#thtf

With such a gale blowing, he has only a vague understanding of where he's riding. All in front of him is white. The snow parts under Boz's great legs unceremoniously, piling in pillowy neat rows that hike so high they skim the soles of his boots. He's often forced to shake them hard against the front cinch of the saddle, to dislodge it from sticking between them and the foot of the stirrups.

The paraffin in his lantern is thinning. The white-hot flash of the flame has begun to dwindle into a pallid orange, sputtering and flickering with the last dregs of fuel as the light fights against the frost, trying to stick to the glass of the casing. He mourns the fading wick like a dying star: without it, he'll be swallowed by darkness. Travelling blind isn't something that he's completely unused to, but it is cumbersome. And it does upset Boz, he muses in the privacy of his head.

The poor beast is starting to tire. It must've been at least two whole hours since Simon left Colter, and the weather has only been worsening since, beating down on the two of them as if it intends to smite them. Simon might be willing to admit to himself that he has spent a life following Price like a drunk chases the cup, but there are limits to any devotion. If the old bastard wants skulls cracked in this weather, he may bloody well crack them himself. 

He's close to thinking that perhaps he should just regroup with the rest and call the whole thing off when Gaz finds him. From the pale pall of the whiteout, the first to emerge is the fellow's torch, burning much brighter than Simon's own, followed by the thin, jittery front limbs of his horse, its muzzle obscured by the thick puffs of hot breath that billow around its nostrils. Perched in the midst of the fog like this, mounted atop his steed, Gaz looks half man and half bronco, like some twisted fictional horror straight out of a child's nightmare.

"Scared the hell out of me," the latter laments, having to shout hard over the cutting sound of the blizzard. When he tugs down the scarf bunched under his nose, there are tiny icicles coiled around the fine hairs of his barely there mustache, hanging on the ends of his long lashes, starch white against brown skin. 

"You're t'one who almost rode into me, Sergeant," Simon responds, just to see if it'll earn him a scoff and an outraged look. It does, which he's glad of. Frustration gets the heart going: it'll keep the lad warmer. "Found anythin'?"

Gaz shifts on the saddle, and the fist holding his lantern gives a yank backwards, as if to point towards the direction he came from. "Soap saw a chimney pipe."

How did he manage to do that amidst a snowstorm when one can't see past his own sodding nose, Simon's not so sure. But he's not about to argue if it means they could all get this done and over with. "Smokin'?"

Gaz's handsome face splits into a wolfish grin, all wrong. "Like a ship pulling to port, sir."

The cabin is small, but even from a distance, it looks sturdy in its build. It sits at the south end of the mountain slope, nestled in the iced, hilly curves of a valley, away from the shade of the woods they've just transversed. It seems like a place that could be sweet in the summer, with its sensible barn and the fenced tidiness of the frosted, barren vegetable plots. The windows are lit with the fire of the chimney, shadows of its inhabitants bending and dancing on the snow of the lawn.

It's almost an insult, how simple it is to slither close in the darkness of the night. Johnny has already taken care of the couple posted men supposed to be on lookout, and they find him as he pushes and pulls to search their coats, fingering curiously at their pockets. When Simon dismounts, Soap tosses his way something squared and glossy, hollow when it smacks against the palm of his gloves. A flask, half-empty, the cap loose with frequent use. Etched on the glass side sits a black Rook chess piece.

"How many?" Simon exhales, stepping forward as his hands search for the long barrel of the rifle holstered to his back. The skin of his hands prickles under the thickness of the gloves, and he has to swallow down a sniff of relief when his body kicks up gears, muscle memory working to prime for a fight. 

"Maybe four, takin' off these two," says Johnny.

Gaz is busy peering over the wagon they're huddled behind, smart eyes focused on the front door. "Loud, and sloppy," he adds, fingers already loading the chambers of his pistols, "windows aren't even barred." The thick logs of the walls cotton out the whistles and the cackles, the distinct noises of a gaggle of men who shared a few hours in the company of strong liqueur. 

