A/N: Sorry for not updating in a while, this chapter contains some combat, which I'm a little scared of writing. Thankyou to my beta, not only for checking the grammar, but for telling me if the fight scene worked.

Cyrodil, Heartfire 3E 432

As the cart trundled further along the Gold Road, the two girls sat at the back, taking turns to try on the lucky amulet and flipping septims to see if the wearer really did win more tosses. Unfortunately, both girls lost count repeatedly, until they were forced to conclude with child-like logic that 'Well, I 'spect it probably is lucky. Why else would it have a unicorn on it?'

The road looped round in such a way that for a few miles they were travelling beside the river dividing Cyrodil from the densely forested Valenwood. There were still a few large trees and thick bushes by the road-side, but as they moved from the West Weald to the Gold Coast they were beginning to thin out. Looking past her brothers at the front, Lettie could see the city of Kvatch in the distance.

"Ooh, Florrie, can we stop there?" she asked, crawling over and perching herself between them.

"What for?" Florrie said absently, his mind on the road ahead.

"Well, nuthin' really," Lettie said a tad less insistently, "I just never been there. I want to go to the arena."

"You've seen the arena back at the city," Marc said pointedly.

"But I want to look at this one and, you know…" she searched for the word, "Compare."

Florrie momentarily took his gaze off the road to look at Marc. He opened his mouth to say 'Why not, eh?', but Marc had read his expression already.

"Look, we don't have time to stop off at another city. We spent long enough picking-our-own in Skingrad. Speaking of which," he said, changing the subject deftly with a gesture to the half-empty baskets of tomatoes and grapes, "you know you'll get ill if you eat many more of those, right?"

"Oh Marc, I..." She was cut off by a succession of different sounds from behind her. First came the almost unnoticeable whistle of something flying through the air at great speed, and then several ripping noises, accompanied by an infuriated cry from Dovyn, and, more worryingly, a shocked gasp from Erica. For a moment, she thought she saw furtive movement among the bushes.

"What the-!" Marc began to holler, but a single word from Dovyn answered him before he could finish:

"Arrows!"

Lettie was going to say something silly like 'What does arrows mean?', but the world had already burst into chaos and frenzy before she could even open her mouth. Magical fire came flying from somewhere to their left, aimed low to the ground. The majority hit the earth around the horse's frantic hooves, but some found their mark, burning the lower legs until the horse couldn't even take off in panic, and the cart came to a juddering stop.

Lettie stumbled through the canvas hanging over the entrance to the canvas-covered back; there were arrows on the floor and several rips in the side where they had entered. To her and the others' horror, rough bandit's hands were already reaching through, widening the rips to let both hands in, then a sneering, Imperial's face. Dovyn was closest and tried to push him away, but he was still disorientated and now the cart had stopped moving the bandit found it all too easy to wrap one leathery arm round the dunmer's neck and pin him to his chest. Erica yelled and tried to pull him free, but Lettie had just spotted another bandit, a Nord like Erica, climbing through the hole. She saw his eyes fall greedily on the bag of stolen goods: he reached out to grab it...

He was greeted by a vicious kick from Lettie, who, acting on commands from the only part of her brain which wasn't completely useless from panic, grabbed the loot just as his retaliation sent her flying. For a sickening moment both she and the bag were airborne, then she hit the ground knees first. Ignoring the pain from the grazes, Lettie picked up the bag and ran. Only when she realised that she couldn't just keep running did she check behind her to see if she was being pursued.

Watching the scene play out from 20 feet or so away, Lettie felt an odd sort of detached numbness, as though she were not really a part of this scene, as though she were watching a play by a group of street performers. The few seconds she stood there seemed to last much longer.

She could see Marc and Florrie, searching furiously in the foliage for the illusive mage who was throwing the fireballs. Marc's trouser leg was singed from the magical attacks, but now the mage's magicka was waning, and Marc found him and pulled him into the open, swinging his cudgel in one hand.

She could see the Nord who had tried to snatch the loot, distracted by Erica's attacks. She saw her kick him in the shins repeatedly, saw him grab her and roughly throw her to the ground. A few feet from where she landed, she saw Dovyn, his features terrible beneath the swings of the Imperial's dagger. Florrie saw it too, and rushed to try and tackle him from behind, leaving Marc in his attack on the screaming mage.

Dagger...fists...magic...where had the arrows come from?

As if to answer her, there was a yell from Marc: "Lettie! Watch out!"

Panicked, she screamed back "What?! What?!" and spun round to look for the danger.

And there was the marksman. His hood was up, but his stature showed he could only be a Bosmer, stood not 10 feet away, arrow drawn ready to shoot her point blank in the back.

Again as though her movements were not her conscious own, Lettie's hand's sprung up with palms outstretched, and she felt the magicka in her surge. Fire formed round her hands, but in her hurry she forgot how to protect her own flesh, and the fire scorched the top layer of her skin before flying off. It had already found its target by the time the pain became real to her, and she screamed along with the Bosmer. Through the searing pain she could see him bent double, clothing singed and the skin just visible beneath was red and quickly blistering like her own hands.

Through eyes half-shut from pain, she saw the man clutch once more at his bow, clumsily pulling back on the arrow once more. She never found out if he would have managed to shoot her, because at that moment Marc flew past her and swung his cudgel right into the Bosmer's face, flinging him to the ground. When, after standing for a few seconds with the weapon still raised, he was confident that the bandit wouldn't get back up, he jogged over to where Lettie still stood as though stuck to the ground.

