Tristan wasn't worried. Not in the slightest.
He was just angry.
In fact, he couldn't remember a time since arriving in Britannia when he hadn't been angry about something.
But right now, he was wasn't alone in his seething frustration. All the Sarmatians were fully armoured and ready to go, but were trapped in their own barracks while Arthur tried to negotiate for a ceasefire. It wasn't working, as evidenced by the arrows riddling the wooden beams and stable doors, while they were unable to return fire.
"I'm going up to see if I can make it across the rooftops," he said to Kahedin, who looked astonished.
"But you swore you'd never go up top again!"
How he regretted that conversation.
"If I can, then I'll bring those accursed Germans back, so it's worth the risk."
"I'd rather die!" Cador replied from his vantage point behind a cart.
"Me too!" added Galahad.
"Well then I'll definitely risk it." Tristan snapped, losing patience with this feud. Pride was a fine thing when it wasn't interfering with survival. He went up to his room and didn't ponder the fact Kation's relocation bothered him quite a bit.
Damn. He thought about it.
Gritting his teeth and wishing that the idea of climbing around on rooftops had never been conceived, he managed to clamber up without embarrassing himself too much. Moving to the middle of the roof, he looked around, searching for any sign of Kat.
"Behind you, moron."
The nerve of this woman.
He was about to spin around and roar at her, but something icy cold and very sharp pressed against the side of his neck.
"Ah-ah," her voice whispered next to his ear. "Only nice words for the moment, understand?"
"Why are you here?"
"I'm just here to relay a message that the Batavians are advancing from the east gate and securing strong points with barricades, allowing for the increased pressure on the mutineers. But if that information isn't interesting to Arthur then I'll just be on my way. Ta-ta." The sharp blade disappeared from his neck and by the time he'd turned to look at her, she had already retreated to the lip of the roof—a darker smudge of shadow in the night. Her breath didn't fog before her, creating the impression of a spectre from the underworld.
"Kat!" he said urgently.
She twitched, but didn't move. Taking that to mean she was listening, he edged closer and laid a hand on her shoulder. He could feel faint tremors now—was it fatigue or cold?
"Well?"
"Come and see the others, they're worried." A pause. "Gawain especially." Although he hadn't said anything, there had been many baleful glances which betokened the silent message of: 'what-the-hell-were-you-thinking-letting-her-run-around-alone-at-a-time-like-this?!'
She sighed and turned slightly, not pulling out of his hold or meeting his gaze. "I can't. I'd much rather get you lot out of here the fun way rather than wait inside. You can relay the message—forget what I've previously said about your memory."
He let her have that—not because his memory was bad, but because making her angry in her natural habitat would probably get him shoved off the roof with a dagger in his groin. They walked over to the other side of the roof and looked down into the chaos-filled courtyard of the barracks. Kat huffed—the closest she'd come to laughter in a while—and turned to look at Tristan, the faint light of the lamps below obscured her face in flickering shadows, her ever-growing mop of dark hair and the scarf added to the effect.
"We're sick of being used for target practise." And mighty shoddy shooting it had been too.
"Well, you are providing an excellent distraction," she said slowly, clearly mulling something over.
"What are you thinking?" he asked warily.
"Nothing important." She backed away from the light and paused as if about to say something, then shook her head.
"Well I have something to say to you," he said hotly.
She threw him an incredulous look. "Now?"
"We might not get another chance," he retorted. "It's about… well… I made a mistake." He said finally, feeling his face heat up.
"About?" she sounded impatient.
"Rosula."
Kation froze so completely at that word that he was sure she'd stopped breathing altogether. "Well?" she said at last.
"It was… it is…" he swallowed convulsively.
Kation shook her head. "When you've got something to say, I'll come back to hear it," she said, turning away, but he caught her arm and spun her back around.
"Be careful," he said harshly, wishing he could lock her in a sealed room with no windows where she would be safe.
She looked ready to scream at him, but paused, reading the sincerity in his eyes and nodded. She reached up to dig her fingers into the collar of his armour, tugging them closer together. "You too," she said, so softly he almost missed it, and then rested her head on his chest for a long moment. Tristan felt her trembling again, but she pulled away. "I'll bring back ze Germans," she said, and he heard the humour in her voice—despite not understanding the quip. Then she took a running leap at the next roof—the infirmary—and landed neatly with barely a sound, and kept up her high pace as she disappeared towards the fighting on the other side of the fort.
When he made it back to the others, Arthur had finally had enough and he ordered the knights to push their makeshift blockades to the gates of the barracks. Then there had been a savagely pleased urgency to their movements and speech; because defeat happened to other people: lackeys, soldiers, enemies… but not Arthur.
