Despite Kafka's protests that she was perfectly well, Merlin and Guinevere forced her to take her ease for two weeks more before she was declared healed. After her forced rest, Kafka was finally allowed to accompany Guinevere on her various scouting missions and hunting trips; and nothing could have pleased her more.
Guinevere and her warriors treated Kafka like any other member of their group. With the exception of her oath to protect Guinevere, Kafka really was no different from the other warriors. She fought, she hunted, she lived just like the rest of them.
It was a bright afternoon seven months after Kafka had become a Woad. Kafka and Lucan had followed Guinevere deep into the forest surrounding the village. It was lesson time again, and both were looking forward to it.
While Guinevere and Kafka both taught Lucan about survival, tracking, and stealth, Kafka's lessons with Guinevere took a slightly different focus. She found herself learning ever more about the island she found herself living on and the different peoples who shared it with her. The more she learned, the more she wanted to learn.
She enjoyed helping Guinevere teach Lucan. The boy was an eager student,
working diligently to remember and master everything he was being taught. He truly wanted to please his patient teachers.
If only he could keep his attention on staying silent. He often forgot himself and called for Guinevere or Kafka to come see what he had done or found. Today was no different, though Lucan did manage to stifle his shout before he got all of Guinevere's name out.
"Yes, Lucan?" she said good-naturedly.
"This looks like someone wearing boots," he announced, pointing at tracks left in the brush.
"How many?" Guinevere asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Four or more?" Lucan guessed.
"That's good," Guinevere agreed. She looked over Lucan's head to Kafka. "When was the last time patrols this big were sent this way?" she asked.
"Not for a fortnight. We've been keeping watch further to the south, nearer the village," Kafka answered, moving closer to see the prints for herself.
Guinevere glanced about at the forest surrounding them as if the people who had left the tracks would step out of the trees. She spoke quietly, frowning at Kafka. "These are fresh—no more than a day old."
A quick glance confirmed Guinevere's words. A heavy rain had fallen two days ago. The tracks they were looking at had been made after the ground had dried out again, which had only been a day ago.
"Is it Romans again?" Lucan asked worriedly.
"No," Kafka said without hesitation. "The sentries would have spotted that many Romans wandering in the forest." She wasn't completely sure she believed herself, but she did not want to frighten the poor boy.
Guinevere nodded her agreement, though she was quite concerned. One encounter with Marius and his arena was enough for one lifetime. She most certainly did not want to be captured again.
"For safety's sake, maybe we should go back to the village," Kafka suggested. She was not fond of an encounter with Romans either.
"But shouldn't we follow the tracks to see who made them?" Lucan asked. He was quite eager to put his newly learned tracking skills to the test.
"Look at the tracks again, Lucan," Kafka instructed. She knelt next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. "You said that at least four people wearing boots came this way. Guinevere and I don't know of any group from the village coming out this far. What do you think that means?"
"We don't know whose tracks these are?" Lucan said impatiently. He knew this already.
"That's right."
"Then we should follow and see who it was," the boy exclaimed.
"What if whoever made these tracks are not friends?"
Lucan did not answer, unsure of what to say.
"There's only three of us," Kafka pointed out. "We're outnumbered by at least one, maybe more."
"So, we can't follow them." Lucan was disappointed.
"Not the three of us," Guinevere answered. "We should gather more warriors and come back. You were right, little one, that we need to find out who was here; but we need to be careful too."
"I won't get to come back with you; will I?"
"Sorry, Lucan. You'll be safer in the village," Guinevere said.
"I can't wait until I'm old enough to fight," the boy grumbled.
Kafka and Guinevere shared a rueful grin over Lucan's head as they all turned to head back to the village. They had only gone a short way when Kafka stopped.
"Guin, what do you hear?" she asked.
Guinevere paused as well, listening. After but a moment, her body tensed and her face registered concern. "I hear nothing—no birds, no animals."
"There's something out there that shouldn't be," Kafka agreed.
"What if it's the people who made those tracks?" Lucan asked, stepping closer to the protection of Guinevere's presence.
"Keep moving," Kafka said, suddenly deadly serious. "If it's people they would have identified themselves if they were friendly. I'll go first."
Kafka moved to the front, pressing toward the village by the most direct route she knew. Lucan followed close behind her, almost running to keep up. Guinevere brought up the rear, dearly wishing she had brought her bow with her.
Kafka slid to such an abrupt halt, Lucan ran into her before he could stop himself.
"Guin," Kafka called, "we have visitors."
Before her, in a small clearing, stood two well-armed Roman soldiers. Guinevere moved around Lucan to stand beside Kafka. As she moved, three more soldiers stepped out of the trees to the rear of their party.
