A Winter Night

[Cinnabar]

Aha, so his quarry has a face after all. And even a little fight left. Well, it makes things interesting. Sventon's flailing fist manages to catch Cinnabar a fine blow across the face, not that it does the hapless cultist much good; a sharp shake of his head, then the pale youth looks back to Sventon with mirror-bright eyes and simply grins.

Blood at his nose and blood on his teeth testify to the desperate force behind the blow, but for all that Cinnabar's still moving to pin him down. Knees applied sharply to the cultist's torso, one slender hand still holding him tightly by his robes, the other reaching to grasp at the back of his neck and, if successful, politely but firmly tap his skull against the stone floor. Just enough to subdue him a little, and to indicate that further struggles are only going to waste everyone's time.

"Hold still, please."

[Sventon]

It was not a pleasant sound, the thuddy impact of cracked knuckles and grinning face; still, there was a jolt of fire in him. Maybe he could get out of this.

Sventon writhed violently beneath the youth, but he was pinned down to the stone floor; his skull tapped roughly against the rock, and while it was not enough to knock him out - his vision briefly swam with sharp sparks. This stilled his struggles. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and gritted his teeth, waiting for a knife to slice his throat or sink between his ribs. Or perhaps the hand at the back of his neck would simply twist and choke him.

His heart beat wildly in his chest, and with his arm sprawled forward, only his hand was in the light of the exit.

He'd come so close.

[Magnus]

A lot of things would not have been surprising. Being told to get his bloody, filthy hands off the man, that would not have been surprising. Being shoved off, that would not have been surprising.

A knife slamming into his wrist, that was surprising. He instantly released the cloak with a furious growl and stuck the bruised flesh up against his mouth. Pain blurred his vision, though his vision was not quite blurred enough that he couldn't see the faint gleam just beyond the bars of his cell, on the floor.

He shot a look toward the struggle between the two figures near the exit as Sefall hurried onward down the tunnel.

He glared after him.

The prisoner's knees struck the floor and he reached out, fingertips gliding on the floor, raking at it. Sventon must have dropped it when Cinnabar struck him down.

He could almost reach it. He was going to reach it. Sventon never made it to the exit, but Magnus was going to achieve this precious gleam of brass on the floor. He was going to escape this hell-hole. He grabbed the key and stumbled to his feet.

The key jammed into the lock, hanging singularly from a great ring. He twisted it one way, then another, and it clicked.

The barred door shrieked as it swung open.

[Cinnabar]

"Thank you."

The unsettling grin becomes a tad less predatory and a touch more cheerful as Sventon stops his squirming. Cinnabar takes a moment to secure his grip on the young man lest he try to wriggle free again, then nods. A brief glance around confirms that the cultist's dagger is over there against the bars of one of the cells, so that's good. Magnus's fussing earns a brief frown, but little more attention than that for the moment. Satisfied, he leans forward to speak to Sventon quietly in a perhaps surprisingly calm and amiable tone.

"Here is my proposal, sir: if you promise not to shout or struggle, I promise not to hurt you. If you cause a fuss, I will break your bones. If you try to run, I will chase you. Does that seem reasonable?"

He watches the young man carefully, gaze fading slowly from glittering silver to pale grey.

[Altias_Bromn]

Altias turned slowly, to face the tracker, one slender arm still looped around the healer. The look upon his gaunt features was grave.

"He means to escape, I Believe. There is another exit, known only to those close to Brother Prime, and to those of us who escaped this hell some time ago. If this one was close to Prime or Dhrin, he would know where to find his escape. "

As the scream from the direction of the holding cells rang through the cavern, the thin man was once more turning, and moving in the direction of those cells. If Lamai was willing, he would continue to guide her along. She may, of course, choose to stay with Jons at this point.

"That may be a prisoner. It would do us well to find out if our troublemaker is dead, or if there is one who is in need of rescue."

These last words are offereed to no one in particular. A simple statement of his intent, before he disappears into the corridor.

[Carnath-Emory]

This is nothing that she is accustomed to.