But as they slammed their barriers up against the bars, they heard a bloodcurdling scream from beyond their assailants and he peeked over the cart's side to see that smug bastard Aquinas leading a cavalry charge that routed the mutineers in one swift move.
In that moment, Arthur was roaring at them to open the barracks and suddenly they were all heaving at the barricades and gates—whereupon they were hit by a wave of fleeing rebel soldiers. They barely had time to pull out their weapons before the fight was upon them. Yet unlike everyone else, the Sarmatians were far from tired. They immediately mounted up and rode out to help contain and suppress the remnants of the rebellion, taking up the slack as the sky above began to lighten in the east.
By the time it was all over, Tristan began to search for Kation in earnest. He was alone in this since Arthur was organising the masses and had sent everyone off to secure the barracks and oversee the imprisonment of the mutineers. They were all battered, bruised, but triumphant and the Sarmatians and Batavians were—amazingly—getting along quite well.
He asked around for his 'slave', and got a range of anecdotes from the Batavians that Gawain—who had overheard several—found utterly horrifying. Sounded more like swashbuckling to Tristan.
"I don't want to go after that demon, because he'll turn around and kill us," one Batavian said. "Never mind that he's on our side, I'm not going." He smiled at the raw fear in the man's voice.
"I last saw the lad running back to the east gate with some of our men," a centurion said helpfully. "Seemed to be in a great hurry about it."
Deciding this was as good a place as any to investigate, Tristan walked over there—having dispensed with Tagiytei after the fighting—and came upon a scene of very fresh carnage. Kation was nowhere to be seen, but several Batavians were hauling the wounded and captured away from a veritable stack of bodies. Tristan grabbed one of the men. "What happened here?" he asked.
"That lad of yours—saw some men were trying to escape the way we'd come in. Apparently he had to stop them and took some of the men with him to head them off. Said something about 'news travelling too damn fast' to Aquinas. Don't know what he meant by that, but Aquinas thinks it's to do with the ringleaders making good their escape. I only hope the lad's killed them or they weren't involved." The man would have gone on, but Tristan interrupted him.
"And this is the evidence of the fight?"
"Aye, apparently three different groups of fleeing mutineers converged on their group and they were forced to establish a strong-point right under the gates. Most of ours were killed or severely maimed, but none ran—not even for help. And by the time we arrived they had destroyed most and forced the surrender of the rest. Haven't found your lad though. He was a brave little creature—and fierce as a lion…" The man was certainly chatty. But upon hearing this, Tristan simply walked away from him, a ringing in his ears as he desperately scanned the pieces of human around him. The very mud was red with cooling viscera and blood, he nearly slipped on what was probably a liver, but that didn't matter.
He had to find Kation. He knew what he had to say to her. He moved to the neat rows of bodies laid out for identification and searched for a slighter figure amongst the dead. Nothing.
Feeling something in him crystallise—it was suspiciously like that 'guilt' thing that Arthur harped on about—he walked back towards the barracks, feeling like he was in a terrible dream. Nothing seemed quite real anymore.
Kahedin and Gawain were going to murder him, regardless of his actual responsibility for this.
Fortunately, it was Dinadan whom he first came upon in the barracks. He had already stripped out of his heavy armour and was directing the clean-up operation. Then his eye fell upon Tristan. "What is it?" he asked worriedly, clearly reading the devastation on the scout's face.
"Kation…" he mumbled, and shook his head, unable to speak.
Dinadan's face fell. "Shit." He rubbed a hand through his long blond hair. "Oh gods, I'm sorry. That's awful… he was such a funny little chap…" he looked like he wanted to reach for Tristan, but clearly thought better of it. "Come on, let's get that kit off you. You'll be more comfortable for the work ahead," and he waved at Mato to help wrestle him out of his armour.
Tristan could have laughed if he'd had the breath to do so. Mato gripped him under one elbow and steered him to a quiet corner. As soon as Tristan was in his tunic—and too numb to bother with a cloak or outer tunic—Dinadan put him to work, probably hoping to temporarily distract his friend from the loss.
"Go and fetch two buckets of water—we'll need to have the blood washed from the walls," he said gently, handing Tristan two buckets of different size.
Tristan nodded and wove between the hurrying people—his mind a very careful, fragile blank. He'd think about it later. Later, when he had to plan how to tell Kahedin and Gawain.
He reached the well and dropped the bucket down into its depths—
—THUNK!
A faint, gurgling moan.
Thunk?
In his oddly detached state, Tristan moved with almost drunken ponderousness to peer over the lip of the well.