Ok. I'm sorry to do this, guys- but today there will be no comments on comments!

Apparently a lot of people became confused with the last chapter. Many questions about Vrena and Vejha, their backgrounds, some other weird questions, and one odd question about horses, to make it simple.

First off, I would like to answer the questions and concerns of Hunt Seat Panhead.

Your first question was, "what gender is Arvin?" Male, of course. That has been said several times already in the story; I would obviously not call him a he if he was a she. (But thank you for pointing out that have accidently called him a mare a few times. My bad.)

You also informed me that stallions come in the following colors- "grey, albino, paint, pinto, leopard spotted, dapple, flea-bitten, and roan but not WHITE." To correct you, YES. A breed of stallion does exist, part quarter horse. As stated from a professional horse breeder and I quote: "The names of the different horse colors are really quite simple. What makes it complicated, is that there are so many regional varieties of the colors."

Another thing, if I am not mistaken, you mentioned that stallions can be albino. You do know that albino means- "an organism exhibiting deficient pigmentation; especially a human being or nonhuman mammal that is congenitally deficient in pigment and usually has a milky or translucent skin, white or colorless hair, and eyes with pink or blue iris and deep-red pupil". Correct me if I'm wrong.

One thing you did rightfully correct me on, however, was that a mare horse is female. For that, I will apologize, but nothing else. Perhaps I should get more horse experts to proofread my fan fiction before I post it? I am also glad to hear that you like Vrena's character, despite how angry I seem as I rant to you. But please, if you want to give me a long lecture on the colors of stallions, I check my e-mail daily. My AIM address is also on my user's page.

Anyway.

To Puppynap- Yes, Arthur was at the raid that killed Vrena's mother. It was kind of self-explanatory about two chapters or so ago, when part of Arthur and the knight's past was reviewed. -

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Vrena and Vejha's background- YES, their mother was Woad, and father Sarmatian. They were both born from the same parents. The reason that Vejha hates Vrena so much is because people like their father killed her mother. To stuff it into a nutshell, yet avoid too many spoilers for later chapters: VEJHA IS ON THE BRINK OF INSANITY. She was born a tad unstable, which is not impossible. The incident with their mother being killed by their father's kin just sparked the beginning of it. So technically, Vejha hates Sarmatians with a passion, and as the years flew by, she saw how more and more Sarmatian her sister had become, which led her to want Vrena dead.

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If it is still too complicated for any of you, just…give up reading xD. Truthfully, the plot isn't all that complicated.

Dw- I'm glad you're one of the only people who reviewed for chapter nine that WASN'T confused about anything. May it be because young fanfictioners roam this place like a playground? Possibly. It's nice to have someone older and more experienced voice their opinion, because they show more common sense then anyone else .

Etraya- Take a look at the long, unbearably extensive paragraph on Vrena and Vejha's background. :P

Juju- Glad you're enjoying it so far :D welcome to the story.

Also, an important note- If I seem a bit aggravating and bitchy today, it's probably not because of you, but my school. Today, some idiot kid made a bomb threat- thus the whole high school had to evacuate for a good half hour and stand in the freezing cold, our lunch period was shortened, and I had to run in circles to find a bathroom that hadn't been flooded. And now my hands are sticky, which is irritating when I try to type. Twas not a good day.

The only thing I'm looking forward to after writing this chapter is a nice long episode of ER :P

I apologize if I was too rude to anyone.

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Chapter 10- The Wall and Back

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Deep within the forest, the old Woads sat in a circle, commencing with their age-old conference. The native tongue was spoken in all directions, men conversing with one another. Among them was one of their warriors, a Blue Ghost- he began to talk to Merlin, who was sitting on top a fallen tree.

"We should have killed them, Merlin. At the very least, you should have let me slay the woman. She"-

"I know what she was, do not waste your breath trying to explain." Merlin replied in his low, creaking voice.

"I could sense it." The warrior continued anyways.

"She was of us, but also of them. And why not have killed the knights? We would have easily taken their lives that moment!"

"Silence." Merlin said in a stern voice. The other elder Woads gave him looks of concern and questioning. Did they not see the reason for keeping the knights alive? It had already been announced that a vast Saxon army was rootless and marching about.

"There might be a purpose for Artorius and his knights." He alleged.

"No! He is our enemy!" Said a hoarse and accusing Woad voice from next to him. Had they been informed of his plan, he would have scolded the man.

"So is the Saxon."

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By the time the gates were being pulled opened, Tristan had run off on Arthur's commands, apparently to scout the area. Vrena could see a few townsfolk run on top of the battlement, looking down at them.

Among them, she saw yet barely recognized the figure of her half-aunt, Fulcinia. From her spot on the ground, she could see the woman clearly- her face looked more sunken then it had all those years ago. Her curious eyes studied the knights, and then landed on her. She saw her aunt squint a bit, possibly trying to adjust her vision.

