"Get up, Horns. Get up and throw it."

Teeth ground against teeth as Verun eyes the arrow buried in Trevor's wrist. That had been meant for him, and this idiot had taken it, simply because he'd been where Kla told him to be. Human or not, the Deva felt a pang of guilt as the scarlet flow began to trickle from the wound. A shame, then, that there wasn't any time for him to grow a conscience now. The Voiceless had accelerated their plans, firing indiscriminately at both them and the townsfolk, all in the means of delaying resistance and ensuring the rest of their 'bombs' went off.

Desperation. Trevor was right. As he set his own group of men into action, Kla brought himself to stand once more, hands clutching the explosive ore hard enough to make his already pale knuckles go white beneath his gloves. Even if Koren got to the Market in one piece, he'd need Kla and Matvi to disarm the trap.

Which meant getting these assholes out of the way now.

"Hold onto your teeth. This is going to be loud."

The stones embedded in his back pulsed with energy as he felt the familiar chill of the shroud embrace him completely, like a direct shot of adrenaline through the skin, soaking into the muscles and saturating the bones. A sharp intake of breath, a painful riptide coursing through every inch of sinew as Verun launched himself forward into the fray. In less than a second the next bolt went just to his right, but Kla did not divert course.

Matvi had done an excellent job in grabbing their attention, and now that Kla was headed directly for the armored black wagon, the robed elven archers seemed a sight less enthusiastic about landing a hit on him. Indeed, one of them even scrambled to start the vehicle on a course to retreat, likely realizing what was about to happen.

Not this time. These people, Matvi, Trevor and the others... They'd placed faith in him regardless of his disposition. Perhaps they were not friends, but in this moment, they were his partners. Kla Verun did not let his partners die.

Verun skidded to a stop, boots sliding against the dirt as his arms swung back. With the power of the shroud fueling him, Kla bit down on his tongue and hurled the ore forward like a stone from a catapult. The sheer force sent the devahni to the ground, shockwaves causing his limbs to tremble as he pressed his forehead to the ground and braced himself for what came next.

Impact.

For a breath, there was an eerie silence. A calm before the storm. Trevor was right to assume he was at a safe distance, but only barely. The flash of cyan light that filled the air was like lightning erupting from the strange stone and engulfing everything within reach, including Kla himself. Lucky though they were that the wagon was on the road, the buildings it was parked nearest would suffer as well, left at least partially as smoldering rubble, along with the corpses The Voiceless had already left behind.

As for the armored black cart itself? When the light finally faded, one would be hard pressed to prove it was ever there at all.

Kla allowed himself a sharp breath, rolling over onto his back as the smell of his own burning hair and flesh permeated his nostrils. Was he...?

"Fuck me..."

Rolling onto his back, Verun managed to prop himself on his elbows to get a look at himself. Superficial burns, a few lashes and gashes; His protection against the ore's makeup had saved his life, but he was going to be sore for few months. His coat was ruined... again. His father would have his horns for that.

"Matvi? Trevor?" Kla called out, pressing a hand to his temple, head still spinning and splitting all at once. It was like a bad hangover, if a hangover included some free stab wounds and missing eyebrows. "Still with me?"

@Matvi Iramene
@Trevor
 
Getting up was a pain. But so was having an arm. A leg. Fucking anything. The blast had knocked him down, and now his entire body whispered in aches and cuts. Pain webbed through him like arthritis, delaying movement. Punishing speed. The whole street had gone up in cyan vomit. The Eight wanted to poke their eyes with the Sun. But fuck them. Vision was slowly coming back.

Trevor rolled onto his side with a squeal. A tougher man might’ve managed a grunt. This wasn’t it. Wasn’t him. Bites of both frost and fire laced his fingers. He wondered how bad it would’ve been without the frost webbing. Arms twitched, undecided whether they were helping prop him up or going on strike. One cheek bore a shallow cut, his own arm – thrown up too late for a proper shield. Just his Luck. Survive an explosion. Get wounded by yourself. He’d have looked up to spit in Her face, but even in healthier times – he knew it’s just land on his own.

