, shut your mouth, I'm a Stormwing. I have every right to be here. ANWEN!" The last was high pitched, more like an eagle's scream than a word.

The brush moved.

"Bows," Dom said. Rikash scowled.

"I said it was only a horse," he muttered. Dom motioned, and his men armed themselves. The brush rustled again.

"Don't hurt her," Kel heard Tobe whisper. Still, it did not harm to be careful, and the last thing they needed was a killer unicorn.

A familiar chestnut mare stepped daintily onto the road. There were slashes along her rump, and her mane and hair were tangled wildly with bracken, but her steps were steady. She looked at them with bright, intelligent eyes. It was indeed Ianto's mare Anwen, but seeing her alone among twisted, broken bracken on a road that showed signs of a fight was not reassuring.

"But where's Ianto?" asked Merric quietly.

The horse snorted and stomped her foot.

"Captive?" Kel whispered. Anwen nodded, eerily intelligent, of course, because of Daine the wildmage.

"Jack won't be pleased," Rikash murmured, looking up to the sky, where the aerodyne was turning slow circles around the road. "Jack won't be pleased at all."

.

.

Jack wasn't pleased.

Of course Ianto had been captured. Of bloody course, what else did he expect? Ianto was only one man. One man who was, for all Jack knew, being shipped off to Castle Rathhausak to King Maggur, who would torture him.

And, of course, to top it all off, Jack could not get to him.

It became apparent that there was more to this curse than just changing as Kel's troop approached the Vassa River, the border between Tortall and Scanra. A curious feeling settled over Jack, an unease that sat in the pit of his belly and the base of his skull. His arms started to shake and sometimes he felt sick, like he was going to throw up. He felt his heart laboring, not out of fear, but as though he had some kind of blood disease.

Jack didn't mention it, of course. He wasn't going to be stopped by something so stupid as a cold; the gods here would have to try harder than that. The days and hours started to blur together and, sometimes, Jack forgot what he was doing, only that he had to keep on doing it. His head hurt.

"You look like death," Rikash told him frankly the day Kel's people had reached the shoreline of the river.

Jack, pale and feeling feverish, stared regretfully down at the river and did not reply. His head pounded, like a swollen wound, and his vision was starting to go blurry, a dangerous thing for a pilot.

"Land," sighed Rikash. "Tell them. I don't think you can go on, Jack."

That Rikash had used his name was telling of his concern. Wanting to protest but unsure why, Jack brought the Gwen out of cruising altitude and spiraled down to meet Kel's people as they stood at the riverbank. That he acquiesced was telling of his condition. It was hard to think straight.

He kicked his door open when the Gwen trundled to a stop, and vertigo seized him. Jack closed his eyes and breathed deeply, willing the nausea away. His scalp prickled. What was he supposed to be doing, again?

"Captain Harkness? Are you alright?" Kel had ridden up to the open door. He looked at her. She was blurry… and why were there two of her? The double image wavered and combined to become one. Ooh. That didn't feel good at all.

Jack told himself very firmly that Kel would not appreciate it if he threw up on her. "I don't think I can get any closer," he whispered, leaning his aching head against the backrest of the pilot seat in the dyne. "The border. Cursed."

"You look terrible," Sergeant Dom said cheerfully when he brought his horse up next to Kel's.

"I feel terrible, thanks," Jack muttered, opening one eye to look at Dom. The man continued to be very attractive—both of him, Jack seemed to be seeing double again—but at the moment, all Jack really wanted was a bed. Or maybe a bucket so he could throw up in it.

"Hey, Meathead!" Dom called over his shoulder. "Captain's feeling sick—"

Jack was feeling far too ill to question why Nealan of Queenscove responded to Meathead.

"Don't bother," Jack rasped when Neal came over. "I'm cursed. I can't—" he gestured to the river. Neal ignored him utterly, and dismounted his horse to clamber up onto the right wheel of the Gwen. He peered at Jack, at eyelevel when he stood on the wheel.

Jack thought of Ianto then, standing on the Gwen's wheel at Haven, when Jack had found the camp for the first time.

