"No," is decisive despite the bowed angle of Flint's head. Eyes watering still from the lingering burn of the smoke, he makes to blindly shove the cutlass back into its sheath. Free up a hand. Wrap that around a strap of the dracolisk's headstall too.
"We'll shut them up here."
Someone might be sent to fetch them. They might be worth something, he doesn't say. Instead—
"Get out," has the irritated, clipped tenor of an order. Annoyed with the animal who has begun to twist her head and shift her shoulder, and to lose patient with him. Flint gives her another checking jerk on the rein. "Be ready to close the door after me."
The hackle-raising quality of Flint's tone directed his way is—basically usual, and dealt with as a matter of course: felt and ignored, expressed only with the absence of verbal acknowledgment while Marcus moves at a brisk clip for the door.
Outside, the air is abruptly colder than he remembers it being a moment ago, or maybe that's more to do with the aftershock of battle than the slight progress the sun has made at the horizon.
He posts up at the door, glancing then towards the crumpled corpses outside. The burned mess further out, the collapsed figure whose arm he has to stand over. The mage woman splayed out on her front, fallen staff a few inches from lax hand and the shine in Tevene silken robe beneath her light armoring. There his focus catches for a moment, while his hand rests on the wooden door's weathered surface.
With Marcus clear of the shed, Flint wrenches the dracolisk's head back by the shank of her bit—forcing her in a tight circle that pirouettes across the sandy floor of the outbuilding. She snaps and snarls, unhappy to be led; the fan at her neck expanding and contracting threateningly as she coils round and round the pivot point of the bridle in Flint's hand. She's going to try to take his arm off when he lets her go, he's certain.
Hence the distinct lack of dignity with which Flint eventually comes leaping across the threshold and out into night air. Having circled the dracolisk around enough times that a jerk and a slap had sent her spinning into one last rotation, she just can't turn quite tightly enough to sink her teeth into him. Instead—head whipping round, the hot scorch of acid spraying after him and splattering the door that must slam shut in his wake.
Marcus swoops in, clasping at the door, hauling it closed. If any venom escapes out after Flint, it's the barest hint of splatter past the quickly closing door. He keeps a grasp of the handle as he feels the whole structure shudder, the dracolisk angrily launching herself at it. A doubtful wince at whether the frame or the rusted hinges will actually hold.
They do. He steps back away from it, watching it shudder again as foreclaws rake against the door, but no third attempt comes as he backs up even more.
In answer: an aggrieved sidelong look and a certain tugging round of his coat to assess whether there's any notable damage to it. Checks too the leather gaiters over his boots, his trailing sleeve where he finds a dark speckled stain that might warrant careful handling if not for the more likely culprit of split knuckles.
Satisfied no part of him is liable to suffer from the dracolisk's spray—
"You?" is punctuated by a heavy thunk! against the door from the shed's interior, the whole wall shivering.
No injuries he can feel, but he can feel the needlepoint burn of errant venom droplets up his neck. Hand hovering up with the instinct to wipe at before he thinks better, before turning his shoulder for Flint's appraisal. Sticky black poison clings to metal and leather in arc up the back of his shoulder, heaving eaten into some of the fur trim already. Give it some time, maybe it will work on the rest.
A soft, barely heard griffon squawk drifts up from the ledge they'd emerged from, but Marcus ignores it and doesn't whistle for Monster to join him, second for the poison but first not to aggravate one vicious predatory species with the presence and scent of another.
In the failing light, it might for an unremarkable dark scar across Marcus' back. If he didn't know better and they were in the Marches or Ferelden instead of the dusty Anderfels, he might guess at a splatter of mud.
Flint sketches a quick look over the damage, mindful not to actually touch any part of it despite the natural instinct to smooth back the matted fur. Ignoring the bite of renewed irritation for the animal inside the shed, he instead lays his attention over the short distance to the lake's edge. They'll need to search the bodies here in case the Venatori pockets reveal some facet of their purpose here. But it's not as if the bodies are going anywhere. And if they've nothing on them, they may need to reassess the question of the dracolisks being shut up.
"I'd have it off," is suggestion, not instruction. Punctuated with a nod to the dark gleam of the water below them. "Better to see it washed clear now."
Marcus has one last look towards the bodies, towards the sound of angry bird-like dragon chirps from the shack, and then starts off towards the lake. Moving efficiently, not afraid of the substance eating down enough to injure him, but wouldn't it be nice to save an armor piece from needing replacement? His fingers wander to the most available buckle at his shoulder.