"So he's not here," Johnny interjects, because they're all thinking it. He's not there, and neither is Ortega, which is good even if disappointing. 

"Not wha' we came here for," Simon responds, clicking his tongue against the front of his teeth, "let's get this done and go back."

The trashing of the wind covers the way the snow creaks under their feet as they close in around the main building, Simon guarding its side while Gaz and Johnny move towards the front. Even tall as he is, Simon has to brace his hand on the fence he crouches next to, almost pulling himself forward to wade through the snow as if it were water. When it's this cold and this fresh, it slips away from between ground and boot, moving to coat his shins and cling to the fabric, up to the back of his thighs.

He's starting to feel the chill of it through the denim, even when the cloth is so thick it'll take a while before it's properly drenched, and he finds himself wishing he could grow a third arm. One clutches the fence and the other his rifle, and he doesn't exactly feel comfortable letting go of either of the two.

Something shifts in the left corner of his vision, and he turns his head to find Johnny signalling to a lump next to where he stands. The blanket covering the cart has enough snow on it that it mustn't have been moved in a couple of days, and it looks stiff with ice when Soap drags it back. 

The expression on the younger man's face has a pointed twinge bristling in Simon's chest, and his eyes follow the movement to inspect the dead chap lying belly up on the bed of the wain. His skin is ashen and pasty, waxy like the wrapper of a candied sweet, and although it must've been a while since he expired, it keeps taut to the gaunt lines of his face, frozen by the temperature. The lids are lax, irises half-rolled into his head as his mouth hangs open, as if forever stuck into a scowl of piqued surprise. He must've fallen backwards, Simon thinks, sizing the diameter of the elliptical bullet hole on his forehead. There are similar wounds on the palms of his grey hands, and he thinks them for a moment nothing different from the one on his head, before Johnny picks a thick, copper-rusted nail out of one of the two. 

Shadows are getting creative with their killings, it seems. That's what happens with too little discipline and too much time for idle hands, in Simon's opinion. He tilts his head to the side in a small gesture of dissent, and Johnny's shoulders move up and down before he's chucking the nail behind him, carelessly landing it in the sea of snow.

He sidles up to the window and waits for Gaz to take the one opposite his before Soap kicks open the door. The men are slow, brain fogged by alcohol and laziness, and one of them tries to stagger upright, short and fat, reaching to his side until Simon shoots at his nape through the glass of the window. It sends shards sprawling all over the tabletop, glistening like diamonds as they shine in the light of the chimney, and Gaz's bullet finds the bloke sitting at the head of the table, chair tilting under his weight, smacking down on the pavement.

Simon catches a flash of Johnny's knife before it burrows in the throat of the third Shadow, so hard it inches down in flesh to the hilt with a loud squelch. It takes his mate only a moment to shake the dead weight off him before he's moving again, taking chase to the last of their unfortunate opponents. He could swear there's a pep in Soap's step as he climbs up the ladder to the attic, an overexcited puppy gaining on a lamb.

The ruckus coming from above bothers neither him nor Gaz. They get busy prodding around the house instead. The cabin's inside is clearly well thought-out, if not a little rudimentary, with scrappy wooden furniture and a pair of low, cushioned chairs in front of the fireplace. The man on the lawn must've been a conscious farmer, because there's a stockpile of preserves and jars piled high on the kitchen cupboards, pickled cabbage and endive, sacks of potatoes and parsnips hanging from the ceiling. 

The Shadows had already started to put a dent in it, too much to account for only six men, even voracious as they might've been. "He was here," Simon concludes, reaching to thumb at an empty jar on the counter.

"Not Graves," Gaz replies behind him, and when he turns, the man holds a clip of paper in his hand for him to take. "Ortega."

The message is brief, stripped down to its bare bones to reveal as little as possible, but not enough that Simon can't make out Graves' angled calligraphy, the slant imprint of the point of the pen as he writes "followed the creek. Santa Ana is calling home." 

