"I visited the wounded again, we didn't have enough supplies for them. I had to order them to treat only those that could survive. We didn't even have enough beds to spare... I ordered them to dump those that wouldn't survive outside... in the mud and ordered the holes to be dug. They died there, in the mud, tossed aside by their own comrades, by their prince, writhing in pain as they watched their own graves be dug before them.
Why? Because one lord a hundred leagues away decided that those supplies would be better 'misplaced' and sold to fill his coffers. Forty-Seven men died like dogs, so one man could flaunt his newest trinket to his neighbors. The physicians tell me nine more will be dead in the morning from infection. All for a trinket." - NineteenZandyr nudged the small stick into the bottom of the fire, moving branches out of the way to let more air flow in trying to get the embers burning. His eyes flicked up to the horse thief slumped against the tree. She was almost bearable... when she was sleeping and not talking or glaring at him. Her frail body slumped against that dark tree, her fingers still clutching onto his jacket as her hair reflected the fire, he couldn't find the anger he had at her from earlier. Just for the night, he would watch over her, in the morning, he could go back to hating her for reasons she would never understand. If he had done all this just for her to perish, he wasn't sure he could live with that extra caveat on his day.
The thumping of hooves against soft soil brought his hand down to the handle of his dagger, not likely the odds of a rider in the middle of nowhere, under the cover of darkness and one that was heading their direction. The failed assassination attempt on the Crown Prince of Ezea flashing through his mind. The small horse burst through the trees and Zandyr was already drawing his dagger when a shout of, 'Gully', stopped him. The horse thief showed far more energy then he would have thought possible as she jumped up and ran towards the, he noticed, riderless beast. How her body was so durable despite being so small was a matter for another time.
Rising to his feet, he watched as she calmed the horse that seemed familiar to her which would only mean trouble to him, he could feel it in the pit of his stomach. When she swung herself onto the horse, the feeling in his gut grew, this was just screaming trouble that he should just ride away from. If he heard the name correctly, that was her brothers steed, the owner of the nigh unspeakable name that their parents had cursed him with. Had the assassins come for him again? Had he decided to chase after him and his sister? Either way, it led to a situation he doubt he wanted to go to, being seen with the likely dead body of the crown prince with their princess's clothes in tatters, coupled with his infamy, and this would be a scandal that he doubted the kingdoms could recover from. He should leave, let her deal with the body, remove himself for the problem before it hit the critical mass, yet he found himself picking up the horse blanket and moving over to Nyx, fixing her saddle once more and swinging onto her to give chase to the direction Aislin fled... for a second time that night.
Zandyr pulled on Nyx's reins, bringing her to a stop when he caught back up to her, struggling to lift her brother but failing. Not surprising given what she had put her body through over the last few hours and her already small frame. His eyes fell on the snapped arrow in his arm, in the war, such a wound would have been ignored by the physicians as they went to treat serious wounds, that one would have been left to nurses or fellow soldiers to deal with. If the arrowhead broke the bone, infection could set in, but he was more surprised that the Crown Prince had fainted from it, Zandyr doubted he had gotten hit that long ago given the distance between him and the camp and the speed of his horse. He had never seen an arm wound from an arrow bleed to the extent to put someone down so quickly. Poison? Likely. If it was, he doubted the Crown Prince would survive the night.
Regretting his decision to follow, he swung himself off from his horse and tied the reins, trying his best to ignore the sight of the horse thief over her dying brother. It was not something he wanted to see. Zandyr took a moment to look out into the woods, wondering if the assassins would be back and how many of them they were... but more importantly, why the Crown Prince was still alive. He should be dead, why hadn't the assassins finished the job? Chased him down and open his throat? He doubted that any half-decent assassin wouldn't be able to track down a wounded man on a horse. Had they let him get away?
The sudden accusation, soaked with rage, spun him around to face the wounded siblings, he did this? He opened his mouth to refute the claim, but stopped, if she wanted to believe that, why stop her? The accusation was baseless and foolish, born from a angry, desperate mind. He did kill one of her brothers already, he was already the monster she accused him of being, although for different reasons, so why should he correct her? Tear him apart with her teeth? The raw anger in her eyes, the undiluted hatred, reminded him so much of her brother that day on the field. That same loathing that pierced his soul.
"Likely," Zandyr said, lifting his chin as his eyes moved away from hers to scan the forest pretending to look for something within their depths, but the truth was, he couldn't bear those eyes a second longer. Those intense burning orbs of rage, the fire that wanted nothing more to see him screaming and burning within their depths. They pulled him to memories he didn't want to visit.