A voice further out. Kla, calling. Between the rings and dings of the blood in his ears, he could almost hear him.

He groped for something to hold onto. Was met with a firm hand’s grasp. Fucking Jerry.

“Get up, Sir.” The few hairs left on the back of his neck stood to attention. He would’ve chewed the boy out for that in better times. Doubted he’d be doing much chewing anytime soon.

The boy hauled him up like he weighed half a nothing. And while true, it still wounded his pride. He was nobody’s sack of grain.

“Go get Hor...Get Kla.” He coughed up words laced with roaddust. Because you didn’t leave a soldier behind. Not unless you had to. He still was of a mind to blame him for all of this – but he was starting to think about it more politely.

He tested his newfound footing as Jerry peeled off. Then limped towards where he’d last seen Matvi – path faintly framed in melting threads and splintered arrows.

That had been some Shroudshit. Capital S.

He didn’t know how much they’d spent just to survive. But he was about to find out.
 
Matvi, wide eyed, watched as the light grew like some horrid fruit all the way to pop. It made a sound so loud it knocked the hearing out of his ears. Rattled the bricks in the road, and shook loose a couple shingles from the rooftops.

One cracked down beside him. Heavy ceramic shattered against the street.

The sound of it dull between his ears. He looked to the clearing shroudsmoke. Saw the wisps of ice still dancing in the heat of the smoldering blast.

Trevor. Moving. Jerry moving toward him. Lots of the dead elf fuckers, smoked and smoldering. Some of them still struggling to their feet. Matvi moved, and dipped too. grabbed wrist sure, slung arm over neck and shoulder, and hefted the horned fucker up with a grunt.

"Up we go," he said as he took on the weight, angle and practice helping as much as they could. Short breaths. Measured sure. "You're a heavy fucker," he said with a pained grin. "Heavier than you should be,"

But it was the strange pull that came from Kla that worried Matvi most.

Magitech.

He huffed, and propped Kla up against the wall. Looked him over, as his hands worked back the sweat stuck hairs that had fallen over his brow. "Well, you look like you are in one piece at least," stepped back some. "More than one piece, I think," he muttered, his eyes looked over Trevor, bleeding with an arrow still stuck in him. A clickof teeth. Hands fell to his sides as he stepped over. "Jerry," the medicant said clear over the din. "Take that hammer there and go make sure none of those rat fucks get the drop on us," he almost said it sweetly.

A hand fell to his belt, fingers quick, undid buttons and slipped into pouch. Pulled a small surgeon's knife as he reached out for Trevor's arm. "Let's take that out now," he grabbed firm. "Best let your breath out," a pause. A slice, slice, cut, cut. Wiggle. Pull. Out clean. Assides from the gush of blood.

Matvi put the arrow down with a clatter. Eyes flit to find the gossamer glass shards he had spun. Jabbed to fingers in the direction of some strands. Pulled them with a hook and a crook and a beckoning twirl and motion of wrist. The ice crackled happy as it kissed his skin. Spread its freezing fingers across warm blooded flesh.

"Ready now," he warned Trevor. A spool of winter's silk like gauze pinched by his fingers. "This will hurt," one finger, then two. He dabbed the ice there against the wound. Fed new magic there into it with a breath of life.

If it took. The wound would seal. Vulnerable and raw, prone to tearing open fresh again. But it would stop the bleading, and hasten the recovery.

At least that's what the medicant books said.
 
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Kla felt every bit of that extra weight, both on his body and soul. He'd been so full of confidence over his ability to save this town, and yet so far he'd barely been able to save himself, and the jury was still out on Trevor. Verun couldn't see him, and wasn't in much state to look as Matvi's hands grasped at him, the sensation like nails against his freshly burnt skin.

The Deva groaned, his teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut while his bones whined in pain in protest. It wasn't until he felt the cold wall against his back that he allowed his lips to part.

"Mind your tongue, medicant." The hateful edge to his words was dull and weathered, or perhaps Kla was too distracted to maintain the illusion it had ever been there at all. "We can't all be so naturally gifted." Verun winced again as Matvi brushed the hair from his face, "Some of us need help..."

