Disclaimer: I guess it's this time again. I don't own any of Tammy's creations, however I do own: Ked, Jhedy, Tait, Salin, Jamil, Lord Parrton, Feran, the little girl with the gift at Mindelan, Judge Tremont (who gets no more than a brief mention), the black haired man that is a friend of Piers and Ilane, Farant, Saul, Ana, Naomi, Lora, Jacey, Essa, Jak, Ortun (a place, not a person), the street urchin, the merchant, Mysh, Adelaide, Kara, Francis, Mandy, Elissa, Arianne, Akred (Essa's brother, better known as Cazzir) and Alan of Trebond.

Chapter Twenty-two: Essa

Kel had no idea how she made it from the mess hall to her room, she hadn't even realised where she was headed until she ended up outside her door. She went to unlock it to find it was already unlocked.

She pushed open the door hesitantly, not sure whether she had forgotten to lock it or someone had picked the lock. Inside someone was muttering and walking back and forth, she breathed a sigh of relief when she realised that her would-be assassin was only Dom.

"Dom?" she asked as she dropped her keys onto her desk.

He continued to stride up and down her room. Finally he turned to her. "I can't do this!" he exclaimed. His skin was grey with tiredness and worry, his clothes crumpled.

"Do what?" Kel asked as she sat on her bed and removed her boots in favour of Yamani style slippers.

"Her funeral!" Dom cried. "It's this afternoon!"

It hardly took Kel anytime at all to realise who 'she' was. He was talking about Essa. Kel had forgotten that Essa was going to be buried that afternoon. "Yes you can," she replied. "I thought you had said you wanted to go."

Dom nodded. "I do! But I'm not going to be able handle it!"

Kel sighed. It was a good thing that his men couldn't see him now. "Get changed into your uniform. I'll go with you."

Dom looked at Kel in surprise. "I thought you had said you didn't want to go because it would bring back memories."

"It will," Kel said shortly. "But you won't go otherwise and I know you want to. Get changed and meet me by the cemetery gates."

Dom hugged her tight and ran off to change.

Kel rummaged through her closet, looking for the black shirt and breeches she had worn to her father's funeral. She donned them quickly and pulled on black riding boots. She ran a brush through her hair and was glad that she'd had it cropped, it made it so much easier to deal with. She strapped her sword onto her belt and hung her curved throwing knife on the opposite side. Then she tore through the palace and out the back entrance towards the Rider cemetery. Dom was pacing back and forth and he was a sight to gasp at in his uniform. His dark blue tunic was smooth and unwrinkled and over that he wore thin chain mail. His blue trousers were baggy and clean, for once. His white cloak was obviously fresh and it was tied with a broach that Kel had given him in the shape of a sword. His weapons hung at his side and his slightly curly hair was behaving itself for once. He sighed with relief when he saw her and Kel marched forwards and they walked hand-in-hand to the crowd that had gathered within the cemetery.

"Lady Kel, I hadn't thought that you were coming," Lord Wyldon said as he greeted them. By his side stood Cazzir, he looked tired and drawn and his eyes were red.

Kel shook her head. "I hadn't been planning to, but Dom asked me to accompany him, so I changed my mind."

Wyldon glanced towards Dom with a slight smile on his face. "I see." Wyldon was about to walk away when he remembered something. "The King wishes to see you tomorrow before you train the pages, Lady Kel."

Kel nodded. "Thanks."

She spotted Jak standing with the rest of the Rider group and gently tugged Dom along to meet them. "I'm sorry," she said.

Jak shrugged. "So am I."

Dom said nothing, but Kel knew that if he spoke he would end up in tears and she guided him gently away.

"How are you holding up?" she asked him where no one could hear.

Dom shrugged. "I don't know. But now I wish I hadn't come. Seeing her brother only made things worse. It suddenly came to me that he has no one to turn to. Jak said they had no parents or other family, only each other and I allowed even that to be taken away. What's he going to do?"

"It wasn't your fault!" Kel replied harshly and then regretted the tone of her voice and softened it. "No, seriously, it wasn't your fault."

"Yes, but what is her brother going to do?" Dom asked again.

Kel shrugged. "I've no idea! If you're that bothered, I'll ask Wyldon what he's doing. Do you want me to?"

Dom nodded silently.