Her ward of several years stands a stretch ahead of them: he is no longer her responsibility, and with his weapon drawn, with the small healer drawn carefully behind its reach, one sees why. There stands a man capable of anything. It is a restriction upon her behaviour, and it is also a freedom; it is a dichotomy which turns her attention to other things, to new directions, so that she may trust the foreground to he and Cinnabar and Acteon; may trust their backs to Jons' men; may set her attention on two wildfire girls and the whims which sudden violence may inspire in them.

This is everything that she is accustomed to.

These walls, which a woman needn't touch to remember; this well-worn ground beneath them, smoothed by the rush of many booted feet for -- oh, how long has the Order been at their bloody work? Months. Years. These corridors, which she rightly ought to have mapped for Acteon before they set out upon this expedition. Here lies their entrance, here the dais upon which their false god once pranced. Here the narrow tunnel through which a woman and her lover once escaped, here the cells in which a madman once stowed her away -- oh, shall I measure off the width of one for you? For Ser, I have it memorised.


There has been a very quiet, brief burst of bloodshed here, of the sort which does little to move her: her faith in Jons' capacity for murder is absolute, and Acteon has more than proven himself. The swordswoman's eyes had been for the girls throughout it, the whole of her riding the line between caution and bullying, so that at the end of it all, Bromn's directive comes as something like relief. This is a mind that accepts such simple commands very well indeed.

Without further urging, she is breaking away from the group, is moving in Cinnabar's wake.

[Sventon]

Sventon had never been a captive before; he wondered if this was actual captivity or a few, brief moments of torment before a swift death. He realized how morbid his thoughts were and mouthed a silent prayer against the floor. It took him a few, long moments to say anything, and when he did, he made sure to say it quietly.

"You're lying," he hissed to him, his words fast and urgent. "I know who you came here with. I saw them. I saw him; I saw her. You're going to kill me. It's all a mistake. You don't understand what you're meddling in, and you don't understand Him."

"Maybe you're not like them." He gasped a harsh breath through his teeth against the stone floor, briefly struggling with his own mind before: "I'll do what you say. Please don't let them kill me. I have a family."

"You won't let them kill me, will you?"

[Acteon]

[i]"He means to escape, I Believe. There is another exit…â€

[Vanidor]

The truth was that they weren't, those men who were lead by the often talked about but rarely seen Sergeant Rautha. Their commander had given them an order, and though Rautha had not been here the first time, he had heard all the stories. So, as a shadow appeared at the edge of the cavern's mouth, there was the sudden thrumming of three bows going off. There was one -good- thing about the arrows that sputtered out towards the huntsman.

It's that the things were fowling blunts, and so they would hurt like the dickens if they hit, but they wouldn't outrightly -kill-, as long as they didn't hit him the head...

And then. There was this woman who had appeared and was being rather... loud.

She made her cry moments before the arrows aimed at Acteon went off. As she did, two men would melt out of the shadows. They were dressed in a variant of the Janerio great-coat, this being a short affair that came to the hips but were coloured in the same manner. Only they were without marking other than the Janerio crest upon their breasts. The two had crossbows aimed and levelled at the girl, steady and quiet.

"Girl. Your mouth is loud and not needed. If we had not tracked you from the moment you left the other clearing, you would be dead. Shussht, and wait." This came from a man who was of a slender and unnasuming build, bearing the same garmets as the other men. The only difference here was a small pip upon his collar, dulled down with dirt and grease. A face that looked creased and lined by the weather, but was equally slathered with dried mud and dirt.

"We may let you go shortly, in any case, I think we made a small mistake shooting at the man that just came out of the cave..." Yet, the way he said it... One would think that Sergeant Rautha could have cared less.

[Cinnabar]

Cinnabar maintains that restrained but insistent hold upon Sventon's neck, one knee pressed to the middle of his back; he could quite easily make things thoroughly painful for Sventon at this point, but doesn't see the point as the man's already given up on his struggling. Another glance over his shoulder at the screech of metal from Magnus' cell door, keeping half an ear on the movements from behind him as he returns his attention to his captive.

The cultists' initial babblings prompt an affronted frown, and a reproachful note to his voice.

"Sir, you wound me. I am no murderer. If you fight me I will hurt you; if you try to kill me I will certainly do likewise. But if you do me no harm, I will happily return the favour."

A nod as Sventon finally agrees to behave himself, the grip at the man's neck relenting a little. You see? If you're cooperative, things become so much less unpleasant all round. He continues in a more conversational tone.

