((Wherein will be told the story of Andrei Vlasii, patriotic Gundarakite))
The snow fell. There are people in many cultures who see the small, floating crystals as symbols of purity, of celebration, of child-hood joy spent in it's embrace. What the hell did they know?
In Gundar, the snow just covered atrocities. Buried them, as if the dead never existed.
The figure knelt on the barren, wind-swept rock-face above. He watched, silently. Below him, a tableau. The cages spoke their tales. He didn't need to see their contents. The boy was below, as was the old priest. He said he'd leave them behind. Only his survival mattered, he kept telling himself this. Somehow it just made the words seem more hollow.
The Barovian soldier fired his crossbow. The old priest fell, a crumpled, lifeless marionette as the bolt pierced his skull. He stood for a moment, his body not quite aware that it was dead...and then he fell backwards, staining the ground red. The boy wouldn't have had time to think...
How did it come this?
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They stood in a row, these desperate men...and one girl. Someone was barking orders at him. He didn't care, he knew what they would be saying. An insult perhaps, they may question his patriotism and his manhood. The insults would set the fire inside him, the fire to prove that idiot, barking voice wrong.
It may work for some, but not this one. He had nothing to prove to anyone. Patriotism was a luxury. Individual survival was all he gave a damn about, and individual survival was what he was going to get. To hell with Erlin.
He would later remember that their goal was to check the extent of the Vallaki cell's demise. Right now, only getting past the bridge mattered. He glanced down the line. It appeared that he would be the only one.
There was an old wolf of a man, his black and tattered mane hung to his shoulders and a bow was slung across his shoulder. Old and slow. There was a young man, stubble covering his face. He had seen nothing. There was a girl, of marriegable age. She did not wear the veil, she had no honor nor sense of tradition. Then there was the old priest, the one who spoke the words of the Morninglord, that strange outlander religion that had begun to take hold. Weak and naive.
Then there was him, one bald wanted criminal built to one scale too large. We're all going to die, he thought.
He shouldn't have beaten the Barovian to an inch of his life, leaving the man's skull shattered and brain irreversably damaged. They called him a drain on the state, a drain on decent hard-working Barovians. He probably was, but he was damned if he was going to be called that by a drunk...and then he had no choice but to throw in his lot with the rebels.
"SZABADSAG!"
He murmured along with the cry as the rest of them screamed it. He'd leave them the first chance he got. It wasn't that he didn't feel the passion of the cry, didn't understand what it meant, didn't understand the intent behind that holy, defiant cry...he just thought that the others didn't.
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They travelled for many hours, mostly sticking to the forests. Most of them didn't speak much. Mostly about the task at hand, grim-faced. He spoke a few words to the old priest every now and then, mostly reinforcing his intent to leave them behind the first chance they got. It would be easy...after all, he'd only have to be quicker than a weathered old priest who relied upon a walking stave.
The air was chill, his breath misted as it left his mouth. The joys of winter in the wild, the joys of being a wanted and hunted man who had to break through a bridge patrolled by Barovian soldiers.
They neared their desination as Old Night fell. The torches of Barovian soldiers glittered upon the rise...
