A Burning Sky

"Vanora? Are you in there?" I knocked a few more times at the door, waiting for Vanora to open up. She had missed three days work at the tavern, following a very public display of her kicking Bors out of their shared rooms. I had seen the children a few times and had asked them if their mother was okay, but they continued to say that she was just sleepy.

No matter how many times I knocked, there seemed to be no sound from behind the door. Finally giving up, I turned and made my way towards the tavern again. It was getting late and if she wouldn't answer for me, I would leave her alone. If she wanted to talk to me, she would seek me out. I just wanted to be there for her, as she had been there for me for so long.

"Irissa!" There was a chorus of voices that spoke my name and I turned my head to smile at the knights. They were having a relaxing night before riding out in the morning. We were pressed to make a sweep of the woods nearest to the fort, to expell any Woads or rogue barbarians that might be around in order to make for a safe passage for the villagers that would head this way before the weather became too bad for passage. I made my way to where my brothers in arms were sitting, planting myself between Gawain and Galahad.

"Vanora still giving our Bors the cold shoulder?" I nodded and turned to where Bors was drinking beside my brother. Although he looked jovial enough, I could see his eyes search the room, as if expecting his woman to appear.

"Have I ever told you the time that Galahad fell off his horse and had his foot stuck in the stirrup?" With a uproar of laughter and a few protests from a reddening Galahad, Gawain started to paint the tale.

A few more stories followed, with me even telling a few of Dagonet and I as kids, before the knights seemed to slowly disperse from the area. As they disappeared, I watch Bors give a longing look in the direction he would usually go before following Dagonet. He had been sleeping in my brother's room in the absence of being allowed in his own room.

I thought for a moment of perhaps trying to knock on Vanora's door again, but decided against it. Instead, my feet carried me away from the tavern and towards the fort walls. Running one hand along the rough stones, I slowed my steps. There weren't many people out, and those that were out weren't near enough for me to notice them. The wind was starting to pick up, bringing the promise of deep snow as it did, but I didn't feel the touch of the wind as I was protected by the fort wall. Tomorrow would be a cold day though.

"I've been looking for you." I stopped moving, the voice having caught me off guard. I hadn't heard anyone approach. And the voice was so familiar to me, though definitely Roman. I turned around slowly, readying myself for whatever might come.

"You!" Dressed in his Roman guard uniform stood Amicus, smiling brightly at me. It had been so long since I had seen him that I almost wasn't sure it was really him. The moment I was sure though, I launched myself at him.

"I promised that I would." I was hugging him so tightly that the armor was biting into my skin but I did not release him.

"Who did you promise? You left in the middle of the night!" He laughed and swung me around lightly before putting me back on the ground. There were tears of happiness in my eyes while I looked him over, as if expecting to see something very different with him. The only difference I could see was that he was no longer lying prone on the sick bed with a bandage over his side.

"That I did, but I promised the doctor that I would be back." I laughed and crushed him to me again, laughing into his neck when we pulled away.

"How is your wife?" He smiled fondly as I mentioned his wife, his Claudia.

"She is lovely. And will be even more lovely in the coming months, as she is with child." With the news, I restrained myself from hugging him once more and instead simply offering my congratulations multiple times.

We started to walk as we both filled the other in on the happenings in the last few months. He was shocked to hear all of what I had been through, mentioning a few times that he was surprised I had made it through as well as I had. I had also shyly told him that Tristan and I had become a public relationship, to which he had teased me. My happiness at seeing Amicus was cut short as I found myself covering my mouth in a yawn.

"I'm not going anywhere. Go to your room, get some sleep. We can continue our talk tomorrow." With a laugh, I bid him goodnight and headed away from the fort where he was on guard duty. I hadn't even thought of mentioning that tomorrow I would be out with the knights, but he would understand.

