one thousand strands of dark (lucille)
Strange to see the place without a change at all. Eragos had been expecting more soldiers in the wind, more pikes, more of a show of force. There were no soldiers in sight, which counted technically as a change, except the same lanterns were swinging from the same wagons to light the area outside of them. There were twenty or so men gathered, but none of them were soldiers. And they were arguing. Loudly. It was impossible not to hear them upon approaching the wagons, and while Vargis was still at his side Eragos caught the man's shoulder. Something about this situation was wrong, wrong in the way that their escape from here alone did not explain. Where were all the mercenaries? A thought on that matter was beginning to resolve itself in his mind.
Not a thought he wanted to entertain for long.
Snow had begun to drift around the wagons. Even if he did not know how to read a map, he would have thought they'd be miles beyond this point by now. That meant not as much progress was being made as anticipated, and they had not moved from this spot since the last round of snow had begun to fall. Very interesting. Harva was one of the fellows arguing out in the open, all of them tugging cloaks around their shoulders, too far away to be heard. Every hair that escaped the ponytail Harva had forged for himself was sailing in the wind like a banner. Yet the snow itself was barely stirring. It had settled. So he wasn't wrong to assume they'd been here for a time. Vargis raised an eyebrow at Eragos above his mask, but it wasn't the sort of question one could answer with anything other than a shrug. So Eragos did. If there was a method to this madness Eragos had yet to see it.
"And you said nothing!" one of the men thundered at Harva.
"Would you have come if I had?" Harva shot back.
"Would I risk my life so you could be paid one last time?" the man shouted. "No! We're leaving!"
"You heard what Xias said," Harva was trying to be louder than the man he was arguing with. "Anyone who tries to leave the caravan won't see the arrow that kills him. We just have to hope-"
"Hope what? Hope those White Riders come back? Not likely that I'll wait for them!"
Interesting news. If what Harva was saying was correct, Xias was keeping them here like prisoners. Which accounted for the lack of progress. Who was this mercenary, who could halt a wagon with a simple wag of his tongue? And what in all the hells of imagination was going on here? One moment the mercenaries were simply tense, and the next moment they were threatening to kill the very people they'd been hired to protect. Eragos was not an expert on mercenary work - his fair share was not much - but he knew that sort of thing generally went against the terms of one's contract. Xias said he was following the orders of his contract. So perhaps someone else had hired him before he'd come on with the caravan, but to what end? This made even less sense than it had before. And the only thing he could assume was that Harva was a dead man, no matter how all of this ended.
A fair assumption.
"Do you even know why this is happening?" Harva demanded angrily. "You-"
"You," the other fellow spat. "Mixed me up in something that has nothing to do with me. And I won't stay here just to keep you from dying alone!"
Vargis nodded when Eragos gestured toward the camp. Apparently the bard had the same idea, for he began creeping forward alongside them. The horses were tied off some distance bck. Difficult to conceal one in plain view, especially when there was no other horse among the wagons as tall as Rand. What they must have looked like, three figures simply appearing out of the swirling snow with cloaks heavy over their shoulders and their heads. Harva actually screamed when he saw them. The others fared better - one even managed to clear his sword from his scabbard - but their hostility vanished when Eragos lowered the fur hood to expose his mask. Wind howled through gaps in trees; it was as ominous a sound as Eragos could ever remember hearing, and one that certainly reminded him of home in every way that mattered.
He loved the sound.
What he saw was a collection of terrified individuals. They were afraid of living, afraid of dying, afraid of what the next few seconds would bring. Eragos didn't doubt that for a moment. The future could be a terrifying thing when you did not know what it would hold, and these men most assuredly did not know. The only thing that kept Eragos from simpering as they did was his training in the same brutal snows as these. Day after day, hour after hour, every swing of the sword that a man could hurl at you had been hurled at him. And lances. Maces. Flails. Whips. Chains. Knives. Anything and everything that Valos knew how to use. And despite it all, Eragos was still here. That boded well for his future. For these men, their own intelligence would decide.
"You did come back," Harva said in surprise.
"What the hell is going on here?" Vargis demanded. "Aside from you lot turning on each other like jackals."
"This is your fault," Harva shouted, thrusting a finger at the three of them. "Don't think Agrippa won't hear of this!"