"You have my word that I won't let my friends and associates kill you - provided you remain amenable, of course. I have no personal desire to harm you further, and you have no desire to be harmed, so we are clearly agreed upon that point."

One hand releases its hold on his robe to retrieve the dagger from his belt. His voice is calm, almost genial as he speaks to this terrified young man he's just pursued down torchlit tunnels and tackled to the ground.

"Now, here's what I intend: I'm going to let go of your neck and cut some strips off your robe - my apologies for that, but I lack alternatives. With these strips I will then bind your hands, because that will help set my friends' minds at ease. The only way you'll get cut is if you insist on wriggling, so please don't. Does that seem reasonable to you?"

Explained so clearly and politely and in such an amiable tone, it's hard to see how anyone could fail to find his proposal eminently reasonable.

There is, of course, the unspoken matter of the alternative course of events should Sventon decide not to cooperate. But Cinnabar's happy to leave that to the young man's imagination for now.

[Carnath-Emory]

And quickly in Cinnabar's wake, for clear directives lend haste to a woman's stride, strike unspoken pleasure into every line of her body. She and Acteon part ways at last, splitting into opposing directions and when presses past Bromn and the small healer, it's at a light jog; by the time she's begun to close on the holding cells, that pace has become an easy sprint.

It's not difficult to navigate these caverns quickly, not when they feature nightly in your dreams. She is a shadow amongst shadows, quiet upon old worn stone, and with nary a hint of quicksilver armour to slow her. That is where we might have died, the mind must think, And also there, And certainly there -- and the holding cells themselves would have sparked a very different sort of recollection, for she has known what it is kept here; forcing her behind that locked door had required five men, and had cost one of them his life, and if one were to look very closely, they might notice that she'd just trodden on the old stain of his blood.

Ariane herself hasn't the leisure for this, however, for when she slows on reaching the cells, it's to discover a perfectly unexpected sight. There sprawls Sventon, in zealot's robes -- we must thank Duquesne for that word, and note that those robes are a little the worse for wear. And over him crouches young Cinnabar, with a dagger in his grip, and a mask of genial reason for his face. This is all as it should be, of course. What's unexpected is that Sventon still lives, but if that dagger's anything to judge by, even that's only a matter of time and bloody action. So that:

"Finish him," she's advising Cinnabar, as she approaches the pair. "We've work yet to do."

[Acteon]

The three bolts streaked through the early morning air with their sights set on the unexpecting huntsman. The man prided himself on preparing for and thinking about every angle. He simply hadn’t thought about enemies laying in wait outside for them. He ought to have, he truly ought to have, but he hadn't. Fool.

So when the quarrels connected, the result was both surprise and pain...and for some reason unbeknownst to man, the former always seems to increase the latter. The man planned to exit the cave and head to the right, as a result, the left ¾ of his body was the available target for the volley. The first bolt connected with the top of the huntsman’s forearm, just below his elbow. The second crashed into his left side, between his stomach and his back. The third, oh the third. For, if the quarrel had been sharp instead of blunted and, if the man hadn’t been wearing a plated brigandine, but normal clothes, the bolt would have entered the huntsman’s chest, pierced his heart, and laid him to rest.

Fortunately, he did wear his brigandine and the bolts were not sharpened. So, when the two shafts connected with his torso--at his chest and his gut--they came to an immediate stop, shattering against the plated metal beneath his taupe brigandine. They still stung. Oh, did they ever. But those two were bee stings in comparison to the single bolt that hit his forearm. The cloth which shrouded his arm offered little resistance to the blunted, squared head of the projectile.

The pain caused Acteon to drop his hankyu and drop to a knee as he clutched at his arm. He half-dove, half-crawled back into the relative safety of the cave. He hadn’t called out in pain when he was hit; he had merely released a prolonged grunt through gritted teeth. He was impressively cognoscente of stealth and silence even when surprised and injured. That said; there were enemies outside who may come inside and the others needed to be warned.

He twisted to call down the throat of the cave, “We’ve been outflanked!â€

[Rattrap]

"...damn. I wonder if there are any..."