Each man wore a helmet and armor, covering his head, chest, and lower legs. Each carried a large rectangular shield. They all had spears in their hands and short swords hanging from their belts.
Seeing the other soldiers, Guinevere moved back to the rear, standing between the soldiers and Lucan.
Kafka and Guinevere were both woefully unprepared to fight these men. Guinevere carried the short sword and ax she always kept on her belt. Kafka had two swords as close in size and design to her old ones as the Woads had been able to find or make. Both wore comfortable clothes of leather and linen, which would offer no protection against spears or swords.
"We are not alone," Kafka called in Latin. "Five others wait for us up the trail."
The Romans laughed. "You are alone," one of the men standing before Kafka sneered.
"I could call for help and you will all die, or you can leave now," Kafka offered.
"There is no help," the man said. "You will all come with us."
Kafka hesitated for a moment. If she called out for help, there was always a small chance that someone would hear her and come. On the other hand, if she called and no one came, the Romans would know they had no help. At last she spoke.
"If you insist on dying, I won't try to stop you," she told the Roman officer. The man only sneered.
"Lugh, we need help," she shouted in the Woad tongue. She hoped beyond hope that the Romans would flee. "Our friends will be here soon. You should run now," she said politely to the Romans.
The men were eying the forest worriedly, unnerved by Kafka's apparent confidence.
"I think we will wait for your friends to get here," the officer said both to Kafka and to his men.
Kafka shifted her attention from the Romans, trying to appear as confident as possible that help would arrive. "What do we do, Guin?" Kafka said softly in the Woad tongue.
"Lucan, Kafka and I will fight. I need you to run to the village to get help," Guinevere said. She spoke casually, hoping the Romans would not guess their intentions by the tone of her voice. "Kafka?"
"Ready when you are," she answered with a casual smile.
A few more tense moments passed, the Romans becoming more and more sure no more Woads were coming.
"Now," Guinevere screamed, snatching her weapons from her belt and springing at the Romans facing her.
Kafka drew her long sword and crashed headlong into the shields of the unprepared Romans. Lucan sprinted into the trees, away from the fighting, running for much needed help.
Kafka tried to batter one man's shield down, hoping to finish him quickly. He swung the butt of his spear, though, hitting Kafka squarely in the face. She dropped to the ground, shaking her head and scrambling to get away. By the time she staggered to her feet, both Romans had their shields firmly in place and their spears pointed straight at her.
A shout of fear from down the trail drew Kafka's attention. She could hear a scuffle, but the Romans blocked her from investigating the cause. They were trying to back her into a small stand of trees.
Kafka let them back her toward the forest, hoping to gain an advantage where the Romans' spears would be useless. As she edged closer to the stand of trees, though, Kafka heard movement behind her. Without hesitation, she ducked and rolled, hoping to avoid whatever was coming out of the trees.
When she came up, her right leg was tangled in the net that had been thrown from the forest. As she worked to untangle herself, another man, carrying a spear but no shield, ran from the trees. Kafka was now completely surrounded.
"How many of you are there?" she shouted.
She was distracted from any answer they may have made by another soldier marching up the trail with a bundle over his shoulder. It was the bundle that attracted Kafka's attention most since it was really Lucan bound and slung over the man's shoulder.
"Lucan," she shouted, "be still." She was desperately afraid the soldier might hurt him if he caused much trouble. Guinevere, who was also hemmed in by soldiers, turned to see.
"No," she growled. With an unearthly howl, she leapt at the soldier who blocked her way to Lucan. With her sword, she knocked his spear point down and away from her. She buried her ax in his helmet, snatching it back out as she ran by. Another soldier sprang from the forest as she fought; this man carried only a long rope.
Kafka glanced away from her own fight when she heard Guinevere's strangled yell. The man with the rope had looped it around Guinevere's neck, anchoring her as the others moved in to restrain her. Kafka knew exactly the terror such a method invoked. The Romans who had captured her village had subdued her in much the same way.
She turned from her fight to help Guinevere. She had only taken a few steps before fire erupted in her lower back. She gasped and looked down, knowing she had been stabbed with a spear. She saw no blade protruding from her front, though, and was instantly grateful for that small favor.
Shock froze her muscles until the pain melted them altogether, and she sank to the ground, the spearhead slipping painlessly out of her flesh as she fell. The force of landing face first on the hard ground drove a shocked grunt from her lungs. She lay perfectly still for a moment, fighting desperately just to breath.
Over the sound of her own breathing in her ears, Kafka could hear the continuing scuffle between Guinevere and the soldiers. Gritting her teeth against the pain burning from her back, she struggled to stand, to help.
"Marius wanted the gladiator alive," one of the Roman yelled. "See if she can be treated."