This brawl was not particularly clean, but less of a mess than the last. Less honourable, depending on your standards of honour, but efficient in a sense that satisfies something in him. Of a job done well enough. As if the means in which men and women are killed in service of a greater good has a significant amount of weight as to how well one sleeps later.
Here, at the water, Marcus crouches down, takes a knee. Works at the buckle, frees it. Gets at the one at his arm. Stops at a midpoint to slip his hand into the water, and then palming at his neck, as that niggling itch grows in its sting.
Flint watches him go for a beat longer than is necessary, eyeline scribbling across the dark stain. Then we wipes the blood from his knuckles into trouser leg before ranging in the direction of the nearest corpse. For good measure, he hauls the Venatori by the hood a foot or so from shed to give himself some breathing room should the door come splintering down after all. Though the last rattling thump seems to have been the dracolisk's final concentrated attempt to come through it.
It takes him ten minutes to come clambering down the bank to join Marcus at the water's edge. But dracolisk venom is a clinging thing and likely there will still be some scrapping or scrubbing with a fistful of cloth and sand occuring by the time he reaches him. There's an addition of a satchel slung over Flint's shoulder, hanging lightly at the hip, and thick packet of letters in hand.
The satchel is dumped. Flint takes a seat on the sandy shelf of the bank, produces the Riftwatch issue lighter from some interior pocket, and pops the string holding the packet of envelopes together with a twist of his belt knife.
Marcus is indeed still working at his armor when Flint comes by. His other pauldron and cuirass has been taken off as well, as the backpiece wanted some inspection, and these now sit stacked beside him as he plunges rag back into the very edge of the lake, wrings it out loosely, goes back to scrubbing over leather and metal.
Loosened out of his kneeling, now sitting with a leg folded and the other bent out of the way, a sign of resigning himself to the way this task went from something he imagined completed in short order to a more involved experience.
He glances to Flint coming to sit nearby, and it seems to remind him of the chill in the air. He pauses, leaning back to where he'd placed his staff, grasping around its middle with a hand. Runes flare bright orange, giving off faint light, fainter than a campfire would produce, but in a spare few minutes, their immediate surroundings start to warm in a more focused way than flames would.
The effect stays even once he lifts his hand, returning to his task.
"Is that all of it, between them?" he asks of the loot being dug into.
He's cracked the seal of the first envelope by the time the low glare of the rune light flares to life. A judicious pause, assessing, and then Flint snaps on the lighter anyway. The arcane glow isn't really strong enough to parse a stranger's handwriting by.
"That I can reach." To say nothing of what equipment or personal effects might still be stripped from the dead men and women. "I've a salve in my kit with the griffons," he continues without looking up while unfolding the first letter across his thigh and angling the lighter flame along to read it by. "It should do for your neck."
A fleeting glance fishes up, skates across Marcus, and then reverts back to the page.
"Mm," concession. The dracolisks have quieted down, and it's not impossible they may be able to reenter without an aggressive response, but—
He nods at the offer of salve in time when Flint looks to him, gratitude in the angle of it. A look that converts into a lingering study once Flint turns back to the page, the sharper upwards spill of light making his profile bright against the thickening shadows all around, the subtler cast of a glow at curved back. And then, back to his task, thinking of what remains out of reach, still.
The idea of getting any of this muck in ones eyes, mouth, a fanged bite, does not warm Marcus to the idea of doing anything but herding the dracolisks on their way. Maybe they merely have some scant supplies in their saddlebags. He can't recall exactly if they were still equipped or not.
And other scattered thoughts towards what the next hour of their lives may look like, expressed through a sigh funneled through his nose. He will have that salve once a decision's made.
"Good thing it was Venatori that came out the door," he says, rather than further that item, "and not Anders folk or Wardens or what have you. You'd owe Rutyer a favour or two."
The crinkling of the page under his examination doesn't pause, and he doesn't flick a glance up across the edge of the paper with which to consult Marcus with. Instead, Flint issues a low hum of acknowledgement and then turns the page over on his thigh so as to continue on with his close review of the letter.
A last scrape of cloth over armor, and tilting it towards the glow of his staff behind him for inspection. There's an ugly stripe up the dark leather and spots on the metal, now, a mangy quality to the neat placement of would-be handsome wolf fur trim, an irritation that's easily soothed by imagining what mess he'd be left with had he ducked in the wrong direction.
Marcus sets it aside, tossing the now holey, half-eaten rag he'd been using off into the lake. Checks his palms, which are a little reddened in places. Flint is still reading. The night is still falling.
"I'll collect the ladies," is more an announcement of intent than a suggestion for review, moving to get to his feet. A few paces away and then a sharp whistle that he knows Monster responds to, and imagines her companion will follow along with her at least.