Did Matvi think less of him for the stones grafted to his back? Was Kla to be considered some aberration between the living and the Shroud? He shouldn't have cared, but as the medicant hurried himself over to a far more wounded Trevor, The Devahni's eyes followed him, questions hanging unvoiced in his mind. It wasn't the questions that worried him, so much as the whispering answers he heard in his head, in a voice that wasn't his.

There was no time to muddle his thoughts with inner turmoil, not when the hands of time marched onwards regardless of his desire to keel over and heave the contents of his stomach. Arching his back, Kla stepped shakily away from the wall and hobbled forward, toward the dead and wounded aggressors that now lay strewn about the streets, interspersed with their victims. The Magitech so crudely sewn into his skin throbbed with energy, pumping power into his veins that was not his own. It would keep him going, if only long enough to make it to the Market...

"I'm going to help Koren." Came back the call of a Devahni who'd seen far better days. It didn't matter; Trevor was wounded, and Matvi was needed care for him. He'd figure something out on his own, if need be. It was how he'd lived up until now, and he had the bastardized power of the Shroud to hold him up on his feet in lieu of friends. "The rest of them will be at the Market. He's a dead man without help."

@Matvi Iramene
@Trevor
 
Pain had the strange custom of fusing time like healedover bone. And Trevor couldn’t honestly tell how much had passed since Matvi first started meddling with the arrow. But it wasn’t nips and cuts he was counting – only threads and men. And they were all still there. Bit worse for wear. That was alright. Couldn’t even trust boots until you broke ‘em in.

He could faintly see Jerry in the background. Tears fucked his sight. His winces mistimed with Jerry’s work. The youngling was slowly learning the knocker’s trade. He wondered if it’d been better if the three of them simply killed all of the fuckers. Would’ve done just as well. But would’ve made for less of a memory.

A laugh escaped him. Tired, shrieking thing. Best he had.

“Hurt?” Shook his head. Fucking hurt?! “Everything hurts.”

Smarter man would’ve bit down on something. Choked back the pain and refused it a voice. Not what Matvi was working with. So when the frost sizzled like fire through his newest piercing, he sang of it. They were alive. That was tough enough. No need to push your Luck. Whatever it took to stop the leaking. Man had only so much juice to lose before everything went to shit.

His gaze accompanied Kla faster than those legs could. With quiet knowledge – when the dying started, it wouldn’t be Koren that dropped first. It would be Mark. Cause he ran faster.

Watched the deva press on like nothing had cracked. Like they weren’t just mined for kidneystone.

“Help me to the square – Horns is gonna get himself killed.”
 
Everything hurts.

"Yes well," he worked through the yips, yowls, and breaths sucked in through teeth. One hand firm about the wounded limb. "You just make sure you don't blame me for all of it,"

Sealed up, not quite nicely, but good enough.

Mind your tongue, medicant...some of us need help...

Matvi raised a brow at that. Eyes narrowed as he broke ties to the shroud in the air. Wound loose strands about his finger. Stuck his tongue out and placed the crackling cold there at the base of it. Like so many whispered strands of sugar melted down, it spread and pooled. He swallowed it. Smirked. "Sensitive, are we?" it didn't matter to him. Just a note to take down. He turned back to the weaselly fucker. "Trevor, right?" looked him over once more.

I'm going to help Koren...He's a dead man without help.

A curse beneath breath.

Help me to the square...

Already putting his shoulder under him. "Right, up we go then," a pulling step. Quicker at first. Adjusted to hobble. "Jerry, enough of that now!" he called back. "With us, let's move!"
 
Verun didn’t look back to see if the others still followed. He wouldn’t blame them if they’d turned away from this misbegotten attempt to save a city few would truly mourn. Kla would have ordinarily called this fiasco a loss himself, and yet something secret steered him now, like the unseen strings of a puppet moving a dancing doll across the stage.

His vision tunneled, the dark vignette at the corners closing in with each heavy step. The air grew thick—sodden with ash and blood, an old scent, too familiar, too cruelly nostalgic.

