The Return - 8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The road rose and fell along the swells of the plains. At the tops of the hills, Mordred and Dmitri could see for miles in every direction. If he looked hard enough, Dmitri imagined he could see Whispering Cliffs; he stopped looking back. He let himself gaze south, towards the ocean, but never north. He wouldn’t let Mordred camp on the tops of the hills, either, for he felt too exposed and vulnerable. Mordred cursed and called him a fool, but Dmitri had insisted, grateful beyond reason when Mordred acquiesced.

With each passing day, the hills grew more and more pronounced until eventually there was no more down, only up. The road parted ways with the river, a river which had grown larger and swifter with the steepness of the terrain. This left Mordred and Dmitri staring down at the river from their vantage point on the road. The land had flattened again and they could see the far side of the ravine and hear the tumbling of the river echoing amongst the rocks, but they had no easy access to water.

“What do we do?” asked Dmitri. His tongue darted out to lick at dry, chapped lips. “We can’t keep going without water.”

“There’s water,” Mordred replied confidently, nudging his horse forward. The other two horses instantly followed.

“How can you be so sure?”

Mordred looked at him and Dmitri flushed under his travel grime. “This is a trade road.”

“And obviously no one’s traveled it in years.” The only person they’d seen in over a week was the crazy woman who followed them. Mordred had pointed out some smaller tracks leading north, but they hadn’t ventured in that direction. Dmitri didn’t know why. He wanted an actual bed and some decent food, some clothes that didn’t come off a dead animal, and company! Just talking with someone other than Mordred was a welcome fantasy.

“There.”

Dmitri grunted and squinted along the direction Mordred pointed. “What?”

“Those trees, there. Can’t have trees without water.” He actually looked cheerful.

Dmitri frowned. “They look dead.”

“We’ll make it with plenty of time before nightfall.” He grinned at Dmitri. “You can even bathe.”

“I don’t like it,” Dmitri protested. “The trees look funny.”

Mordred’s voice was curt, “You can’t even tell from here. It’s perfect.”

Scowling, Dmitri said nothing further. He lowered his head, touching the tips of his fingers to his chest. “Gods’ mercy,” he silently prayed. Even after Mordred glared at him, Dmitri repeated the gesture, stubbornly holding Mordred’s gaze. It wasn’t as if his subconscious was alerting him to danger; Dmitri didn’t know what it was.

The little copse was quite a lot larger than it had seemed at a distance. Mordred reined his horse beneath the drooping branches and the other two followed docilely, for all that Dmitri wished his horse would suddenly develop an urge to balk or bolt. To him, the trees looked sickly and half-dead.

“I wonder what kind of trees these are,” said Mordred, his voice winding along the twisty, narrow path he followed. He smiled back at Dmitri, looking more comfortable rather than less as the trees swallowed them. No one could see them from the road now.

Dmitri crouched low in the saddle, and not only to avoid all the branches that seemed intent on plucking him right off his horse. He didn’t want to fuss, but these were not green and growing things. There was something wrong here; why could Mordred not feel it? The air was heavy and thick, pressing down upon him until even Mordred’s voice sounded muffled and distant.

“It’s odd,” Mordred continued in his usual bland tone. “They’re not aspens or spruce, or even poplars. Definitely not oak. Maple, possibly, but the leaves are the wrong shape.”

His voice continued on as Dmitri shivered, closing his eyes and clinging tighter to his horse.

“There’s no birds.”

“What?” Mordred loomed out of the forest to Dmitri’s side and he caught his breath, barely staying mounted. He closed his eyes again under the smith’s withering frown as Mordred caught his horse’s bridle, leading them further into the trees. They stopped in a small clearing. At once, Jack and Jill dropped their heads to shoulder aside Doofus, who drank noisily from a tiny spring.

“Mordred, do you think --“

“There’s more,” Mordred interrupted, shouldering his way between the horses to help Dmitri down.