He half turns his face, though his eyeline remains in the page—some measure of his attention dividing to follow Marcus' general trajectory even as he crunches this letter closed and moves on to the next.
Somewhere in the purple twilight, two dark shapes rise out from the melt water wash in which they'd been nested. One of the animals chases her sister with an eager whistle, playfully nipping at the lead animal's tail feathers like a naughty sibling tugging at hair or skirt hem—the lack of discipline clear enough evidence that her rider spends relatively little time in the saddle and most of it in transit as opposed to the touchy, dangerous work that her siblings must be routinely expected to confront.
They land with a lumbering version of grace, Buggie splashing down into the water's edge itself. Flint doesn't bother to shield the papers from the spray. Instead, he finishes his assessment of the current flecked page, crumples the papers in half, and resolves to cram the whole packet back into the satchel. Snap, closes the lighter. The soft whisper scuff of sand as he levers himself to his feet is lost under the chirp-chirrup of the griffon already sloshing up out of the water to meet him.
Despite any urge she might have to go and plunge into the lake, Monster lands where Marcus is stood, giving her distinctive creaky purr as he moves on closer. The beak, with its deadly hooked end and craggy keratin surface, is probably among least appealing parts of a griffon to pet, but it's instinct that has Marcus place his hand on the curve of it, rubbing palm up between her eyes while his other hand ruffles softer plumage.
He glances back in time to watch Flint get to his feet, and then moves around to the saddle, keeping a hand on Monster's shoulder and back as he goes. Rifles around until he finds his waterskin, the strap of which he hooks over a shoulder, a small fold of waxy fabric that contains some biscuit, and cigarette case, which goes into a pocket.
Leading Monster back to the lake, he lets her go once she insists herself forward, but doesn't splash in, just noses at the water edge to drink. Marcus does the same from the skin, waiting at the edge of Flint dealing with his own feathered companion.
Flint ducks in under the shadow of her wing, and Buggie twists her heavy head round as if to follow—clicking at him until his hand finds her side and pats there. Scratching briefly through the bristle of fur down to her warm hide with one hand, loosing the buckle of the saddle bag with the other. The attention seems to satisfy the griffon long enough for him to produce the correct packet from the satchel. With a last thumping pat to the animal's ribs, Flint ducks back to her head and gives her a firm push at shoulder and feathered cheek in an effort to steer her off. Which she ignores, but he doesn't bother to insist on as he instead makes his way across the sand pack.
The twine around the thick waxed paper is picked free and tucked in at the corner of his mouth so as not to lose track of it in the dark. Unfolding the sealed edges as he sidles up to Marcus—
"Let's see it," murmured around the unknotted slip of twine.
There is some other question on the tip of his tongue, to do with the letters, the shack and its current residents, a next task ahead of him. Instead, it stays there for now, a flicker of hesitance where his hand fidgets at the edge of the waterskin—
Turns by a few degrees, a gravelled exhale following that hand lifting, pulling his shirt collar. The speckling of burn-like marks are shiny and pink, one nesting up behind his jaw beneath his ear and dotted down from there before the edge of his collar had protected him from the rest, a smear of discolouration on grey linen but wetted down when he'd washed the area.
"They would have known this place was here for them," he says, looking towards where Buggie has insinuated herself closer, and then towards where Monster is still slaking her thirst, sooty wings folded in neatly and forefeet sunk into soft sand and water. "Could only be a waypoint, still."
Or a rendezvous, although only one cluster of Venatori had been sighted.
A low noise of acknowledgement around the knot of twine—yes, it seems reasonable to suppose that a party traveling must have a destination beyond this scraggly shed—is punctuated by some touch of his small finger against the edge of the pulled down collar. Thumb tucking back the flyaway strands of small hairs at the nape of Marcus' neck. Given a cursory assessment of the mottled angry flecks in the meager light, he smears some of the sticky dark salve up from out of the waxed packet and applies it in a broad stripe over the irritated skin. Crinkle of waxed paper. The bitter smell of whatever it is that's being dabbed on.
Whatever's left on his fingers, Flint wipes on the hip of his trousers. Refolds the edges of the envelope around the remaining slab of medicinal salve, and makes to fish the twine from the corner of his mouth with which to tie it shut again. If he makes the mistake of touching the salve on his thumb with his tongue in the process, the wrinkle of his nose is minor in the dark.
"One of the letters makes note of an outpost. Stop," comes with a stamp of a boot heel to spook off the griffon who's crept in to nip at his coat hem.