People swarmed the direction of the blast; concerned citizens, frantic and unknowing. They crowded the edges of chaos, not yet realizing it was only the opening note in something far worse. Yet none dared draw close to the Devahni who stalked the street towards the marketplace, bent with pain, smoke rising in spectral curls from the twisted magitech embedded in his back.

To them, he looked less like a savior and more like a beast: horned, bloodied, and limping with every step. Something out of a nightmare. Something best left to burn.

And he didn't fault them.

Despite the commotion at the town’s edge, the marketplace thrived as if nothing had happened. Coin rarely paused for chaos, and the dense sprawl of stalls, shops, and bargain-hungry citizens pulsed like a hive. Was it more crowded than usual? Maybe, but it was hard to tell in the usual press of bodies and noise.

And yet, unseen by most, danger lingered over them like an invisible noose, ready to snap tight around unsuspecting throats.

Two black wagons—twins to the one now lying in ruins near the granary—crept into the main roads flanking the market. Behind the narrow slits in their sides, eyes full of murder watched the streets, followed the trail of smoke rising too early from what was meant to be their second target.

Something had gone wrong. It was too soon.

Amid the clutter of goods and empty crates, hidden beneath weatherworn stalls and tucked inside sacks long stripped of product, the true wares waited. Each was wrapped with care, that same explosive ore, hexed and primed, silent promises of fire and carnage, awaiting the Weaver’s unseen hand. Wherever that commander of the Shroud lurked, cloaked in shadow and cloistered among the elven zealots, their grip on the city's throat remained steady… but patient.

The order came quietly, rippling down the chain, from the concealed Weaver to the archers buried within the wagons’ dark bellies.

Let them come.
They carry a far greater prize.

@Trevor
@Matvi Iramene
 
The initial worry about not being able to catch up to Kla was still there. But diminished. Because they really couldn't outpace the deva with Trevor's limping ass. At least he wasn't getting any futher away either. Matvi could probably do it alone, sure. But Trevor wanted to be there. They would probably need his...well, he wasn't going to call it a fucking gift.

Didn't blame Matvi for any of it. He blamed Kla. And maybe he wasn't of a mind to knock all his teeth out anymore – but he wouldn't forget. Horns knew too much. Acted too quickly. Took all of this in stride that only oncemen could. But whatever he was trying to prove now would get him killed. Trevor would've asked Jerry to go after the man – but the boy's Luck had clearly been exhausted by the blast. He was near unharmed. That was not the proper way of things. It was the Trevor way. The only question that remained is where all of this would be paid. Back when it all started – when he damned the roofs and the roads and fucked the wagons – that was all fine. But at some point, blood became the price. And that shit was harder to wash off.

Should've probably asked Jerry to carry his ass instead. But his pride still stung from being manhandled. Oxenfucker could probably pick his teeth with Trevor's bones. But he was an alright sort. At his age, Trevor would've fucked this all up by now. Still was, in a sense.

They passed Mark on the way. Nailed to a door by arrows – a messy sight. Just enough of them to almost hold him upright. Sagged a little, like he wanted to slip but gave up halfway down. Looked like one of the Carpenter gods of Garthvine, if they'd lost count of the nails.

There was no time to stop. Just noted the number. He wouldn't mourn this one – that was Jerry's. Or that's what he told himself to soothe the part that still stung from cowardice and treachery.

Rounded the corner and there he was. Kla. Two more of those black problems further beyond the man. Same make as the one they'd torn apart before. Looked like he planted himself there on purpose. Whole damn posture dripping with intent. Trevor hated hero shit. There was one fucker in every squad. Why couldn't he just let them be sneaky and live to drink about it? But no! Wouldn't look impressive enough. Wouldn't make it into stories. Fuck the stories. All that mattered was avoiding the grave. But that was a rare attitude in his storied career.