She couldn't read minds, but knew the elder woman acknowledged her.

Problem was, Fulcinia had a horrible memory, and probably didn't remember her name all too well. Vrena decided to jog her aunt's memory.

"Well I'll be damned, Flucy! Stop staring at your niece like she's the walking dead and come down to say hi!" Vrena shouted up to the woman, who clapped her hands to her mouth, now identifying her half-relative. Watching as her aunt darted off to the side and disappeared as she descended the steps,Vrena looked back down towards the stone gate, now open. The knights rode forward, but Vrena stayed where she was.

Before blending herself in with any crowds, she needed to chat to Fulcinia in private.

She saw her aunt halt at the gates, looking frail and feeble, scanning the area. Watching her finally step outside the walls of the town was like watching a chicken being set loose from its coop.

Her aunt's gaze landed on her niece's leg, which was still wrapped and splinted thanks to Dagonett's wonderful handling of wounds. Fulcinia shot her a confused look.

"What happened?"

"Vejha happened." Vrena reacted as calmly as she could, trying to wipe clear the image of a laughing Vejha in her mind. It was going to be difficult to explain to the elderly lady, whom she knew would not take it very well. After the years her and her sister had lived here, Vejha had seemed incapable of hurting a blade of grass.

They both looked over towards the entrance as two voices argued, one she identified to be Arthur, the other Marius. She knew that her uncle would not take this well, he had always treasured his land. She heard him order some of the townsfolk –who she noticed were looking much shoddier then they had ten years ago- to get back to work, but Arthur was demanding otherwise. She spotted Alecto in the crowd as well, looking grim.

Arthur seemed to be attracting a lot of attention over something, because an old, beaten-looking man was being hauled away carefully by a few of the surfs. She shuddered at the thought that she once also been in his state. Arthur was indeed a kind man to take notice of all the people who lived in Marius' town.

An odd look Vrena received from her good aunt, who now looked up and studied the scar on her cheek, which also thanks to Dag was disappearing quite swiftly.

"Tell me." But Vrena had no time to explain as she heard a galloping from behind, and twisted her head around to see Tristan riding quickly towards them. She watched as he halted his horse with ease, both of them seeming out of breath.

"Where is Arthur?" He spoke in even puffs. She was right, he was panting heavily. Yet he had only been gone for a short period of time. Vrena began to worry, and answered hastily.

"Speaking with Marius," She answered. She was about to ask what was causing him to loose his air, but he moved a few gallops towards the wall, and in seeing the scout, Arthur made his way over with swift feet. Vrena and Fulcinia put their conversation at a standstill and tuned into Tristan's news.

"They have flanked us to the east; they're coming from the south, trying to cut off our escape. They'll be here before nightfall." Tristan spoke, his breathing not yet steady. Arthur's face became paler then it had been, if that was possible.

"How many?" He asked.

"An entire army." Tristan answered back.

"And the only way out is to the south?"

Tristan shook his head in reply. Vrena could feel the tension building up in her body. This was not good. It was late into the afternoon now, there would be no tome to speak with her aunt until they had slid past the Saxons. Fulcinia had also abandoned hope of being able to talk until then, and they both separated; Vrena headed towards Arthur and Tristan whilethe elderly womanheaded towards her husband.

"East. There is a trail, heading east. Across the mountains. It means we'll have to cross behind the Saxon lines, if that's the road we shall take." Tristan said, and glanced only once at Vrena as she rode up to them.

"Arthur, who are these people?" The scout asked, beginning to breathe normally, the profound heaving of his chest slowing to a normal pace. He looked over towards the surfs being yelled at by Marius to hurry up and pack.

"They're coming with us."

"Then we'll never make it."

Vrena's ears then picked something up, and she knew Tristan had taken notice of it as well. Drums.

Saxon drums. Too early.

The whole crowd of people near them was overcome with silence, until the mercenaries shouted for them to move faster, causing them to scamper about.

Vrena glanced over to what looked like a stone temple of some sort, except the door was blocked by a newly built stone wall that looked unbreakable. Her gut was telling her to say something about it, but her words were caught in her throat as she sensed a dim presence. The same kind that had disturbed her back in the forest before the Woads had attacked them. And though she did not know for sure, she knew others were in there as well. How she knew that she would probably never know…but it just seemed too strange in her gut to let the thought escape her mind.

Still mounted on Arvin as she had been for nearly the whole day, she moved him over to the stone dwelling. A few serfs who had been in the way jumped out of her way, and she then noticed that two mercenaries had run to halt her, seeing the direction she had been headed.

"You cannot go in there! No one goes in there, this place is forbidden!" one of them shouted at her. She felt eyes on her from all direction. Way to go, Vrena the intelligent. Chew more then you can swallow.