"We missed him," the younger man scoffs, waving one arm in irritation, smooth planes of his face wrinkling as his eyes flare up. "We could've had him, we-"

"Who's we?" Simon retorts, giving a shake of his head. His steps are slow as he walks around the coffee-stained table, broken glass crunching underfoot, stuffing the note under the panel of his jacket. "Ortega doesn't come alone. He'd have a regiment guardin' him."

"We could've taken the men and-"

"What men?" The kid still has a streak of idealism that he can't seem to shake off, fresh out of the army ranks, and Simon would've thought it best beaten out of him, if Price didn't like it so much. "Roach is on his deathbed. Rudy can't ride, and Alex and Farah still haven't turned up. This is not what we came for. We jus' clear the way."

The way Gaz's shoulders sag would be enough to make Simon's heart pinch in sympathy, in another life. Instead, he distracts himself by resuming his poking, wandering about the room in search of useful loot. 

Copper-framed photographs line the mantle of the fireplace, bearing the faces of strangers. The short-haired man looking back at him must be the farmer. He appears in a few of them: bent over a shallow pit dug in soft, wet earth, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Stone-faced and resolute, arm in arm with three other men, staring into the lens and offering in their hands a peculiar looking stone towards immortalisation. Another frame houses not a picture, but a document. The fancy text on it is written in red scarlet, in a language too erudite for Simon to understand. But the spelling at the top is telling enough. University of St. Holmes, department of Natural Sciences.

He finds himself much more interested in the third portrait of this array. The woman next to the farmer is phlegmatic, yet her face doesn't manage to appear unfriendly. She sits with her back in a perfectly straight line, wedding skirts ballooning around the weight of her hips, hands folded sensibly in her lap. Her groom stands behind her, joining her gaze into the camera, but the hand he has on the back of her chair reaches for her timidly, index finger curling in the hair laying on her shoulder. 

Simon moves his eyes away from the detail when wood creaks to his right, and does just in time to see Johnny roll the body of the fourth Shadow down the perch of the mezzanine. "There's ammo up here," the man calls, voice slightly wavering over the physical effort, peeking his head out of the balustrade to peer at them.

Gaz tuts, moving from where he's shoving cans of produce into a jute sack. "This place is dry," he says, "could move the women and children here. Seems like it got food, too."

The offer makes Simon hums, placing the frame back down. It's not a bad idea, but he doubts Price will approve. They have a dire need of making it down to Valentine, and camping here would bring them off course. Plus, they'd be staying at a known location, and he wages the boss might still be too much on his toes to be comfortable with that. Not that he himself would be, either.

They work in silent tandem for a while, gathering up whatever supplies could be useful: the photographs get torn out of their frames, valuable copper stored; ropes and ice picks; coffee grounds and dried black beans. In the cabinet next to the bed, he finds inexpensive jewelry and one pack of cocaine chews, which he's glad to pocket. 

"Oi," Gaz calls behind him, "check this out."

The padlock to the trapdoor beside the icebox has a thick shackle hooking the two panels of the split door together, made of stout anthracite metal. 

"Should we find the keys?" Asks the sergeant, sniffling when he swipes the back of his hand under his nose.

"Too long. Better to jus' break it open."

Gaz claps him on the shoulder when he walks away to call for Soap to start loading up the horses, leaving Simon to stare at the lock. It takes him a moment to find the will in his heart to be thorough, to reach for the knife on his belt. It has a thick, sturdy handle with an alloy casting, and it clangs loudly when he starts hammering with it.

It's not the lock that gives, but the door. One of the metal hooks creaks and tilts to the side on the sixth strike of his arm, and on the seventh it detaches from the wood completely, hanging from the still unopened bolt. When he pulls the left panel towards him, the musky, damp air of a basement overwhelms his nostrils, and he has to turn his head a little to wrinkle his nose in annoyance.

The stairs downwards are rickety, but they manage to hold under his weight. Dank wood makes an awful racket, groaning and chirring at each of his steps, and when he gets to the floor, he has to duck his head to stand upright, ceiling too low for his full height. The room he steps forward into is barely that, just a cemented space perhaps a little wider than he is long. 