This wasn't a sketch he liked, so he turned to the one who carried him, hoping to alter the drawing:

„Thinkin' he's about to do something heroic.“ Wanted to say stupid – but they were all insane. „Not sure what he's compensating for, but let's make sure his head stays on while he's at it.“

Tried more coherent thoughts, but they came difficult.

„See those wheels? If you could pull that frosty shroud shit again, I could make sure the wheel cracks and their feet find the most slippery ground...“ Had more to say but his eyes cut to Jerry.

„Jerry get the fuck back.“ Sharp, almost scared. „Behind us.“
„I can help.“
„Don't make me break your leg, Jerry – fall in line.“ Wasn't sure he could. But Satya knew he'd try.
 
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"I think you mean stupid," Matvi said. Insane as he was, he at least prioritized survival. Well... as much as you could when you put yourself in harms way voluntarily. A nod.

"I see them," listened to the confidence. "Right," took in his breath. "I'll bring the shroud shit, you... do whatever it is you do, Trevor, "a wink. Jerry's rebuttal and quick reprimand. Matvi nod his agreement. "Be a good chap, Jerry, keep our rear safe from any surprises?" a little softer. Sometimes that was all it really took. Another nod. "I'll get to it then, make ready,"

He slipped off. Kept to the flanks. Lines of sight clear through the shift of the market goers. Could see where the wheels met axle. Wood joined to iron. Painted the picture in his mind, closed his eyes as his air fell out.

So many bodies about. So much breath. Shroud came thick. If you knew where to pull it from. A strand here. A strand there. Nothing they would miss. Nothing they would notice. His hands cupped together, right's fingers spindled and spooled. Gathered up those threads of shroud he could steal from the wind. From the stone underfoot, and the push and pull of lungs.

A freezing thing in his hands. Beat like a heart. Almost had eyes. He raised it up to his lips, held tender across both palms, like a promise, too sweet not to whisper. He opened his own eyes and blew his own breath across the gathered shroud. The being there in set to fly. A ghost of mist and freezing haze that felt but cold breeze over the market goers.

It sunk into the wood. Made brittle the iron. With a but a little twist and pull of his frigid bones, Matvi set it to skate across the ground. A clean sheen of ice, there at Wagon's exits.

Felt his own heart grip with cold. Just a little more. He thought, spread the ice further and further. Grasped at another wheel with his hand. Saw rime frost crackle and take to it like ice to a branch on cold winter's morn.
 
That his single-minded march would only result in his own foolish and gruesome death was a fact that Kla seemed blind to. His eyes looked forward, but they did not see, boots dragging across the dusty road driven by the intangible force of arrogance and anger that had sent far better men to an early grave before him.

The stones sewn into his back offered no mercy. The Devah, steeped in their searing energy, would have gladly died in vain if it meant preserving his festering pride and his precious isolation.

Then... something. A tingle along his spine, light as a whisper but unmistakable. Like a sliver of reason clawing its way back up from the pit he’d thrown it into.

No, it wasn't imagination. This sensation was too familiar, something he'd experienced recently. The black pouring into the corners of his vision receded, that icy glaze that had come over him cracking and chipping away as he stopped his mindless march, and turned his head.

Somebody once more tinkered with the Shroud, the fabric of reality shifting like a drunkard in the sheets. He knew that delicate touch, he'd felt it only moments earlier.

Matvi.

Then came a new disturbance, this one ahead, at the crowded sprawl of the Marketplace. The large, black wagons stationed at the road's edge had begun to lurch and veer. Drivers fought for control as the doors burst open, and out spilled dazed, snarling elves just like the ones who had rained down chaos on the outskirts of town only moments before.

Verun could only gawk at his own stupidity for a moment, but he used that breath to shake free of the delusion still clinging to him. He’d been ready to die. For what? Pride? Because he was too good to accept help?

The corner of his mouth curled into a snarl. He could berate himself later.

Just because the Voiceless had been caught off guard didn’t mean they were harmless. The robed elves were regrouping fast, weapons drawn and slipping into formation to bar the path into the Market. Behind the overturned wagons and rows of drawn bows, screams erupted. Undoubtedly violence was already spilling through the narrow corridors of the Market square.