Tiny stinging wounds bite deeper under the salve until they don't. An odd little combination of feeling, slickened fingers and acute prickle, the soothing balm after that erases both the bite of venom and the slight tickle of Flint having touched his collar, his hair. Then it's done, and Marcus releases and re-sits the damp linen.
Pivots around but not back with a lazy step, chasing a glance to the chastened griffon, a minor twinge of amusement there as Marcus goes to offer Flint the waterskin to drink from. Something like gratitude, in it.
Mm, he answers, delaying acceptance of the waterskin in favor of finding an interior pocket to smuggle the salve's envelope into. Wiping his sticky fingers off a second time for good measure. They're not scouts. It will be full nightfall by the time the time they might expect to be scouring the foothills for this alleged destination. That might do them the most basic of favors in the sense that it's likely there will be a fire lit somewhere which will be visible from the sky by night, but what exactly will they see otherwise? They would need to weather the night and be prepared to take a second round of observations during the daylight. The equipment packed behind the griffons' saddles is scant enough so as to make the prospect of camping out less.than desirable.
But they likely would spot the place more easily in the darkness than in daylight. And the night might afford them the cover necessary to do so safely. And they will be the flying pair closest. And if the outpost expects to receive the scouting party, their turning up missing within the next few days will only raise alarm.
He takes the waterskin. Drinks from it, the contents slightly objectionable for being lukewarm, and works the plug back in before passing it back.
"See if you can't persuade this one to take water," he says, nodding to the naturally more ashen of the two griffons. "We'll move out and see what can be seen from the sky."
Looping the strap from the waterskin back over his shoulder, Marcus nods to that.
He'll only eat half his biscuit, then.
Steps back and around, collecting the lead tied off at Buggie's saddle, alerting her with a sharp whistle, one that has Monster lifting her head and turning to look, water streaming from her beak. He has, as a matter of good sense, lent some of his free time to the other griffons of the eyrie, supposing he might ever need to wrangle one and not come across as a complete stranger. Even if she has a preferred human, he can coax this one down to the pond.
Here, Buggie takes Monster's cue, remembering her thirst and dipping her down down to drink. Posted between them, Marcus has space and time to unfold his rations and eat, unsatisfactory in how dry it crumbles between his teeth, making lukewarm water a little tastier in contrast to wash it down.
Monster, satisfied, settles down on her belly, and imagines Marcus isn't looking when she angles her beak towards his boots. It's entirely predictable when he feels her take a surprisingly gentle grasp of the loose end of a bootlace and try to work it free, which he allows until she gives a less patient tug, and he jerks his ankle back with a tsk downwards.
If there's any objection in him for camping out in the wilderness away from the main body, it doesn't take root. He has bitched about the Anderfels, and why couldn't the ancient elves or whoever the fuck build their temples in more temperate locales, but there's something compelling about this much featureless space in all directions, the elegant hugeness of it.
Being in Flint's company and enjoying it without concern of stealing time neither can afford, of attracting attention neither want, should likely be even more tertiary than that to the very real importance of hunting Venatori cultists. But it isn't for him to decide what's important.
Posting back up on that soft slab of sand, it takes some minutes for Flint to work his way through the rest of the satchel's contents. One page he turns over and submits to the snub of charcoal he carries in a pocket, scrawling out a series of calculations so that when he communicates back their location and intentions by sending crystal, he may give a more exact assessment of their position. Send someone who knows animals to see to the dracolisks and whatever else may be waiting among the Venatori's effects; mind that one of the lizard mounts is free of the shed and liable to return. And so on and so forth, until there is nothing else to be done save to smuggle that charcoal back into his pocket, fold up the papers, and ignore the part of him that could wish to sit here in the warmth of the arcane runic ring. It will be cold in the air, and it will be a cold and hungry night wherever they end up making their camp. The unspoken possibility that there will be a warm body to sit beside doesn't do much to alter those facts.
Winding the satchel's strap about its body, he finally moved back down to the water's edge. Stows it there in Buggie's saddlebag and takes the moment to tighten the griffon's girth again while she stamps idly at the water's shallow edge, having apparently sated her thirst. Afterward, he leads her up out of the shallows and sets his knee against her elbow. This cue, at least, she is amenable to: folding down to her belly with that graceless crumple of joints so her rider might jam his boot more easily into the stirrup and swing into the saddle. She earns a pat for the trouble once she's successfully rocked back up onto all fours.
"Once we're in the air," he says, steering the heavy animal around with knee and heel; the buttons of his coat aren't meant to close, but he's forcing the topmost ones to anyway. "Fly higher than we have been, and keep your distance. If you make anything odd, report by crystal."
