Finally, we return to the story at hand. Hopefully, I'll be able to bring myself to be a bit more regular with my updates. Don't quote me on that, but I hope I can get somewhere soon. ____________________ Gerard was slow to come around when he finally did regain consciousness. He lay there for several minutes after he first opened his eyes, wondering where he was and trying to remember why it mattered. Once his brain finally started working again, it quickly went from wondering where he was to making rapidfire assumptions about his surroundings. He could see some sort of material in front of his eyes, and quickly came to the conclusion that the lutins had captured him and stuffed him inside a bag while they decided what to do. The only sane response to that conclusion was to try to escape, and so he tore at the material in front of him, expecting it to be a futile attempt. It took him a few moments to realize that he was staring up at the tops of the trees as soon as he tried that, and he shifted to see that the strip of material had apparently been part of a camouflaged setup on the forest floor, set up to hide him from prying eyes. Somewhat more secure now that he understood that he had not been captured, he looked about a bit until something rustled in the bushes behind him. His hand went to his sword, but it was not there. His sheath was empty. Fortunately, Lois came up beside him a moment later. "How are you feeling?" he asked, voice quiet enough to not travel, but loud enough to communicate. "Stiff, tired..." "How's the leg?" Gerard instantly wished he hadn't asked that. Somehow, his mind had managed to ignore that part of him until now, but having his attention drawn back to it caused a lance of pain that made him grimace, almost to the point of crying out. He pulled back to improvised blanket that was still thrown over his lower body, and looked for a few moments at the splint Lois had thrown together. "Well, it was feeling much better before you mentioned it. I believe I forgot about it until then..." Lois nodded, musing. "I don't think moving on that leg will do you any favors," he commented. "How long do you think it will take them to get a search party out here after us up here?" Gerard grunted, wincing a bit as he tried to sit up straighter. "Usually, we might see someone within a week, assuming Alex and Lucy make it back as quickly as they can. I wouldn't expect any such luck in this case, though. Not only were we attacked about this time next winter, but the Duke is having his wedding the evening before the Yule celebration. Anyone who can be spared will be keeping a tight watch over Metamor's walls to keep our lord and his guests as safe as possible. Metamor doesn't take losing men lightly, but in this case their reaction is more likely to involve a toast in our honor than a patrol checking our last known position." Lois nodded. "Well, that doesn't entirely nix the possibility of finding a cave and waiting it out, but it does make it look far less attractive." He seemed to be nibbling his lip for a moment, stopping when one of his much sharper teeth poked him a bit too hard. "All right. At present our best bet is to move south on our own. Staying here is a death sentence in our current condition." He gave a wave to his own, slightly blood-stained armor, and then to Gerard's leg. Gerard nodded. "Listen, I promised my wife I'd be back to celebrate Yule. While I'm still alive I mean to keep that promise." Lois sighed a bit. "Any way we slice this, it's going to be no walk in the park. Now that you're awake we can go see what food supplies we can rescue from our base of operations, and I should be able to carry everything we need provided we strip the supplies down to bare essentials. That leaves you and that leg..." "I can shift down into animal form. I don't think that would fix the leg problem, but it would give me two more legs to share the load, and I could limp my way along at a better pace than I could manage with what I have now." "Possibly, but we have enough problems without having to deal with hunters seeing you and thinking you'd make a good meal. I'm also not sure how the break would react to that. Considering the amount of physical shifting that would require, we're probably looking at shifting bone fragments, increased damage within the leg. Most likely not the best idea if we want the healers to get a shot at saving it for you." Gerard grunted and shook his head. "Staying like this does us little good either. I'd probably need you to help me along, or we'd have to find a branch to use as a crutch, and either way leaves me hobbling along, with one keeping you occupied and the other involving you finding a good stick we can use; probably several, I'm heavy enough to break even strong sticks." Lois grunted, nodding. "Yes, I see your point. That doesn't make it any easier to decide, it just makes our position a little more clear." He almost bit through his lip again as he considered, pacing a bit with his eyes checking the forest for movement. "I'm willing to do whatever I have to, even if it makes me more of a target. We have to move, and I'll do what I have to if it lets us get moving." Lois sighed. "All right, I really can't see too many other options right now. I still think we need to do a bit better of a job making sure that no one shoots you. The lutins I expect I should be able to deal with, but