Tusk tried not to look down as he felt himself rise clear of the escarpment, like a bird with broken wings. Borne upwards by the combined strength of Oscar and Daniyah, it was all he could do to keep the rope as still as possible. Creaking, swaying, each jerk sent shivers through the hempen rope, threatening to send him plummeting to his death.

Somehow, he managed to maintain his grip, though his fingers ached with each pull. Faster, he urged, knowing one slip could very well drag his rescuers off the gantry above. If it came down to it, he would sooner let go than see them either of them fall.

Even so.

Tightening his hold on the rope, Tusk counted the seconds, gaze locked on the lip of the gantry as opposed to the depths below. Warm breath fogged the air in front of his face, his heart thumping steadily inside his chest, despite the predicament he found himself in. The good thing about dying was you only had to do it the once, and few met their ends quite so dramatically as this.

Would make for one hell of a story, he told himself, reaching out to seize a stanchion as he was pulled up onto the gantry. Daniyah met him halfway, her voice nearly breaking as she grabbed fistfuls of mail and cloth- anything she could lay her hands on.

'Easy, lass.' His knees met solid metal. Scrabbling forwards, Tusk sank down onto his front, fingers splayed, coated in ash and rust and blood.

Hands rolled him onto his back; the face staring down at him hewn from lanternlight and stone. There was moisture around her eyes. Probably from all the smoke in the air.

'I really need to lose some weight...' Tusk coughed, smiling reassuringly up at her. 'Wouldn't you agree?'
 
Daniyah hit her knees hard enough to bruise, boots slipping on slag and ash as she half-fell, half-crawled the last stretch to him. Turned him over. The foundry’s air was still thick with smoke, tasting of burnt gods and old misery.

She just watched him, the blood-streaked face, the cracked mail, the soot clinging to his form. Skin blackened and blistered where the Cinderlord’s heat had kissed him. For a heartbeat she thought he wasn’t breathing. Then his chest moved and he coughed. Relief hit her like a punch. Tusk was alive. Somehow.

Daniyah forced herself to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Just like she’d been taught to do when panic started creeping in.

“You weigh more than a damned anvil,” she said. Something sharp and wild slipped out of her, might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been a sob.

The lanternlight caught in the white of her hair, hoary strands that spilled like frost over his face as she leaned over him. Her hand went to his cheek then, thumb brushing through the grime and blood, leaving a streak of clear skin beneath. Pushing his hair from his face. He reeked of ash, sweat, and blood. He stank of victory and near death.

“Gods damn it, Tusk,” she muttered, “You just had to jump headfirst into the pit..."
 
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An anvil? Tusk supposed that was true enough. 'Drop like one, too.' How he had survived was anyone's guess. More lives than a damned cat, and not a particularly graceful one neither. Delicate fingers wiped some of the grime from his face.

Staring up at Daniyah, Tusk took a moment to appreciate the weight behind her words.

'Someone had to draw the Cinderlord's attention,' he said, something like affection softening the tone of his voice, rounding edges ofttimes sharp. Recognition of the risks he had taken; sympathy for the hunter whose heart wasn't quite so cold as many thought it was. 'It was never going to be you. Decided that the moment you told me what we were hunting.' Big game. Dangerous even for the likes of them.

'Veteran's... prerogative,' growled the Cazadore, ribs grating as he sat up, a hand pressed to the rail for support. 'Besides... you were always the better shot, and Icebite's too expensive to waste.' A touch of pragmatism to go with the jest.

Walking slow, Tusk gathered up the rope as he went, coiling it about the bridge of his arm. Too stubborn to rest. Gratitude didn't show itself.
 
"Do you even hear yourself?” Her jaw tightened, fists clenching at her sides. Voice trembling with both relief and fury. "You could’ve died." she spat, stepping closer. Before Tusk could answer, she was behind him, arms wrapping around his broad chest in a fierce, almost desperate hug.

Daniyah let him go. She stalked over to Oscar, boot scuffing ash as she went, and rummaged in the saddlebag with quick hands. Her hand closed around a bottle, the liquid inside catching the lanternlight like trapped heartblood. She thumbed the cork free. She smirked tired as she held the bottle up where he could see. “For you, lucky bastard,” she said, voice easy, like she did when she found a flask of something to warm the bones. “You deserve a drink.”
 
