Before You Go…
Chapter 5
"How would I die?" Tristan repeated Range's question.
"Exactly." The older man said, plowing as much of a path as he could with the shield he was forced to use as a shovel.
"What does it matter?" He asked as eh followed behind, widening the path by crushing the sides down.
"It matter much more then you would think." Range replied, "If I die on a mission I refuse to just lay down and accept it." He paused as he pushed another large chunk of snow out of his way. "I will die at the village or at home, no where else is even in the question. If you let them burry me in that sad little graveyard I will haunt you to the grave." He added, pointing to Tristan as he looked back at him. "I want to be burned and sent on an eastern wind back to Sarmatia so I can watch over it for centuries to come." He smiled at the thought. "Do you understand?"
Tristan nodded and thought for a long while. "I will die fighting an enemy that is stronger then I am." He finally responded, "I will not die as a hazard of battle, it will be a man to man fight." He said slowly, pushing the sides of the path down.
"Well in that case… We should not expect to burry you anytime soon then?" He laughed loudly and pushed ahead again, Tristan shaking his head and following along.
Tristan watched the path in front of them as the horses lopped easily along the trail, Range having dug it out in front when they were scouting ahead that morning. He saw the tracks that he and range had made no less then an hour before as they vanished beneath the newly formed tracks of the youngest knights, placed in the middle to keep them from dieing in the event of a surprise attack.
"Athom?" Range said cautiously, touching the young man on the shoulder.
The much smaller boy turned his head and stared at the man with one glassy eye, the other covered with a cloth. For nearly three hours Athom had not moved his eye from the back of his horses head, walking it slowly along without any attention to where he was going. "Yes?" He said quietly.
"Arthur." Range said loudly, pulling his horse to a stop. "Arthur, we need to stop."
Athom looked at the two and shook his head slowly, "No, I am fine… my eye… hurts some is all…" He stared at them with a blank face, "I am fine, truly…"
"We need to stop." Range reiterated. "He can't keep going like this."
"I am fine…" Athom said, sitting upright and slipping off his saddle onto the ground.
Range jumped down from his own horse and lifted the smaller man, taking him to the wagon as he repeated his claim that he was fine. "Arthur… If we put her on Athom's horse, I can take four or five and have her there and be back in a few days time. We have no chance of making it with both the wagon and Athom…"
"Go." Arthur said, "You are in charge Range, Torm, Gallic, Dagonet, Tristan, Ware, Bors, go with him." He looked at the other knights, "You will remain with us and continue to protect the wagon as if she was inside, am I understood?" The few young knights and Lancelot nodded.
Range took hold of Athom's horses reigns and walked it over to the wagon again, disappearing inside for a moment before he walked back out, the woman holding her shawl around her right behind. With little effort she threw her leg over the animal and was waiting for the party to move.
"Move out." Range said as Arthur went into the wagon to tend to Athom. "Tristan." Range said as he came up to the other knight. "Tristan, do not let her out of your sight, no matter what happens or what you see, do you understand?"
He stared at the older man and nodded, his braids falling in front of his face. "Alright."
They raced at a full gallop off along the path, the knights forming a circle around the woman as they rode, the black of her dress disappearing into the black of the horse.
"Tristan." Range said as they stopped for the first time since they had left the main group. "Stand watch tonight, I have to go ahead and clear the road." He smiled and took his ax out, ridding on down the path as the others pitched their makeshift camp.
"Where are we?" Torm asked, looking around the forest, "All of this looks the same to me, there are no forests in Sarmatia to teach us to recognize trees." He added as the woman glanced at him.
"We will arrive at the house tomorrow." Tristan said shortly, whistling as he finished and turning away from the group as his hawk landed on his arm. He grimaced at the thing in it's claws.
"Here." Gallic said as he handed a small piece of bread to the woman who took it with a nod. Tristan was amazed by the fact that she had managed to keep the shawl on even when they were galloping down the path.
"What do we eat?" Torm asked, looking at the bread.
"We starve." Ware responded, taking the saddle from his horse and throwing it down on the ground. "She's the only one with any food on this little trip." He said gruffly as he walked to where he had placed his blanket. "Now stop complaining and go to sleep." He lay down and rolled onto his side.
The opposite side of his torso was covered in a row of metal spikes that varied in size from large on his wrist to small at the elbow to large again at the shoulder. He looked rather odd with his flat armor on his other arm but they both served a purpose. If he was attacked his right arm could be used as a shield and his left as a weapon. Tristan had never understood the idea until Range had explained it, adding that he looked rather like a walking target with all the polished metal .