But thankfully Arthur and Tristan had watched her actions, for they now rode up behind her- Tristan shooting the mercenaries a cold, unreadable look. Thenshifting his gaze to the side a bit, he also examined the wall. Arthur dismounted his steed and pulled out his well-known sword, which sent the gathering serfs back a few feet.

"What are you doing! stop this!" Marius shouted and emerged from behind the circle of people, a furious look on his face, heading right for them. But Lancelot and Gawain rode up in front of him, blocking his path. The drums were getting louder.

"Arthur, we have no time." Lancelot advised his friend.

"Do you not hear the drums?" Gawain added. An obvious thing to point out, but Vrena for one knew that people were inside, Woad or not. She knew how it felt to be locked up.

Paying no need to the guards still blocking her way to the door, she moved Arvin forward, and allowed him to do the work for her. Quickly shekicked him with her boot, causing him to rear upward; neighing loudly,he understood what she was commanding of him. The guards, taken back by the towering stallion about to squash them with his hooves, jumped defenselessly out of the way as her steed brought down his heavylegs to the stone.

Much to her luck, something had been cracked; but only a few large, even stones had fallen from their place, while many more began to crack under the other's weight. But a decent amount of damage Arvin had done nonetheless, she would feed him a nice apple once she got the chance.

"Dagonett." Arthur commanded, and Vrena backed up, allowing the large form of the man to leap off his horse and move forward with his heavy axe.

Only three hits it took Dag to break down the wall. Pushing the remains of the crumblingrock to the side, he grabbed the handle of the door. It didn't budge.

"Key!" Arthur demanded one of the mercenaries.

"It's locked…from the inside." One replied weakly. Vrena groaned a bit. What on earth was so important about the people inside this stone cage?

Arthur again signaled Dagonett to do his business. With two heavy kicks, he had managed to break down the door, and it came down with a crashing thud.

Vrena dismounted Arvin, and moved forward quickly, not caring that there was no light inside the entrance.

But as she moved in further and had almost begun to loose her way in the blackness, a light came from behind, and she saw Lancelot along with Arthur and Dagonett enter. Gawain shortly followed after that.

A foul smell began to burn her nose, so badly that she covered it with the sleeve of her cloak. The others began to sense the reeking aroma as well, andLancelot let out a resonance of disgust.

"Who are these defilers of the Lord's temple!" A voice came from in front of her. A man, no doubt a monk, sprang forward, making her jump back a foot or two, so that she was now next to Lancelot, who pointed his sword out to the now terrified monk.

They now looked around at the reason for the awful smell.

Many cells, with iron bars such as the one she had been in back in Tirth- all of them filled with two or more rotting corpses, thin from a long time of starvation.

She doubted any of them were alive. Her stomach did a few flips as she stepped further into the room, only to be grabbed harshly by another monk, whose eyes looked deluded and angry. Vrena let out a small shriek and tried to kick him off, but her only leg available to be used in such ways was frozen with the sudden fear that had overcome her.

"How dare you set foot in this holy place!" He shouted, but no sooner was he about to throw her at the wall did Lancelot's sword pierce his flesh. He kicked the monk's body away from her as the other monk from before came forward, furious.

"There was a man of god!" He shouted, but Lancelot merely pushed him out of the way.

"Not my god!" He hollered, and began helping in the search for some other living thing in the dungeon besides pious monks.

"This one's dead." Dagonett informed them as he finished scanning a few more cells.

"By the smell, they're all dead." Gawain retorted. No one was pleased at all with this hidden place.

Had her uncle Marius, whom she had once known to be a good man, allow things such as this to commence? Her stomach did some more flips as she felt like vomiting, but did not allow the bile to rise any further and steadily pushed it back down.

"I found one!" Dagonett said as he threw open a cell door that opened downward, its inhabitants trapped down below. Reaching in, Dagonett pulled out a young child, no more then ten. Vrena felt sick to her stomach.

Then she heard another cell door being kicked open by Arthur, who leaned down and pulled out a woman. Pale and weak, badly beaten she was, reminding Vrena so much of herself- that this time, the bile came up quicker then she could pressure it back into her stomach, and she quickly ran out of the dungeon; eyes shut tight, hoping to hold it for a few more seconds.

She did not want to stay in there a moment longer.

When the dimmed light of the hidden, cloudy sun reached her eyes, she ran a bit further away from the door and turned to hide her pale,disgruntled face, allowing the disgusting fluids to heave out of her stomach.

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He watched closely as Vrena bolted out of the place, her face pale and in pain. He listened as she allowed a quick intake of breath before turning around and gripping her hand to the stone wall, retching noises erupting from her throat as she threw up whatever had been left in her stomach to begin with.

Descending from his horse,Tristan walked over quickly and grabbed the long black hair that was in the way, the curls encasing around his fingers. With another sharp intake of breath, she let go of the wall as her other hand clutched his forearm, gripping the fabric of the tunic covering it, her hands turning white as the vomit flowed freely out of her mouth again.