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He had always been wary of knives in the back. But a hug? That, he did not foresee. 'Death is what makes life so precious,' the Cazadore intoned, surprised, and more than a little heartened by the gesture. 'To have known so many has been a blessing. To outlive them, a curse.' Steady was the hand that found Daniyah's then.

A gentle squeeze, both parts acceptance and apology. It was all the orkin could muster.

Going back to his task, Tusk watched as the Wraith wove a path over to Oscar. Rarely did a Cazadore wear their heart on their sleeve. For Daniyah to have revealed a glimpse of hers was nothing short of an honour.

'We both do.' Smiling thinly, Tusk exchanged rope for whiskey. 'You ever considered the possibility that you might have a drinking problem, Daniyah?' It was the strong stuff, too. Good for dulling the pain or knocking someone out. Not everyone slept soundly at night.

'To a successful hunt!' Raising the glass, Tusk took a swig, before pouring a thimble onto the stone at his feet. 'For Askel.'

Casually, he passed the bottle back, managing to keep from flinching as pain knifed through his chest and arm.
 
“You talk like you’ve already kicked it.”

She tipped the flask to her lips. The harsh scent of whiskey cut through the heavy smell of smoke. The liquor sliding down her throat like molten iron. “No, I don’t have a drinking problem.” she said through the burn. “... people just have a problem with me drinking.” A sly smirk tugged at her lips. She tipped a little sip of whiskey down the stone. "For Askel."

Her gaze softened for a heartbeat, catching the pain flaring across his features. He tried so hard to hide it. “You’re not walking anywhere. You’re too busted to be walking around like nothing happened. So…” She pointed at Tusk. He had already taken some heavy hits. She’d make sure he got out alive. She jabbed a thumb at the mule, ears flicking nervously at the sound of falling stones.

“You can piggyback me back to camp, or ride Oscar. Your choice."
 
"You talk like you've already kicked it."

'You're the ghosthunter, Niyah. You tell me.' Ashen skin. Coagulated blood. Burns and wounds galore, and still he persisted, like some kind of ghoul in the dark. Haunting, or haunted. Tusk found it was hard to tell sometimes.

'Unless you're packing more muscle than I realised, I doubt you'll be carrying me anywhere.'

Heavy as an anvil, she had called him. That he weighed north of two hundred pounds out of armour didn't seem to faze her none. But he knew that was just concern talking. 'Oscar's done enough for me,' he continued, stubbornly resisting. Had kept him alive so far, hadn't it?

Tusk looked Daniyah up and down. Even bulked up with battle leathers, buckles, blades and pouches, she was a slight thing. Stronger than she looked, but too weak to carry his injured arse up a half dozen flights of stairs.

'I'll walk.' Taking a step, another, he brushed past her, blackened mail rustling with every laborious motion.

Pride helped him reach the end of the gantry, the level above. Cold sweat stung his eyes. Each breath brought with it a pained grimace. Tusk fought for as long as he could, which wasn't long enough.

'Don't suppose I could lean on you,' grumbled the old Cazadore, taking a breather. 'Least until I get some wind in my sails?'
 
'You're the ghosthunter, Niyah."

He called her Niyah. No one had ever called her that before. Daniyah gave a snort, low and half a laugh. "Alive and handsome as ever, you bastard.” she said, hoping that would keep him on his feet all the way back to camp. He looked like death chewing on a coffin lid, but that would not help him to hear. Burned, bloodied, pride barely holding him upright. The stubborn orkin swayed on his feet like a drunk after last call. But Tusk was still alive, it was a damned miracle.

When he pushed past her, she followed, silent but close enough to grab him if he faltered. The air was thick with cinder-dust, gritty stuff that clung to the back of her throat and filled her nose till every breath came out black. By the time he reached the upper landing, breath was a rasping grindstone in their chests. She stepped into his space before he could pretend he wasn’t about to keel over. Her hand slid beneath his arm, looping it around his waist, firm and steady.

