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Chapter Seven: Watchers and Wounds
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Banna started forward, her jaw clenched tightly. She could smell the blood, its faint and nauseating odour borne on the cold breeze. She knew her tribesmen and women would all be dead, though as of yet, she saw no bodies. Before they reached the extinguished campfire, Banna held up her hand to the Knights and indicated for them to stop. She had to do this. Kneeling to the ground, she shivered as she spoke the blessing for the spirits of her dead companions.
"Deep peace of the running wave to you," she whispered, her head bowed. She heard the Knights shifting uneasily behind her as she spoke, but she ignored them, forcing herself to concentrate. "Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quiet earth to you." She touched the earth, the cool dirt centring her thoughts as she blinked back tears. "Deep peace of the shining stars to you. Deep peace of the infinite peace to you." As she finished, she touched her fingers to her forehead, reminded strongly of when the same words had been spoken at her grandmother's passing. Choking back a sob, she got to her feet and tried to stop her knees from shaking. Their spirits would be free now to go on to…
"Banna?" hissed a voice incredulously.
Tristran threw himself at the figure that crawled out from a thick tangle of bramble bushes. Mordred held his sword to the speaker's throat as Tristran straddled the writhing body, holding it to the ground. As Mordred drew back his sword to cut their throat, Banna recognised the snarls and muffled curses.
"Grainne! Mordred, Scout, leave her!" She rushed forward and knelt beside her leader, desperately grasping the woman's warm hand in her own. "Grainne, you're alive. Thank the gods." She stifled yet another sob as it rose in her throat, biting her lip furiously. They would not see her cry.
Released from Tristran and Mordred's death grip, Grainne sat up and wrapped the tracker in a fierce embrace. "As are you, Banna. Fearghus, come out – it's Banna." The young man's lanky figure came stumbling out of the bushes, dusting leaves and dirt from his clothes. He came and knelt awkwardly beside the two hugging women, hesitating slightly before launching himself in as well. The two women chuckled tearfully as he buried his face in Banna's hair in embarrassment.
"Banna, we were about to leave," he said, his voice muffled. He pulled back finally, disentangling himself from the clumsy embrace. "We were waiting to see if you and Donaith were still alive, if you would come back." His eyes, swimming with unshed tears, glinted in the faint starlight. "Banna, we're… we're the only ones left. They…"
Grainne put a hand on his arm. "Let me explain. But first, who are these men?" Mordred and Tristran stood uncomfortably at a safe distance from the tangle of Picts, Tristran cleaning a dagger on the rough wool of his trousers. Mordred appeared to be examining a leaf intently.
"This will take much explaining," warned Banna, beckoning the two Knights over. "But first you should know that Donaith…" She ducked her head, unable to continue.
Fearghus groaned. "No." Grainne shook her head mutely, her face a mask of shock.
"Banna, I am so sorry," she whispered. "This is all my fault… I was a fool."
Banna looked up in confusion. "Why? You have not done anything, Grainne."
"Not directly, sweet. Ah, I deserve to be damned for what I have done," Grainne whispered, her glance flicking to the Knights. "Can they understand us?"
"Every word," said Mordred in a friendly fashion, nodding respectfully to Banna's leader. Grainne stared impassively at him for a moment, then turned and gave her tracker an ominous frown.
"I can understand now why this will take much explaining," she said coldly, sliding a long gutting knife from its sheath. The atmosphere suddenly became very tense; the silence around them louder than it had been before. "Why, Banna, are there two Roman Knights standing two spans away from us, alive?"
"Well," began Banna, twisting her hands anxiously in the face of her leader's angry glare. This was going to be interesting. "Donaith and I were tracking Murchadh, you see…"
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Tristran listened to the two Pict women babbling to one another, watched worriedly by the younger one. He doesn't hide his emotions well, thought the scout to himself as the dark-haired youngster sat back on his haunches, rubbing long, pale hands over his face. Tristran frowned. The thick, dark head of hair, the strong cheekbones, the pale green eyes… The boy reminded him of someone, but he simply could not place the memory. It could have been anyone. The boy looked like most of the other Picts here in Britannia, yet there was something distinctive about his face that tugged at some long forgotten…
"…Tristran. Tristran?" Tristran blinked as Mordred shook his shoulder, dragging him out of his troubled ponderings. The second-in-command cleared his throat and nodded towards the women, who had stopped talking. The tall blonde one, whom he assumed was the leader of the small group, stood up and sheathed the gutting knife, walking over to them.