"Stay here then," Kel said as she walked through the crowds to the tall training master. "Can I have a word with you, my Lord?" She glanced at Cazzir who was still standing faithfully by his training master's side. "In private," she added.

Wyldon nodded and the two of them walked slightly apart from the rest.

"Yes?" he asked, keeping one eye on the crowd and Cazzir.

"This is going to sound really odd, my Lord," Kel said with a slight laugh. "But I promised I'd ask. What's going to happen to Cazzir?"

Wyldon sighed and scratched the long scars down his arm. "I've no idea. He'll probably stay at the palace all the time. Though your nephew says that Cazzir wants to return to the desert, which is something we all want to prevent."

"Why?" Kel asked quickly.

"I presume you know that his parents are dead?"

"Yes, my Lord. I know that they're dead, not how or why, but I know they're dead."

"Cazzir and his family were part of the Soaring Eagle Tribe, they were the only renegade tribe left and when Cazzir's sister expressed her wish to join the Riders, they tried to kill the whole family because they considered them contaminated. They killed the mother, father and a younger sister but Cazzir and his sister survived and made it to Corus. Now Cazzir is saying that he wants to return to the desert but if he returns, he'll be killed. In his current state of mind he doesn't care."

Kel suddenly filled with sorrow for the child whose life had been harder than her own. "Mithros!" she breathed.

"Does that answer Dom's question?" Wyldon asked wryly.

"How did you know that it was his question?" Kel asked with amusement.

"You said that you'd promised to ask, meaning it wasn't your own question. I saw you talking with him earlier and anyone with a pair of eyes in his head can see that he's eating himself up about the girl's death," Wyldon replied frankly.

Kel sighed. "I can't convince him it's not his fault!"

"Relax Kel," Wyldon advised, placing a hand on her arm. "It won't have been the first person he's seen die who should have. He got over them; he'll get over this. Just give him time and space."

Kel stood thinking about that for a while after Wyldon had left, maybe he was right. But she didn't like to see Dom suffer. Shaking her head she ventured back to where she had left Dom.

"Well?" he asked from his seat on a cold marble bench nearby.

Kel sat down next to him and placed her hand on his knee. "He doesn't really know, Cazzir wants to return to the desert, Wyldon wants him to stay at the palace."

"Why?"

Kel quickly filled him in on Cazzir's tribe and hoped that Dom wasn't going to do what she thought he was going to do. "You better not offer to take him in!" she warned.

"Why not?" Dom asked, a hurt expression on his face. "Don't you think I would be able to cope with him?"

Kel laughed slightly. "Dom, you're in the field for nine months of the year! You can't drag him around with you, he belongs here. Even for the three months that you are here, you don't have a proper house or anything! You live in the Own's barracks!"

Dom looked suddenly despondent. "Lord Raoul said to do anything that would help me recover!"

"I hardly think he meant you take in a thirteen year old child. Maybe…" Kel trailed off, deep in thought. "Here's an idea that might be more suitable. If you are determined to help him somehow, give him the money he needs to buy weapons, get to know him, take him out into the city for a day out every now and again, even take him home to Masbolle for his summer break. Then, if you talk with Lord Raoul, you could ask him to take Cazzir on as his squire next year. I don't know whether he would, but where's the harm in asking?"

Dom nodded slowly and grinned. "Yeah, we'll give that a go."

- - -

Kel walked up to the King's study to find Neal sitting on the bench outside of it, talking to a court lady. He looked extremely bored.

"Neal!" Kel cried.

"Kel!" he answered, jumping up to hug her. "Long time, no see!"

Kel laughed. "True. I was trekking around the country with your cousin."

Neal raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Kel swiped him. "With my brother, a Rider group and later the rest of the Third Company! It was nothing like that."

Neal grinned. "I didn't think it was, but you know how much I like to annoy you."

The court lady looked slightly put out to have been abandoned by Neal, but took it fairly well.

"So what were you doing?" Neal asked curiously.

"Well, when Dom tried to explain it to a friend yesterday why he hadn't kept a drink night, he said something like 'I've spent the last few weeks chasing my girlfriend around the country because she was determined to get herself killed,'" Kel replied wryly.

"What?" Neal asked in horror. "Killed?"

Kel shrugged. "Nothing to worry about. I spent a few days with my brother's and their children. That was great fun."