“Of course you can lean on me. You make it to the fire, I’ll take care of the rest.” Tugging the reins, coaxing both man and beast forward. Her mind was already on the campfire ahead, on water boiled clean and bandages. Peeling back his armor, the sound of buckles snapping, the stink of burned flesh. Cleaning wounds till he screamed, he would probably snarl and tell her it wasn’t needed.

“Come on then,” she said.

The lantern swaying on Oscar's saddle spat orange, flickering light against walls slick with condensation. Daniyah took the reins in one hand, guiding Oscar’s sure-footed tread along the narrow tunnel. Her other arm locked tight around Tusk. The mule’s hooves clacked against stone.
 
'My hero,' he muttered, grateful for her careful assistance. 'Keep this up and I'll split the bounty sixty-... forty.' It wasn't about the money; it never had been. Helping people, saving lives, making the world a better place for those who came after, that was the end goal.

A lot of Cazadores never made it that far. They grew disillusioned, or else became self-centred. The majority simply perished.

One day, he would too. As would Daniyah. Not today, though, the orkin mused, skin pulled tight about his massive frame. Blood seeped through the bandages he'd been able to apply to his hands and forearms. Patchwork medicine. Not his finest work.

Lanternlight paved the way to the upper levels. Warm and beguiling, it cast back the shadows in their immediate path, so that they gathered in archways and cuts in the stone. Deep and dark. Black as congealed blood. 'I see light ahead,' Tusk pointed out the glow of a campfire, well-hidden from prying eyes. 'You can let go now, lass. I feel-' fine '-steady enough to stand on my own two feet.'

Reaching their homebase, Tusk took to peeling himself out of his ruined armour. Rings of mail came apart in his hands, sloughing away like decaying flesh to decorate the ground at his feet. His ribs flared up in accusation, muscles tightening involuntarily. His heart beat loud in his ears, hiding the distant shuffle of roving undead drawing near.

'Never felt... quite so... shit.' Looking to Daniyah, the orkin huffed, something like a laugh smothered in its cradle. 'Still. Could be worse.'
 
“Sixty-forty?” Daniyah snorted, tightening her grip around his waist as she half-guided, half-dragged him up the path. “Aye, your sixty! You earned it, Bane of Cinderlords..." The air grew cleaner, easier to breathe the higher they went.

A cool wind swept through the stone ribs of the cavern, carrying the scent of snowmelt and high grounds. The hell of ash and darkness was behind them now, though black grit still covered the inside of her nose, leaving every breath tasting faintly of soot.

“Sit down before you fall down,” she muttered as he stumbled ahead of her. While Tusk wrestled with the ruined chain, she moved to Oscar. The mule huffed a tired breath, sides lathered in soot and sweat. "You did well, Oscar.” she murmured softly to the animal, loosening the harness, stripping saddle and tack, letting the beast stretch and snort free in the dim. She patted his neck. He brayed softly when she brushed ash from his mane.

“Lie down, Tusk. I’ll fetch clean water.” Daniyah grabbed a bucket. The mule eagerly followed her toward the silvery daylight, an open sky, and fresh air. After spending some time in the black guts of the mountain, daylight was a knife to the eyes. White, merciless, and searing. Daniyah winced and raised a hand to shield her eyes, daylight stinging tears from her eyes as her pupils shrank to pinpricks. She drew in a long breath through her nose and almost laughed at how pure the air tasted.

She moved slow, half-blind, boots crunching over gravel until she found the stream.

“Your horse is still out there... seems he’s decided he’s a reindeer now.” she told him, setting down the basin beside him.

Daniyah picked a couple of clean cloths from her bag. “Right. Off with the tunic." Let's see just how bad the damage is... She could tend his wounds in two ways... one he’d likely object to. That involved the eight crystals that she carried in a velvet pouch and Askel's ashes. The other was slower, simpler... bandages, salves, and pain.
 
'Aye, aye,' replied Tusk, nodding as Daniyah wandered off to where the earth parted and open sky loomed. 'Get some fresh air while you're at it.' Mountain air. Crisp and clean and refreshing. Just reward for a job well done.

Easing himself down into a sitting position, Tusk watched until he lost sight of her. Watched awhile longer, just to be sure she was gone.