The next morning I was still half asleep while I prepared myself for the day. After my bathing ritual, which did well to wake me up, I dressed in the clothes that I had altered so long ago. The trousers were still a little long on me but I tucked them into the boots, wiggling my toes in the leftover space. The shirt was a little loose but I tied it tightly to me, grabbing the different armor that Dagonet had dropped off the day before. Once the armor was on, weighing me down, I strapped on my weapons.

Finally, after so many months, I had been giving me second sword. So both of them were strapped to my waist, one on each side, and then I tucked in my daggers. I then put on the quiver packed with arrows and my bow, strapping it over my back and making sure I could reach it. Once everything was gone, I stood still and felt the weight of everything on me. It would make me move slower, at least until I became accustomed to the feeling, but I would be better protected than I had been before.

As before, I was one of the first in the stables. Bors was brushing down his horse while I began saddling mine. My mare hadn't seen any action in a while as far as I was told, being used only a few times when I had been taken back to Grent's and not used often since then, so I talked to her while I prepared her. Bors looked distracted while he brushed his horse, which caused his horse to throw his head back a couple of times.

I wanted to ask if he had spoken to Vanora recently, if he had even seen her, but I knew it might not be the best time. This was only reinforced as Arthur and Dagonet stepped in, discussing different routes we were going to take. Arthur nodded to me and Dagonet excused himself to step over to where I was standing.

"How did you sleep?" There was no use in lying, so I shrugged and tried to fight back a yawn. He shook his head and then checked the straps on my weapons and armor.

"Dagonet, I'll be fine." He nodded and pressed his hand tightly against my shoulder before moving off to the stall that held his horse. The other knights came in at once, as if they had run into one another on the way in. Gawain was talking to Tristan, though they were talking too quietly to be heard, while Galahad continued to untie and retie the quiver over his shoulder. I had seen him do it enough to know that he was going through the motions, barely focusing on what he was doing.

Last was Lancelot who made his way over to me. We hadn't spent too much time together in the past few days, with us both busy in our own daily rituals and our paths not crossing often. Like my brother, he checked my weapons and the armor before giving me the half smile that he reserved for missions and being half awake. Both of which were taking place this morning.

"Too long at the tavern last night Lancelot?" He laughed and pulled his sword from its place on his back, swinging it a few times as if testing his adroitness. Once satisfied that he was under control, he replaced the sword and smiled at me, a more awake and alert smile.

"Do you know who I stumbled into last night on my way to my room?" His use of stumble didn't pass me but I raised an eyebrow while turning back to my horse, checking that the saddle was correctly placed and secured.

"Someone specific or just a lot of people?" He laughed and moved to the other side of my horse so that we were once again facing one another.

"Amicus." He said it, as if expecting a reaction, but instead I nodded and brushed my hand over my horse's neck.

"I saw him last night myself." Lancelot seemed disappointed that he wasn't the one to give me the news that my friend had returned, but sent me a shrug and a smile instead.

"I'm glad he's well." I nodded and mounted my horse, feeling the familiar feeling of vertigo while I situated myself. I would have to, at some point, give myself a certain amount of time a day to ride a horse and get used to it. It was still my weakest point.

"Knights. It will be as we talked about yesterday. After heading straight down the middle, Dagonet, Bors, Gawain and I will head up the east pathways; Lancelot, Galahad, Tristan and Irissa, the west. Good luck knights." With a nod and a quick burst of "Rus" from Bors, we set off towards the gate of the fort.

Once we entered the woods, we slowed our horses. We were still covering ground, though keeping our eyes open for any signs of movement. Villagers, traders, and people looking for refuge would come these paths and it was the duty of the knights to protect them. The straight pathway down the center that we were riding on now was shorter than the two curved paths to the east and the west, so it wasn't long before we met the fork in the path. There were still pathways infront of us, but we did as we were told and branched off to go to our designated paths.

Lancelot, Galahad, and Tristan were just ahead of me, though they all kept glancing over their shoulders at me. Tristan especially kept glancing at me, making sure that I was keeping up. I had a feeling, after the scouting mission that him and I had gone on all those months ago, he was the only one that knew just how unskilled on a horse I was.