Kla glanced back, just once.

Then he smiled.

Every weapon was pointed at him, their arrows poised to strike the moment he crossed some unseen line.

They could only see him.

With any luck, they assumed he was the one responsible for the Shroud-fuckery that had tossed their wagons around. Koren could very well have made it in, then, and if Matvi and the others could stay low, keep out of sight as they approached...

He just had to hold their attention.

And not die.

@Matvi Iramene

@Trevor
 
A smile. Because he did mean stupid.

Matvi slid off to weave his shit. Cool to cold, to a will of slippery steps and frozen over cobbles. Another time, in another life – Trevor could imagine Matvi as a seamstress. Had the moves for it. The manifestation was powerful enough now that even his shroudblind ass could see. So it was time.

Unlike the other man, Trevor didn't need to move his hands for things to start realigning. He still liked to imagine a smaller Trevor, living somewhere inside him. Like one of those fuckers that waved their hands at musicians and got them to do stuff. That dickhead probably had a gesture for this. Would've bowed as it was done, perhaps.

Another life, huh?

He held to the warmth of that against the chill of the other man's resolve. Lucky that Jerry listened. But what was lucky for Jerry was unlucky for the archer waiting around the corner who had nothing but Kla to shoot. And just like Matvi rode the cold of air and breath, one could ride the many inequalities forming all around. And the intention jumped – Jerry to archer, archer to Kla, Kla to the assumption that it really had all been his shroudshit. Each step folded over itself as the fortune grew thicker.

Ice touched the lucky ground – cool after a long day's work. But ice too had done so much that day, so it invited many a boot to take the edge off. And boots were lazy bastards. Walking was hard work. Sliding required so much less effort.

As they poured out, they would lose their footing. And he only needed one to fall just right. To land on the wheel and break that fucker. Because if Luck was off balance, why not a wheel?

Didn't even notice the rooftile coming for his ass. Jerry did. Pulled him back just enough to get clocked on the foot instead of the head.

MOTHERFUCK!

So it had begun. The unraveling.
 
"Well, load of trouble," a grunt as the fuckers started slipping an falling and loosing their bolts.

Missiles flew every which way, and people screamed as they ran for cover. Matvi pressed his back against a merchant's stand as a quarrel plunked itself into the heart of an unworn chemise. Ripped through a woolen cap, thunked into a piece of leather.

Matvi stared at one bolt head that poked out just inche from where he had rest his head. "this is," he said with a laugh. Peered over his cover to spy the slipping and sliding elves. Let his breath fall like a wave, his fingers outstretched and curling about the feint trails of shroud still woven about the air. Drifting like so much spider's silk.

The chaos. The panic. Fear and the want to live as death was being dealt. It was potent material to spin from. Easier to pull fire from such a mass of beating hearts, but ice could burn too.

He eyed the frozen slick upon the street, and drew in his breath. Rose with clutch of fingers, like setting a cover on right over a cot. Swift enough to snap it up and set it to float.

So too the ice snapped up. Liquiform for but a moment. It crashed like a wave against a cliffside. Up and spray about. Catching ankles and legs of Voiceless assailents. Some, frozen whole.

One man fell against the wheel of the wagon. Fucking thing went crack.

Matvi smirked, saw eyes on him, if just for a moment. Slapped his hands together, and slammed both palms down toward the wall. Clawed his fingers, twist at the air, and ripped them up.

Bolts loosed, they struck throug the air and pinged the dusk kigth's shoulder. Set him to stumble back with grit teeth.

But the spell had been woven. A wall, as tall as the wagons, cracked and hissed up from the ground. Shielded the townsfolk from bolt fire as it bled freshmade mist.
 
Kla didn’t need to look to know Matvi was pulled his weight: the icy hiss behind him, the panicked screeches of elves skating out of position, the crack of the wagon’s wheel snapping, those told him enough. The Medicant was doing his part.

That meant it was his turn to do his own kind of weaving.

The Voiceless were shouting now, trying to bark themselves into order, their bows creaking as they yanked strings back. He let them. Let them think he’d frozen, caught in the open like an idiot martyr. His boot shifted, slow, deliberate, a single step forward into their killbox.

