Part ThreeNightmaresIt was almost eighteen hours later that they stumbled off the road, exhausted, looking for somewhere to sleep. The shore of Lake Rumare could be seen glinting through the trees a mile or so to the east, fed by the stream that flowed down from the main path. In front of them a carpet of bluebells spread in every direction, rustling softly in the breeze and glowing in the pre-sunset light.
The scene was indescribably beautiful, but Shamanih could hardly spare it a second glance. An eighteen-hour march was bad at the best of times, but they had both been tired to begin with. The only consolation was how much ground they had covered. They were nearly halfway to Chorrol.
Martin had sunk to his knees in the bluebells, too worn out even to lift his head. Shamanih wanted nothing more than to collapse on the ground, but she felt filthy – not only from the long walk, but from the sweltering heat of the Oblivion Gate and the battle-terror of Kvatch. Sleep was tempting, but a bath even more so.
“I’m going to wash,” she whispered to Martin, even her voice giving out. “Can you just keep watch a moment? I won’t be long.”
He looked up, his eyes reflecting the weariness of her own, and nodded imperceptibly.
Shamanih ducked behind the bushes and found a pool fed by the stream; it was stony and small, only ten yards across and four or so deep, but it would do. She felt like she needed to scrub the taint of Oblivion off her skin; she could feel the tang of the smoky atmosphere, smell it in her hair.
She carefully unbuckled her armour and laid it to one side, dagger in easy reach. The bluebell wood looked deserted, but it wouldn’t be much fun to get caught without her weapons. And she had no idea whether the Emperor’s assassins knew about Martin, or whether they would be following. She fervently hoped not.
The tooth-pendant hung round her neck, a faint mark on her sternum where the armour had pressed it into her skin. It wasn’t something she’d sworn never to remove, but with the hastiness of their travel and the ever-present danger, she was paranoid of losing the only thing that anchored her to the Akehane and her father. She kept it on. Her hair was still in the closely-woven braids she’d worn since the Imperial Prison; she began to unwind them carefully, a small frown of tiredness carved between her brows.
There hadn’t been much conversation between her and Martin on the road except for what was necessary. It was hardly surprising. What was there to talk about? How his home had just been burnt to the ground? How his life had turned out to be a lie? How she had watched his father draw his last breath?
He didn’t know that last one, of course. She didn’t think she could tell anyone yet, not even Jauffre. It was too raw a wound.
A rather more immediate and pressing thought occupied her as she submerged herself, blissfully, in the cold clear shower of water that fell over the nearby rocks. It was too dangerous for them both to take the sleep they needed so badly – that would put them at the risk of even normal wild animals, never mind a pack of zealous assassins. Of course for her, the animosity of wild animals had never been a problem– a relic of her Bosmer parentage – but there was still Martin to think of. One of them would have to stay up to keep watch, and she just didn’t know if either of them could do it.
After a makeshift wash – what she wouldn’t have given for a bar of soap – Shamanih reached over to her meagre pack and pulled out a fresh linen chemise and woollen leggings. The bodice would have to do, as would the boots, but she was damned if she wasn’t going to sleep in something relatively clean – as clean as they could be, that was, after spending a fortnight squashed in the bottom of her pack. She used the old chemise to towel her hair and body as best she could.
It had been a long time since she’d lived the nomad life with her father. And even in the tribe, they’d followed the water. She’d gotten used to baths.
Combing through her damp hair with her fingers, strangely heartened by feeling clean, she gathered up her things and made her way back to Martin. To her surprise, he’d got a small fire going and was unwrapping the bundle of supplies they had grabbed in Kvatch.
He looked up, and did a double take. “Your hair…”
She put a hand to her head, immediately self-conscious. “What? What about it?”
He held her gaze for a moment, then turned hurriedly back to the fire as a stick settled into the blaze and sent up a cloud of sparks. “Nothing. It’s just… longer than I thought.”
Nonplussed, she put her pile of armour on the ground and sat slowly next to the fire.
“Here,” he said, handing her a biscuit. She took a bite, nearly breaking her teeth – it really came to something when you were so hungry you could even bite into a travel-biscuit with enthusiasm.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Martin looking at her chemise. She was confused for a moment before she realised that he had seen the tooth-necklace beneath the linen, and was trying to work out what it was.
“It’s a Kozanset tiger tooth. A sacred animal. My father gave it to me.”
He chewed at his own rock-hard biscuit thoughtfully. “Kozanset? Hammerfell? Is that where you live?”