Tristan tucked the woad knife that his hawk had brought him away in his saddle bag and let the bird fly, watching the woman set her untouched piece of bread on the blankets that Torm had set out. 'I want to sleep.' He thought, 'I want to dream, get away from this miserable snow.' He looked around and frowned at the foot of white powder that had been building up since that morning. 'We have been riding for two days and it only now starts to snow again.'
He grumbled to himself and pulled a small chunk of wood from his pocket, most of it shaped like a bird while one wing was still rather square. He glanced over and saw Torm chewing on the piece of bread the woman had placed on his blankets.
"That is very pretty." The woman said in her familiar yet implacable whisper. She sat carefully next to him and held the shawl tightly around her head, her face impossible to see even with the starlight from above them.
"You should sleep, we have another day or more of ridding and we will not stop again."
"I am not used to sleeping when it grows dark, I usually have things to do at night." She said, her voice nagging at his mind.
"Do I know you?" He asked quietly, "Your voice is familiar."
"I do not believe so." She said, "But I am told by many people they know my voice." She pulled her legs up under her to keep them warm. Even though the tree they were under had sheltered their small seat from the snow and so it was cold bare ground. "Who is that for? Your brother?"
Tristan continued to chip away at the wood and shook his head. "In the village I come from there is a girl I know. I told her once I would make it for her." He said quietly. He could remember the look on Douma's face when he told her he would carve her something.
"Your friend?" She asked, turning her face toward the sleeping knights and the shawl hiding her profile from him.
"I hope her to be my wife eventually." He said, the wing beginning to look like a wing and not a stick.
He could almost here her smile as she looked at him. "What does she look like?"
"She has red-brown hair and haunting green eyes." He said, his hands pausing in their work as he remembered her face. "She has a sun tattoo on her right shoulder."
The woman turned away from him again. "She sounds beautiful." He detected a hint of sadness in her voice.
"You miss someone?" He asked, not quite sure as to why he was telling her all of this.
"Yes." She nodded. "My father struck a deal with a roman so he and his family could go free from his service. He said he would give him his daughter. That very year I met a man and fell in love, but I knew I could never tell him, I belonged to the roman." She said, her head tilting down. He didn't answer her when she finished speaking. He could hear her crying and simply let her, chipping away at the wood with his small carving knife.
"Good night." She said, standing up and starting toward the blankets they had set out for her. "Whoever this girl that you love is, she is very lucky to have someone like you to wait for."
He nodded to her, "Sleep well." He looked back to the wooden animal and finished shaping the wing, working in the smaller feather details.
The others stirred slowly that morning, Tristan having to kick several of them to wake them.
"We leave now." Gallic said shortly, painfully aware that Range was not yet back. "Range has not yet returned, he is either dead, fighting or still moving, so we follow him. We go as soon as we are able, move quickly." No one argued for Gallic, next to Lancelot, was the oldest among them and more then capable of backing up his orders if the need arose.
"Tristan." Gallic said as he placed his saddle on his horse, "Did Range return at all last night?"
Tristan shook his head, "He never came."
"We move now." Gallic said, making sure that everyone was mounted and ready to go. "We ride fast and hard, I am sorry me' lady but we can spare no time."
The woman nodded, "I understand."
They set out at a run and went as quickly as they could, Tristan hoping that whatever was holding Range up it was not the woads that had accompanied the knife.
"Wait." Tristan said quietly, holding his hand out and frowning at the tracks he saw in the snow. "He came this way but several foot travelers came after him."
"Move." Gallic said, stirring his horse forward. Although he was not the best leader he was one of Range's best friends and was not about to find the man dead.
"Rush!"
The entire group stopped as they heard the call, "Range…" Dagonet said quickly, "Not again." He nudged his horse and it shot forward, the smaller of the two brothers returning the battle cry as he raced around a bend, his sword drawn.
"Follow him!" Gallic called and the other knights drew their weapons and chased him.
"We have to stay back." Tristan said, grabbing hold of the woman's reigns from her hand. "I was told I am not to let you out of my sight and I am not about to allow it now."
The woman looked at him and nodded as he took his bow out and walked his horse to the bend. What he saw made him stop in his tracks. There were woad bosies and Roman soldiers laying everywhere around the lawn of what was once a roman villa and now was a pile of ash. He watched as Range threw several more attackers back with his ax, several soldiers cowering beside him and doing little if anything to help.
"It is a massacre…" Tristan said shortly, replacing the bow on the saddle and jumping down from his horse as the woman peered around the turn and froze. "I can not let this continue…" He said quietly, unsheathing his sword and taking a step toward the battle.
"Tristan!"
He froze at the sound of his name and turned his head slowly, he knew that voice…
