456Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2gATfgWpkw
Polarians were well known as some of the greatest horsemen and Ketil Østberg was no exception. It seemed like there was nothing he couldn't do really. Sewing? He was better than anyone she knew. Swordsmanship? He wasn't exactly professional, but he was quite proficient. Languages? There wasn't one he couldn't speak.
Dante watched Ketil with interest as he shifted in his saddle, scratching at his collar. She bit her lip as he leaned over to adjust a buckle on his boot. He glanced back at her, motioning for her to come closer. His lips turned up into a goofy smile, eyebrows raised. She squeezed her leg against her own horse's side, sending her forward to his side.
Ketil grabbed the horse by the bridle, steadying his own horse as it let out a nervous whinny. "Steady there farm girl, I thought you'd be more comfortable on one of these."
She looked up at him, his icy eyes wide and staring into hers with their usual intensity. Dante looked back toward her horse's black mane, her breath floating over her head. "We didn't have much of a farm to begin with."
Ketil nodded, biting at his lip. "It's more than I've known, but I figured you'd know a thing or two about horses."
She shrugged. "Papa didn't have a horse for riding, he had a donkey to pull the cart. We once had a mule, but the Inspector took it for use in the transport of prisoners." She gripped the reins tighter in her fists. "When they found out he was stealing, they hung him with that mule."
Ketil was silent, his thin lips pulling into a tight frown. "Drass, kid."
"We've all got bad stories," she flexed her fingers, adjusting her cowl. "It's not our fault and it's not the mule's fault that it completed the command of someone else. My father was a coward, but nonetheless, it is finished."
"Drass, you don't have to act like it's okay." His thin, pale fingers grabbed her gloved hand.
"I am fine, Østberg. I have been fine for years."
A silence pulled at them and they stared into the darkness around them, snow covering the ground in a thin blanket.
Ketil let out a small cough, his gloved hands balling up into fists. "Dante, you know I would die for you, right?"
She stared at the spot between her horse's ears. "I don't need anyone to die for me, I'll die on my own terms." Dante tilted her head. "You don't always have to be the hero. Sometimes you're the damsel in distress, Ketil."
He stiffened a little, eyebrows furrowed. "I am in no ways a hero. I am the opposite of a hero."
Raziel groaned behind them, "you both make me want to vomit. Can we leave the moral debates out of it, because we all lose this fight."
"I think I'm a rather moral person," Vasco said from in front of them.
"Shut up," Raziel said over the silence of the forest around them. "You're nothing more than a who—"
Vasco snorted. "And like you're any better? You're not even a real healer. You're just a—"
"Silence yourselves! All of you! Stay silent until we can get out of the forest. Would you like the Inquisition to overhear how saintly you all are? You're all the scum of the earth so shut up about it!" Anubis looked back at them, her typical black clothes outlining her figure starkly against the white landscape and evergreen branches. "Now ride. We'll stop in Bruslin for the night, it's only a mile or so."
"What is this town coming up?" Vasco muttered as they noticed smoke curling up around the tops of the trees.
"Not Bruslin." Anubis said, "stay silent. Do not talk to anyone inside the town. You have no idea where the Inquisition could be. Let me remind you of all they've taken. Loves, sisters, families, friends..." her lips twitched with a snarl. "Let me remind you of what they would gladly do to you if they catch you. First the interrogation and subsequent torture that lasts any amount of days or weeks, then your execution by the pyre, hanging, or mauled to death by dogs—take your pick."
Silence. They all knew the truth about what the Inquisition would do to any riesun.
Dante sighed, looking up to Ketil who wiggled his eyebrows are her. She covered a smile, kicking his leg. Raziel groaned again.
She looked back towards him to make a face when something caught her eye. She pulled on the reins of her horse, stopping her with a bit of protest. Ketil reached to grab her but missed. "Dante."
She turned, slipping off the horse to kneel in the snow. She let out a small gasp as her gloved hand dusted a thin coat of snow over a man's shoulder.
"What is it?" Ketil stopped, looking back at her.
"Raziel, this man needs help." Dante stared at the frozen body curled up against a tree. She took off her gloves, pressing her bare hands against his throat. He was so cold, almost, if not, dead. She shut her eyes, feeling the pull of her abilities on his blood. His heart was still beating, slowly, but it was working. "He's alive." She opened her eyes. "We can heal him."