The ground felt soggy beneath his boots and Dmitri wavered on his feet. “I don’t like it here, Mordred,” he whispered. "Haven't you noticed? There's nothing here but us. No birds or small animals. Not even bugs. It's unnatural."

"But it's safe," Mordred argued, patting Dmitri awkwardly on the shoulder in a gesture he remembered the baker doing to bring others comfort. "We'll be fine here a couple of days.”

“A couple days!”

“Yes. We could do with a rest, and no one can see us in here. Plenty of wood for a fire, there’s water to bathe and wash our clothes, and I’m sure I can find mushrooms.”

Dmitri shivered, drawing his cloak around his shoulders as he stumbled his way to a fallen log. “Mordred.” He broke off, biting his lip as Mordred caught his chin and looked him in the eye. Maybe he saw something of Dmitri’s discomfort, for his expression softened.

“We won’t stay longer than necessary, okay? But I, for one, want to get clean, really clean. Don’t you?”

Nodding, Dmitri licked his lips, pulling out of Mordred’s grasp.

“Good. So, why don’t you rest for a bit and I’ll set up camp?” He wandered off before Dmitri could reply.

"Hey, what's that?"

"What's what?" asked Dmitri. To his eyes, Mordred had disappeared.

"This! Wow, come look at this!"

Dmitri groaned, but he got up, following the sound of Mordred’s voice. As he crossed to the other side of the clearing, Dmitri looked up at the darkening sky. When he found Mordred, he was peeling back some dead vines from a pile of rocks.

"Um, what is it?"

"It looks like a statue of some kind!" Mordred answered. He continued, in a softer voice, thinking aloud, "What kind of rock is this?"

Dmitri sighed.

Mordred waved him off and kept working to clear off the dead creepers. Dmitri found a spot to sit so he could watch. The statue turned out to be of a warrior woman in ancient armor carrying a long, curved sword in her left hand, and an odd sort of buckler on her right. Most of the features were worn away, including her face, and there was some kind of inscription on her pedestal, but neither of them could read it. The statue was not large; the woman looked as if she would step off and walk away at any moment. She was no taller or larger than either of the men and Dmitri was perversely glad she didn't have a face.

Mordred ran his hand over the statue. "This is some workmanship," he whistled. "Why I think -- hey, wow!"

Dmitri suppressed another sigh. "What?" he asked, walking around behind the statue.

"Wings!" Mordred exclaimed, pulling back more vines. "Look."

"Great." They were wings alright, small in comparison to the size of the statue, and leathery, like a bat's. Dmitri shuddered. "Why would someone carve wings?" he asked, not sure that he really wanted the answer to that one.

Mordred shrugged as he turned back to the statue. "I don't know. But it's so real!" There was something more than curiosity in his look but Dmitri didn’t know what. Obsession, maybe, but whatever it was, Dmitri didn’t like it.

“Mordred,” he groaned. Only the barest hint of a breeze stirred the branches above their heads, but still Dmitri shivered, rubbing his arms. He glanced around at the trees, certain that he kept seeing something out of the corners of his eyes, but whenever he turned, there was nothing, not a whisper of sound or hint of movement, only Mordred clomping around.

They found the remains of seven more statues, none of which held anything more than stony fragments and, on one, a couple of bare feet, still attached to their base. They also found the support columns of what might once have been a small church or temple. Bones lay scattered in the corners, half-hidden in the shadows.

"It was burned," said Mordred, wiping a finger in the soot upon the stone. He looked a little uneasy, but all he said was, "It's odd that there's no moss. There should be mold or moss or something growing in here, but there's only the trees."

Dmitri stood on the threshold, scuffing his feet on the dirt-covered stone. “Something bad happened here." He licked his lips. “Leave the dead be.”

Mordred eyed him silently for a moment and then nodded slowly. “I wonder who they were,” he said as they walked back to the clearing.

To Dmitri’s great relief, that was the last Mordred spoke of the mysterious statues or burned building. They made camp without talking, bathed and washed their clothes in the stream, and settled around the fire as the sky darkened above them. Dmitri pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and prayed the night wouldn’t be as ominous as he feared.