"Maybe I did do this. Put an arrow through his arm, ditched the bow in the woods, returned to camp before his frighten horse could and before you could wake up without bothering to open his throat to finish the job. Or I hired people to do this, believing you would run, on this exact route then planted the assassins here, waiting for your brother to follow you, to finish the conquest my father started long again," Zandyr said, his voice steady and hold more strength than his eyes which he kept on the trees, unable to meet her own.
Zandyr turned his head, his dark hair following over his shoulder as looked at the wounded Crown Prince, blissfully aware of the torment his pain was causing others,
"But I do know one thing, if I do not lay a finger on him, he will die here and while I don't claim to care if he lives or not, I do care about the Crown Prince of Ezea dying on Xairal soil when I am the prime suspect for such an act," and he didn't want to be the cause of the death of another of her brothers. Even now, he still couldn't meet those eyes.
Aislin worried her lower lip, clenching the piece of cloth she pressed to Ildant's arm. All remnants of white were gone, replaced by the blood that flowed steadily from the Prince's arm. She glared at Xairal with her odd crimson eyes as he spoke, pausing when he finished, brows lowered. She simmered with distrust, but with a single glance at the brother that laid wounded on her lap, her flame sputtered into mere embers.
"I am watching you," she said finally. "If you so much as entertain the notion of hurting him, it will be the last thought you will ever have. If he dies, so do you. Riven was merciful. I am not."
She lifts a hand to her head, tugging free the very last of the pins she did not lose to the water or during the journey to it. It seemed there was some benefit to having a mess of bright red curls on her head after all. She clips the sapphire bead encasing one end of the shaft in the between two fingers.
"Poison," she says with an odd smile. "Which is faster, do you think? Your clumpy sword or the flick of my wrist?"
With the inferno simmering down to a blaze, Zandyr met her eyes once more. 'Riven was merciful', yes, he was, and Zandyr would never stop loathing him, even in death, for that. While Zandyr did not doubt she would attempt to kill him should he attempt to attack her brother, he had doubts on her claims of lacking in mercy. He had seen men who were like that, cold and void of feeling, or worse yet, those who took pleasure in the torment, she was neither. She was passionate, and incredibly foolish, but he doubted she could ever become like... him.
Zandyr raised an eyebrow at her declaration of her fearsome weapon, it was an odd coincidence that what her brother may be afflicted by, she was threatening him with,
"Given that I do not have a sword," he motioned to his belt which only contained a dagger,
"I would assume your dainty wrist would win against my non-existent clumpy sword." He almost continued to point out that his 'sword' was not clumpy, but it did resent the wine she had spilt on it, but given the circumstance, he had more pressing matters than dragging out the barbed conversation... if one was being so generous to call it that.
Moving over to Aislin, he knelt and slowly reached out to the snapped arrow, he noted, somewhat surprised, that she had snapped the arrow and left enough of the shaft to push through if they were able either she was intelligent or she was a fool favored by the gods, he was leaning towards the latter.
"We need to move him to the camp. We are going to need the fire and the water from the river," Zandyr said,
"Hold his arm still, don't want him to move it too much," he ordered as he lifted the Crown Prince and laid him out across the back of his desert steed trying to mask his grunt of exertion as the last thing he needed at the moment was a barbed comment on his 'femininity'.
"Take him back to the camp," Zandyr said, looking at the Prince's pale face,
"Jump the river. He is losing blood faster than he should be," he said after moment of hesitation. While the jump could jostle the arrow, he doubted they had time to ride around it to the nearby ford.
"Can't you just do it here?" she snapped. She was worried for Ildant - terrified, really - and she was furious that she would succumb to such a weakness. Worse, that her mortal enemy should be present to witness it, much less be the person to appease her fears and counteract her inefficacy. What would Ildant say if he were able?
My only hope is my man-sister and her lady-prince. I suppose I am fated to an early cessation after all.
She lifted herself onto Gullfaxi, careful not to knock against Ildant's prone form. She wrapped the reigns around Ildant's torso and grasped the rope herself.
"Smooth soaring, Gully," she muttered, more for herself. She shifted the stead in the direction of the river, held her breath, and tapped the Gullfaxi's side. The stead leapt across the river and Aislin whispered silent apologies to her brother as the arrow jostled in his arm, releasing a fresh wave of blood. Panic seized her and she turned to glare at Zandyr over her shoulder.
"Keep up, will you, grandmother?" she yelled.
Zandyr motioned for her to start riding having no desire to explain, or the time to, how to properly remove an arrow without destroying the victims arm. She would see soon enough, and for her sake, he hoped it didn't hit the bone.
Untying the reins to Nyx, he rode after her. He had to bite his retort before it escaped his lips, it wasn't his fault that, between the two of them, he was the only one that bothered to tie up his horse. One of them had to have a shred of sense, still, he did not look forward to the coming hours... It would be a long night.
RPG