Athena was trudging and muttering when the two men appeared before here, leveling their weapons. Her eyes snapped to the new figures and widened a tad in surprise. "Oh, %$#@."

Her arms shot up to show her lack of weaponry, though her stop had caused the four blades at her belt to swing gently together. One only knew what was under the bulk of her coat - but, her hands weren't reaching for any of those. "What the hell're you doing out...hrrrm..." The guardsman was telling her to shush and the rest of her question dulled down to an irritated mumble.

Maybe there was something to this, after all. The woman was glaring at the guards, now, scrutinizing them as if hoping to discover what was going on just by looking at them.

[Sventon]

The expression on the cultist's face said that he had a great imagination. As he remained pinned to the floor, cheek to stone, he tried to look back just with his eyes at the grinning face looming over him. A fear for his life had crept over the young man, and he stayed completely still despite his urgency and anger. His breathing was irregular and slightly choked with the dank smell of the caves. He could feel the pressure on the back of his neck and against his spine.

Cinnabar was so at ease and amiable that Sventon came to the only sensible conclusion that he could: he was clearly being mocked and toyed with by this pale-haired runner, and it was only a matter of time before his fate caught up to him. The conclusion could not help him do anything at all but stay on his toes, and despite his suspicion, the half elf was the only thing that the cultist could depend on now to keep him alive.

What did this stranger's promise really mean to him? It was just a false hope.

"Fine. Cut - " There was a catch in his throat when he spoke, as though the voice was rarely sounded; he gritted his teeth and spoke through them instead. "Cut it."

But despite his agreement, which implied that he'd not move or struggle during this procedure, he could hear bootsteps on the stone floor and twisted blindly to look. He would not have been able to hear them so well if his ear and the floor were not so familiar with each other at that moment; the only real marvel was that he could hear it over the loud beating of his heart.

His first glance at Carnath-Emory's boots was comparatively careless to the terror that dawned fresh upon him on his second, startled glance at the sound of so, so simple words.

Finish him.

Finish him, like it was nothing; finish him, like he was a bother undistinguishable from a pebble on the road.

Blood rushed into his face and his eyes burned with wetness.

"No! No, don't finish him. Don't finish him - me! Please don't finish me," he gasped, jerking beneath Cinnabar with sudden wildness in an effort to lunge from beneath him. For a moment he flashed back to the sight of the cultist in the main hall, lying in a pool of his own blood and this only renewed his fervor. He would, no doubt, have little success in his weak effort to escape demise. Cinnabar was a lot stronger than he looked.

"You promised! You promised not to let them," the young man growled and pleaded all in one breath.

[Quincy]

She was small amongst the brief huddle of bodies at the entrance of the Hall, cramped behind them with little room to draw her sword. Jons and Acteon took care of the immediate threat, striking true, and the slight girl's eyes darted the length of the torch-lit hall and its dais; it was right at this moment that the group collectively dispersed, and so she barely noticed Acteon's sudden, fleet-footed progress back down the tunnel behind them.

She took two steps after her sister and then stopped, lingering with solemn fascination for the ash-streaked walls and blood-stained floors. A lot of bad things happened in this place. She wondered if it struck her so hard, then, because of what she saw - or if it was because of the air. Even the air seemed permeated with misdeeds, injustices, lies; she could taste it, and it made her want to hold her breath. Shadows of thought gathered in her eyes.

It was the voice from the passageway that jolted her from her intent study of the feel of this rocky chamber. She immediately turned and ducked her head down, gloved hands grazing the walls as she rushed through the low-roofed portion of the tunnel. Quincy'd expected to encounter Acteon rushing back down the rest of the tunnel; she didn't trust her own voice, and meant to ask him quietly if he'd seen how many were out there. She didn't expect to find him near the moonlight mouth clutching his arm, half-shielded by rock.

With a pale, slightly haunted face, helm-guarded, she threw herself down beside him in a crouch, the hem of her cloak puddling around her.

"Are you okay?" She whispered to him with haste, staring around him at the entrance. A slight hand descended toward his shoulder with a light touch. "Did you see 'ow many was out there?"

Without waiting for his answer, she reached over her thin shoulder and drew her sword as quietly as possible. Obviously he'd been seen if he was struck. At least in this narrow tunnel they couldn't attack all at once.