*              *              *

The ghost girl was back, sitting beside Tai on a log, staring into the darkness.

"Go away."

"No. You need me."

Tai rolled onto her side and resolutely closed her eyes. "Go away."

"How're you ever going to learn if you won't listen to me?"

Tai clapped her hands over her ears. "Go away!"

"If you don't listen, then you'll die!"

“Oh, go to hell!” Tai snapped. Leaping to her feet, she stomped into the dark. The wind plucked at her hair and she stared west, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light of the stars overhead. Without the moon, she couldn’t see far, but she knew that the men she followed were close.

"The temple's over there, you know,” said the ghost, making Tai jump. “They shoved everyone in there and burnt it to the ground. If you listen, you should be able to hear the screaming."

“I'm going to be the one screaming if you don't shut up!"

“Fine, have it your way,” said the ghost girl.

Chills ran up Tai’s spine at those words, but her snide remark died on her tongue as she blinked and found herself standing beneath a bright, warm sun, in the middle of a forest clearing. She stared around in wonder. Everything was so green, so alive! Birds sang all around, squirrels chattered happily as they chased each other amongst the branches, and the trees themselves swayed gently in an unseen breeze.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked the ghost girl.

"Yeah," Tai replied with a sigh. "Very peaceful." She closed her eyes and turned her face into the sun. Unfamiliar feelings surged within her breast and she stretched out her arms, so light she could almost believe she could drift off into the clouds.

"Come."

The girl started off down the path, a trail wide enough for a fully-loaded wagon, walking through the forest contentedly. Tai followed, listening to the life all around her, in awe. She'd never been in a place so restful before, but there was also this surreal quality, a certain fuzziness on the edges of her vision, that told her this was all a dream. She felt sad, and vaguely disappointed. She wished she could stay, that this place would always stay this way, but somehow she knew it would not. Disaster crept upon them as surely as the turn of the seasons.

"It was spring," said the girl, gesturing around them, directing Tai's gaze to the new growths, blooming flowers, and a fawn with its mother standing back in the woods. They were all but invisible until the ghost pointed them out.

Tai didn't want to ask. "What happened?"

"Watch."

They rounded a bend in the trail, and there, opening up suddenly before them, was the temple. It was larger than Tai had pictured. Its domed roof reached far above the canopy of trees. A low wall surrounded it, and two guards in full armor, shields and swords, flanked the doorway. They had the symbol of a griffin painted upon their shields and armor. Behind them, the temple building itself was made of stone, a white stone that reflected the sunlight, graceful and as natural as if it had sprung out of the earth that way. The windows were long and narrow; stretching from the ground up towards that high roof and now Tai could hear music from within, laughing and singing. She wanted to join them!

"Wait," said the ghost girl. She pointed.

Men crept slowly from out of the surrounding trees and foliage, drawing weapons silently. First one, then a couple more, and then more and more until the temple was surrounded. They charged forward, still silently but for the rattle of arms and armor. The guards reached for their weapons, but they were too slow. The invaders reached the temple and ran inside.

Tai clapped her hands to her ears, trying to block out the screams and shouting, the cursing of the men, the wails of the women, and a single, baby's cry, cut off too soon. She whirled on the ghost.

"Why? Why?"

The ghost girl shrugged. "This was only the beginning. Watch."

The murdering soldiers left the temple and others began throwing wood in through the windows and doors. This was evidently a well-thought-out, well-executed plan. It made Tai sick.

"Wait!" someone cried, staggering to lean against the door. He wore a simple white robe, stained red with blood. "You can't do this!" he continued, "We are priests, women, and children. Please, let them go!"

One of the soldiers punched him in the face, knocking him back inside. "The Queen is dead, long live the King!" he shouted.

Tai could see the priest's face as he looked up, shock and horror visible through the blood. The soldiers threw the bodies of the two guards inside and someone threw a flaming brand in through a window. Tai didn't wait around to see more. She ran, hands clasped over her ears to block out the screams, eyes tightly closed against more visions. She sobbed, tears flowing from her eyes and down her face.