"Nothing to worry about?" Neal echoed. "If it involved the possibility of you getting killed, it's something to worry about. What did you do?"

"I'm surprised you didn't find out before now," a quiet voice replied from the doorway. The King stood, gesturing for them to come in.

Neal glowered at Kel and walked in, Kel followed.

"So are you going to explain?" Neal asked. Kel wasn't sure if he was asking her or the King.

"I only tried to stop a war!" she protested.

"Oh yes," Neal drawled. "That's something everyone tries to do. I expect the common person gets up and aims to stop a war before breakfast and another straight after lunch!"

"Shut up!" Kel snapped.

The King smiled slightly and turned to Neal. "She's still a bit put out with me because I sent someone after her that she couldn't refuse, your cousin."

"He was going to get himself killed!" Kel hissed, still angry with Jon for having pulled such a low trick.

"And so were you." Jon turned to Neal. "I'll fill you in. The Emperor threatened to declare war unless we handed Kel over to face justice. In other words we had to send her to them so they could kill her. We refused and thought it was the end of that. However, we hadn't bargained on Kel finding out about our refusal."

Neal laughed at this, he knew his best friend well enough to know what she would have done next.

"She ran off and I was forced to send people after her. I sent a Rider company, her brother and Dom. She nearly evaded them and was sailing towards international waters when they caught her. As they returned to docks they ran into raiders. Dom was separated from the rest, only to show up at Mindelan. There was one casualty in the fight, one of the Riders…"

"A woman that Dom had said he would protect because she was too tired to fight," Kel quietly interrupted. She tried to grin. "He's not feeling too good about that at the moment."

Neal smiled sympathetically.

"Anyway, now you know where Kel disappeared to, shall we get onto the real reason why I asked to see the both of you?" Jon held up his hand to Neal. "And yes Neal, I am well aware you already know, but Kel doesn't, so if you could find it in you to be quiet for even a short space of time?"

Neal shrugged and held a finger to his lips.

Jon grinned at the other male knight and turned his attention to Kel. "I wanted to ask you a favour, you don't need to agree, you're quite within your rights to refuse, but it would easier for us if you would agree."

Kel shrugged. "Just tell me what you want me to do."

Jon nodded. "Well, we – well, I – was wondering if you would mind giving up your afternoons. I know that currently your free time is your afternoons, but I was hoping that you would give that up."

"For what?" Kel asked suspiciously. Whilst Dom was at the palace she was going to be spending that time with him and maybe her other friends.

"You know as well as I do what the risks of pitting a sword against a pole arm are," Jon said. "It would be slaughter for those with the swords."

"Us, in other words," Neal added, breaking his silence.

Jon nodded. "To put it bluntly, yes, us. I was hoping that you would be able to give up your afternoons for a while to train some men, all knights, to use glaives."

"Certainly, Sire," Kel replied.

Jon nodded, a wide smile on his face. "Good."

"But what part does Neal have in this?" Kel asked suspiciously.

"Well, he's there just in case any of the men refuse to fight under a woman," Jon explained. "To stop the arguments."

"If the men refuse to fight under me, then they'll just get themselves killed. It's their decision," Kel snapped. "If you don't mind, I'll handle this on my own. I don't need someone to look after me."

"I told you that would be her reaction!" Neal exclaimed almost jubilantly and Kel realised that he would be spending his now free afternoons with Yuki.

Jon laughed. "Very well Neal. Dismissed."

Neal clapped Kel on the shoulder and walked out of the room.

Yuki…Kel thought in horror. "Sire," she said nervously. "What is happening to the Yamani ladies already over here? The ones that were part of the peace delegations?" She found herself cowering away from the answer, not wanting to hear but realising she needed to know.

Jon sighed. "Some people on my council feel that they should be sent straight back."

Kel looked at Jon with absolute horror written on her face. "Sire, please. Don't do that. Neal would be unbearable!"

Jon grinned. "That was one of the points raised by his father. We decided against sending them back. Some wanted them killed and we immediately decided against that, because that would only make us as bad as the Emperor himself. So we have come to the decision to allow them to stay under very close supervision and then they are there to use, if necessary as hostages."

Kel laughed hollowly. "The Emperor couldn't care less. He'd just sit on his throne and wait for you to kill them. Then he'd strike with vengeance and kill as many of our people as possible."