“Well… lived. I haven’t been there for a long time now.” She could see him getting interested, but thinking about such unreachable pleasures as home and family was painful. She rapidly changed the subject.
“I was just thinking,” she said quickly, “about who’s going to take the first watch. I think I should do it. I got some sleep at the camp, after all. We can split four-hour shifts, and start again at dawn. You should get some rest.”
Martin looked up, a ghost of a smile crossing his face for the first time. It startled her; his face looked very different without the permanent scowl he seemed to have. Younger. “Actually, we won’t need to take watches. I know a spell – it’s a variation on Detect Life. I’ll wake up if anything comes within thirty yards of the camp.”
Shamanih was momentarily distracted from her biscuit. “I’ve never heard of a spell like that! It’ll really work? Where did you learn it?”
His smile faded slightly. “Oh, a long time ago. I wasn’t always a priest, you know…” he trailed off, looking hard into the fire.
Suddenly intensely curious, she had to bite her lip from questioning further. It was too soon. They didn’t know each other well enough, and he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. It looked like she wasn’t the only one being cagey at the moment.
There were so many unspoken questions between them – what was going to happen? In a day, or a week, or a month? To him and to her? Because she couldn’t just abandon him as soon as she handed him over to Jauffre, she knew that now. She had been sold as soon as the Emperor looked into her eyes. Not only for Uriel’s sake, but for Martin’s… which was absurd; she hardly knew him, but she felt responsible for him in some strange way.
But even so, what could she really do for him? She was a jack-of-all-trades at best; there was no particular skill she could think of that would help re-throne an Emperor. What was she good at? Nature magic? Stealth? Piracy? Tribal dancing? Good grief, now she really
was dreaming.
You can give him moral support, a tiny voice said in the back of her mind.
Yes. She could do that, if nothing else.
“I’ll get some water. I can at least make you some tea,” she said. She’d had the herbs in her pack for a long time – a snatched relic of the pirate ship that had landed her in the Imperial Prison – but they should still be usable.
He looked surprised, as if tea was a long-forgotten civility, but murmured a hesitant thank-you as she took the small lightweight cooking-pot from her pack and filled it at the stream. A minute later, it was bubbling steadily over the fire. She threw in a handful of herbs; the pungent smell was refreshing, and went some way to clearing her head. Between that and the much-desired wash, she felt something approaching normal.
When the tea was brewed she poured it into their single tin cup, and handed it to him. He took it with a small smile, but gave it back after only a sip.
“We’ll share it,” he offered.
They passed it back and forth between themselves until the sun went down properly, and then put out the fire so it wouldn’t be noticed in the gathering dark. They only had a blanket each to sleep on, but luckily the autumn still had a hint of lingering summer, and the trademark heat of the Imperial Province was yet to be overcome by the onset of winter. Sleeping straight on the ground was also no problem; they were too tired for the hardness to matter.
They spread their blankets on opposite sides of the remains of the fire. Shamanih watched, half-dozing already, as Martin bent his head to concentrate on his Detect Life spell. The dim glow from his hands illuminated his face, and she noticed faint lines on his brow.
She wondered how old he was. He couldn’t be much over thirty; Jauffre had spoken of seeing Martin as a baby when he was Captain, and he himself wasn’t more than sixty. There was a haunted look in Martin’s piercing eyes that made him seem older. Possibly because she remembered the same eyes looking out from the aged face of Emperor Uriel.
She must have fallen asleep thinking about it, because the next images she saw were red and smoky, worlds away from the quiet concentration on her companion’s face.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin woke up to sounds of muffled terror.
Despite his exhaustion, it had taken a good twenty minutes to get to sleep. There were too many things whirling around his head – the images of Kvatch, the scenes of chaos, the out-of-the-blue revelation of his supposed royal heritage…
It was too much to take in. Right now, he was determined to ignore the enormity of the last forty-eight hours simply as a defence mechanism. He could begin to deal with it when they were safe… whenever, and wherever, that would be.
He found himself thinking of Shamanih instead. There was a constant something in her eyes that he couldn’t quite fathom – a tense, nervous guardedness that underlaid her every word and action. He couldn’t blame her. He had no idea what she’d seen in the Oblivion Gate, but he knew ten other soldiers had gone in before her, and only two had returned. He couldn’t imagine what kind of horrors had lain beyond the vast portal.