Monogamy, Jack thought woozily, watching Neal place a glowing hand on his shoulder, it did funny things to the libido. If he hadn't promised himself to at least try it for Ianto, he was sure he'd be feeling up Neal as he leaned over just now. Jack wanted to, of course, but in a distant sort of way. Rather than appreciating the warmth of the young knight for what it was, Jack found himself missing Ianto instead, and his hands and his voice and his lips. Ianto, who would've dragged Jack right out of the dyne and put him somewhere safe and warm and nurse him back to health despite any protests on Jack's part.

The hand on his shoulder glowed a darker green. "Gods damned-" Neal hissed. "You really are cursed," he snapped in frustration, taking his hand away. "When did that happen? I can't do anything," he said angrily. "You need to leave here, Harkness. You need to leave here now, before you get any worse."

"S'the plan," Jack slurred. "Rikash has a comm.," he managed.

"A what?" Neal asked irritably, still standing on the wheel of the Gwen.

"A comm., a speaking spell, whatever you call it here," Jack muttered, shooing Neal away so he could close the door. Then, suddenly, there was a flash of clarity, like burning lightning against the fog in his mind. He was abandoning Ianto? What the hell was he thinking? "Wait. Rikash—" he called quietly. Rikash glanced at him. Neal hopped down, making room for the Stormwing.

"Yes?" Rikash sidled up to Jack from where he stood on the wing of the Gwen.

"This. Take this to Ianto." Jack fumbled into his belt.

His revolver, blessed by Mithros to never run out of ammunition, never left his side. It was an anachronism, and very, very dangerous in a place like Tortall. Ianto, however, would be unarmed without his aerodyne, and that was Bad and Wrong and somewhere in Jack's addled brain he rebelled against the thought of it. Even so, if he couldn't be there himself – and if this was indicative of the sort of change he'd go through, Jack knew he'd be next to useless out there—at least he could make sure Ianto was armed. Jack picked up the gun and offered it to the Stormwing. "To Ianto," he specified again, trying to focus on the blurry form of the Stormwing. "No one else. Don't let the Scanrans get it. Got it?"

Rikash extended a claw and took the gun from him, watching Jack quizzically. "Got it," he muttered.

"And f'r god's sake, don't hurt yourself," Jack mumbled. "I'll be—around here. As close as I can."

"You should head back to Mastiff," Kel said softly. She glanced at Owen of Jesslaw. "They think there's going to be a siege there. They'll need you."

"Bring Ianto back," Jack told her firmly, not quite thinking clearly. His head pounded dully.

"We will," she promised.

Jack looked at her fretfully, this tall, broad-shouldered girl with the glaive. She looked very heroic, he thought dizzily. "And take care of Rikash," he added. The Stormwing, perched on the Gwen's wing, snorted.

"I think it's going to be the other way around," he said dryly.

"We'll take care of him, Captain," Kel told Jack. He nodded.

"I want updates," he told the Stormwing. God, but he did not want to leave Ianto's brother in this kind of danger.

"Yeah, yeah, get out of here before you puke, lover boy," Rikash sneered, leaping off the wing of the Gwen so he could glide to the ground. "We'll be fine." He landed on one foot, keeping the other raised like a stork. The muzzle of Jack's gun peeked from between his toes, pointing down and away from the rest of his body. Good.

"Don't like this," Jack complained fuzzily.

"Harkness, you are getting worse. Get out of here," Rikash scolded.

"Ianto?"

"We'll get him. Go!" Rikash spread both his wings and flapped them while he stood on the ground, like a loon drying off its wings, or a mother bird shooing chicks out of a nest.

Jack turned the Gwen away from the border and engaged his engines. The feeling of physical relief as he sped away was almost immediate; as soon as he was in the air, facing away from the river, his head cleared. He blinked, and then made to turn on a wingtip, thinking he was mad for giving up just because he was a little nauseous; as he turned, the sickness came back full force.

"Alright, alright, I'm leaving," he muttered to Shakith, as though the god could hear him. Reluctant though he was, Jack knew his own limits.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could swear he heard a voice say, Good!

"I'm not going far, though," Jack whispered determinedly. "If you think I'm leaving them behind, you're very mistaken!"

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