NOTE: You all deserve another apology. I'm studying archaeology at university and I'm frequently away on digs. Wifi isn't a priority unfortunately and I don't have the means to upload as often as I'd like. Still, I 'm trying my best to upload when I can. Stick with me guys. Ellie x
When Tristan had calmed himself he became aware of the distant splashing and shouting. Metres to his right were Vahri and Narius in the creek. Tristan picked himself up and strolled over carefully, eying the boy who, despite his previous transformation, was now wearing ill-fitting clothing.
"Where'd you get those from?" he quizzed
Narius shrugged
"I found them washed up" Vahri offered from in the small creek by Narius' feet. "They must have belonged to someone…" she turned her head slowly towards the lake.
There was still flame feeding off the remaining structures of the town and people were still being pulled from boats and out of the icy water
"You two lay low here. I'm going to help how I can and I'll find you both soon"
The mer-folk didn't argue. They only nodded and clung to the shadowy rocks whilst Tristan made his way over the frosty dried grasses between the flat black rocks.
The closer he got the more despair Tristan could feel. People were desperately searching for loved ones and others simply clung sobbing to corpses that were quickly growing cold. Young women dashed around offering assistance as nurses and the men tried to assist the wounded. A young child clung to a blanket someone had thrown around their shoulders. The child had hair like Ellen.
Despite the chaos there was a careful, unspoken order to it all. Do what you can, if you can for who you can. Tristan felt pride for his people and began to wade out into the icy lake to assist those still swimming.
"Tristan!" he heard behind him "Tristan, is that you?"
He spun quickly on his heel to look for the source of the shout. His eyes fell on a figure barely ten feet away.
Artemis.
He was soaked through. There was a cut over his brow and a nasty burn over his left shoulder that had pulled away and singed at his own shirt. His favourite coat was missing. His boots were mud soaked and his hands were covered with…
"…blood?" Tristan said it aloud, slowly stalking towards the other young man and reaching for his arms. "Artemis? Whose blood is that?"
Artemis trembled almost unnoticeably "She was alive when I found her, I swear. She was trapped under a wooden post. Your house collapsed. I thought I could get her out, Tristan I swear I tried so hard, she bled out whilst I was swimming with her. She was on my back I didn't notice she was gone until I lifted her onto the bank. She was alive when I found her…"
Artemis' panicked babbling drowned out as Tristan's gaze fell behind him. There was Artemis' favourite coat, Brown velvet with a one-of-a-king burgundy trim that must have cost a fortune and brass buttons that had previously shone so brightly, even in the dim light of the lake at winter. Now there was blood soaking through it.
There was a small shape lying flat underneath it and muddy blonde hair peeked out of the top, splayed across the damp earth. One tiny hand had fallen out from the coat, unconcealed, palm pointing upwards to the sky and colder and whiter than should be humanly possible.
"…I swear I tried to save her Tristan" Artemis' voice broke back through the wind.
The two boys walked slowly over to the tiny body and crouched beside it as Artemis slowly peeled back the coat away from her face
"Oh Ellen…" Tristan whispered "Oh Ellen I am so sorry"
Artemis said nothing and only brushed some dirt away from her face. Her eyes had already been closed and her mouth was slightly parted, her tiny nose pointing up towards the sky
Tristan gently reached under her neck and around her waist and gently pulled Ellen to him, propping her up gently against his shoulder as he brushed her hair back.
"Your mother was already gone Tristan. I couldn't carry her; she sank with the rest of the house"
Tristan nodded slowly, his eyes misting up and trying to focus on Ellen's tiny cold face
"Where is your family, Arty?"
The other boy shook his head. "They burned. I was already in the water but they burned Tristan. And I swam away because I'm a coward and I…"
There was a woman's shriek from a dozen metres behind them and both young men spun around to look
"That's Alesia's mother" Artemis swallowed heavily and got up to walk towards the older woman whose hands were thrown in front of her face. She was staring down at a lump on the floor "I'll be back soon Tess"
Tristan wanted to laugh at the nickname at a time like this. It no longer irritated him. It made him feel less angry. It made his feel less confused. It just made his feel less.
He gingerly placed his fingers over Ellen's left eye and pulled the lid up. The blue was already clouding over and stared blankly up at the sky over them. He closed her eye again and focused on placing her gently back onto the ground, re-arranging the coat over her face and laying in her in a line with the other lost children.
When he looked up, Artemis was making his way back over with fresh tears in his eyes. He wiped them away quickly.
"Alesia is dead. And both her brothers and her father" Artemis sat on the ground next to Tristan as they both gazed out "Her mother and uncle can't find enough material to cover them all"
There was silence for a short while. A short scuffle seemed to break out a short way along the shore.