There's a wooden bench with building equipment, nails and springs, a hammer and screwdrivers tacked to the wall behind it. In the penumbra of the room, with the only light coming from the trapdoor above, he stumbles around until he can put the knife on the worktable to peruse the shelving beside it. 

He has to be careful not to put his fingers in the mousetraps between the rusted packs of barbs, moth-eaten folded blankets and boxes of loose equipment parts. 

"There we go," he whispers to himself when his hand lands on a circular, precious tin of paraffin. He turns the can around, smoothing the dust on its lid away with the pad of his thumb. It has probably stayed on this exact shelf for years, but it still looks usable. Seems like something good could come out of this trip, after all.

The dissonant twinge of a blade scraping makes him twist on his feet, and his vision struggles to adjust in the darkness enough to focus on the reflective sheen of a pair of eyes swimming in the black sea of the room. The bottom half-moons of the irises fade to red when it meets the light above, shining with a white luster.

When you surge forward to press his knife to his carotid, making him jerk backwards until his spine collides loudly against the shelf, he barely recognises you. Your face is the same from the photograph, but the passionless calm you exuded there is gone, replaced by the wide set of your gaze, eyelids pulled back until the sclera is visible. Your skin looks cadaverous in the lack of brightness, and hair escapes the braid to frame your cheeks in frizzy, unkept strands. 

"Give me your gun," you hiss. You hold the blade with both hands, while the rest of your body keeps away from it like it might explode one moment or the other. But your grip doesn't tremble.

"Ghost?"

The echo of Gaz's voice from above makes you push the knife harder against his throat, posthaste. "Give me your gun," you repeat, and this time your gaze flickers down at his side, where his holster sits.

Black Agnes, stupidly calls the voice in his head. An old story from his childhood. His mother had been from Leicestershire, and she had used the old folklore to keep her children in line. Don't wander off too far or the black hag will get you, she would warn. She had to stop eventually, because Tommy had grown so frightened he'd wet the bed every night, afraid he had accidentally misbehaved during the day, that the hag was waiting patiently for nightfall, perched on the tree outside their window, to drag him away with her iron claws.

The blade stings his skin when you lean in, and you turn from fable to woman again when the light pools against the etiolated curves of your cheeks, casting shadows under your lips and jaw. It has him blinking a couple of times, wondering what the hell is wrong with him.

"No," he responds slowly, as if the word comes tentative to his mouth.

He considers when it has been the last time someone has gotten the drop on him. When he tries to think about it, he can't remember. It has something travel down through his bone marrow, heating his very skeleton from the inside out. 

The manic edge of your expression drops a moment, as if suddenly met with your own helplessness, and it takes him a moment too long to react because you shove him hard with a hand on his chest before you're sprinting away. It makes him lose the last momentum of balance he managed to retain, crashing his ribs hard against the edge of the furniture. It knocks the breath out of his airways, and he coughs, pain spreading from the point of impact.

"Fuckin' hell," he wheezes, hearing the fast pitter-patter of your soles as you climb the stairs, his hand moving to his side to rub away the ache.

Gaz swears hard above as he finally manages to set into the chase, and when he emerges from the trapdoor, you're on the other side of the table, brandishing the blade wildly in front of yourself.

Johnny snickers as he rounds the opposite side of it, and the two of you move back and forth, circling eachother, while Gaz stands in front of the door, blocking your exit. "Get away from me!" You snarl rabidly, slashing the air whenever one of them gives any impression of moving forward.

"Is that your knife?" Gaz asks, blocking you with a jerk when your feet make to move in his direction.

"Fuck off," answers Simon, loathing how the tips of his ears still burn in embarrassment. He managed to get his knife swiped by a little thing who barely looks firm enough to stand upright. 

"She one o'them?" Soap sniggers, and Simon has to bite back a groan.

