A/N: Before you start your reading, there is a reviewer here, called Kristall, who is very very "annoying" (kidding), she keeps on guessing each and every plot of the next chapters... I want to know if she is a mutant or something! :D

Chapter nine: Frozen lake

"I mean you no harm."

Leera's hands, which were plaiting a British girl's hair while Guinevere did hers, stopped a little when she tried to repeat the words.

Lucan, beside her, was waiting, his calm face still burning a little from the fever.

"I mes you no arm."

The young boy shook his head. "That's not right. Mean and harm."

"This isn't a beautiful language at all. Besides, what are you trying to make me say, Luc?"

Guinevere, behind her, squeezed her hair with little force. "He's trying to make you say that you're not dangerous."

Leera growled. "I am dangerous. Make me say something I will use, instead of useless sentences."

Lucan chuckled and seemed thoughtful for a second. "I like the silent Knight."

Guinevere frowned. "Lucan!"

"What? She does, doesn't she?"

"You won't say that!"

Leera let the little girl go, her beautiful brown hair plaited from skull to length. "What has he said?"

Guinevere shrugged. "I can't say."

At the same time, Lucan giggled. "I said that you liked the silent Knight. The one you follow everywhere."

Leera's eyes darkened and, after a moment of thought, she launched herself on her cousin, tickling him where she knew he would beg for mercy. "You little devil!"

Once she was done torturing the poor thing, she straightened up and let her fellow Woad continue her work on her ravaged hair line.

"And I don't like him. He's just-"

"He's just what?"

She shrugged. "We understand each other."

And Lucan changed subject. "I hope we reach the Wall soon. Dagonet said he would teach me how to heal people."

Leera's eyes softened. She liked what the giant Knight made of the young boy. "Did he? Well, that would be a useful gift."

"Indeed. Imagine, you could easily find a job when you're grown up, and your cousin would need you everytime she would cut herself on her arrows."

Leera nudged Guinevere in the ribs but the princess dodged. "I'm not that useless."

"I know."

After a while, when Lucan had resumed his language lessons, Dagonet and Arthur came walking by them, both looking grave.

"Ladies."

Guinevere nodded and got up, soon followed by Leera and Lucan.

"We have to get going. Tristan said that the Saxons were not far behind, and I already fear an unwanted encounter."

Guin nodded. "We will pack at once."

The leader's eyes lingered a little too much on the woman's face, and then he turned on his heels and was gone.

Dagonet turned to Lucan. "Care to help me packing my tools, little one?"

The boy's eyes lightened at once. "Yes! If..." He turned to his cousin and switched to her tongue. "Can I go with him?"

She smiled kindly toward the Knight and nodded. "Of course you can."

And she was left alone when Guinevere walked towards Fulcinia to help her pack the cart.

A familiar horse stopped next to Leera, and her rider walked in front of her.

She nodded. "Tristan. Good day."

His dark eyes widened a little at the use of words, but he nodded back nonetheless. "Leera. Good day to you too."

Galahad soon joined them. "Hey, Leera! Come with us?" He gestured towards the Knight's horse.

The young woman smiled and nodded. "With pleasure." And then, after they both furrowed their brows, she thought for a moment. "Thank you, I will."

Gal smiled widely and pulled her by the arm.

That day, she'd had to ride with the young Knight. Not that it bothered her.

During the trip, she started to think about Lucan's reaction. She surely had some sort of pull towards Tristan, but whether it was because she found him extremely handsome or because of something deeper, she did not know. What she knew, however, was that she did not like that her cousin thought things like that about her when she ignored it herself.

And it was worse when she noticed that Tristan's horse disappeared less and less often in front of the caravan, and than two black eyes seemed to survey her.

Leera tried to convince herself it was a delusion.

After an hour or two, drums made themselves heard, while the whole company was high in the mountains and ready to pass a relatively thin corridor. Galahad and her got down of their mount, and Leera walked back to the cart, sitting next to Dagonet.

The giant's face was grave, and she knew he too had felt something.

"Dagonet?"

His kind eyes met hers. He tried to smile to comfort her, but failed. A hand found its way towards his shoulder, and she squeezed it. "That's nothing Leera. Really."

She nodded. She had understood. Really, her lessons with Lucan did marvels.

Or maybe it was because she heard it often.

"Leera?"

She snapped out of thought and noticed that the cart had stopped on tracks.

And for good reasons.

The Knights and half of the caravan were already standing on a frozen lake.

And it didn't seem that it would stand having two hundred people walking on it.