She thought she heard the ghost girl whisper, "I'm sorry," but she kept running, trying to outrun the sounds of the fire crackling, the soldiers laughing, and the trapped screaming. Running, running, running as fast as she could away.

*              *              *

Mordred lay on his back, staring up at the stars just visible through the trees. The fire crackled a noisy counterpoint to the timid shushing of the leaves. He smiled, idly tracing the expression on his lips and wondering at the peace he felt. Nearby, Dmitri shifted uneasily in his sleep. He moaned softly. Mordred covered his eyes with an arm.

There was strength in his body Mordred hadn’t noticed before. He tensed the muscles in his arm and felt how it shifted against his face, the muscle in the upper arm pressing against his eyes. Tighten. Relax. Tighten. Relax. Mordred exchanged arms; same result.

He breathed in deeply to feel his chest expand. It kept rising and rising and rising as if to lift him free from the earth cradling his back. The night sounds called to him and he let out his breath, humming. He listened to the wind pick up, tinkling in the branches above his head, whispering along the ground, and pattering on near silent claws.

A smile curved Mordred’s lips upward. There was life here; it was just hidden. He pursed his lips in a whistle: a low, warbling sound swallowed up by the movement of the night creatures. The back of Mordred’s hand grew tingly and he raised it to see a silvery-gray, fuzzy caterpillar there. He could almost imagine the bug humming along. Wings flapped a moment, startling in the quiet night.

Mordred sat up as an owl hooted. He hooted back and for a moment lived the lives beating into existence around him. A strange, haunting call filled the small forest, halting abruptly as Mordred’s throat choked closed. Tears wet his face and he touched them in shock. For several long minutes he could only pant as the ache in his chest grew and grew and grew.

What was this longing he felt? There was no direction to it, nothing specific to grasp onto, only pain and hurt and a desperate, clinging desire. With the rising of the wind and the animal noises he abruptly felt alone and lost and he knew with certainty that he was not done searching. For what did he search? What drove him down countless roads? He’d thought … Dmitri.

Unhappy tears widened the ache in his chest. An irrational desire to hurt his companion filled Mordred and he bent his knees, resting his chin upon them and wrapping his arms about his head. The caterpillar fell from his hand to trundle away in the dark. The musical tinkling around Mordred faded back into familiar, hushed quiet.

Laughter trembled somewhere in his memories and Mordred lunged at it, but the sound drifted away like so much water through his fingers, flowing faster the more the struggled to hold on. He thought he glimpsed the swish of a sword, heard again the pounding of an anvil, but there was an odd, lyrical lilt to the sounds. He could almost place the song, twitching along the edge of his awareness like a word he couldn’t speak.

Then it was gone, it was all gone, leaving the forest as dead as Dmitri claimed. Mordred rose and walked to stand once more staring at the winged statue. Who was this woman? Why did she have wings? Why this feeling, as if Mordred knew her? He caressed the stone and almost -- almost -- he remembered … something. He needed to know more!

He jumped back as a scream rent the air, feet moving back to camp even as his ears told him the sound hadn’t come from Dmitri. He skidded to a halt and nearly ran into the madwoman as she raced by, blindly dodging tree roots and trunks. Such luck couldn’t last forever and Mordred watched as one swerve wasn’t quite far enough. She fell, filling the lightening dark with her gasping sobs. Something broken needing fixed.

Mordred approached her, jerking back as she screamed again, flailing hands and feet at some unknown assailant. Then Dmitri loomed up from out of the gloom and the screams dissolved back to sobs, begging of some sort. Dmitri kneeled by her side and placed a hand on her shoulder. Mordred watched silently as the woman calmed. She almost looked sane.

Dmitri looked up with an expression Mordred had never seen from him before, a look that he couldn’t decipher. There was no heat in it, no anger, perhaps sadness, but that did not seem right, either.

