Solo Greed. It's Deadly.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

47th of Winter, 515.

The frigid air cut deep. No matter how he clung to the tiny square of fabric that was his buttress against the cold, the slightest breeze turned it into a tiny parachute threatening to tug his little clay butt right off Xarex's saddle and into the snow.. which, at its deepest, could easily swallow his entire body with room to spare. Mountains of the stuff stood high on either side of the road, occasionally dotted with armoured knights and squires shovelling the thick white powder off the edges of stone, widening the space for supply wagons and trailers. It seemed like nothing short of lunacy to wear metal plate while moving snow yet, dotting the ranks, they were still there. Like Ser Iros, they'd padded the insides to keep in the heat.. but frost still clung to their breastplates and helmets. He wondered how long they would survive before the frost seized their joints and turned them into statues. It had to happen, even to Ser Iros.

"Archailist! You still back there?!" Another harsh gust of wind cut through them both, making the proud knight's words sound like a ghost's echoes. Snow falling from the sky was sticking to his armour, freezing over the seam of his helmet and making the knight unable to turn his head. Arch took out his Py-Pole and struck the knight's ankle with its tip. "Good. Don't drift too close to the edges of the road and stay close. We'll turn around when we reach the Evantide Outpost." He struck again on the knight's ankle and tried to shout, just when a second wave of wind nearly slapped the air from his non-existent lungs. It was all the clay creature could do to cling to his little dog; his cloak, on the other hand, was lost in a flurry of blinding snow. Somewhere behind a dull thud was followed by a rush of motion - a squire had succumbed to the frost's embrace and lost his footing, tumbling down onto the road and bringing a small landslide of snow with him. "What was that?"

"We're not going to make it that far! This weather is terrible, the snow is far too heavy and even if we do get it that far by ourselves, there's no guarantee that when we turn around, this heavy snowfall won't have covered up our tracks again!" he roared. He understood that trading routes were important but their food stocks surely couldn't be in enough jeopardy to license such suicide. Iros, ever the lunatic, was adamant. The ice had frozen his nerves as well as his armour. Or maybe there was a little too much snow being packed between his ears.

"Stop being such a crybaby. Sera Urisu told us to monitor the roads; therefore, we monitor!" The Akalak pushed on, testing the limits of both himself, his horse and more importantly his squire. Little did he know, they'd just passed the last of the knights working on the snow-clearing. It barely took two chimes before their way was blocked by a mountain of snow that Ser Iros' horse would have an issue jumping over. "Petching.. shyking.. shyke." The urge to climb up the knight-sicle and give him a slap on his frozen face was overwhelming.

"Yeah, that's just great. Thank you, thank you sooooo much." His voice was practically dripping with sarcasm and thinly-veiled mirth. "I told you, we're not going out there. Neither is anyone else. If there's anyone out there that's trying to brave this kinda weather, they deserve to die." He didn't mean it, but in a way, he did. The cold and the snow was relentless as it pounded them both. Visibility out here, on the open road with no shelter to stem the flow of frozen air, was closing in on absolutely useless. Neither of them had prepared for this on the way out. Nobody had. "Now let's turn around."

"Shut up!" Arch wasn't listening. He'd already turned back around. Only a firm thump that could only be the sound of Iros dismounting his steed stopped the Pycon from riding straight back to the castle before he froze to death. "... while I'm... stay... you dare move! Now... petching..." he heard through heavy bursts of wind as he ran off over a small ledge of snow, out into the freezing wasteland between the road and what remained of the Bronze Woods. Iros had a damn death wish. The Akalak had jumped from his horse and was busy traipsing through the powder snow. The consistency of the snow, combined with his immense weight and heavy armour, meant he sank straight down to his thighs. He was shouting something over his shoulder, but Archailist couldn't pick out more than little snippets as the wind howled. It seemed the stupidity of Ser Iros really knew no bounds.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Much as he loved nothing more than to entertain the thought of turning around and leaving his patron out in the snow in favour of the warmer, drier Stormhold Castle, he knew he'd also be butchered if he somehow managed to 'lose' his knight out in the middle of a heavy snowfall like this. Staying out in this snow was equally unthinkable. Xarex was shaking like a leaf between his legs; even his winter coat wasn't thick enough to deal with the sheer volume of snow building up around them. "Come on.." His legs tightened around the canine's midsection and edged him forwards, following the deep dent that Iros had left behind him in the snow. At least the edges will shield us from the winds.

For such a big and heavy creature, not to mention the depth of the trail he'd left in the snow behind, Iros sure was a fast creature when he wanted to be. Dragging himself maybe through six or seven inches of snow at a time, he'd still completely disappeared from view and as both squire and mount pushed through the storm of what felt like bells on end, there was absolutely no indication that they'd made any progress, until a dark looming shape appeared out of nowhere and nearly collided with them both. "Hey!"

"Hey yourself!" Though he could see Iros' face, partially masked behind the visor of his helmet, it wasn't Iros' voice that spoke. That came from the man slumped over the heaving knight's shoulders. His lips had turned a shade of light blue and his entire face was pale as the snow. What little clothes he still had were torn at the back; blood had soaked through almost the entire length of his leg and when Iros marched past to return to his horse, he caught sight of the blackened flesh surrounding the wound. That doesn't look good. Is this what-- is this who Iros had thrown himself into the blizzard for? No wonder he'd run off in such a hurry.

