Battles

When the two parties clashed, Hazel was frightened to the bone. Tightly, she clutched Dorian's waist and buried her face in the leather armor in front of her. Despite her Lady's nagging, she'd refused to ride by herself after only a bunch of riding lessons.

Yet, however deep she buried herself, she couldn't ignore the shouts, the neighing of the horses, or the sounds of blades. For the latter, there were two different ones: those hitting metal tingled in the ears but those quieter ones slashing flesh made her nauseous.

The horse beneath her moved. Every time Dorian's sword arm cut through the air, she whimpered and clutched his waist tighter, despite the friction roughening her skin.

The horse jumped forward. She shrieked. Then, another clash of swords. A splashing sound and something fell on her hair and hands. Dirt? Sweat?

Suddenly, the horse reared up in fright and she fell backward. Unlike the last times, Dorian's body didn't hold her. She opened her eyes wide - and screamed.

BAM!

Her body hit the ground and was buried under the headless corpse. Pain engulfed all her being. Despite gasping for air, she couldn't stop screaming and tears streamed down her cheeks.

With the strength of despair, she shoved the corpse aside and vomited on the bloody ground. Her whole body shook. It couldn't be! This strong warrior could not be dead!

Disregarding the battle and the empty place above his shoulders, she grabbed Dorian's arms and shook them. Hammered her small fists onto his chest. As if hearing her pain, rain began to pour down from the heavens and turned her attire into heavy shackles. Her movements slowed down to quiet crying.

When a hand pulled her to her feet, she tied to resist, still holding on to Dorian. A hard slap whipped her head around and awoke her from her trance.

"Hurry!" She knew the face screaming at her, knew the long hair that stuck to the scruffy cheeks. Harrold was another fighter in Nathaniel's ranks. He knew Dorian well. But now, he harshly pulled her with him through the mud, leaving his comrade behind. Soldiers around were still fighting, still dying. Like her, Harrold seemed to have lost his horse and hurried her along, away from the battle.

She saw the knight approaching before he did. Coming from behind, spurring on his horse, he had his visor shut like a machine, not a human. The spear in his hand aimed at Harrold's back.

"NOOO!"

Hazel didn't know what drove her to this, but she couldn't see another person die. Like she was possessed, like she had accumulated courage all her life for just this moment, she jumped in front of the spear. And something... happened.

Coldness broke out of her like steam, a mysterious power that manifested itself in front of her. Suddenly, there was a wall of ice.

The enemy was too late to stop. Headfirst, the horse ran into the wall. When the spear struck, the soldier's body was thrown from the saddle and flew through the air, crashing into the wall, before landing on the ground. Right then, the horse's hooves came down. Nauseating crunching sounds.

The thick ice wall still vibrated when horse and soldier stopped moving. Hazel could feel it under her fingertips. Blankly, her green eyes stared through the glass-like surface as she slowly slid to the ground. Her heart was hammering. That was not what she wanted to do. That was certainly not it, though she didn't know what else she had planned. Maybe nothing, really.

Blurrily, she heard someone talking to her, then she was pulled up again, like before, and she stumbled behind Harrold. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed that the fighting sound had ceased. They had won, but it didn't feel like her victory.

Other riders approached them, and she saw some familiar faces. Terry, Cordcow, Ivan, Roy, and Jack. No Dorian. And nobody else. Tears burned in her eyes. Could she have saved Dorian if only she broke her promise sooner? The promise she had given her dying mother. It was a promise to hide her magic gift from everyone.

.

Katherine was so adamant about having her 'maid' stay in her room tonight, and getting her husband a comfortable place to sleep ("I dare you lot to mention the servant's quarters one more time!"), that everyone eventually agreed to her demands just so she would stop bothering them.

Night fell, and the surroundings quietened. As if in a forest with dangerous beasts on all sides, Katherine and Ella decided to sleep in shifts. Nathaniel, meanwhile, didn't have such luxury.

Despite his exhaustion, he tossed and turned in bed. The vial with sleeping medicine entered his thoughts, but he couldn't afford to be completely defenseless in a fiendish environment. From the medicine, his mind wandered to Sam, who might still be alive somewhere in the icelandic wall. Did he manage to get out? Did the soldiers flee in time? Even with the signal, it would be hard for them. Were they together with Sam?

In his worst imaginations, he saw everyone with open eyes in puddles of blood or chained to a wall with wounds of torture. Knowing they wouldn't betray him only made it worse.

Even in seconds the worry lessened, there were pictures of bodies cloaked in black magic imprinted on his closed lids. Bones on empty earth. A woman's dying gaze...

Eventually, Nathaniel fell asleep, yet the dreams were just as unpleasant. His body jerked from time to time as sweat gathered on his forehead. He breathed in sharp, short puffs of air, and sometimes murmured incoherently. Then, his back arched as he craned his neck far over the pillow as if a blade was held to his neck. In the moonlight shining through the barred window, the scar on his jaw shimmered silver-red.

As Nathaniel mumbled to himself, darkness suddenly rushed over his skin. Like a black gas, it seemed to escape through his pores, blocking the sight and evaporating the fabric of his sleeping robe, then the covers. When the wooden bed got too unstable to hold his weight, he crashed to the ground.

The fall and the sound finally startled him awake. Disoriented, he struggled to his feet, before assessing the situation. In these few seconds, the darkness had eaten the remaining bedposts and now turned toward the closet and the wooden door. With gritted teeth, Nathaniel put a halt to this movement. Sinking down on the cold floor, his elegant hand landed in a puddle of darkness. A wry laugh couldn't help blocking his throat when he saw what was on his ring finger. Lucky, his wedding ring was of metal and rubies. And lucky the whole room was made of stone.

"If I could just stop sleeping...", he uttered to nobody in particular, before starting to clean up his mess. The rings below his eyes showed almost no change. They were still broad and dark, almost resembling bruises.

As soon as the darkness was returned to its owner, Nathaniel felt his arm stiffen a bit. Slowly, he opened and closed the hand with the black veins. Then he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Sleeping was useless in the beginning, now it was even more dangerous. He had to stay awake a little bit longer.

"Strange for a dream I can't even remember to invoke such emotion...", Nathaniel murmured. Maybe that was a topic to think about while staying awake. At least it was better than all the deaths he'd caused.