“Dmitri,” he started to say, but he caught a glimpse again of the dark-bronze eye color that had appeared in his dreams not long ago and fell silent once more. Pain hit his chest and Mordred closed his eyes, unconsciously touching his chest as if to find and remove the dagger there. He found nothing, and when he looked once more, Dmitri had the woman on her feet, leading her back to camp.

Another emotion swept over him, turning Mordred’s hands to fists that he used to pound against a nearby tree trunk. The wood shattered beneath the blows, stupefying him with the sudden, loud crack. The whole tree groaned and tilted. Mordred touched both hands to the back, knowing he couldn’t repair the damage, his mind racing to rationalize the event as a dry, dead tree just waiting for a strong gust of wind to be knocked over.

The tree fell, carrying others in its wake. When the crashing ended so had all noise and sound vanished, just like the statues and the old, stone building, lost beneath the wood.

“Mordred?”

He jumped at the touch upon his shoulder, reaching for the sword that he’d never worn about his waist. He couldn’t quite grasp why he’d ever expected it to be there.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. No.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked up at the gap left behind by the trees. The sky above was light enough to hide all but the brightest of stars; dawn was not far away. “Maybe we’re all insane.”

Dmitri made a reproving, clucking sort of noise with his tongue that instantly fascinated Mordred. He watched intently for him to repeat the noise, wanting to see how he did it, but all he saw was how Dmitri’s face darkened behind a blush. He frowned; Dmitri scowled and stomped off into the trees. Mordred stared after and scratched his head.

*              *              *

They sat for a time silent beneath the trees as the sun rose.

“This is a cursed place,” muttered the woman, sipping from a tin cup. “People died here.”

Mordred watched Dmitri nod but say nothing. He caught Dmitri’s eye and saw the questions there, nestled beside the fear: what was it that haunted this woman? Was it the same as what haunted Dmitri? Was it the place or the person? Was she a danger to them?

“Why are you following us?” he asked bluntly. Dmitri’s eyes darted back to his, but Mordred ignored him.

The woman sipped from the cup, not looking at either of them though her fingers tightened to show white knuckles. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she finally answered.

Mordred snorted, the sudden, harsh sound causing Dmitri to jump and immediately after look guilty. He flushed and stabbed at the cooking flapjacks.

Mordred cleared his throat. “Try me,” he invited. His thoughts went to the sword bundled with their packs. He promised himself to keep their only weapon closer from then on.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” said the woman. “Craziness runs in my family. Comes from living so close to the gate, I guess.” She frowned and lowered the cup, resting her forearms on her thighs. The gaze that met Mordred’s was clear and steady.

“The gate,” he said slowly, rolling the word around in his mouth, testing how it felt on his tongue, examining the thrill that raced through him. He thought and he thought, finally deciding on pride; that was what he felt about that word. What was the gate?

“… The Sacred Mountain?” Dmitri asked. He looked as if someone had just hit him and Mordred jerked back to attention. Hadn’t Clein said something about gates?

“Yes. It’s a cursed place.” The woman offered a hand to Dmitri, and then to Mordred. “The name’s Tai. I talk to ghosts. What haunts you?” Looking at her, Mordred thought she already knew.

Dmitri stared at her hand before accepting the handshake. “A dragon,” he said.

“Cool,” said Tai. “Better than dead people, at any road.” She knocked back the last of her tea and then rose. “I need to find my horse. Excuse me.”

Mordred stood. “We’re leaving,” he announced.

Dmitri stared at him; Tai’s eyes narrowed and she pursed her mouth for a moment. Then she shrugged. “Fine.”

“Mordred,” Dmitri objected. He stood as well. “Wait, Tai. Another day won’t make a difference. We’ll wait for you.”

“Why’d you say that?” Mordred demanded. He ignored Tai as she glanced between them, closed her mouth, and walked off into the forest.

Dmitri’s eyes darted back to his and he blinked, pulling his eyebrows together as he frowned. “That was really rude, Mordred.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“We need her, and that’s still no reason to be rude.” He scowled as Mordred made a rude noise. “And she’s obviously not going away.” He thrust a plate of flapjacks into Mordred’s hands.