One of the soldiers knelt beside Kafka, pushing her back to the ground before pulling her onto her side so he could see her wounds. Kafka groaned through her teeth; the soldier was not gentle. The man pulled her shirt away and used it to wipe at the blood pulsing from her wounded back.
"I don't think this is mortal," the soldier told his commander. "Marius's healer can probably fix this."
Everyone in the clearing was relieved by the soldier's conclusion. The other soldiers were afraid of what Marius might have done to them if they had not been able to bring Kafka back to him alive. Guinevere and Lucan were simply happy to know Kafka was not dead or dying.
Kafka was the only one who was not relieved by the soldier's announcement. She had won her freedom from Demetrius. She had made a life for herself with the Woads. She would rather die than find herself in another arena, expected to fight and kill for a Roman's pleasure.
Kafka floated in a daze of pain as the soldiers fashioned a stretcher on which to carry her. They roughly hefted Kafka onto the completed contraption. Putting to use the sick ingenuity for which they were known throughout the Roman Empire, the soldiers bound Guinevere's hands to the stretcher, forcing her to carry one end, knowing any struggle on her part would hurt Kafka more.
The march back through the forest was quiet. The Romans had threatened Lucan's life if either of their other captives were to call for help. Apparently, Marius was adamant about their capturing Kafka and Guinevere but would not be overly angered by the deat of the boy.
The silence of the forest soon gave way to laughing and jeering from the soldiers when they had reached the road that led to Marius's villa. The soldiers made fun of Kafka being wounded. They derided Guinevere, one of the fearsome Woads, for being taken alive not once but twice. They even mocked Lucan for his tears of fear and confusion.
It was the last offence that finally drove Guinevere to speak.
"I will kill each of you and enjoy it," she hissed.
The men only laughed.
"And when I have sent you to the judgment of your gods, I will tear your master's throat out," she promised.
"Stop, Guin," Kafka rasped from her place on the stretcher. "Don't antagonize them."
When it came to defending herself, Guinevere was able to keep a reasonable rein on her temper. When those she cared about were being attacked, in word or deed, she tended to let her temper get the better of her. This Kafka knew, but she also knew now was not the time to be careless.
Marius was so pleased with the news that the gladiator and the Woads had been captured that he rushed to gates of his villa to see the spectacle for himself. What he saw, though, dampened his glee. The gladiator lay on her front on a stretcher. A soldier carried one end of it, and the Woad woman appeared to be bound to the other end. The boy followed, bound and bruised, trying to stay as close to the two women as possible.
"Which of you fools wounded her?" Marius demanded as soon as the group was safely inside the gate. "I ordered you to bring them to me unhurt."
"It was an accident, my lord," the officer in charge of the soldiers said. "She fought too fiercely. We could not capture her without wounding her."
"Who wounded her?" Marius demanded again.
"Gaius did, my lord," the officer replied.
"Twenty lashes," Marius barked.
Kafka was drifting in and out of consciousness, hearing and understanding only pieces of what was going on. Guinevere, though, was appalled to learn that the Roman treated his own people as terribly as he treated hers. Were all Romans such heartless beasts, she wondered.
As the condemned man was hauled off, the officer and Guinevere carried Kafka to the stable, where a healer would be sent to treat her. Marius had informed the Woad and the gladiator that they were unworthy to set foot in his mansion even as prisoners. In her dazed state, Kafka was amused by the information: she had been housed in Marius's mansion when Demetrius had brought her there. Apparently, Marius considered slaves more worthy than prisoners.
The next moon passed in a haze for Kafka. Marius's healer kept her sedated on his master's orders while her wound healed. When she was conscious, the only thing she was aware of was the pain radiating from her back and the voice of the healer, telling her she needed to sleep.
For Guinevere and Lucan the month was far more unpleasant. Guinevere had been sent to work in Marius's fields like a slave. He had threatened Lucan and Kafka's lives if she refused to obey him, and she was left with little choice. So, Guinevere spent her days working in Marius's fields and her nights tending to Kafka.
Once a month had passed and Kafka's back wound had begun healing well, Marius allowed his healer to stop sedating Kafka. The pain from her wound was still a problem for her, but she forced herself to work through the pain. She would not remain an invalid while in the custody of Marius the Roman.
As Kafka regained her strength, she and Lucan were sent to work in Marius's fields with Guinevere. Marius intended to use the time in the fields to break Guinevere and Kafka to his will, to humble them. What he failed to realize was that Guinevere and Kafka spent as much of their time in the fields as possible plotting their escape. They only waited on Kafka's health before they tried to make good their plans.