The stranger was left on the snow, propped against the front legs of Iros' shuddering mount while the knight reached into his own armour and begun to tear away the fabric used to pad the insides for heat. There were plenty of other bruises and small cuts scattered around portions of his face and arms that the squire could see on first glance but none needed attention like the gash on his leg that looked more like it'd been ripped open than crushed. "What happened to him?"

"I was attacked.. by a great beast.." The man's face was blue as ice with wide eyes staring off ahead. Even his voice sounded like it was coming from far away, although he couldn't tell if it was because of the heavy wind carrying it or just the man's shock. He certainly looked like someone that had been attacked.. yet surely that couldn't be true. There weren't any great beasts in the woods, unless you included bears and Yukmen, and neither of them would brave this weather, this late in the day. Let alone find someone when they couldn't see their own paw in front of their face. As a matter of fact...

"Yeah, that's great and all, but what are you doing out he--" Before he could finish his next question, the squire's patron roared loud enough to briefly lure the man from his near-comatose state.

"THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO ASK QUESTIONS." Furiously, chunks of fabric were being packed around the man's leg and wrapped with strips of binding. To secure it, he made do with what he had left and ripped one of the straps from his saddle-bag to clinch around the temporary bindings to hold them still. "I'm going to get this man back to the castle and inform the Sergeant. You're going to bunker down here by whatever means you can and stay here so that we know where we need to come back to." He has to be joking. One look from the Akalak said otherwise. "I don't care how you do it, just do it.. and don't you dare move!" In one swoop, he picked up the man and re-mounted his horse.

As the knight marched off back down the path, disappearing into the thick blanket of snow, Arch stood already knee-deep and wondered what the petch he was expected to do. He didn't know the first thing when it came to starting a fire.. or building a shelter. There was no telling how long it would take to follow the path back, find medical assistance, find another knight, gather up others, bring them all the way back... oh petch this, even if there was a way to hang around in the freezing cold for the rest of the night and not become a frozen squirrelsicle, he wasn't going to do it. Not stand around here, at least. As much as he was desperate to go back home and curl up under some blankets with his faithful (if freezing) pet and mount, there was something horribly wrong with this.

This weather wasn't just bad, it was damn-near deadly. What kind-of monster could he be talking about, if any at all; why was he even out wandering about in the woods so late in the evening, in the freezing cold? He looked terrified enough to make Arch believe that he'd really seen something horrid, but nothing else was adding up. The unanswered questions, with nothing else to do but simmer, were prodding insistently at his nexus over and over again, like a baying mob, screaming for answers that he couldn't provide and becoming more agitated by the tick. One way or another, he needed to find out the truth.. and he wasn't going to find it by sitting on the road and waiting for the frost to encase his tiny body.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Before he re-mounted, he stomped through the thick layers of snow to dig the tip of his Py-Pole into the nearest tree and began to carve with the metal cap deep in the bark. Why didn't the log-headed knight ever think to just mark the nearby area so that they could come back later? Sure, they couldn't stick anything in the ground, but there were plenty of trees nearby that they could stick things in as well. As far as he considered, his job was now done anyway. When the knights came, they'd see the cross on the tree, they'd know where to go, and he wouldn't have to sit in deadly weather for endless bells waiting for them to get off their arses.

After that, Xarex struggled his way through the thick blanket of snow and Arch hopped onto his back, clinging tight to his haunches as they set out together over the partially-filled footprints left in the ground. "Come on boy," the squirrel huffed under his heavy breath, "follow the tracks, don't stop..."

That guy couldn't have come from far. He wasn't a doctor, but those wounds had looked moderately serious.. by which he meant he'd seen plenty worse on some of the men and women caught committing some of the more unspeakable acts around the castle. Neither did he have a fully-competent grasp on the limitations of the human body - after all, it was pretty difficult to understand the full inner workings of something he didn't have and asking questions about made a lot of people uncomfortable, especially on the whole 'reproduction' fiasco - but surely, left unbandaged and untreated, in the middle of a snowstorm the likes of which he'd never seen before, he was very lucky to have survived long enough to find other people to help him.. let alone people willing to help.

As much as he liked to think they wouldn't need to make a long trip, though, one glance through a brief clearing in the storm exposed the truth. The footsteps carried far through the brush, winding between trees and through crushed remains of skeletal bushes, far into the distance. Worse, they were gradually growing fainter as the snow crept up all around, wiping away any chances of their way ahead.. which also meant their way back, should they lose their way. If they didn't make it to the source of the issue, if he didn't find somewhere safe.. there was a very real chance of death. He didn't know the first thing about building a shelter or a fire.. if that was even possible in this weather.

All of that was assuming he actually found whatever 'great beast' was supposedly terrorizing the middle of the woods, during a snowstorm, attacking passers-by in unprovoked assaults; and that when he found it, he killed it, without being killed himself by either the beast itself or any wounds sustained.. because, of course, in this weather, just a few cuts and scrapes would require some serious luck to survive without losing some appendages. Being a Pycon had its advantages.. at least he wouldn't have to worry about things like blood loss, or limb loss. There was still the matter of freezing to a very cold and permanent death though, if he stayed out too long without proper insulation.. for example, if he was squished into the dirt and left there like a little squirrel-shaped pancake.

It wasn't a good idea to think about these things just before heading into almost-certain battle, but really, he had nothing better to do. On the back of Xarex, swerving in and out of trees to buffer himself against the gale-force winds pummelling his side, he was alone as he was ever going to get. Just him, his trusty mount, and the shadows to watch. The scrap of cloth constituting for a cloak was tugged tighter around his tiny body as together, Arch and Xarex pressed deeper at full gallop.