“Why do you trust her?” Mordred set the plate on his lap and rolled up one of the thin pancakes to munch. He could almost laugh at Dmitri’s disapproving frown, as much a part of their morning routine as the flapjacks.

“Who said I trust her?” Dmitri retorted. “Why are you angry with me? You’re the one who was rude.”

“You want me to lie?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, and, no, of course not, Mordred --“

“Then why are you fussing?”

“Ugh!” Dmitri threw his hands up in the air and kept silent long enough to cook a few more flapjacks. “You want to know more about this place, well, she can tell us. You said that place burned --”

“No.”

“What?” Dmitri sighed. “Mordred.”

“She’s crazy.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s a threat.”

“I can’t look after you and her.”

“I don’t need looking after!”

Mordred blinked as Dmitri’s voice rose and he banged their frying pan on the ground in a rare fit of anger. The half-cooked flapjacks flopped over the side. Dmitri kicked dirt over some smoking leaves. Mordred set his plate down and curled his fingers around the hand Dmitri used to grip the pan. He felt Dmitri flinch, but he didn’t draw back. Gently, Mordred took the pan from him. He pushed one of the horses out of the way to crouch by the creek and wash up.

He heard Dmitri approach and waited.

“I apologize.”

He nodded.

“I do need help; I just don’t like to be reminded of it. I hate this.”

Mordred turned to look over his shoulder. Dmitri stood just out of arm reach, the heel of one hand digging at his forehead. If he hadn’t so clearly indicated that further approach was unwelcome, Mordred would have taken him into his arms. Quickly, he averted his gaze, staring into the water and wondering if his desires showed as clearly on his face as they looked in his reflection.

“Why can’t you look at me? Damn it! What is wrong with you?” Startled, Mordred whipped back around. “I’m sorry, okay! This place freaks me out! I don’t understand how you can like it here!” Face red, Dmitri’s chest heaved up and down with each harsh breath. A forearm supported him where he leaned against a tree and the other gestured wildly.

Looking up at him, Mordred admired the strength in that stubborn jaw, the flash in his normally gentle eyes, and the way his sweat clung to his body.

“Stop it!” Dmitri startled him anew by shouting and closing his eyes as if pained.

Mordred rose and took a step forward. “Dmitri?”

“Why are you doing this?” Mordred froze, hand half-raised to wipe away the moisture suddenly appearing on Dmitri’s cheeks.

“Dmitri?”

His lips thinned. Then Dmitri took a deep breath and opened his eyes. There were tiny hints of gold there, sorrow and fear, and something else that grabbed Mordred’s heart and hauled him closer.

“When you look at me like that,” Dmitri said, “I don’t know what to do.”

Mordred reached out, brushing aside a clump of thick, black hair. Dmitri shivered violently under the graze of his fingers, even though he was clearly not cold. Mordred hesitated, brushing back the hair that once again fell into Dmitri’s face.

“I don’t know what this is, either.” He watched Dmitri’s eyes turn aside, how he hunched his shoulders a little and caught his bottom lip in his teeth, and Mordred knew the moment was slipping away, whatever the moment was. Scared that he’d lose it completely, Mordred’s fingers seized hold of the hair he’d been caressing. His other hand came up even as Dmitri gasped in shocked protest. Cupping the smooth chin, Mordred brought his lips down hard.

Dmitri sucked in a breath and went limp so quickly Mordred almost didn’t catch him. He swung their bodies instinctively until Dmitri’s body fetched up against the tree he’d been earlier leaning upon. Barely pausing long enough to register Dmitri’s grunt, Mordred sought again for Dmitri’s lips. They were soft and open against him even as Dmitri’s arms jolted forward, the heels of his hands jarring Mordred’s chest. He swiped his tongue across Dmitri’s lower lip and felt the man in his arms shudder. His hands relaxed for an instant before seizing the front of Mordred’s tunic and jerking him forward.