We had just gone through a turn when I heard a noise behind us. I wasn't the only one. Tristan pulled his horse to a stop and the other two knights spaced out, still watching the area around us while Tristan and I dismounted, hand on our weapons, and headed towards the turn. The trees were too thick to see through for me, though something told me that Tristan had better eye sight than I did.

Voices were heard, a man telling someone to hurry up. When the voices became louder, Tristan stepped around the trees. I lurched forward, thinking the worse, but was calmed with the sight of villagers approaching slowly, as if they were the ones about to be attacked.

"Are you heading to Hadrian's wall?" The man who had been speaking before nodded, looking shaken at the four of us. Lancelot and Galahad had stayed mounted. It must have been a sight, three males and a female wearing armor and weapons, making for a threatening sight in the woods. Though any person, trader or villager or lowliest bandit, knew that the people infront of them would be Sarmatian knights.

After deciding that the people with the wagon were traders, Tristan and I mounted again and returned to our ride through the woods. It was a slow work, since the path was so long and winding, but soon enough we lost sight of the tradesmen behind us.

"How often on these runs do you run into Woads or bandits?" Galahad was the closest to me when I posed my question, voice low enough that only he would hear it, so he bent closer to me to answer.

"Usually by now we have at least had one incounter. It is strange that we haven't even seen signs of life in the woods." I knew he didn't mean animals because we had seen many animals, of all sorts. Something in his voice and the silence that had come over the woods had me gripping the sword on my waist while we continued on. Tristan had stopped, cocking his head to the right as if he was about to urge the horse to turn around. It was the same thing as the scouting mission with him. He looked as if he was looking for something, but he was listening for something.

And then it came. Screams and the sounds of wood splintering. We all turned our horses and galloped towards the sound. My heart was pounding painfully in my chest, half from nerves and half from the pounding of the horse. The screams were getting louder and finally we could see what was causing them.

The traders we had just lost sight of were being attacked by a handful of men, clearly bandits by their clothing. Although traders were generally never more armed than a large branch from a tree, these traders had swords and daggers and were holding their own against the bandits. They didn't seem to be attacking one another to hurt someone. It reminded me of the fighting that I had gone through as training.

One look at Tristan told me that he was thinking the same thing that I was. This wasn't an actual bandit attack. This was an ambush meant for us.


A/N: Okay, so I have a legit reason for my absence this time. I am in the middle of trying to get some of my original writing published and the person we were going through had said that if I'm being published, I might not be able to finish any other writings, fanfiction or original, because of infringement of their contract. That being said, I decided to either find a new publishing company or just wait until I'm done with this story to go through this publishing company.
So no worries, I'm not sacrificing this story for my own writing. But, wish me luck on publishing, now or later! Haha.
I'm sorry for not answering reviews as well. FFnet was giving me some flack on replying to reviews for a few days and then erased all of my Outbox and Inbox so I don't know who I've responded to or not. Any one else having this problem, btw?
By the way, I went to see 30 Seconds To Mars in Charlotte on Monday. Lemme tell you sumfin, that was amazing. Definitely worth the loss of my voice and serious soreness from jumping and dancing.
Thank you readers/reviewers/alerters/favoriters for being SO awesome, even after almost 50 chapters! And over 300 reviews? Yea, seriously, you guys are BEYOND epic. Love you all!

I'm compiling a list of questions (either about myself or about this story or my other story/ies) to turn into a Fact page at the end of this story. If you have any questions, please send them in a review or message. It can be anything from my thought process for the story to my favorite pizza topping, I don't care. All of them will be put on the Fact page. It will kind of be a documentation of our journey together through this story. Thank you kindly!

Sneak Peek at the next chapter:

No sneak peek because I'm a) lazy, b) uncreative, c) unable to pick just one part. Or d) all of the above. Sowwy! One cliffhanger is enough though, if you ask me! *smile*