With the griffons' sense of smell to rely on, they're unlikely to become separated for long even in the dark.
Managing to hold off on finishing his rations as he listens in on crystal conversations and coordination, Marcus stows the rest into Monster's saddlebags, knowing a twinge of guilt at the way she turns her head to see if he's going to free her of her equipment, let her roll about in the lake. He pats her shoulder instead and retrieves his armor, securing it just as Flint is getting back up to his feet.
He is retrieving his staff again (faintly glowing runes vanishing, leaving behind a trace scent of campfire ash) as Flint hauls himself up into the saddle, hooking it into its harness as he stands in place, listens to instruction.
"Aye, Commander," he says, before turning his back.
Matter-of-fact treatment in pressing at Monster's shoulder to get her to bow for him, climbing up into the saddle despite some disgruntled clicking. Another good skritching pat at her neck seems to assuage misgivings enough for her to unfold her wings with an aggressive flap, a scattering of dust and soot. She is quick to lunge aside, a leap that lands and then launches up into flight on the kick up, a powering of wings that whorls up find dust beneath them as she begins the arduous task gaining altitude in dead, night-cold air.
If she can make it higher than Buggie, it will have been worth it, Marcus is sure. He encourages her with the press of his boots, glancing back down to where the outline of the shack is quick to shrink. If she burns up some energy now, it can be made up with gliding, later, riding the winds that are certain to greet them once high enough.
Soon, a broader spectrum of nighttime colours await. The curvature of the earth offers a brighter sheen of purple where the sun had sunk, setting off a gradient of cool indigo and blue across the desert beneath. Above, the broad dome of open sky begins to take on the ashier black of night.
Buggie is slower to ascend—takes her sweet time stretching her wings out before rocking back and leaping up into the air in an effort to pursue her sister. A heavy fhwump of wings, a shrill whistle, and then they're clawing up through the atmosphere. Flint double checks the buckles of the harness by habit as they climb. Satisfied by the tug on the line, he sinks his offhand in amidst the whirl of fur and fine downy feathers before the saddle and commits himself to ignoring the cold rush of air that sucks at his cost tails and shirt collar, rushing in the ear.
In short order, the Anderfels is rendered into a smoky blue variegated slab. Not featureless, but strange and dreamlike under the canopy of black sky and its brilliant netting of stars. The world becomes the largest map conceivable scrawled over the dark flesh of some animal hide, and they the roving eye measuring it league by league as they travel west.
They feel their way slowly in the dark, eventually given over from the rowing action of broad wings to coasting along the high wind's currents. Catching one spiraling stream to the next in a constant wandering series of switchbacks that is not unlike the tacking of ship except that the animal is agile and clever enough to manage the changes all on her own nearly before the wind's direction change prickles at his senses to order it.
It is cold and dark, and spying any glitter of light will be luck more than skill. It's possible this is a fool's errand; that they should have loosed the dracolisks and made a more thorough study of whatever else might have been among the scouts' effects. That the silver thread which eventually makes to intermittently stitches itself up through the landscape is not the hardpack sand of a semi-frequently traveled back road but rather some coincidence of the landscape which would be readily apparent if not for the hour.
But he would be irritated if he'd sent any two men out to deal with this issue and they'd chosen to wander back to Riftwatch's camp rather than attempt to chase the scent. To say nothing of the fact that, temperature and the looming future of sleeping on the ground aside, there are worse vantages from which to view the sprawl of the desert than here as a shape floating over it, permitted to glance intermittently in the direction of that silvery-grey mottle of a twin flying in distant tandem.
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"We'll shut them up here."
Someone might be sent to fetch them. They might be worth something, he doesn't say. Instead—
"Get out," has the irritated, clipped tenor of an order. Annoyed with the animal who has begun to twist her head and shift her shoulder, and to lose patient with him. Flint gives her another checking jerk on the rein. "Be ready to close the door after me."
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Outside, the air is abruptly colder than he remembers it being a moment ago, or maybe that's more to do with the aftershock of battle than the slight progress the sun has made at the horizon.
He posts up at the door, glancing then towards the crumpled corpses outside. The burned mess further out, the collapsed figure whose arm he has to stand over. The mage woman splayed out on her front, fallen staff a few inches from lax hand and the shine in Tevene silken robe beneath her light armoring. There his focus catches for a moment, while his hand rests on the wooden door's weathered surface.
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Hence the distinct lack of dignity with which Flint eventually comes leaping across the threshold and out into night air. Having circled the dracolisk around enough times that a jerk and a slap had sent her spinning into one last rotation, she just can't turn quite tightly enough to sink her teeth into him. Instead—head whipping round, the hot scorch of acid spraying after him and splattering the door that must slam shut in his wake.