- - -

Kel walked with Lachran from the archery to the last lesson of the morning, hand-to-hand combat. Usually the pages' trainers would leave here, but Kel had been asked to stay. After all, she had trained at the Yamani court and for that reason she was proving to be a very popular person.

"Enjoying your first day?" Lachran asked with a grin that Kel considered slightly evil. He must know how hard she had been finding it, when she hadn't been demonstrating, she had been trying to ignore the comments from those boys brought up conservatively.

"I must remind Anders to do something about you!" Kel replied with a groan. "It's been a great experience, but I had no idea how hard it was to train people. I've absolutely no idea how my Lord managed to do this on his own!"

Lachran grinned, clapped her on the shoulder and went to join his friends in the corner of the training yard.

"Lady Knight," a voice called from the fence.

Kel turned to see a man who she hadn't seen since she had been thrown out of the page training all those years ago. His black hair and dark peach coloured skin meant that no one could mistake his Yamani heritage. He bowed low in Yamani style towards her and Kel grinned and bowed back.

"You know, if the Emperor could see that bow, he'd probably have you executed," Kel commented as she walked over and shook his hand. As she was a traitor in the eyes of the Emperor, no one, not even the lowliest servant should bow to her, never mind such a great warrior as the Shang Horse and he certainly shouldn't be bowing that low.

"And I don't care. I won't be going back there," the Horse replied with a grin that showed his white teeth. He stood back and studied her. "You've grown."

Kel laughed, allowing her merriment to show in her eyes and on her face. "I should certainly hope so, it must have at least eight years."

"Yes and maybe you'll be able to beat me now," Haukin suggested almost cheekily.

Kel shook her head. "I find that hard to believe."

"But eight years ago you nearly had me floored."

"Only because I took you by surprise!" Kel pointed out as she started to stretch.

"As touching as this reunion is, don't you think that the pages could use the benefit of your knowledge, Haukin?" a wry voice asked from the crowd of pages. "And maybe even yours, Kel."

"I see she still hasn't changed much," Kel hissed as she and Haukin joined the Wild Cat on the fence.

Haukin hid a grin as he started to limber up and the pages followed his moves.

When the pages were ordered to pair up there was one left over and Kel found herself paired with the young boy. She was slightly startled by Haukin's comment when he ordered her to pair with him,

"If I were you, I wouldn't hold anything back when we get to freestyle fighting," Haukin had said, but surely this thirteen-year-old couldn't be good enough to beat her?

When they started to run through all the moves taught to the pages in slow motion that Kel saw exactly how good this boy was. His moves were clean and precise and they flowed fluidly from one to the next. With intense interest, Kel studied him out of the corner of her eye. He was very tall for his age with grey eyes and a dirty mop of blonde hair. His nose looked like it had met several hard objects repeatedly and not had the benefit of a healer. Kel was puzzled to see his hands were callused and scarred, the sort of hands an experienced warrior had, not a page.

"Turn to face your partner!" Haukin yelled over the thumps and cries of pain.

Kel turned to face the boy, who bowed to her. "A great honour to meet you, Lady Knight," he said, his voice struck Kel as odd. It sounded like he had once had a noble accent but now it was hidden under a mixture of street and Maren.

"And I have the feeling it is a great honour to meet you. Who exactly are you?"

"Alan of Trebond, my Lady."

"And why was I told to watch out for you and to put all I had into this fight?" Kel asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I've had a bit of Shang training," Alan admitted. That would explain his accent, Kel realised. After all, if he lived at the Shang Training Grounds for a few years, he was bound to pick up a Maren accent, but he would also have been living with commoners and was bound to have picked up some of their slang and accent.

Haukin walked over. "A lot more than a bit, actually. I make it eight years."

Kel whistled in awe. "That's a lot of training. Do you think I should back out now and save my dignity?"

Haukin laughed. "I'm sure you could cope with being beaten once."

"In the Isles I was beaten regularly," Kel replied as she watched the drill the others were working through. "And we're not doing that because?"

"Because I believe you are better than that. Besides, I want to test Alan against a style of fighting he won't know at all. I can pretty much assume that you, Kel, know mostly Yamani moves and that Alan will only know the Yamani moves that I've taught him. It should be an interesting and close fight."