when we get to the south we'll have the Keep's own archers to worry about. Do you all have some sort of signal system that would tell them that you're one of them?" "Mainly it's just a matter of warning each other. We also tend to avoid going feral unless absolutely necessary for the purposes of the patrol when we're out here. That said, the Keep's hunters will most often check before shooting a creature whose origin they do not know. Hopefully that will prove a saving grace in this case." "I'm still not happy with our chances," Lois said with a sigh. "Not to mention the fact that your leg is unlikely to appreciate any physical shift on your part. Still, if we're going to do it, I want you to be the one that gives the word. Tell me straight up that this is the plan you recommend, and we'll do it." Gerard looked at his leg and grimaced. Even with Lois' efforts to correct the break, there were still a few areas where the skin fell on his leg in a decidedly unnatural position. He considered his chances one more time. Undoubtedly, he would be able to move more efficiently on three of four legs, rather than on one of two. He also knew that staying in the north for very long would give them far too much chance of being found by other patrols investigating the battle of a few hours ago. The point Lois made about the possibility of being shot resounded with him, but he saw little chance of fixing that. He remembered briefly the strange form he had seen on a few other keep residents that had four legs, but kept a humanoid torso, but quickly decided against it. He would be unfamiliar with that body, and the added size would make stealth far too hard. Using his full animal form was his only remaining option, so he finally looked at Lois and nodded. "Lois, I am going to use my quadruped form," he announced. "I need you to help me in this; my change makes me slightly larger, so I'm going to need to remove my splint and my armor. We can save ourselves the trouble of removing the clothing underneath; I don't give any thought for what might happen to it, and it would probably be easier to rip through than to remove with my leg injured like it is. What we do need to consider is that I will feel a lot of pain during the process, so we're going to want to have something for me to chew on so I don't yell or inflict any stupid injury on myself." Lois nodded. "All right, let's get moving. I want to put some distance between us and this camp before night falls, and we're already losing the sun." The two men worked together to remove the splint and the armor. Lois gave Gerard a square of leather, which he rolled and stuck between his teeth before attempting the change. He took several deep breaths before nodding to Lois, waiting for confirmation that the ermine was ready to help if his aid should be required. The shift didn't go any better than the two of them had expected. "Try to change your leg with everything else," Lois counseled quietly. Gerard tried, but even then the pain caused him to bite at the leather until he was sure that his teeth, much more suited to crushing, were about to pierce the leather. He managed to partially shift, but trying to change his leg produced a mind-numbing pain that made him grit his teeth and stop the change until he could finally bring himself to focus on the change again. Lois did his part, trying to anticipate any problems before they happened and do what he could to stop them from causing Gerard any further issues. The leg shifted in ways that made even Lois feel slightly queasy, but he tried to set the shifting break as they went, giving Gerard a slightly less dangerous shift. The stag nearly collapsed after an agonizing ten minutes of fighting, but he was just short of finishing the change. He was stuck somewhere in between forms, but he had to take a moment to catch his breath. He tried to tell Lois that he was almost there, but he only managed an animal grunt, and even that sounded hoarse around his leather gag. Tears created dark lines from his eyes and down along his muzzle. His chest heaved, but he had almost done it. He wouldn't be beaten now. Lois seemed to get the message and waited for a few moments before encouraging Gerard to try again. Gerard simply nodded when the assassin quietly whispered his encouragement and, bracing himself, with fully-formed cloven forehooves braced against a tree, he willed his body to finish the change. He shook as the pain came again, almost convulsing at the pain coming from his leg. He pushed and pushed, but nothing seemed to happen, until he finally simply collapsed on his side, certain that he had failed. "You did it!" Lois said, his own voice sounding breathless. "I don't know how, but you did it." He moved around and carefully checked the stag's leg. "Well, it seems that the change did very little more damage than the lutins did before they left you be. It looks like we've managed a bit of luck there. All right; take what time you need to recover. I imagine you're absolutely exhausted by now." Gerard again tried to speak, but realizing his mistake, he simply lay there, taking the ermine's advice. He was going to have to live with being an animal for a while; hopefully it would accomplish the purpose they had intended. For now he needed a short breather, and then they would be on their way. Lois watched as the stag relaxed some moments later. He quietly checked