Fuck's sake.
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They do. He steps back away from it, watching it shudder again as foreclaws rake against the door, but no third attempt comes as he backs up even more.
"Alright?" he asks.
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Satisfied no part of him is liable to suffer from the dracolisk's spray—
"You?" is punctuated by a heavy thunk! against the door from the shed's interior, the whole wall shivering.
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No injuries he can feel, but he can feel the needlepoint burn of errant venom droplets up his neck. Hand hovering up with the instinct to wipe at before he thinks better, before turning his shoulder for Flint's appraisal. Sticky black poison clings to metal and leather in arc up the back of his shoulder, heaving eaten into some of the fur trim already. Give it some time, maybe it will work on the rest.
A soft, barely heard griffon squawk drifts up from the ledge they'd emerged from, but Marcus ignores it and doesn't whistle for Monster to join him, second for the poison but first not to aggravate one vicious predatory species with the presence and scent of another.
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Flint sketches a quick look over the damage, mindful not to actually touch any part of it despite the natural instinct to smooth back the matted fur. Ignoring the bite of renewed irritation for the animal inside the shed, he instead lays his attention over the short distance to the lake's edge. They'll need to search the bodies here in case the Venatori pockets reveal some facet of their purpose here. But it's not as if the bodies are going anywhere. And if they've nothing on them, they may need to reassess the question of the dracolisks being shut up.
"I'd have it off," is suggestion, not instruction. Punctuated with a nod to the dark gleam of the water below them. "Better to see it washed clear now."
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Marcus has one last look towards the bodies, towards the sound of angry bird-like dragon chirps from the shack, and then starts off towards the lake. Moving efficiently, not afraid of the substance eating down enough to injure him, but wouldn't it be nice to save an armor piece from needing replacement? His fingers wander to the most available buckle at his shoulder.
This brawl was not particularly clean, but less of a mess than the last. Less honourable, depending on your standards of honour, but efficient in a sense that satisfies something in him. Of a job done well enough. As if the means in which men and women are killed in service of a greater good has a significant amount of weight as to how well one sleeps later.
Here, at the water, Marcus crouches down, takes a knee. Works at the buckle, frees it. Gets at the one at his arm. Stops at a midpoint to slip his hand into the water, and then palming at his neck, as that niggling itch grows in its sting.
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It takes him ten minutes to come clambering down the bank to join Marcus at the water's edge. But dracolisk venom is a clinging thing and likely there will still be some scrapping or scrubbing with a fistful of cloth and sand occuring by the time he reaches him. There's an addition of a satchel slung over Flint's shoulder, hanging lightly at the hip, and thick packet of letters in hand.
The satchel is dumped. Flint takes a seat on the sandy shelf of the bank, produces the Riftwatch issue lighter from some interior pocket, and pops the string holding the packet of envelopes together with a twist of his belt knife.
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Loosened out of his kneeling, now sitting with a leg folded and the other bent out of the way, a sign of resigning himself to the way this task went from something he imagined completed in short order to a more involved experience.
He glances to Flint coming to sit nearby, and it seems to remind him of the chill in the air. He pauses, leaning back to where he'd placed his staff, grasping around its middle with a hand. Runes flare bright orange, giving off faint light, fainter than a campfire would produce, but in a spare few minutes, their immediate surroundings start to warm in a more focused way than flames would.
The effect stays even once he lifts his hand, returning to his task.
"Is that all of it, between them?" he asks of the loot being dug into.
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"That I can reach." To say nothing of what equipment or personal effects might still be stripped from the dead men and women. "I've a salve in my kit with the griffons," he continues without looking up while unfolding the first letter across his thigh and angling the lighter flame along to read it by. "It should do for your neck."
A fleeting glance fishes up, skates across Marcus, and then reverts back to the page.
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He nods at the offer of salve in time when Flint looks to him, gratitude in the angle of it. A look that converts into a lingering study once Flint turns back to the page, the sharper upwards spill of light making his profile bright against the thickening shadows all around, the subtler cast of a glow at curved back. And then, back to his task, thinking of what remains out of reach, still.
The idea of getting any of this muck in ones eyes, mouth, a fanged bite, does not warm Marcus to the idea of doing anything but herding the dracolisks on their way. Maybe they merely have some scant supplies in their saddlebags. He can't recall exactly if they were still equipped or not.
And other scattered thoughts towards what the next hour of their lives may look like, expressed through a sigh funneled through his nose. He will have that salve once a decision's made.