A volley loosed; dozens of arrows, black-fletched, shrieking through the air.

Kla didn’t flinch. The stones sewn into his back answered first, drinking in the bite of the Shroud as though daring it to do worse. The arrows shattered, veering off course, splintering in mid-air. Not all of them—one grazed his shoulder, another split skin along his jaw—but enough to leave him standing. Enough to sell the illusion.

The scowl on his face widened, jagged.

“Try harder.” His voice carried, rough as gravel, deliberate. If they thought he was mocking them, and gods, he was, that was all the better. One more step forward. He swung his arm wide, blade flashing from it's sheath, not to strike but to gesture. To dare them. To scream without words: I am the threat. I am the reason you’re losing ground.

And they bought it. Gods help them, they bought it.

The next volley came, harsher, angrier, focused entirely on him. The streets to his left and right were clear-- wide open paths for Trevor and his companions to slip deeper into the Market. They needn't slaughter every one of these robed freaks, so long as one of them could retrieve that explosive ore, jinx or side effects be damned.

Matvi’s wall kept the townsfolk from being pincushioned, but it wouldn’t hold forever. No matter. He wasn’t planning on letting it come to that. Pain prickled along his side where another arrow had punched shallow, but Kla tore it free, snapped it across his knee, and tossed it to the cobbles. The grin never left his face.

He wasn’t the clever one. That was Matvi’s role. He lacked the intuition and leadership of Trevor.

He was the noise. The bait. The bastard too angry to die.

And right now, that was enough.

@Matvi Iramene
@Trevor
 
It quickly became obvious that it was him and Jerry who were to reach the explosives. But Trevor was gimped, and he'd seen what would happen to Jerry if the other man went out alone.

Where the hell was Koren?

Trevor still believed the other boy lived – if only for lack of omens to the opposite. Maybe he'd gotten as far as the market undisturbed. Image of Mark warned him to think better of it... but he wasn't a creature of hope. He was a thief of choice. And enough Luck pressed together granted certainties.

If Kla wanted to be the bait, so be it. They still needed Matvi to neutralize the bullshit. At least that what he'd been told.

„Jerry, I'll need your help.“ Oxenfucker smiled.

And that's how they came upon Matvi. A piggy upon Jerry's back. Two right arms extending down to help the man up, as if Trevor's was anything other than moral support.

„We'll need you at the square.“


Square​

Wasn't sure if he'd call it lucky, but Koren had gotten to the market without notice or harm. The world was still trying to kill itself all around him, but it was all background buzz.

He'd come to warn the others, but the mess had already started. They were running on their own.

Because he could see what they'd come here to stop. Remembered he shouldn't touch it with bare hands. His mind held held the shroudery too... but Koren couldn't do that. What he could do was move it further away from everyone else.

Took the shirt off his back and wrapped another layer around the already bundled lump.

And even as he cradled it, his skin was already starting to flake off.
 
Bleeding never suited him. Sucked the pain down through his teeth. Felt his nerves firing sporadic. Fingers twitching, arm trembling beneath the the mess caused by the bolt.

Shallow. He managed to surmise. Shallow enough, any how. A flick and a pluck of the wind, and gossamer threads of blue twined about his fingers. He pressed them there like a silken salve. Spread it over with a grit of teeth.

Sloppy work. But it would do.

Come the ox and his little piggy, and Matvi couldn't help but smile. "Well, if you two aren't the farm, looking ripe for the slaughter," he laughed and took up the hands. Grunt as he got to his feet. "Right then," dusted himself off as the ice wall breathed its mist. Could hear the shouts and the crossbow mechanics firing. "Let's show these butchers what our little gaggle can do,"

Caught something moving fast at the corner of his eye. Blinked. "Isn't that Koren?" saw the bundle. In his arms. And how the shroud was burning off him. "Shit," started running towards the boy. "Go, help Kla! I'll help the boy!"

Crossbow bolts plunked and pinged stray about him.
 
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