Raziel slipped from his horse, landing beside her. "Dante, look at him, he's done. How long do you think he's been out here?" Raziel knocked a fair amount of snow from the man's head. "Look at him, Dante."
"You can heal him," she grabbed Raziel's gloved hands. "Please, you have to heal him. We can't just leave him to die out here."
"That's for Anubis to decide." Ketil knelt beside her, lifting the man's head with a hand. "Looks like he was beat up, terrible bruising. There's a boot-print over his eye. Robbers maybe." Ketil nodded, looking back to Anubis. "You might need to see this, you call."
"Your call?" Dante straightened up. "This is in no way anyone's call. He was beat up and left to freeze to death! We have to help him. Have a little humanity!"
Vasco placed a hand on her head, "little girl, if you haven't noticed by now, but we're not exactly in the 'helping people' occupation. In fact, that man you're so keen on saving would kill us the first chance he got. So do us a favor and let him die peacefully."
"What is it?" Anubis muttered, steering her horse above all of them. She stared at the man for a moment. "Is he alive?"
Raziel nodded. "He's hanging on."
"Anything in his pockets? Identification? A few kips?"
Ketil pulled him away from the tree, letting him drop into the snow. Dante held his head above the snow, staring at the bruises and jagged cuts on his scalp. Ketil shook his head quickly. "Not a kip on his person, nothing. It looks like maybe a highwayman. I don't know though." His fingers danced across the man's bruised and frozen skin. "Looks like he put up some sort of fight. Inquisitors couldn't do a better job of somebody."
"But he is alive?"
Ketil looked back to her, nodding quickly.
Anubis bit her lip, throwing back a lock of black hair. "Well, don't let him freeze to death, finish him quickly. Give him that much of a mercy."
"No!" Dante threw herself in front of him. "We have a duty! We can't live up to the stereotypes of all riesun! Anubis, let me take him on my horse. We can save him. We don't need to keep him, but we can save him!" She stared up to Anubis, "please. Please let him live."
Anubis rolled her neck before looking to Raziel.
"Don't." He crossed his arms.
"Raziel, please. Please help him." Dante pulled at his coat.
"Raziel..." Anubis started. She pulled a pistol from her saddle bag, spinning the chamber. "We have two choices, either you heal him or I do. I don't want to kill him, but I will."
Dante pressed against him, eyes begging for him to help. Raziel tried to stifle the smile pulling at his lips but couldn't help it. "Put him on your horse."
Vasco threw up his hands, "you're ridiculous. All of you! He would kill you! Gladly! While smiling!"
Dante smiled and Anubis winked at her.
Ketil grabbed the man, throwing him over his shoulder. He swayed a little, his eyebrows creased. "He's starved, basically a skeleton." He still carried him, draping him over Dante's horse. "I don't know who we're saving but has he been through some times."
"Tonight we're staying here I suppose." Anubis stared at Raziel, "and you can heal him, right?"
"There is no need for you to revive him, I am fully capable of healing hypothermia and most cases of frostbite. Perhaps he might lose a toe or two, but that's to be expected." He mounted his horse, "your lack of faith in me is truly unsettling. After all we've been through."
"Well you've never healed me so I wouldn't know."
"I rather like living, so I'd be appreciative if you could not give me that usual pettiness." He stared at Dante, "and you better be glad I like you."
Ketil leaned against her, "you're going to get us in a heap of trouble."
She smiled, eyes lifted to the sky. "What is it you told me? Aras aste ves und?"
Ketil blushed, eyes narrowing. "Your attempt at an accent is sickening. But nice—" he grinned a little, "—nice way to throw my words back at me. Perhaps you aren't as nice as I thought."
Dante grabbed her horse's reins as Ketil remounted. He offered her a hand as she began to walk. "You can ride with me."
She led the horse forward, her boots silent against the hard-packed snow. "I can walk."
Ketil shrugged, "suit yourself, but I—"
Raziel groaned, "just go. You've made this bad enough."
~~~
The man looked like death warmed over. He was alive which was something, but something was wrong with him. Whoever had beaten him had done a damn good job of it. A professional job of it, Ketil thought to himself.
"The innkeeper doesn't find it strange that there are so many of us here?" Vasco muttered as he sat next to the hearth, already taking off his outer clothes to warm himself by the fire.
"No, this is the least of his worries." Anubis paused. "We're all fine. And the innkeeper is slightly more—how should I say this?—entertained at the moment."
"Nothing we should worry about?" Raziel took off his jacket, throwing across the back of Dante's chair. She scowled at him but remained silent.