"Good thing it was Venatori that came out the door," he says, rather than further that item, "and not Anders folk or Wardens or what have you. You'd owe Rutyer a favour or two."
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Good thing.
"Hence your drawing them out at the start."
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A last scrape of cloth over armor, and tilting it towards the glow of his staff behind him for inspection. There's an ugly stripe up the dark leather and spots on the metal, now, a mangy quality to the neat placement of would-be handsome wolf fur trim, an irritation that's easily soothed by imagining what mess he'd be left with had he ducked in the wrong direction.
Marcus sets it aside, tossing the now holey, half-eaten rag he'd been using off into the lake. Checks his palms, which are a little reddened in places. Flint is still reading. The night is still falling.
"I'll collect the ladies," is more an announcement of intent than a suggestion for review, moving to get to his feet. A few paces away and then a sharp whistle that he knows Monster responds to, and imagines her companion will follow along with her at least.
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Somewhere in the purple twilight, two dark shapes rise out from the melt water wash in which they'd been nested. One of the animals chases her sister with an eager whistle, playfully nipping at the lead animal's tail feathers like a naughty sibling tugging at hair or skirt hem—the lack of discipline clear enough evidence that her rider spends relatively little time in the saddle and most of it in transit as opposed to the touchy, dangerous work that her siblings must be routinely expected to confront.
They land with a lumbering version of grace, Buggie splashing down into the water's edge itself. Flint doesn't bother to shield the papers from the spray. Instead, he finishes his assessment of the current flecked page, crumples the papers in half, and resolves to cram the whole packet back into the satchel. Snap, closes the lighter. The soft whisper scuff of sand as he levers himself to his feet is lost under the chirp-chirrup of the griffon already sloshing up out of the water to meet him.
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He glances back in time to watch Flint get to his feet, and then moves around to the saddle, keeping a hand on Monster's shoulder and back as he goes. Rifles around until he finds his waterskin, the strap of which he hooks over a shoulder, a small fold of waxy fabric that contains some biscuit, and cigarette case, which goes into a pocket.
Leading Monster back to the lake, he lets her go once she insists herself forward, but doesn't splash in, just noses at the water edge to drink. Marcus does the same from the skin, waiting at the edge of Flint dealing with his own feathered companion.
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The twine around the thick waxed paper is picked free and tucked in at the corner of his mouth so as not to lose track of it in the dark. Unfolding the sealed edges as he sidles up to Marcus—
"Let's see it," murmured around the unknotted slip of twine.
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Turns by a few degrees, a gravelled exhale following that hand lifting, pulling his shirt collar. The speckling of burn-like marks are shiny and pink, one nesting up behind his jaw beneath his ear and dotted down from there before the edge of his collar had protected him from the rest, a smear of discolouration on grey linen but wetted down when he'd washed the area.
"They would have known this place was here for them," he says, looking towards where Buggie has insinuated herself closer, and then towards where Monster is still slaking her thirst, sooty wings folded in neatly and forefeet sunk into soft sand and water. "Could only be a waypoint, still."
Or a rendezvous, although only one cluster of Venatori had been sighted.
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Whatever's left on his fingers, Flint wipes on the hip of his trousers. Refolds the edges of the envelope around the remaining slab of medicinal salve, and makes to fish the twine from the corner of his mouth with which to tie it shut again. If he makes the mistake of touching the salve on his thumb with his tongue in the process, the wrinkle of his nose is minor in the dark.
"One of the letters makes note of an outpost. Stop," comes with a stamp of a boot heel to spook off the griffon who's crept in to nip at his coat hem.
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Pivots around but not back with a lazy step, chasing a glance to the chastened griffon, a minor twinge of amusement there as Marcus goes to offer Flint the waterskin to drink from. Something like gratitude, in it.
"What do you want to do?"
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But they likely would spot the place more easily in the darkness than in daylight. And the night might afford them the cover necessary to do so safely. And they will be the flying pair closest. And if the outpost expects to receive the scouting party, their turning up missing within the next few days will only raise alarm.
He takes the waterskin. Drinks from it, the contents slightly objectionable for being lukewarm, and works the plug back in before passing it back.
"See if you can't persuade this one to take water," he says, nodding to the naturally more ashen of the two griffons. "We'll move out and see what can be seen from the sky."
He'll read the rest of the papers first, though.
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He'll only eat half his biscuit, then.
Steps back and around, collecting the lead tied off at Buggie's saddle, alerting her with a sharp whistle, one that has Monster lifting her head and turning to look, water streaming from her beak. He has, as a matter of good sense, lent some of his free time to the other griffons of the eyrie, supposing he might ever need to wrangle one and not come across as a complete stranger. Even if she has a preferred human, he can coax this one down to the pond.