"Is that Alfrid?" Artemis asked, squinting at the kerfuffle. Tristan glanced over to where the former master's deputy was attempting to snatch a blanket away from a woman who was handing them out to the injured. "Of all the people who died and that toad is still…"
Both boys let out a resounding "Ooooh!" as they watched Bain artfully stick his leg out, tripping Alfrid onto the ground
"I knew I liked that boy" Tristan smiled and Artemis laughed, clapping his hand over his friends back to which Tristan turned to smile at his new ally.
"Good kids. The youngest used to play with Ellen, didn't she?"
Tristan nodded "Definitely good kids"
There was another shout from where the small scuffle had taken place but now a circle was gathered around. Tristan and Artemis stood to walk over, the former stealing one last glance at Ellen's little figure under the ruined coat.
"It was Bard! He killed the dragon. I saw it with my own eyes!"
The boys looked to each other and joined the edge of the circle as more people piled in to see what was afoot
"He brought the beast down. Shot him dead with a black arrow"
There were resounding cheers and people surged forwards to clap Bard on the back. Very suddenly, there was a jubilant and brief celebration. It fell quiet again as Alfrid tried to open his mouth and Tristan and Artemis quickly backed out of the crowd as the other survivors turned their anger towards the master's deputy.
"They're going to lynch him" Tristan nodded back to the crowd as they walked away.
"Let them" Artemis growled "The rat deserves it"
They could hear Bard shouting above everyone else again but Tristan didn't stop to listen and Artemis followed. He made a beeline towards where he had left Narius and Vahri
"Where are we going?" Artemis asked, glancing back at the group of survivors and then towards the boy he was now following
"There are some people you need to meet" Tristan said
Bard could be heard loudly from the shore
"Follow me. We must salvage what we can!"
"We should help them retrieve supplies from the lake" Artemis argued, tripping after Tristan until they both reached the creek.
Narius was still sat behind two large pieces of rock, dipping his feet in the icy water. Vahri stayed with her head and shoulders poking above the still mirror, her hair damp but quickly drying.
"Oh Gods!" Artemis cried, stumbling backwards and trying to scrabble away after spying Vahri's dark tail. "They're real. They're real!"
"Shut up!" Tristan cried, pulling Artemis off the floor and dragging him back towards the bewildered looking duo. "Shut up and don't draw attention. They're harmless. This is Vahri and that one is Narius. He used to be merfolk but he's sort of changed and now he's like this"
Artemis still seemed to be trying to control his breathing when a shrill scream echoed from the shoreline of the lake where the main group of survivors were. Many more panicked yells followed it. There was a great deal of thrashing in the water.
"What in the hell was that?!" Narius asked, his eyes wide.
Tristan shared a look with Vahri "Stay here" he instructed the other two young men who eyed one another suspiciously but were ultimately more worried about the noise.
The female nymph slipped under the water coming up a dozen or so metres down the creek, close to the opening of the lake. From under the water there was a fog stirred up by the broken debris of laketown and she could see nothing. The water was no longer clear.
Tristan hopped along the lining of the creek until he reached the same point as Vahri and peered at the assembled group of people.
They all seemed puzzled and panicked. A group of half a dozen men searching and grasping under the water for something.
"She's gone?"
"But where? She screamed and then she slipped under?"
"It was only shallow water"
"It was Mirra, the dock owners daughter I swear"
"But she can swim"
"I know she can swim, there's no way she drowned"
"I tried to grab her. Something pulled her under"
Tristan struggled to make out what was going on and Vahri tugged at his ankle "Did someone just drown?"
"Mirra Anderson" he nodded "She just got married last month. But she's a good swimmer I know she is, there's no way she could have…"
There was another sudden scream from one of the men who'd been looking for the lost woman whose footing slipped out from under him and he quickly slid away from the bank, trashing and grasping in front of him as other men tried to grasp hold of his arms. Three of them managed to grab him firmly as he screamed, his head dipping below the water at some points
"It's got me! It's got me! Help me, somebody help…!"
There was an inhuman, shrill shrieking noise and a loud metallic hiss as the man was suddenly yanked, with a scream, below the lakes surface and the other men scrambled quickly back up to the shore as a trail of bubbles slowly stopped rising to the surface. The lake calmed again
"What in the name of gods was that?" one of them yelled
"I didn't see anything, I don't know"
"I heard it"
"We all heard it"
"Vahri?" Tristan asked, his head slowly turning to look at the nymph who was lowering her head below the surface to stare dead ahead at the seam between the creek and the inky lake. The silt and mud in the water shifted very quickly as something black and feathery flicked in the murk and disappeared into the depths. She brought her head back up again. Her eyes unblinking.
"They're awake"