"Course she's not one of them, look a'her." Dressed down to your chamise, he can see the turgid, livid handprints around your biceps, the fading yellow of a bruise on the lower curve of your jaw. There are bags pooling purple under the heavy set of your eyes, but apart from that and the scrapes around your soles, you look intact.

You jolt backwards, and when Soap lounges after you, he bumps against the tabletop, making plates and cutlery and Gaz's lantern roll off it. The glass of the latter smashes on the floor, and the cold air of the room feeds the chemical flame , crackling up.

It makes you squeal, flutter your feet away from it, and you move blindly, unconscious of the fact that it lands you directly into Gaz's arms. His hands find your forearms to prevent you from clawing at him as he immobilises you, plastering your spine to his chest. "Easy now," he soothes, curling his lip at his mate, "for fuck's sake, Johnny, watch where you're going!"

Simon takes the occasion to retrieve his knife from your palm, swatting your wrist away when you go for his face, screaming like a banshee. Your voice has a shrill, offensive quality that grates on his meninges. 

Johnny tears a blanket from the bed and tries to cover a portion of the growing fire to snuff it out, but the heat is so aggressive it eats through it almost immediately. "Ah, shite," he gripes, rubbing his knuckles over the shaved nape of his mohawk, "sorry. It's goin' now."

Simon motions for you to be passed in his direction, and when you land in his arms with a whoop, he presses a hand between your shoulderblades to push your front flat on the table. The motion sends you into a frantic fit, trashing against his hold and kicking your legs back in hope to land them somewhere painful, but it's easy to manoeuvre around as he ties your hands behind your back. 

"She's coming with?" Gaz lifts a brow, stuffing the last jars that will fit into a bag as he holds the door open for Soap to pass through carrying the remainder of the loot on his shoulders.

He tries to make up the argument in his head that it you could be harbouring information, having spent three days with the Shadows, but the uncomfortable reality is that the uneasiness that has sprung in his throat the moment you put his blade to his neck has yet to pass, and the thought of leaving you here to go up in flames with the rest of your cabin leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that he's not too keen to investigate. 

"Price will wan' to see her," he offers only, motion of his hands quickening. Between the three of them, it's easy then to bundle you up in a furry hide they retrieve from the bed and stick your feet into too-big shoes, even as you scream and moan your displeasure. Your mouth keeps spewing insults with a gull you wouldn't expect from a captive, directing a list of heathens, bastards, degenerates at whichever one of them ends up in your field of vision.

When Simon drags you out of the entrance by your bicep, you stumble a little through the inches of snow, shivering when it hits your bare knees. "Let me go," you try, and Simon is disturbed to hear that you don't shout this time. You murmur it at him, in that same low tone you had in the basement, like you pathetically think him more malleable than the others.

The disquiet from before bubbles up in his gut again, and he tightens his grip on your bicep in response, sure he's hurting you. "Shut up," he barks, lifting his free hand to whistle, trying to find Boz in the distance as the animal trots towards the two of you.

He pulls you forward to walk towards it, and almost loses his equilibrium when you jolt to the left as he's mid-step, one foot up in the air. Gritting his teeth, he turns his head to berate you, but he finds you looking away, so still you seem frozen. Your eyes point a few feet away, where the head of the farmer lolls out from under the snowed blanket, hanging from the cart.

You whisper something unintelligible under your breath, and when you make to move towards it, you're held in place by Simon's hold. What the hell do you think you're doing? 

He suspects you're about to start screeching again, but you simply turn your head and meet his eyes. There's old blood in the curve of your left nostril, like you've scrubbed it away and missed a spot. The inner points of your eyebrows draw together, vexed, and for a moment you almost look like you're scolding him. The expression has that horrible feeling resurfacing, and he lets go of your arm as if poisonous, snarling.

The clear display of uncomfortableness doesn't seem to bother you, because you spin back around and start hobbling in the snow towards the cart. Fine, then. It's not like you can exactly run away now.