"If there was something for you to worry about, I would tell you, don't you think?" She removed her cloak, draping it over Dante's chair as well.
"Let's see who we're dealing with now." Raziel approached the bed where the man lie, skin sallow and still cold. He drew back Dante's carefully tucked covers, taking a breath as he unbuttoned the man's shirt.
Ketil grimaced at the sight of him, he was worse than he originally thought. His skin stretched tight over his ribs so the outline of every rib could be seen just beneath skin. His torso was colored in various shades of blue and black, purple and yellow. Old wounds wound around his chest and stomach, some of them had healed properly, but others looked like they were sewn shut by a drunk blind man with no medical experience.
Raziel's eyebrows furrowed, his gloved hands tracing over the old wounds. "I don't know about this...."
Anubis stepped forward, her head shaking slowly. "I don't think he's a traveler—" she cut herself off with a sudden thought. "Turn him onto his back."
Ketil grabbed his arm, carefully turning him onto his side and then stomach. Anubis let out a small gasp as the mark on his back came into clear focus
It was large, stretching from his shoulder blades to his mid-back. A triangle of raised, darkened flesh followed by three horizontal lines and a large singular X. It was a brand, although it would have looked more at home on a piece of livestock and not a human.
"What does it mean?" Dante asked, peeking in at him.
"He's a prisoner," Raziel whispered.
"A death row prisoner at Greenwater prison." Anubis pressed her gloved finger against his skin. "There's only one problem with his being here."
"If he's in a death-row prison, why was he out in the woods?" Vasco said.
"He's escaped." Ketil said quietly. "That explains the scars and the bruises. I thought those marks looked professional. He escaped prison."
Raziel jerked away. "I'm not healing a murderer! Dante, you saved a murderer!"
"You forget that we're murderers too," the small girl put her hands on her hips.
They were silent as Vasco pursed his lips, "you make a horribly good point there little girl."
"Look, Raziel, you heal him or I do it in my own method." Anubis drew a knife from her pocket, pressing the tip against the man's scarred back. "I'll start cutting—he won't even feel a thing until it's too late, I just hate the thought of giving him one more scar. But it's your choice."
Raziel groaned, "okay, okay. I'll heal him. But what are we going to do with a Greenwater prisoner? We have enough targets on our backs just by being alive."
"He deserves a chance if he's made it this far," Anubis whispered softly. "Maybe he'll hate Rajsend just as much as we do."
"And if he hates us as much as Rajsend does?" Vasco stared at him with narrowed eyes. "Then what?"
"Then we kill him and turn his body into the prison for money, I'm sure there's a reward out for him. I wonder who he murdered to be sent to Greenwater, must be someone important, don't you think?"
Ketil nodded, folding the blanket back up around his chest. "Alright Raziel, he's all yours."
"And you have the goods?" He looked back to Anubis, taking off his gloves.
Dante picked up a small basket beside her, the sound of wings fluttering inside filled the small room.
Raziel nodded, "I don't know if this is a good idea, but here goes nothing." He placed his bare hands against the prisoner's bare skin, collapsing almost immediately. He struggled back to his knees, head bowed over the man's back, hands shaking as they turned into fists.
Ketil and Anubis exchanged a look of worry as Raziel struggled to keep his head up.
"I think that's enough," Vasco muttered.
Raziel opened his eyes, face dripping with sweat. He shook his head. Vasco started to grab Raziel to drag him away but Dante stopped him. "Touch him and you will die. Let him finish."
Raziel tore himself away, falling back as Dante kicked the basket towards him.
Ketil leaned over the prisoner, pressing a finger against the brand on his back. His skin was warm now, more alive than it once was. The shallow bruises and cuts were beginning to fade as well.
"He's quite alive," Anubis said, joining him as Raziel lie collapsed on the floor. She slipped her gloves back on her fingers, "I think the Order might have a new member."
"But a mortal? A regular mortal?"
"It may be advantageous to have someone on the other side, he can get into places we can't."
"You forget that he has a will and a conscience—no matter how twisted it might be." Ketil took a long inhale.
"I'm going to find out some information, I'll be back later tonight." She pressed a finger into his chest, eyebrows raised. "Can you handle taking the lead in my absence?"
Ketil nodded as Anubis grabbed her cloak from the chair, throwing it over her shoulders. She nodded to Ketil and he nodded back. There was work to be done.
456Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSa2FCDfKEE