him to make sure he was alive, but he seemed to be stable. He had evidently either passed out from stress, or simply taken Lois' invitation to take some rest a bit too literally. Not wishing to wake him, Lois retrieved the cloth from nearby and covered the stag as much as he could before camouflaging the rest. He would wait for the stag to come back around on his own. There was no use trying to leave with a mentally and physically exhausted partner. With this resolution, Lois settled back in his tree, hoping that they would still be able to leave before nightfall. * * * Alex collapsed into a guard's arms as he and Lucy finally arrived at outpost after two days of haphazard running from the North. It was only because of how far south the lutin patrol had ventured that allowed them to arrive in that time; they had several times stopped out of complete exhaustion; even running on as straight a line as they could find, their stops had kept them from making it any faster than they did. Lucy had somehow managed to keep herself together throughout the run, but she barely took two steps inside the gate before her legs folded underneath her. Several of the guards crouched around her, trying to bring her around while others ran for a healer. Alex coughed a few times before he was able to catch his breath. He gritted his teeth as he felt he tried to catch his breath, and finally managed to choke out something. It was just barely intelligible, and the guards had to tell him to take a moment to catch his breath before he was able to inform them of what had happened. The request for aid was quickly passed along, and it had come back by the time that the guards had gotten Alex settled in a room for some rest. The contents of that response brought strength back into the exhausted scout's body, enough so that he threw one of the healers into a nearby wall when they tried to stop him. Crossed spears greeted him when he arrived at the gate that led to the courtyard around the mansion of the Outpost's commander, but he was going to have none of it. "Step aside! I have a peace to speak and no one is keeping me from that lion until I've bloody well spoken it!" The guards were saved the trouble of responding to his demands when Nestorius himself stopped just behind the gates and called them off. "Let him in, I thought he might want to see me." The guards stepped back, and Alex resumed his stolid march towards the black lion. His ears were back and his muzzle was pulled back in a fierce snarl, suggesting to the lion that he would not hesitate to rip his throat out should he say something Alex didn't want to hear. "Nestorius, you son of --" "There's no need for that! We're working for the same thing here, we'd best do it without insulting one another." "If we are on the same side, than why don't you act like it? I have two men out there, a high-profile lutin patrol with a mage that might be a threat to us if we don't do something now, and you deny me my request for a rescue party?" "The Duke's wedding is a week away! I have every man available for a patrol out there already, and they're making sure that no one harms our Duke or his bride! If the lutin patrol moves south, they will be stopped; I cannot afford to move anyone right now." "You can afford to send a messenger out and have a patrol move up into the north and look for them! Please, two of my men are out there, and they may still be alive. If they are, they are probably being tortured. I would have no one subjected to that fate. If you have a few men, a couple of mages, I will lead the rescue party myself. Please, do something!" "We're doing everything that we can do at the moment. I already told you; we do not have anyone to spare; ANYONE. We have enough men to guard the walls, but we cannot afford to lose any of them. We have to wait for another week before we can do anything, I'm sorry." "Isn't there something we can do? You're a wizard, you could help!" "I am in charge of this outpost, I cannot just leave. If I could I would do whatever I could, but we have to be careful about this. Moving any of our patrols could let something through, and I will not risk the safety of our lord! For now, rest. Take a few days and head back to the Keep. I'll send someone out as soon as they can be spared." Alex's chest still heaved, as he fought to retain the resolve to rage against the lion. He could think of no other argument he could use, however, and finally let himself sag, perhaps a bit more than he originally wanted to, as he stumbled back a few paces before finally being able to steady himself. "All right," he said, once again feeling his strength fully drained. "You swear to me, though, you wear that you will send out a patrol the moment you can spare them. You send a messenger before the patrol leave to tell one to move north as soon as you can. Can you do that?" "I'll do what I can. The men may need rest after these patrols, but I'll do what I can." <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"> Alex, finally realizing there was nothing more he could do, turned and stumbled out of the door. He somehow found his way back to the room, falling into the provided bunk in a daze. In the back of his mind lingered a thought he refused to give credence, but one that seemed more and more certain now that he knew he would have to wait. Gerard and Vincent were lost. !DSPAM:4e6ebe9e125781804284693!