The Saxon drums were barely a two miles distance, loud as they were.

He looked up as Dagonett came out, carrying a small boy. Followed by Lancelot, Gawain, and Arthur- who was carrying a woman wrapped in rags. He didn't need to think twice to know what she was. Looking at Vrena again, still retching with a period of breathing here and there, he wondered if she had sensed the Woad woman and thought to get all the obvious prisoners out.

He looked to Arthur, and Arthur to him as he continued to hold up Vrena's locks; bony fingers beginning to ease their way from his sleeve as she took gasps of breath, nothing left in her abdomen to release. She needed food. They all did.

The first thing he noticed then was that he no longer could hear the drums of the Saxons. It was late- they could possibly just be taking a rest, or planning to set up camp. Either way, it calmed him down a little to know they had more time.

Second thing he realized was that Vrena had just been about to ease her way up, but her knees buckled underneath her,and she began to fall towards the earth. He grabbed hold of her arm to prevent the fall from hurting, and lifted her up, her body now limp and eyes closed.

"Looks like we have a fainter. Not that I didn't expect it." Lancelot came up behind him and helped him support the woman's body by grabbing her other arm.

"Did they stop?" the knight asked him. No drums could still be heard from any direction. Tristan nodded, unsure of any other way to reply, as he hoisted Vrena –who was shockingly light- into his arms and made his way over to his horse; positioning her limp body on the ground next to it carefully.

"Arthur." He said. No matter how inactive the Saxons were, they needed to leave this moment. This stalling could not continue.

But Arthur shot him a look that would usually anger the scout, had the commander not been caring for the injured. Sighing, he looked at the woman Arthur was tending to. Vrena's aunt, Fulcinia, had brought over some water at Arthur's plead.

He could really go for something to kill, right about now.

"She's Woad." He simply informed the Roman, who would not have guessed on his own train of thought.

"Stop what you are doing!" Came an angry Marius, running towards them.

"What is this madness?" Arthur demanded, every inch ofhis body aching with hate for this well-dressed, comfortable looking man who had probably eaten his share of meals that day.

"They are all Pagans here!" Marius fumed.

"So are we." Galahad spoke out of the blue, glaring at the man.

"They refuse to do the task God has set for them! They must die as an example!"

"You mean they refused to be your serfs!"

The argument heated up, Tristan could feel the tension vibrating in the air. They could argue later on in the trip, damn them. Even as much as he would love to slice Saxon hides right now, he was kneeling next to Vrena. For all he knew, at any minute she would wake up, and this time would be an arms-width away from a few fundamental male organs. Her splint was probably ineffectual now, by any means.

When he looked up from his own world, he saw Marius took a good whap at his wife, right across the cheek. He wished one of the other knights would rid this man of his life, so that they would not have to bother with him. But none of them moved. Except Arthur, who stood and slammed his fist hard into the man's upper chest, knocking him to the ground.

Heunsheathed Excalibur yet again, pointing it at the foolish mans neck.

"No, no! Stop!" The landowner pleaded. Slowly Arthur removed Excalibur from its spot near the mans throat, sticking it back into its scabbard.

"When we get to the Wall, you will be punished for this heresy!" Marius hissed. But Arthur grabbed him and shook him hard once.

"Perhaps I should kill you now and seal my fate!"

Please, do.

From a few feet away,Tristan heard one of the monks that had come outside the dungeon mumble something about dieing, but at this point he couldn't give a care less. He was getting irritable again, like he had back at the wall only two days ago. A sign that he needed rest.

"Arthur." Tristan spoke again firmly to his commander, now feeling how heavy his eyelids were as they were eager to pull themselves down to rest.

The mental monk, still blabbing, spoke louder now so all could hear him.

"Don't you see it is the will of God these sinners be sacrificed!" He shouted, half sobbing. No sooner then that had a crowd of serfs begun to push the monk back into the dungeon. Tristan mentally thanked them, and watched, face still unemotial,as the Woad in Arthur's arms fell unconscious.

The wagons finally ready and Arthur satisfied with the way things had been left, Tristan carried Vrena over to the same carriage that the Woad woman and young boy were placed in. The snow had caught up with them, small flakes, nothing that would be big until they reached the mountains again.

He blanketed Vrena's anemic form, her black curls sprawled in all directions around her face. He brushed them out of the way, then quickly walked over to his horse, mounted it, and awaited Arthur's signal to travel ahead.

He would not get the sleep he had hoped for, not tonight.

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Whoa, god. My chapters seem to be taking longer to write, for some reason. I just spent five hours typing this without stopping.

But then hey, I get rewarded with a nice episode of ER at 10. :P

So do you guys still like it-brings out lighter again and holds it to computer-

III Cari III