"Banna has told me how you came to be here. I see that you are the Sarmatian Knights against whom we have fought," she said in heavily-accented Latin, lifting her chin proudly as she came to stand before them. Tristran was surprised. He had not expected a Pict, let alone a female Pict, to have learnt the language of their Roman invaders; but as always, the natives of Britannia continued to surprise him. Not in a good way, either. Mordred did not seem to share his astonishment, however; instead leaping straight into conversation.
"Will you continue north with us, then?" he asked in his usual confident manner. The woman almost visibly bristled with indignation.
"I think you mean to ask me if you can join us as we continue north," she replied tersely, her chin lifting even higher. Any more, woman, and you're going to do yourself a serious injury, thought Tristran drily. Bloody Woads. An insufferably proud and vain race.
Mordred smiled serenely at her. "I hardly think the wording of the question matters, when the killers are getting further and further away as we speak. Tristran and I plan to head north, and I expect you and your companions are doing the same. There is safety in numbers, and a greater chance of… disposing of the brothers and their allies. Do you agree?" Though he seemed outwardly relaxed, after years of fighting and training beside Mordred, Tristran knew that the second-in-command was aggravated by the woman's lack of respect.
The woman shrugged in deliberate indifference. "Very well. Do you agree to put aside previous grudges and alliances in the face of this atrocity?"
"If you shall do so, so shall we," replied Mordred, using the same formal tone as the arrogant leader.
"Are you willing to swear oaths to this effect? To guarantee safety within this unit?"
Tristran frowned. "Do you mean to form an alliance with us?" he asked, examining the woman carefully for signs of deceit. What was he thinking? Of course there would be signs of deceit – she's a Woad. Liars and sneaks, the lot of them.
"Only a temporary one," she replied, acknowledging him for the first time with a curt tip of her head. "But strong and binding, all the same. Would you honour it, Sarmatian? Or would it be a waste of all our valuable time?" Though sorely tempted to agree with the last part of the question simply to irk her, Tristran nodded.
"This is settled then?" asked Mordred amiably, smiling over the woman's shoulder to where Banna and the boy remained talking quietly to one another. Banna looked over quickly as if sensing their attention on her, and cocked her head questioningly at her leader.
"Yes," said the woman finally, spitting into the palm of her hand. Mordred stepped forward and did the same, and they shook hands. The woman had evidently recognised Mordred as the leader of the Sarmatian duo, and so completely ignored Tristran. Good. He didn't want her saliva muddying his hand.
The woman gave Mordred a terse nod, then walked back to join her two companions. Mordred turned and made an exasperated face at Tristran, his hand resting ever-so-slightly against his wounded side. Tristran frowned. Though he was not a skilled healer by any means, he would have to take a look at how it was mending. The hard riding couldn't have done the healing process any good; and though he was tough, Tristran was sure that the second-in-command would be feeling sore and pained. The cold weather would be making Mordred stiff in the muscles as well; and not for the first time, Tristran wished that spring would just hurry up and arrive. Like most of the other Knights, he lived for a hot Sarmatian summer; the cold, dreary, drizzling winters of Britannia stifling his spirit. He watched as Mordred leant down to scratch his leg, wincing slightly as he did so.
"How is your wound?" he asked quietly, not wanting to draw the blonde woman's attention to their conversation. It was a stroke of bad luck that she could understand every word they were saying, that was for sure.
Mordred smiled forcefully. "Mm… it's not painless." He touched it lightly, his face pale in the faint moonlight. "What do you make of Grainne?"
"Who?"
"The blonde woman," sighed Mordred. "Really Tristran, for a scout, you don't pay much attention."
Tristran grunted. "I read the land, not people. And what do names matter in the face of our purpose?" The two men walked slowly over to their horses, Tristran noting with sadness the neatly-arranged row of corpses near the ashes of the campfire. Though he was no friend to these Picts – or Woads, whatever they preferred to be called – he could not help but distantly sympathise with their loss. A similar scene had greeted him after his first… But he would not think of that. Never. He shut the rising images away in his mind, smothering them immediately thanks to years of practise. When you were a soldier, learning to fight and kill was the easy part. If you could learn to suppress the memories of the fighting and killing… Well, you'd be a lucky man.