"Are you alright? Julianos, what have you done to your hands?"

"I-I'm ok." she said quickly, aversion to being babied greater than the desire to curl up in a little ball and say 'Help me.'

Marc seemed to accept this, as he immediately rushed back over to where the others were. Lettie had almost forgotten that there was peril other than her own, but now her senses filtered in the shrieks and grunts, the clanging of metal and thumps of blunt objects. The last thing she'd seen had been both Erica and Dovyn on the ground with a bandit each trying to kill them, but now it was three against two, not counting Dovyn since he still lay by a rock, his blue-gray complexion streaked with blood. It could be four against two if she could only get her feet to uproot themselves. How could she be so useless? Wasn't she a fighter?

"It's over!" she heard Marc shout once the two remaining bandits were surrounded, "Your tree-hugger friend has had the skin burnt off his belly. And you can see what's become of the mage."

Lettie's eyes moved with everyone else's. And now she saw what had become of the mage. His hands and ankles were a familiar yellow hue, which meant he was…meant he must have been an Altmer. His face had probably been the same shade too, but now it was purple with bruises, and swelling from the blows from…her eyes flittered over to Marc, but they kept getting drawn back to that face. She now saw the blood trickling from beneath his head, seeping into the soil, a thick, steady flow of syrupy red. She opened her mouth to say something about how disgusting it was. What came out was "Wow…"

Everyone's focus seemed to snap away at the same time. The Imperial had lowered his hands to his side in an act of submissive defeat, the sight of his broken comrade more crippling than any blow. Useless anger flared up in the Nord's eyes; you could see the moment when he decided it wasn't worth it to fight.

"That's right," Marc said with a growl in his voice when he saw that moment of surrender, "now get out of here. All of you!" His command was punctuated by a swing of his blood-stained cudgel.

From his crumpled spot on the ground, Dovyn yeered and cursed fluently in his home tongue as the bandits loped off. Florrie joined in, but seemed to stop in embarrassment. No matter how he tried, he didn't suit curse words.

Lettie's eyes stayed on the retreating bandits. She felt her feelings switch like the two sides of a flipped septim. One second she felt pity at the beaten, bereaved group. Then she was reminded that only, what was it, five minutes ago? they had been trying to kill her, her brothers, her mentor, her friend…

She didn't notice Erica had been stood beside her until she spoke.

"Lettie… what happened to your hands?"

Lettie glanced down at her blistered palms.

"Burnt 'em." she said simply. She could feel a lump building up in her throat, but she was damned if she was going to blubber like a little kid here, now. If it had been only Erica, maybe, but not with her brothers and a fellow thieves guild member here.

Erica fumbled in her pockets. "Hang on, I fink I have something here…" she produced a small bottle three-quarters filled with a clear potion, "It's a healing potion, got it off an adventurer type, said he needed to shift some stuff to make room in his sack." She popped the cork off in one movement with her thumb. Lettie could never figure out how she did that.

Healing potions are a little odd to take when you're not used to it. Lettie could never understand why her brothers got so excited on the rare occasions they could afford some red meat, as she couldn't find anything particularly special about it. Florrie had explained that it wasn't the taste or texture that mattered, it was the feeling of it doing you good.

This is the best way to describe the sensation as Lettie swallowed the potion Erica had handed her; if it tasted of anything, it tasted of boiled leaves, but as soon as she had swallowed it she felt a warmth spread through her, a sort of general feeling of wellbeing. The potion couldn't have been more than a fairly weak one, so the feeling subsided quickly, but already the angry red irritation on her palms had calmed to a pinkish tinge, and the grazes on her knees no longer stung.

"Thanks," she said, hugging Erica round the waist.

With the release from the pain came a greater sense of her surroundings, and the two of them trotted over to where Dovyn was propped up. Lettie grimaced at the cuts on his face, but Dovyn assured her that he'd seen far worse.

"Besides," he said as he gathered up his magicka to heal himself, "at least I didn't end up like that bastard."

Lettie glanced over to the fallen mage, who was being matter-of-factly checked over by Marc and Florrie. Lettie tiptoed over to have a closer look. There was really no doubt that the man was dead. No amount of healing spells could put that skull back together. But she asked the question anyway.

"Is he dead?"

Florrie nodded grimly, checking each of the dead man's fingers. He pulled a slim, copper ring from his forefinger, holding it up to the light.

"Ah, chameleon. That'll explain why we couldn't see him at first."

Marc leaned in to have a look. "I reckon that's worth more to sell than to keep." Florrie nodded in agreement.

"Are you going to sell his stuff?" Lettie asked. She hadn't meant to sound so indignant, but apparently the come-down from adrenaline made the boys impervious to tone of voice.

"Of course. He can't use it now. Besides, if we don't take it someone else will." Florrie said simply. Lettie realised that she wasn't that shocked by the idea. After all, it made sense. She gestured to a dwarven-style dagger which Marc had just levered free from the already stiffening frame.

"Can I have that?" she asked cheekily.

"Do you have five hundred-odd gold pieces? 'Cause that's how much I reckon this is worth."

"Really?!"

"Yup. It's a Dagger of Scorching. Could've done some real damage. But hey, I got him first." The reminder of how the man had come to be in his current state jolted Lettie out of her momentary freedom to joke around. The image of Marc stood over the bed of Hamlof flashed once more before her mind's eye.

"Yeah. You got him first."