Arthur walked, his horse held by the reins, towards where Tristan stood. Leera got down of the cart and silent as a doe, walked to them.

"Will it hold?"

"It has to."

And on cue, the Saxons drums got up an octave, as if they had jumped several miles at once.

Leera's gaze darkened as she understood that all of the caravan wouldn't outrun them. They had to stop and face them, to slow them down.

As soon as realization hit her, her usual blood-lust rose in her, and she smirked to the skies.

But the men crossed the ice.

And the seven Knights stopped on the other side of the lake.

"These bastards are so close behind my ass is hurtin'." Leera's eyes followed Bors.

"Better face them now."

"I never liked looking over my shoulder anyway." Tristan eyed her strangely, as if to defy her to do something.

"Here. Now."

Green eyes met Jols'. The weapon cart was full of bows and swords and shields.

Leera walked to it and grabbed her bow, two quivers with her own, and a tall square shield in case. She noticed the sharp edge of it, and soon found it a use.

"Seven against a hundred?"

"Eight." Guinevere walked past Leera and took a stand next to Arthur. "You could use another bow."

And then she walked to the Roman leader, locking her eyes on his. "Me too."

He nodded.

Soon, the caravan had left them. Jols, along with the weapon cart, had hidden close in case they needed reinforcements, and they all stood, side to side, on the ice, several quivers and swords at their feet.

Only Leera and Dagonet had bothered taking a shield.

Lucan hadn't cried. But he had glared at his cousin. Hard.

A column of Saxons appeared where their own people was moments before.

Leera sneered. "They are hideous."

Guinevere chuckled. Lancelot, next to her, soon enquired what she had said, and the message passed down from Knight to Knight.

Apparently they all agreed with her.

The Woad archer had taken her place between her princess and Dagonet. She didn't know why, but she felt as if there was something odd surrounding the quiet giant.

"Shoot on my order only."

They all notched an arrow, after Tristan and Bors, thought really far from hitting anyone, killed two Saxons on the far ice.

And then they all aimed for the edges, making the foreign men regroup, hoping perhaps that the ice would break.

But both Guin and Leera were daughters of this land. And, if the first ignored it, the second already knew it wouldn't have broken.

"Pull back!"

Dagonet sighed heavily, then grabbed his battle axe and ran on the ice.

Leera cursed between her teeth, and grabbed the square shield, along with her quivers.

"Cover them!"

Her legs were shorter, but she was lighter and more used to that kind of running. Leera reached Dagonet when he threw his blade for the first time in the thick ice cover, and she pushed the sharp edge of the shield hard on it. Once or twice after, it stood and provided them a small but useful cover.

Notching her arrows quicker than she thought it possible, Leera killed many Saxons on her own, mainly those who attempted to kill her friend. Many dies with a Woad arrow in the eye.

Behind her, she wasn't aware of another bow than Tristan's, whose whooshes covered any other sound. She was fully aware that he covered them as well.

And then, Dag pushed his axe one last time on the ice, and it finally cracked. Leera stumbled and nearly fell backwards, but two strong arms took her, and she found herself running back to the other Knights, covered by seven bows, half dragging Dagonet who, to her horror, had caught an arrow beneath the shoulder and one in the leg. Both armour piercing.

"Leera. Thank you."

She nodded to Arthur and whistled for Jols to help her carry him somewhere she could tend to him.

But she wasn't the only one to have received a short lesson on healing.

"Let me."

Two strong hands took her blade from her hands, and she found herself assisting Tristan while he pulled the arrows out of Dag's flesh using her dagger. The giant didn't groan, but tears of pain soon streamed down his cheeks, and she decided to make a diversion, even if he didn't understand a word.

"You know, first time I fought, I nearly died. There is a rite of passage, in the Dark Woods, when every twelve-year-old who wants to be a warrior has to fight against another, and win. We didn't have to kill each other, but wound them to the limit of strength, to the limit where he or she would have begged. I was wounded to the limit. My chest was bleeding so much I was already half fainted. But I didn't beg. And the boy facing me had to ask for a rematch. And that time, he lost. Because I was really angry."

Her story was done, and Dagonet's eyes were locked on hers, while Tristan was bandaging his shoulder.

Two dark eyes met green ones, and they both acknowledged the fact that it had been close.

Before she got out of the homemade tent, Leera's wrist was caught by Dag's fingers, and she looked up at him once more.

"Thank you, Leera. I owe you my life."

And though the words were foreign to her ears, she understood them.

She nodded, and got out.