Caeleste Mods (caeleste_mods) wrote in caeleste, @ 2011-01-25 18:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | close to home, npc |
No Way But Sideways [ Vargis ]
"Is that whiskey?"
Elden tucked the bottle back into his sleeve at the accusatory question. Hasna. He might as well have been turning to face a Drow for all the murder that was in her eyes. Ever since he came to the aide of the White Riders, he noticed that the women among them had a fine talent for catching him drink at the worst possible times. And he couldn't seem to wring a bit of sympathy from any of them. Elden could not exactly explain to Hasna what stressed him so about doing battle (other than the very obvious fear of dying in an old man's skin), so he often defaulted to saying that he was a drunk and that he thought more clearly if he had his whiskey. He opened his mouth to say this to the viper behind the mask but...luckily, Elden had a brief moment to lose his idiocy.
No, he'd rather die by the blade of a Grey Rider than whatever hellish way Hasna was picturing in her head.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Elden said instead. "Do you think we should put out this fire soon?"
The rafters had become quite bright with flame and he was fairly sure the thatched roof was completely ash now. Elden was crouched with Hasna a short distance away from the stables, which were probably quite an efficient place when their owner was in the city. Now it was a dead building that was surrounded by Greys. He'd been afraid that they would kill all of the horses inside, but they seemed more content to steal them at the moment. This wasn't the first fire that Hasna and Elden had visited. In fact, most of their journeys outside of the Castel so far involved something burning down. After the initial wave of fighting, the Captain consolidated most of the Riders into a single group to defend the Castel. Everyone else was given another task. The Captain had been very clear on what he wanted them to do -- the Grey Riders were going to work their way inward and try to break through the Castel wall. It was up to teams like the one he was on right now to work their way outward.
"Pick them off, I don't care how you do it," the Captain said to the small room of volunteers. "Help anyone you can find still in Simanel. Buy us all some more damned time."
There was an Army waiting off to the west. Captain Agrippa seemed to think Lady Seca was among them, supervising from afar. She was waiting to swoop in when this place was ash. Captain Agrippa seemed more worried about that than the Grey Riders, although Elden was half certain those foul cloaked men were going to make the good Captain lose his hair.
Elden was never a master of strategy, but he thought he understood politics. If the Grey Riders did the dirty work, the Army could clean up the rest. The Army could arrest or kill whoever they wanted. Threaten or bribe witnesses. In the end, the Army would make everyone believe they were the stabilizers, the protection. But the Grey Riders were the invisible knife. They would disappear with the smoke.
Ugly business, this was. Ugly business.
Many Riders had been uncomfortable doing the shady sort of work that he, Hasna and Vargis were doing, so they were back defending the wall of the Castel. This was how he used to defend his homeland. Elden felt more comfortable with the work than Hasna seemed to.
She snatched the whiskey from him. Elden frowned.
"It's burning very fast," he said, sourly.
Most of the time, Elden managed to put out the fire. Or at the very least, stop structures from being completely destroyed. Hasna didn't seem to want to stop this one.
"I know," she said. "There are eight of them."
"Nine. One's hiding on the roof of the house," Elden said, cheerily. "Oh. Wait. Nevermind, your fellow got to him."
"My fellow?"
"Yes, you know, Vargis, your...well, you mean to tell me you two never..."
"Shut up. Just shut up and do whatever magic it is that you do. Let's knock them into the flames they've made."
She might have been a killjoy when it came to his drinking, but Elden couldn't complain about how that wonderful mind of hers worked. He rolled up his sleeves and put his hands against the earth. The ground rippled outward in a tightly controlled wave -- the force of it knocked many of the Riders by the burning stable from their feet. One sunk into the earth, the other was made to choke on dirt when he fell face down and the earth wouldn't release him.
Hasna gripped his shoulders to keep her balance. Vargis should have been fine on the roof. If not, then he'd still come out of a shadow somewhere. Elden was convinced that man had more lives than a cat.
He moved with Hasna the second she drew her blade. Out into the square, bold as brass. This part was the part that made Elden long for his whiskey. But it was also his favorite.