As the group started moving down the road towards Thebes, Kelvamin shifted to make himself more comfortable on the cart. He rested his head on a sack that had been filled with something soft, and closed his tired eyes.
*****
There was blood on his robes.
The village was on fire. He could hear screams of women and children, the laughter of men and the trample of horse hooves on stone. Kelvamin blinked through bleary eyes, groaning at the pain in his chest as the cart rattled over the cobbles of the street. He sat up, pulling his hand away from his chest to find it tacky with blood. His head felt cold, but he could feel sweat stinging his eyes. He coughed, and a black sludge came out onto his hands. He tried to remember what was happening, where he was, but his head hurt. Suddenly a hand was on his cheek, and he could feel how hot he was now.
"Hendrick!" a voice called out.
Kelvamin looked to the person who had shouted. A woman was knelt down next to him, holding a wet cloth to his head. She had long golden hair that fell down her from her head in locks, meeting a sword and a shield that were strapped across her back with leather thonging. He looked up at the piercing blue eyes and knew her name, though he did not know her face.
"Anna," he said, and his voice was surprisingly harsh.
The blue eyes widened in shock and she turned, shouting again. There was an odd noise and then a man with a long grey beard, but no hair on the top of his head appeared. He looked vaguely angry and held a great oak staff in one hand and a broadsword in the other. Kelvamin smiled at the wizard, for he knew him from somewhere past.
"Be quick girl, I daren't leave the fool driving the cart for long lest we end up in the ocean," the man said in a regal but busy tone.
"Kelvamin," she whispered "He sees me, and yet he does not know me,"
"Anna," Kelvamin rasped again, reaching up for the girl with a frail hand. The sorrow in those blue eyes made the swordsman's heart swell.
"I should have known this would be hardest on you, girl," the wizard said, not unkindly "The poison eats away at him and soon he will forget us all,"
"Will he live, Hendrick?" Anna asked, unshed tears forming in her eyes. The old man looked at the girl with a pained expression.
"I cannot remove the shard of the blade, but I have cast my best magics. He will not die today," he reassured her.
"But the poison will kill him eventually," she finished quietly. The wizard nodded.
"Thirteen months from today exactly," he said solemnly "There is nought that any man can do,"
"Will he remember us? Me? Will he remember me?"
"If he does, it will be brief. He will likely think it a dream, or idle fancy. But there is a chance..."
"Yes?" she asked hopefully.
"When he dies. There is a chance that he will remember then. A mere chance,"
Anna sniffed, and returned to dabbing Kelvamin's forehead with the wet cloth as he continued to breath raspingly. Hendrick put his arm on the woman's shoulder, as though steeling her for what he was about to say next.
"You know now what we must do. The ship is waiting for him at the docks. We must hold them here. We cannot go with him,"
"So far," she whispered, the tears falling freely now "We have come so far,"
"I know, but we have borne him as far as we can. He must undertake the next part of this journey without us. Maybe he shall find friends along the road he walks, as well as enemies," the wizard said stiffly, his voice filling with an emotion he refused to yield to.
"Anna," Kelvamin muttered.
The cart swerved erraticly and came to a stop. The sound of horses was getting louder now, and feverish though he was, Kelvamin could see the first black mare thundering towards them. The wizard lowered Anna onto the ground and carefully deposited Kelvamin so that he had an arm wrapped around her neck.
"We shall distract them while we can," Hendrick announced to the girl, and Kelvamin saw a fat man dressed in blacksmith's robes, holding a great hammer run forth into the horsemen. He slew the first, breaking the great beast's front legs, then dismounted the rider from another with a fell sweep. Then a spear was launched into his gut, and a short axe hit his chest with a 'thunk' sound. Once again the swordsman had a sense of knowing someone that did not exist.
"Balan!" he cried out as the girl led him away, and for a second he saw the man's face lit up by a triumphant grin. The wizard gave a cry and a ball of fire erupted from his hand to engulf the fighters. He launched himself from the cart at the survivors with a great cry. And then Kelvamin's focus changed, and he concentrated on putting one step in front of the other.
The woman, Anna he reminded himself, was making sobbing sounds as they hobbled across the wooden planks that made up the dock. He could see a small ship at the end, with a single sail and loaded up with supplies. When she saw it, Anna began to cry even louder. He thought to comfort her.
"Fine," he whispered "It's fine, we're almost there,"
There was the thud of hooves in the distance.
"I wish it didn't end this way," she whispered, her tears wetting Kelvamin's cheek "I wish that some day you could live with me on a farm in the country, with children and animals, and I wish you could hang that damned sword over the fire and forget about these days. I wish you could remember,"
They had reached the boat by now, and it was a tiny thing. Barely fit for fishing, definately not fit to sail a sick man across the seas to Athens alone. She guided him in, and he lay down on the soaked wood.
"It wasn't meant to end this way Kelvamin my love," she murmured, even as she sliced through the rope that bound the boat to the quay.
The hooves were louder now.
"Remember me," Anna said simply, putting her foot on the boat and kicking it away.
And suddenly, for one brief shining moment, he remembered her. The day he had met, when she had served him ale in an inn and he had broken the arm of the rogue that had tried to make an advance on her. The days when it was just he, Hendrick and her, casting shy glances over the cart full of supplies. That wet autumn night when he had taught her to weild a sword, and Balan had made one uniquely balanced for her. That day of golden sunshine when he had finally told her how he felt.
"Anna!" he cried, and such was the joy on her tearful face that he thought that she knew he recognised her. But by then the horses were there and Anna, brave, sweet, shy Anna, managed to slay one, parry, another parry, another slain and then she was run through. The spear spitted her, entering her breast and exiting from the small of her back. The horsemen pulled it out again and Anna slumped into the water like a rag doll. And then Kelvamin forgot.
*****
There was blood on his robes.
Kelvamin awoke, his head groggy. It was nightfall, and the master swordsman doubted he would be able to sleep. He felt unrestful. He had had the most unsettling dream.