Here, Buggie takes Monster's cue, remembering her thirst and dipping her down down to drink. Posted between them, Marcus has space and time to unfold his rations and eat, unsatisfactory in how dry it crumbles between his teeth, making lukewarm water a little tastier in contrast to wash it down.
Monster, satisfied, settles down on her belly, and imagines Marcus isn't looking when she angles her beak towards his boots. It's entirely predictable when he feels her take a surprisingly gentle grasp of the loose end of a bootlace and try to work it free, which he allows until she gives a less patient tug, and he jerks his ankle back with a tsk downwards.
If there's any objection in him for camping out in the wilderness away from the main body, it doesn't take root. He has bitched about the Anderfels, and why couldn't the ancient elves or whoever the fuck build their temples in more temperate locales, but there's something compelling about this much featureless space in all directions, the elegant hugeness of it.
Being in Flint's company and enjoying it without concern of stealing time neither can afford, of attracting attention neither want, should likely be even more tertiary than that to the very real importance of hunting Venatori cultists. But it isn't for him to decide what's important.
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Winding the satchel's strap about its body, he finally moved back down to the water's edge. Stows it there in Buggie's saddlebag and takes the moment to tighten the griffon's girth again while she stamps idly at the water's shallow edge, having apparently sated her thirst. Afterward, he leads her up out of the shallows and sets his knee against her elbow. This cue, at least, she is amenable to: folding down to her belly with that graceless crumple of joints so her rider might jam his boot more easily into the stirrup and swing into the saddle. She earns a pat for the trouble once she's successfully rocked back up onto all fours.
"Once we're in the air," he says, steering the heavy animal around with knee and heel; the buttons of his coat aren't meant to close, but he's forcing the topmost ones to anyway. "Fly higher than we have been, and keep your distance. If you make anything odd, report by crystal."
With the griffons' sense of smell to rely on, they're unlikely to become separated for long even in the dark.
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He is retrieving his staff again (faintly glowing runes vanishing, leaving behind a trace scent of campfire ash) as Flint hauls himself up into the saddle, hooking it into its harness as he stands in place, listens to instruction.
"Aye, Commander," he says, before turning his back.
Matter-of-fact treatment in pressing at Monster's shoulder to get her to bow for him, climbing up into the saddle despite some disgruntled clicking. Another good skritching pat at her neck seems to assuage misgivings enough for her to unfold her wings with an aggressive flap, a scattering of dust and soot. She is quick to lunge aside, a leap that lands and then launches up into flight on the kick up, a powering of wings that whorls up find dust beneath them as she begins the arduous task gaining altitude in dead, night-cold air.
If she can make it higher than Buggie, it will have been worth it, Marcus is sure. He encourages her with the press of his boots, glancing back down to where the outline of the shack is quick to shrink. If she burns up some energy now, it can be made up with gliding, later, riding the winds that are certain to greet them once high enough.
Soon, a broader spectrum of nighttime colours await. The curvature of the earth offers a brighter sheen of purple where the sun had sunk, setting off a gradient of cool indigo and blue across the desert beneath. Above, the broad dome of open sky begins to take on the ashier black of night.
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In short order, the Anderfels is rendered into a smoky blue variegated slab. Not featureless, but strange and dreamlike under the canopy of black sky and its brilliant netting of stars. The world becomes the largest map conceivable scrawled over the dark flesh of some animal hide, and they the roving eye measuring it league by league as they travel west.
They feel their way slowly in the dark, eventually given over from the rowing action of broad wings to coasting along the high wind's currents. Catching one spiraling stream to the next in a constant wandering series of switchbacks that is not unlike the tacking of ship except that the animal is agile and clever enough to manage the changes all on her own nearly before the wind's direction change prickles at his senses to order it.
It is cold and dark, and spying any glitter of light will be luck more than skill. It's possible this is a fool's errand; that they should have loosed the dracolisks and made a more thorough study of whatever else might have been among the scouts' effects. That the silver thread which eventually makes to intermittently stitches itself up through the landscape is not the hardpack sand of a semi-frequently traveled back road but rather some coincidence of the landscape which would be readily apparent if not for the hour.
But he would be irritated if he'd sent any two men out to deal with this issue and they'd chosen to wander back to Riftwatch's camp rather than attempt to chase the scent. To say nothing of the fact that, temperature and the looming future of sleeping on the ground aside, there are worse vantages from which to view the sprawl of the desert than here as a shape floating over it, permitted to glance intermittently in the direction of that silvery-grey mottle of a twin flying in distant tandem.
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