One worthless life?

Highlands - Dunland <>

The highlands slope down into a huge valley, containing the steel gray surface of a large lake. The water\'s surface is completely flat, mirroring the thin line of trees by its shores. Beyond the lake, mountains jut upwards, their sides rocky and containing numerous small crevices, some leading into caves rich with gems. Clouds drift quietly through the valley, leaving it both cool and strangely silent.

A rustic house stands proudly within a small clearing, protected by a ring of tall oaks. The house itself is small but quaint. Here and there, the signs of a recent fire can be distinguished, the wood blacked to ash in parts, the nearby brush small and new, struggling to survive on still ash stained ground. On the rolling hills beyond, a small herd grazes peacefully on the wild grass. All around you a symphony of nature\'s best puts on a peaceful performance, the ancient oaks whispering words of wisdom to those that would hear.

Obvious exits:

East leads to Highlands - Dunland <>.

Dusk is here and the light is dimming above the sacked Wulf farmstead, though the deepening shadows do little to hide the carnage that has taken place here. Those who could have fled, but those who could or would not have paid a heavy price. Bloodied heaps that used to be men lie dotted around the outer walls, whilst in the lee of the farmhouse a little boy lies unmoving as the carrion crows pick at his eyes. Gariag\'s men move among the still forms, checking whether any still breath.

Brev sticks his knife in the ground - if any wished to quarrel with him they\'d have done so by now - and turns his attention to the nearest victim, the girl who unwittingly shielded Ceann Brodie from speeding arrows, and sets a hand to her throat to determine whether she is yet breathing, or merely a corpse.

[Cecilia(#23897)] Molly is pale, her face a very unhealthy gray. Three arrows struck her, one in her right shoulder, one in her thigh, and one sunk into her side that looks quite grave. Blood has soaked into her dress around the shaft that\'s sunken into her flesh a few inches from her navel. But, there is still a faint pulse at her neck and she\'s taking short breaths.

Brev grunts, and peers at the arrows doubtfully. \"Is your miserable life even worth trying to save?\" he mutters sourly, but sets his hand to the arrow in her shoulder - then halts, frowning. \"Don\'t go anywhere,\" he instructs the unmoving form with a twitch of the lips for his wit, then heads off down to the shore of the nearby lake. Presently he is back with an armful of plants with sword-shaped green leaves. He pauses, staring glumly down at the girl, then sets down his burden and reaches again to that first arrow, giving it a quick jerking tug to see if it will free easily.

[Cecilia(#23897)] The girl gasps when the arrow is yanked out, her brow creasing as she utters a small moan of pain. After a moment her eyes flutter open and she tries to focus her vision on something concrete. Slowly Brev comes into view, and rather abruptly the young woman screams in panic and struggles to drag herself away from him.

Brev tosses the bloodied arrow away and hisses harshly, \"Lie still, damn it! You /want/ to die?\" Moving back out of her field of vision, he frowns down at his pile of leaves and roots. \"He used to crush them - I think,\" he murmurs quietly to himself. A stone provides the fastest way to achieve this, and soon he has a pulp-filled pad to press against the wound. Leaning forward again, he rips at the shoulder of Molly\'s dress with his free hand.

[Cecilia(#23897)] Molly is crying, tears streaking down her cheeks as she lays on the ground in pain. \"I don\'t want to die! Don\'t kill me! I\'ll lay still..\" Perhaps the poor girl is misinterpretting his intentions because when Brev rips the dress more sobs shake her slim body. \"My family.. why did you have to kill them all?\"

\"Didn\'t,\" Brev answers curtly, ignoring the sobs and scowling thoughtfully at the wounded shoulder. He lets the blood flow free while he tears a strip from the dress to serve as makeshift bandage. The pulp-filled pad is pressed against the wound and the strip tugged into place without another word, but then he eleborates, \"I was supposed to stay with him. Brodie. Only ... buggered it up, didn\'t I?\"

He shrugs, then looks down at the tearstained face. \"Ach, Kiern, you probably will die,\" a sudden honesty compels him to admit. \"A deer stuck like that wouldn\'t last long. I\'m sorry.\"

[Cecilia(#23897)] \"No.. no.. I don\'t want to die. Terrence.. he\'s coming back to get me. He went to warn them and he\'s coming back.\" Tears continue to flow down Molly\'s face and she reaches a hand weakly for Brev\'s arm. \"Don\'t leave me. The pain is going away.\" Her brown curls are spilled around her in the dirt and she\'s begun to show a dreadful pallor as the blood continues to seep into her garments.

Brev hesitates. \"Uh-\" he mumbles, and reaches down to grasp the girl\'s hand. \"Want me to try and yank the next arrow? I don\'t have to.\"

[Cecilia(#23897)] Pulling it out will likely end her life quickly, but her death seems rather decided anyhow. Molly sucks in a breath and nods. \"Yes.. I can\'t die. Terrence.. We\'re to marry.. He promised me that he would come back.\" She seems to be fading, her hold on his hand getting weaker. Brev may have blown his cover for nothing.

\"Fine then.\" Brev pulls his hand free again, and starts preparing another of those pulp-and-leaf pads. \"Not like I have anything else to do, eh?\" He is unsmiling.

\"They don\'t come back,\" he says at last, savagely, seemingly venting his frustrations on the nearest object available. \"They may promise, but they never come back. Right then.\" He reaches not toward the arrow in the girl\'s side, but the one in her thigh.

[Cecilia(#23897)] \"He will come back. Terrence loves me and I love him. We\'re going to get married. He wants sons.\" Molly has a distant quality to her voice, the bleeding around the wounds beginning to slow as her heart has less blood to pump. When Brev wraps his hand around the arrow on her thigh, she doesn\'t even respond, so far gone into shock is the girl.

Brev yanks the arrow out, ignoring the flow of speech, and presses the leaf pad into place, this time using knee pressure to keep it there while he rips the hem of Molly\'s dress into a second bandage. \"You still there?\" he asks, and shakes his head as he gazes skeptically at the remaining wound. \"Hardly worth touching that,\" he comments then murmurs, half to himself. \"Kiern. All it would have taken was one worthless life and I\'d be back in Caerdh. Not like it looks you\'ll be making much use of it, anyway.\" He gives the weakened girl a filthy look.

[Cecilia(#23897)] The girl doesn\'t respond to his question. Already the blood has ceased flowing from her wounds and her chest has stopped rising and falling with breaths. The young woman is with Kiern now, her eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky and her flesh growing cold.

Brev hesitates a few moments, then simply shakes his head. \"Damn.\" He reaches out his hand to close those sightless eyes, then gets to his feet, glancing around. His eyes fall on Molly\'s axe lying on the ground nearby, its hilt stained with a splash of Brodie\'s blood, and he picks it up, running his hand along the blade. Nice tool, useful for a carpenter ...

But for once Brev the scavenger does not take what is so plainly there for the grabbing. Crouching for one last time, he folds the girl\'s cold hands around the hilt, just as though she were some battle-hardy warrior being laid to rest. \"\'Least you died believing in something,\" he murmurs, softly, and turns away, swiping a hand across his face as he, moves to follow Garaig and his men back to Iolair. Asked about his delay, he merely shrugs. \"Making sure there was naught left back there but worm food.\" His voice holds its typical scornful timbre - but the musccle is jjumping in his cheek.