They scrabbled for a minute before Mordred regained his balance, stepping forward between Dmitri’s spread legs, his hands steadying at Dmitri’s waist. He felt Dmitri buck against him, pulling again as his head fell back to expose his throat. The gold shone brightly in the gap left by his eyelids and he bit his lip harder as he moaned.

Another slight adjustment slotted their groins perfectly together. Dmitri gasped and shuddered, his knuckles turning white. Tongue darting out, Mordred licked the revealed neck, sucking at the lump he found bobbing up and down with each one of Dmitri’s panting breaths. Mordred dared not relax his grip, but he thrust forward again, sucking at another spot on Dmitri’s neck, tasting dirt and sweat. He used his teeth and Dmitri stiffened, groaning through a clenched jaw with a strength Mordred felt clear down to his toes. He bit down harder, fingers digging into Dmitri’s hips as lights flashed behind closed eyes and melting warmth flooded his body.

They collapsed against the tree. Tasting blood, Mordred lapped at the wound he’d made before staring into Dmitri’s face. He still had his head back, but his eyes were open, focused somewhere in the trees overhead. The mysterious, bronze flecks all but drowned Dmitri’s natural brown-gold eyes. They seemed impossibly hard when compared to the softness of his body and Mordred stiffened in worried alarm.

“Oh,” sighed Dmitri in as soft and yearning a tone as any Mordred could have wished for. A tongue ran across Dmitri’s lips as Mordred watched, puzzled and uncertain. When he looked again, all he could see was Dmitri, eyes dilated and breath quick but steadying. His lips curved into a gentle smile as his eyes fell closed.

Carefully, Mordred eased a half step back. Dmitri’s hands slipped down his sides as he sighed a sound that brought a growl to Mordred’s throat.

Dmitri’s eyes flew open. He stared and Mordred, uncomfortable, cleared his throat. “Are you okay?”

“I --” Dmitri ducked his head so that his hair fell once more across his face.

Mordred felt certain he was blushing and he grinned. “Can you stand?”

“Of course I can!” Dmitri snapped, but he started to slide as soon as Mordred let go. He cursed while Mordred chuckled, catching him and assisting him to sit.

Leaving him there, Mordred fetched clean bandages from their campsite. He ignored Dmitri’s fumbling and blushing; batting his hands away and unwinding the blood soaked cloth himself. The wounds glistened wetly in the daylight, as fresh as if made only that morning. Mordred touched the edges and frowned at the redness and heat. He washed the wounds cautiously but thoroughly; so often had he done so that he didn’t have to think about what he was doing. Instead he enjoyed the feel of Dmitri’s smooth skin and the way it jumped and quivered beneath his fingertips.

All this done in silence before Mordred put away the extra bandages and they both bathed, washing their clothes and hanging them from tree branches to dry.

Arriving back at the campsite and brushing out a blanket to drape around his loins, Dmitri asked, “Where’s the frying pan?”

Mordred stopped brushing out his hair, turned to Dmitri, and opened and closed his mouth. Then he laughed. He laughed harder as Dmitri blushed hotly and scowled.

*              *              *

Afternoon was upon them before Mordred realized he’d been duped into waiting for Tai’s return. He muttered darkly into his leatherworking kit, inadvertently waking Dmitri from where he’d been napping.

“Mm?” he grunted, rubbing at his eyes, languid as a cat in the scattered sunbeams.

“You were telling me about these gates,” said Mordred, turning his eyes from the sun playing on Dmitri’s skin and back to the half-finished garment in his hands.

“Oh. Oh, yeah,” Dmitri yawned. He took a drink from his canteen and settled back down, for once seemingly content to lounge around.

Dmitri was not as accomplished a storyteller as the merchant Clein, but Mordred wasn’t necessarily as interested in stories. He recognized bardic lore when he heard it and while half of the songs felt like utter nonsense, another half chimed true.

There was a mountain -- The Mountain, as Dmitri called it, or The Sacred Mountain in the stories -- where the Gods made their home.

