Pel is exhausted, clinging to the horse with her knees and thighs with what fragile strength is left. She's not sure how much of the talking is directed at her, but her horse falls into line on its own, and those who must be behind her take their place.
They ride out, and true to her word, the spell that can freeze a high dragon in its tracks is keeping those at the gate completely still.
"Let them live," she says with a growl to her voice. "Let them see their Maker's mercy in a heathen elf, and think about whose mercy was given to their victims."
She wants to kill them. Elgar'nan knows how badly she wants to destroy them all. But she has to be different from the people whose mess she has been cleaning up. She can't allow herself to indulge in vengeance even once, not even for a good reason, or else it will be easier to indulge for a bad reason. How had Solas put it? We must be above reproach.
Her word was obeyed, and four riders and eight horses thunder under the stone arch of the courtyard, to the dismayed cries of men only now beginning to pour out of the keep itself. As soon as the rocky ground leveled enough that it could be risked, their leader Berrin turned his horse into the woods and off the road, looking back often for Pel.
"Just hang on!" He hissed above the noise of their passage; which the snow helped to muffle.
They road long into the dark. And after the first few hours, almost noiselessly behind her, two of the spare horses were loosed, and let to find their own way through heavy drifts, where their passage would make it seem like far greater of their number had parted.
Though at first there had been the dim noise of pursuit, there was no baying of hounds (the sure sign that they'd be harried all the way) and they came across no one else. At some point in the night they passed an empty woodcutter's hut; but none paused near it.
Tal croaked for a halt when dawn's grey chill began to bring more snow.
"Fire and sleep. We'll see if we can find food when we begin moving again."
Pel knows how to move a lot of people without letting anyone know they've ever been there. She was apprenticed to a Keeper, after all.
"Start melting snow over the fire in anything we have," she directs as she dismounts. "Helmets would be fine. Water will be more urgent than food in the morning, for us and our horses."
She sways suddenly, catching herself with a quickly placed foot and a hand on a tree trunk.
Far craggier officers Tor and Tal both exchanged a look at her suggestion over the backs of their horses, and it was Tal who moved forward. "We're not new-minted knights, milady Herald; it's our task to see to your care, not t'other way 'round. So; come this way. I've something to show you so you might rest a time while we see to the particulars."
He beckoned her towards him while shucking off a gauntlet.
Oh good, and now she has insulted the men who have guarded her and saved her life. She stumbles toward Tal, quietly relieved that the details are in capable hands. What on earth could Tal have to show her, when they left everything and ran here?
"When it's fiercely cold, on the march, you sleep with your horse. They sleep standing, see, don't curl up as I imagine halla do, or deer; so you brace your back against the fronts of their hind legs, and curl up beneath them. In these parts, and in northern Ferelden, a saddle blanket has three folds; which you take down, like so," and he leaned over the unsaddled horse to demonstrate, letting the loose folds of heavy woolen cloth hang down both the horse's sides.
"Like a piss-poor tent, only it helps keep you both warmer, and readier to mount up and race on should you need."
He lifted his brows at her, searching her face as if to ask, 'questions?'.
Sensible enough. A corner of his mouth twitched up.
He rapped his knuckles against his breastplate. "Can't risk taking it off, never know when you need to move. So, no choice but to sleep upright. And a Forder at least will be trained against having a piss on you."
"Mythal'enaste," mutters Pel. "After the night we've had, I'd wind up sleeping through it even if it wasn't. Even a piss-poor tent is a tent. What about the ground?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
They ride out, and true to her word, the spell that can freeze a high dragon in its tracks is keeping those at the gate completely still.
"Let them live," she says with a growl to her voice. "Let them see their Maker's mercy in a heathen elf, and think about whose mercy was given to their victims."
She wants to kill them. Elgar'nan knows how badly she wants to destroy them all. But she has to be different from the people whose mess she has been cleaning up. She can't allow herself to indulge in vengeance even once, not even for a good reason, or else it will be easier to indulge for a bad reason. How had Solas put it? We must be above reproach.
no subject
"Just hang on!" He hissed above the noise of their passage; which the snow helped to muffle.
They road long into the dark. And after the first few hours, almost noiselessly behind her, two of the spare horses were loosed, and let to find their own way through heavy drifts, where their passage would make it seem like far greater of their number had parted.
Though at first there had been the dim noise of pursuit, there was no baying of hounds (the sure sign that they'd be harried all the way) and they came across no one else. At some point in the night they passed an empty woodcutter's hut; but none paused near it.
Tal croaked for a halt when dawn's grey chill began to bring more snow.
"Fire and sleep. We'll see if we can find food when we begin moving again."
no subject
"Start melting snow over the fire in anything we have," she directs as she dismounts. "Helmets would be fine. Water will be more urgent than food in the morning, for us and our horses."
She sways suddenly, catching herself with a quickly placed foot and a hand on a tree trunk.
no subject
He beckoned her towards him while shucking off a gauntlet.
no subject
no subject
"Like a piss-poor tent, only it helps keep you both warmer, and readier to mount up and race on should you need."
He lifted his brows at her, searching her face as if to ask, 'questions?'.
no subject
no subject
He rapped his knuckles against his breastplate. "Can't risk taking it off, never know when you need to move. So, no choice but to sleep upright. And a Forder at least will be trained against having a piss on you."
no subject