It seems to earn him a few moments of silence as he checks the buckles of the saddle, pulling down the stirrups from where he's tied them up, letting the reins loose from around the horn. He pretends not to notice when your shoulders bob up and down, frail, bent over the body of the farmer, making such sad, wet noises. The weather is turning, he thinks. They might even catch some sunlight before they'll be back in Colter.

When you straighten back up, your cheeks are gloriously dry. You fiddle with a thick band of gold when he hoists you up on his horse, staring down at it while Simon leads the beast to line behind Gaz and Johnny's.

"You alrigh'?" He asks for no reason, clicking his tongue for Boz to pick up speed.

"Yes," you say, quiet again. The wedding band almost slips out of your hand and you slide it on your thumb, where it still sits large. "They... I... He was my husband."

---

Everyone is still sleeping when they get back. The only one awake to greet the meager, dull sun rays that manage to peek through the low stratocumulus darkening the sky is Nikolai, who toils under the shed to keep the firepit lively, a stick-thin cigarette tucked between his lips.

The man palms his belly over his thick fur coat as he watches the four-headed line of them pull into the camp, eyeing the bags hitched to the horses' rears with interest.

"They are for us?" He considers, the tip of his fag dispersing ash as he talks, but he's moving towards them before any response, hands already lifted to help unpack the animals.

"Good morning to you too, Nik," Gaz sighs, throwing him a grin as he dismounts. His palomino gives a good shake of its elegant back, jostling the loot harshly, stomping one front hoof in discomfort, and his owner hurries to grab some of the hay stacked next to the hitching pole to start drying the sweat that has pooled under the saddle. He turns to offer some to Simon with his free hand when the latter joins him.

"Yes, yes, it is a good morning," Nikolai agrees, with an inconsiderateness that can only mean he's sarcastic, sending a look towards Simon when he grabs your waist to lower you from the saddle. You've been quietly contemplating the buildings of the abandoned encampment ever since you spotted them from a distance as they rode in, and now you blink your ghoulish eyes as you turn your neck like an owl, scrutinising.

"Why the lady has hands on her back?"

The accented question has Simon's attention back on Nikolai, who is staring at rope binds around your wrists with corrugated eyebrows. 

"Cause we're detainin' her," he responds, looking back at the Russian dispassionately. His hands busy themselves in slacken the belt of the front cinch on his saddle, and it has the immediate effect of making Boz's raven barrell expand in a contented sigh, stretching its neck forward to distend the muscles.

"Yes, yes, I see. But why on back?" Nikolai tuts, gesturing widely around with the rolled-up he plucks from his mouth. "You three big men, she's one little girl. да ладно, it's embarrassing!"

"Yeah, it's embarrassing," mimics Johnny as he passes along with a sack slung over his deltoid, earning a hard shove from Gaz that makes him slip over the fresh snow.

The protestation has Simon's shoulders rising to his ears in irritation, spine rolling inwards in ill-concealed exasperation. If only to put an end to the chattering for the sake of his own sanity, he reaches behind him and grabs the cord of the knots, unsheathing his knife to slide the blade clean through the middle.

You jolt forward with the loss of tension when he does, and it takes you a moment to straighten back up, destabilised. The line of your collarbones trembles for a moment, and you roll one arm and then the other into their sockets, testing. 

"Thank you," comes your voice, almost gentle, but your eyes are set only on Nikolai as you speak, palms rubbing the chafed flesh of your forearms. The acknowledgement makes something in Simon's chest prickles: you've just spent three hours riding plastered to his front, leeching off his warmth, and without granting him a single word. He regrets not making you ride with Gaz, but Boz was much better fitted at carrying double the weight.

"Of course, малышка, of course," replies the older man, extending a hand to rub your back, leading you gently forward on the shovelled path as if he's afraid you'll keel over, and Simon almost balks when you let him. "Let's go warm to the fire, yes."

There's a headache growing in the space between his eyebrows, so he decides to ignore the blaring alarm in his head that tells him that he's just made a mistake and rubs a calloused palm on his frost-bitten cheeks. "Is Price up?"