After a month of working for Marius, Kafka's back was nearly fully healed. She and Guinevere had decided that they would try to make their escape on the night of the new moon, hoping their absence would go unnoticed until the next morning. As soon as Marius's healer had delivered the good news of Kafka's almost complete recovery to him, though, he called for Kafka and Guinevere both to be brought to his arena.
Soon the captives found themselves standing on familiar sands. "I've had this dream before," Guinevere muttered. Kafka nodded.
"At least Lucan isn't here this time," she murmured back. Lucan had been left with the other workers in the field when Guinevere and Kafka had been rounded up.
Marius's glee at having the two fighters who had killed his gladiators and lived to tell the tale was obvious to any who cared to look. Kafka was thoroughly disgusted at his bloodthirstiness. Guinevere pointedly refused to look at him as he settled himself more comfortably in his little box.
"Gladiator, Woad, you will fight," Marius announced grandly.
Guinevere openly gaped at the Roman's arrogant demand. She could hardly believe he could expect them to do as he said without question. She and Kafka were Woads, proud and free warriors, not slaves to be commanded.
Kafka only shook her head. She had expected no less over the last two months. It would have been too much to expect Marius to realize they would not be broken to his commands.
"I am no longer a gladiator," Kafka shouted. "Demetrius freed me."
"And I have captured you. You are now my slave, my gladiator, and you will fight the Woad," Marius stated calmly.
Kafka looked to Guinevere. She would no longer let herself be a slave. She was free now; she would remain free for the rest of her life, no matter how long that may be. She only hoped that Guin would understand her choice.
Guinevere nodded silently in answer to question in Kafka's eyes.
"I will not fight for you, Marius," Kafka called back.
"My archers will kill you," Marius warned.
"You may kill me, but you may not command me," Kafka yelled.
"Pagan. Slave," Marius screamed. Even in her dire situation, Kafka found herself amused at the way Marius's eyes bulged out of his head as he screamed.
"I am no slave," Kafka yelled. "Not your, not anyone's"
"You will fight, or you will die," Marius yelled back.
"But I choose," Kafka murmured to herself.
Marius turned to the archer standing beside him. He said something that Kafka and Guinevere could not make out from their distance. The archer turned to Kafka, pulling his bow to full draw.
"He will fire if I give the word," Marius threatened.
"I am not your slave," Kafka cried.
Marius raised his hand, motioning to his archer. The man released his arrow, which streaked toward Kafka. She fully expected to be killed; she had no doubt that Marius would have her killed.
The arrow buried its head in the sand at Kafka's feet. Despite her resolution to show no reaction, she jumped, startled. Through her surprise, she could hear Marius laughing at her.
"The next will hit you," he warned.
"I do not fear you," Kafka called back. "I am free."
This was her decision. She would die as she had been able to live for such a short time: free. She was born free; she would die free, and no one could take that from her.
Kafka shut her eyes, tipped her face back to the warm sun, opened her arms to the cool breeze, and waited for Marius's decision. "Let it come," she murmured. "I am not afraid." She never even heard the second arrow being fired.
Guinevere cried out as Kafka staggered back a step with an arrow lodged in her chest. She had seen the arrow loosed and heard the hollow thud of this impact and the rush of air from Kafka's lungs when it struck. She rushed forward to catch Kafka about the shoulders, easing her to the ground as her legs failed her.
"I am free," Kafka wheezed as she looked up at the sky.
"Always free," Guinevere reassured as Kafka's eyes fluttered shut one last time.
"Woad," Marius shouted at Guinevere. "You will fight or you will also die."
Guinevere stood, turning to look coldly into Marius's eyes to give her answer. Tears fell from her eyes, but she met Marius's glare unflinchingly. She would be no less courageous than Kafka had been.
"Kafka was not born a Woad, but she was one with us in spirit. Just as she was not your slave, I am not your slave. I will not fight for you."
Guinevere shut her eyes, tipped her face back to the warm sun, opened her arms to the cool breeze, and waited for Marius's decision. "I am free," she shouted at the top of her lungs.
Instead of the sound of an arrow being fired, which she expected, Guinevere was surprised by Marius's wordless scream. He had been so sure the women would do as he commanded. Now, with one dead as an example and the other still openly defying him, Marius was infuriated.
"Guards," he shrieked. "Fetch the boy. Take the girl. Give them both to the priests."
Guinevere was confused as several guards tackled her and began dragging her out of the arena. She never would have thought Marius would have Kafka killed but spare her and Lucan both. And why would he have them given to his Roman priests?
"You will regret your pride in refusing me," Marius hissed as Guinevere was dragged past. "They will see to that."
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A/N: And we pretty well know where it goes from there. Hope everyone enjoyed it. As always, reviews are welcome.