Kel sighed, shed her tunic and rolled up her shirtsleeves. The shirt she wore had been white in the morning but now it was dusty and muddy with rips and tears. I don't think I've been this hard on my clothes since I was a narwabi, Kel thought as she tried to remember all the slightly more complex moves that Tait had taught her.

Tait…I will keep control, Kel thought slowly, imagining herself as a stone. She fought not to think of his betrayal of her and his part in her father's death.

"Kel?" Haukin called, trying to bring the woman back from the pre-battle trance she seemed to have fallen into.

Kel shook her head. "I won't think of him," she muttered to herself. "I'm stone."

"Stone?" Alan echoed in surprise.

"Don't ask," Kel and Haukin advised in unison.

Alan shrugged and moved into a fighting stance, his face was one of complete concentration and Kel almost stepped back, not in fear but awe. That amount of concentration took years to perfect and most of those in the Isles who got anywhere near that amount of focus were calawabis, maybe even Chosen Warriors. It was something that took a lot of work everyday.

Haukin nodded to them both and Alan made the first move. His fists hurtled towards her and Kel ducked, she only remembered at the last second to dodge the sweeping kick that came with his punch. She swung her right fist towards his chest and he ducked, as well as moving to escape the kick that he expected to come from her right leg. Instead she jumped and kicked him squarely in the chest with her left foot. He fell backwards and immediately rolled away from her as he got gracefully to his feet. He assumed a fighting stance as he kept his feet moving and Kel realised she was going to be the next one to make a move. She delivered a simple punch, which he deflected easily and then moved so fast that Kel couldn't keep track of what he was doing and she found herself sailing through the air. She twisted slightly in the air and landed in a crouch position just in front of the pair working next to them. As she inched towards him, he brought a kick up at her shoulder, which she ducked. Soon the fight was moving so fast that the watching pages couldn't keep a track of it. They watched on in amazement as a fellow page gave the second Lady Knight a run for her money. Alan was a flurry of quick kicks and punches whilst Kel relief more on force than on speed. Suddenly one move came into her head, a move that had taken her months to perfect and had caused Tait no end of grief. She delivered a punch to his face with her left hand and as he moved to deflect it she pulled back and grabbed both of his arms then brought her feet smashing into his legs in a low sweeping kick that caused him to fall backwards. As he fell she tightened her grip on his arms and wrenched him over her hip. He flew and skidded across the ground, cutting his face and arms. Injuries like that would usually keep a page on the floor, but Alan was Shang trained so despite the blood pouring from his lip and nose and the large lumps of grit stuck in wounds on his cheek, he rolled over and leapt to his feet. What he did next was so fast that Kel hardly caught it until she recognised the last few moves as something that Nariko, an instructor in the Isles, had taught her and presumably Haukin who had then passed it on to Alan. But Nariko had never performed it that fast. Without thinking Kel jumped to avoid his kick and sent both feet crashing into his stomach. As he fell backwards, Kel turned slightly so she avoided landed on top of him. She stepped back quickly and as Alan scrambled up she saw he was bleeding badly from the temple.

Haukin stepped in between them. "Alright, stop here. I don't want either of you getting more injured than you already have. Both of you get off to healers, now!"

Kel and Alan nodded wearily and Kel was surprised to see her white shirt stained in blood and that her nose felt slightly out of place.

"You fought very well," Kel congratulated the young boy as they walked away from the pages. They were staring in awe at the pair, but especially Alan who no one every wanted to be paired with because they knew they had no chance of winning and now they certainly didn't want to fight him at all.

Alan shrugged. "So did you, you'll have to teach me some of those moves some time." He was already wrapping his shirt around a wound on his arm and using the headband he wore to keep the hair out of his eyes as a means of stopping the blood form his temple.

Kel nodded. "If you want."

"Who do you think won?" Alan asked with a grin on his face despite the fact he was looking rather pale.

"Let's just call it a draw."

- - -

A/N: I swear, I go from one extreme to the other! From hardly updating to updating a lot! I'm not used to it, I think I'll faint. Well, maybe not. Ah well. Started a new fic, which I'll start posting in a few months. I think it's different from everything else. Or at least, I've never read one like it.

So what do you guys think of Alan? He was an interesting character to write, but I wasn't sure about him. But I guess it doesn't really matter, he worked perfectly well for what he is (a chapter filler).

Hannah