Nikolai turns his head, looking back at him over the curve of your shoulder. "No. Only me and the sun."

Perfect.

Their Russian cook feeds you chewy, stale bread and pinecone marmalade for breakfast, and you eat in restrained little bites under Simon's chary glare as he helps Gaz and Johnny sort out the loot they've packed. The food has been scarce, this past few weeks, and these new findings should keep them afloat a few more days. The ammo and the utensils they've picked up rest on the table under the shed, for now. Later, when the rest wake, they'll be distributed accordingly.

They're offered three chipped mugs of unsweetened, black coffee so acidic it burns the top of his mouth when they join you two around the firepit. Simon has spent almost twenty years in America and he still can't quite swallow the taste of their coffee, but he needs something to keep himself alert after the whole night trekking through a blizzard. He had almost thought to slip a chew between his gums earlier, but that would've negated the chance of any possible sleep for the rest of the day. He'd murder for a proper brew.

You bristle a little when they sit down across from you, but if you give any more reactions, they're not apparent to the eye. You just sit there on the felled log that acts as a bench and tug the hide around your shoulders closer to your body, occasionally. When Nikolai passes the coffeepot back into your palms, you occupy yourself with stirring the liquid continuously to keep it from burning.

"Were there many?" The Slav questions, accepting a grateful grunt from Soap with a nod of head when he offers him a buttered slice. 

"Six," Gaz replies, detaching his lips from the rim of the mug, "he wasn't there. Ortega must've passed through, though." 

"Ah. Troubles any?"

"Not much, other than we almost got stuck in a bloody blizzard- Christ, Nik, is there at least some honey? This thing is undrinkable."

"Hе-а," the other hums, shaking his head, "all gone. No bees with the fucking snow, eh?"

"How's Roach?" Simon interrupts when he manages to swallow another painful sip of coffee.

It's Nikolai's turn to falter, exhaling as he settles back into his seat and rubs the worn fabric over his knees. "The boy is bad," he admits, like it costs him something. Simon can feel it around him, the disappointment that lifts into the air immediately. They're not a hopeful bunch, but this part is never pretty. 

"Laswell is keeping the bandages fresh. I beheaded the last goat today," the older man continues, crossing his arms over his barrel chest, "made him drink some of blood and water. He kept it down. That is good."

But not enough. Without actual medical attention, Roach will perish on the dormitory's dingy cot, shivering from the cold like a dog. And they're still weeks out of town, with roads that could be littered with Shadows that force them to advance at a purposelessness pace. 

"Alex and Farah?"

Nikolai shakes his head yet again, and then rubs a hand over his scalp to plaster his hair away from his face. "And I made stew with goat," he adds as if aware of the drop in morale, nodding with his chin towards a large simmering pot a few feet away.

It doesn't do much, other than prompting Gaz to let out an exhaled "thank you, Nik."

The mournful huddle is interrupted by the ramshackle door of the dormitory creaking open, and Simon watches as Price tilts his neck back and angles his face up towards a feeble beam of sun. One of his hands comes up to smoothe his fingerpads over his mutton chops as he inspects the horses tied to the post, eyes already searching.

"Price," Simon calls to spare him the effort, lifting a hand in greeting.

Price's gaze slides carefully over their group as if to do a headcount, checking for visible injuries. "You all solid?" He asks, but his stare doesn't move from where he's found you.

"As much as always," Soap replies, brushing crumbs out of the front of his jacket.

Their boss's head tilts to the side, and he pats his front pockets without looking away. It's only when he conjures a cigar between index and middle finger that he shifts his attention to it.

"Simon, I'm going to have a smoke, if you don't mind," he starts, trapping the cigar in his mouth to light it, "and then I'll join you inside, uhm?"

It's easy to read the command there, so Simon moves to shift his weight on his feet and stands upright. The flash of fear is back on your face, only half-hidden, but he chooses to ignore it as he plucks you up from the bench by your arm, hearing how you gasp when the jerk almost has you step over the coals of the fire.