"What's on your mind, Tris?" asked Mordred, interrupting the scout's morbid thoughts.
Tristran reached into the saddlebags and pulled out something that resembled food. He sniffed it doubtfully, holding it out for Mordred to inspect. "Good to eat?"
Mordred gave him a long-suffering look. "Would my opinion make any difference? Let's be frank: you'll eat anything. Hurry up and eat, then tell me why you stared at the boy for so long." His eyebrows shot up as the double meaning in his last words hit him. "You weren't looking at him in… that way, were you, Tr…"
"No! No." Tristran gave his fellow Knight a disgusted look and returned the uncertain food item to the saddlebag from whence it came. "He reminds me of someone. I can't place the face, however."
Mordred rolled his eyes. "I won't even ask you if you can remember their name. What do names matter in the face of our great purpose, Mordred? I am determined to be rude and gloomy, la-di-dah-di-dah."
"I don't speak like that! Gods, you're childish, sometimes." Tristran exclaimed heatedly. Was it even possible to have a serious conversation with the man?
"Never mind," said Mordred, waving his hand dismissively. "Is it a bad association?" At Tristran's confused look, he elaborated. "The face. Does the boy awake a bad memory in you? I certainly don't recognise him from anywhere, so he's not from around the outpost."
"It's not him that I recognise," said Tristran slowly, sifting through his memories with no success. "Someone who looks… Oh, it doesn't matter. We should be leaving." Here they were making small talk as the murderers fled north, and as Arthur probably waited for them back at that godsdamned forest trail in the middle of nowhere. Their commander was normally a very staid and even-tempered man, but when they finally arrived back at the outpost – if they finally arrived back at the outpost – he had no doubt that he and Mordred were going to face one of Arthur's legendary rages. Lancelot hadn't spoken for two weeks after Arthur called him in to "have a discussion" about the curly-haired Knights numerous absences from training. Something to do with a wench or five, Tristran recalled with a smirk. The hate that the commander and the womanising Knight harboured for one another bordered on amusing – well, to Tristran at least. He had been told that his sense of humour was unconventional, however.
"… Tristran? Tristran, you're getting dreamy in your old age. Sharpen up a bit, man! You're supposed to be the vigilant scout, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah," muttered Tristran, scowling under the cover of his messy hair as he searched for something to eat. Where's that dried meat? I'm sure it was…
"Sarmatians!" called the blonde woman suddenly, beckoning them over. Tristran and Mordred led their horses over to where the Picts were crouched, the tracker drawing something that looked like a map in the dirt, pointing out locations to the boy.
"How can we be of assistance?" enquired Mordred in mock-politeness. Tristran doubted that the Picts noticed it, though – with years of experience behind him, even he couldn't tell when the second-in-command was being sarcastic or not.
"There is something you should know, as we are to be allies," said the woman firmly in Latin, gesturing for them to sit down.
"We have not yet been introduced to your friend," said Tristran quietly, nodding towards the boy. The lad's eyes flicked up at Tristran through his dark eyelashes. Ah. So he speaks Latin.
"His name is Fearghus," the blonde woman said brusquely. "You can talk with him later – if you speak Pictish. He does not speak your language." Tristran noted her lie, and stored it away for future reference. "Now, we must talk. I know the reason for the brutal attacks on both our people and yours. I will speak in my language, so most can understand." She paused, as though gathering her thoughts.
"Excellent. Tris, I'll translate if you need me to." Mordred leaned forward encouragingly. The blonde ran a filthy, tattooed hand through her hair, sighing.
"Cathalan, son of Coinneach, he is called. He is the reason for all the deaths." The tracker looked up sharply. She has not been told the reason either, Tristran observed, watching the reactions around the circle cautiously.
Mordred growled. "Then tell me where to find the bastard. By all the gods, I'll slice him ear to…"
"No!" exclaimed the woman, shaking her head. "No, it is not like that at all."
Then hurry up and tell us how it is, thought Tristran in exasperation. He glanced at the sky. Judging by the position of the moon, it would be daylight in a few hours. As the minutes passed, their quarry was getting further and further away, and he'd be damned before he let them escape.
Percival's death would not go unavenged.
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