“There was a grand garden up there,” Dmitri explained and this was preposterous, because everyone knew that nothing could grow in the highest reaches of the mountains. Only snow and ice deigned to cover the rock bared by summer’s heat and whipped by winds during all seasons.

“In the Gods’ garden it was always Spring, lush and green and filled with all manner of things.” Dmitri’s voice was wistful as he spoke, his eyes closed as he described all the things he’d heard. Plants grew with no regard for the seasons and apparently the animals cared not for predator or prey. Dmitri would have argued the point, but Mordred wasn’t interested in a silly debate and curtly told him to just get on with it.

“Why are you asking if you insist on clinging to disbelief?” Dmitri demanded, sitting up to glare. “What about Tai? Will you believe her?”

He should’ve stayed lying down because his glare was about as fiercesome as a bunny’s. Mordred said nothing and continued his work. He glanced over as Dmitri threw himself back down with a loud huff. The marks on his neck fairly glowed in the pleasant heat, standing out even more vividly as Dmitri flushed, catching Mordred staring.

So the Gods lived on the top of a mountain that defied all laws of nature and of the seasons. That could be easily written off as human invention. There was a path carved into the stone of the mountain and guarded by men and angels. At the base of the mountain was a massive fortress or cathedral, the legends weren’t clear. There was so much prose in what Dmitri spouted that Mordred found his head swimming in all the details.

Whichever it happened to be, an army of monks had lived there, and wasn’t that just the silliest idea ever? And yet, Clein had mentioned that the fortress or cathedral or whatever had been attacked, so something had been there. Since they’d all been killed, maybe they were monks, or maybe they were soldiers, or maybe both? But who ever heard of a priest bearing weapons?

The clopping of horse hooves and Tai’s cursing as she forced a path through the woods interrupted that argument. Dmitri sprang to his feet, shoving his clothes on with such haste he almost put his shirt on backwards. Mordred watched him and bit back a laugh.

“Get dressed!” hissed Dmitri. “I don’t want her asking … awkward questions!”

“Like what?” Mordred countered, lazily stretching. He enjoyed the blush that spread across Dmitri’s skin. “Is there something we’re supposed to be wearing when washing our clothes?”

Now, disgust, Dmitri could do that look. Laughing, Mordred reached for his pants.

Dmitri fixed dinner while Tai recounted her story about the burned temple, made even spookier as night stole away the sun. In the flickering light, she smiled, and Mordred was sorry he’d asked.

Some days later with his ears now deaf from Dmitri’s religious claptrap, Mordred glowered at Tai. If she wasn’t drunk and singing gravelly tavern songs, she was slouched in the saddle snoring. The only thing she did do, besides frightening them all with ghost stories, was to manage the horses. Blasted animals loved her, and their travelling speed increased.

The only other thing she cared about was some sort of medallion she wore tucked between her breasts. Sometimes when she slept her hand would creep up to clutch tightly at the disc.

Between her and Dmitri, Mordred got little sleep. He would lie awake for hours, waiting for one or the other of them to stir. Usually, it was Dmitri’s night terrors, and then Mordred would be left with Tai’s eerie eyes staring from out of the dark. She looked half dead herself with her pale skin and dull hair.

Was she a witch? Or was she simply insane?

“For Gods’ sake, shut up!” he hollered at her one night. “Take your prophesies of doom somewhere else or I’ll kill you myself!”

“Don’t take it personally,” said Tai, looking at him in that disconcerting way she had, as if she looked right through him. “I’ve seen everyone die. Even you.”

“And you?” he challenged.

She shrugged. “Of course.” Her gaze fell on Dmitri, shivering and sweating, tossing restlessly. “Never him, though.” She frowned. “Sometimes, I wonder if he even exists. Or maybe it’s me.” She grinned, showing gaps in her teeth. "Dead people, dead places, whatever. Dead drunk and happily passed out is the only way to survive."

Mordred stared.

She laughed and flopped back in her ratty blankets, soon to fill the air with her snores.