And then there was the memory of that look of intensity, that expression of quiet urgency – something had tugged at his mind in the chapel before he’d turned and seen her, as if her gaze had been a physical force. She’d moved towards him almost magnetically, as if she hadn’t even realised she was doing it…
He finally dropped off, his head full of assassins, the dark uncertainty of what lay ahead, and green green eyes.
When he surfaced groggily once more, it was still dark. The stars blazed overhead, the scent of bluebells was everywhere, and there were stifled gasps coming from the other side of the fire.
He was already on his feet before he realised that the spell hadn’t triggered. He could feel it, still in place. Nothing had come within the bounds of their camp. He stepped cautiously round the fire, towards the dim shape of Shamanih.
She was having a nightmare.
Her loose hair, now dry, lay coiled over the grass like black snakes. Her fists were clenching and unclenching compulsively, nails clawing at the blanket. Her breath was harsh.
For a moment he hovered, unsure of what to do. He couldn’t leave it. He had to wake her.
Kneeling beside her, he bent his head and spoke quietly. “Shamanih.”
No response; if anything her breath became quicker.
He tried again, louder. Her distress was beginning to alarm him. “Shamanih… wake up. It’s a dream.” He leant down, propriety overruled, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
Instantly her eyes flew open, her lips parted in a hoarse gasp – and for one moment he was shocked into immobility by the sheer unadulterated terror in her face. She was petrified. He could almost see the Oblivion Gate burning in her eyes.
She stared directly at him, a half-swallowed scream bubbling up into her throat – and before he knew it, she had scrabbled for the dagger on the ground beside them and snatched it up.
His body working purely on adrenaline, he flung out a hand and caught her wrist before she could move; half falling, he forced her arm to the ground beside her head and pressed it into the grass, the dagger falling loose. The part of his brain that remained calm registered she was nowhere near as strong as he was, despite what he’d expected.
Panting, heart hammering, everything around them seemed to go still suddenly as the recognition dawned in her eyes. They were inches away from each other in a kind of nightmarish bubble. There were tears on Shamanih’s cheeks.
Slowly, Martin loosened his grip on her wrist. The dagger lay on the ground, glinting in the starlight. The bluebells swayed around them.
He sank onto the grass. She was shaking beside him. She could hardly speak; her gaze was fixed onto the dagger. “I – I could have –”
“No,” he said immediately. “You couldn’t. It was easily caught.”
His words seemed to leave no impression. “Forgive me, I...”
“No,” he said firmly again. The adrenaline was subsiding, leaving him stronger and his thoughts clearer. “It was just a natural reaction. You were having a nightmare; I woke you. If I’d been an enemy, you’d be glad of those quick reactions.”
They sat for a moment in silence. The panic in Shamanih’s eyes slowly began to fade as she visibly regained control; Martin, strangely fascinated by this glimpse of what lay beneath the surface, watched surreptitiously as the mental barriers went back up one by one. By the time she spoke again, her voice was cool and impersonal. “Take it away from me.”
She meant the dagger. To oblige her, he picked it up and put it by their packs, though it hardly seemed necessary now.
“Don’t think on it,” he said, a little more softly. “A nightmare. It’s no wonder…” he trailed off, not wanting to bring up the topic of the Oblivion Gate, and what she had been remembering. Not with that iron-clad mental shield back in place.
Wordlessly, he fetched his blanket and laid it on her side of the fire, a foot or so away. “Lie down,” he said. “I’m going to cast a sleeping spell.”
She looked at him for a long time, her eyes guarded and wary, but he was stubborn. Finally, she lay back down. She was still breathing a little fast, he noticed. He began to concentrate on the first stages of the spell.
“The barrier’s not broken?” she said suddenly, breaking his flow. He realised she meant the Detect Life.
“No. It’s intact. Don’t worry.”
She nodded and closed her eyes, just before the completed spell settled over her.
He watched her until her breathing became deep and even, and her arms relaxed into the blanket. Her head fell to one side. He kept watching for a while after he was sure she was in a dreamless sleep.
His heart was still beating fast. Something had changed now. He could not forget that unguarded terror as her eyes had flown open. Before, they had been careful, even removed with each other. Now, he thought in an unbidden flash of intuition, it would be different – perhaps even awkward. There is something very exposed and vulnerable about seeing someone in a nightmare.
He lay down stiffly on his own blanket, and slipped back into his own troubled dreams.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited by Rumpleteasza, 02 March 2011 - 03:21 PM.
)