Slowly, he stripped out of the heavy gambeson he wore, freeing arms from sleeves, before pulling it up and over. Blood stained the quilted fabric covering his chest. Shards of stone and small slivers of metal clinked and clattered as gravity beckoned. 'Right. Let's see here.' Lifting up his tunic, Tusk inhaled sharply as his fingers brushed his floating ribs, the skin there discoloured and swollen. Fortune had favoured him enough that he hadn't ended up puncturing a lung.

Bad news was he was probably bleeding inside, which fucking sucked.

'Bagged my second Cinderlord, though.' The laugh that escaped his lips was short-lived. Letting his tunic fall, the orkin focused on his breathing. Enforced calm was still calm. Panicking served no-one except the Matron of Skulls, and she had been after his for some time now.

Footsteps bade his gaze rise. Beneath the clatter of hoofed feet, Tusk detected the soft whisper of soles over stone. Not the drag and slither of the lifeless. Clear, concise steps.

'Probably found himself some lady reindeers to chase after,' said the Cazadore, biting back the pain to smile up at Daniyah. Figures he wasn't fooling anybody, not even Oscar. Still had to try, though. 'Yes. Right.' Averting his eyes, Tusk bundled his tunic into fists, took it off. Someone stuck a knife in his ribs as he dragged it over his head. Twisted.

Cuts, bruises, second-degree burns. Swelling. Parched lips, and a thirst that no amount of water could sate.

'I'll be fine.' Blinking, the Soulkeeper turned away. Easier to lie that way, he found.
 
I’ll be fine, he said... as if words could knit skin or stop the swelling. “Fine...?” she muttered under her breath. Daniyah reached for the water she’d fetched, dampened a cloth. She came up behind him. “Hold still,” she murmured. She reached up. The touch was light, a cool press to the angry red burn on his shoulder blade.

“I can help you, Tusk,” she said. “But you’ve got to let me.” Daniyah stayed there a moment, dabbing carefully.

She dipped the cloth into the basin again, the water biting cold enough to sting her fingers. She wrung it out some, then laid it against the back of his neck. Steam rose faintly where cold met warm skin. Daniyah moved around him in a slow half-circle, quiet as mist rolling over a stone. One hand trailing lightly along his arm, but fingers ready to grab his elbow if he might get the idea to pull away again. As she moved, her eyes wandered over him in silence, the way one studies a wreckage. Cuts, bruises, burns. The kind that blistered and wept beneath the skin.

The swelling along his ribs and gut. Her gaze flicked to his again, then back to his ribs. “You’re bleeding under there.”

“There are two ways to fix this. The first way is slow. Compresses, tinctures, rest." Maybe some of that vile root the mountain folk chew, it would keep his heart steady. “I’m sure you’d like that,” she said, smirking, “Self-torturer that you are. But if we do it your way, we’ll be rotting in this hole til' winter." she said, reaching for the waterskin she’d filled at the stream and held it out. The leather was cool and wet. She held it out to the big orkin.

“Or I use the other way..." The crystals and ashes. "It's faster."
 
Water as cold as the mountain stream from whence it had been taken splashed his neck. A gentle pressure held the cloth fast. Tusk didn't mind. If he ran, she would chase him. Escaping a Cinderlord was one thing, but evading Daniyah when she had set her mind to something was like trying to stop the Sun from rising.

'I know.' Healing hands probed and prodded, tending tortured flesh. Eyes not used to kindness lingered on a spot at the base of his ribs, saw what he himself had seen before her return. 'You're bleeding under there,' she said. Tusk simply nodded. 'I know.'

Rolling his shoulders, the Cazadore mulled over his choices, few as they were.

'Not true. We could go, and I take my chances on the Road.' Bleeding internally was a death sentence, though, not always the quickest. It was three or four days to the nearest slice of civilisation, give or take. Slim odds for a man dying inside. A gamble that needn't be taken.

So. Crystals and ashes.

'Faster. Less uncertain. Doesn't mean it's better.' Daniyah's methods were not a mystery to him. The shards, however, were a different matter. Life-saving. Life-extinguishing. Bad juju, not to be used lightly. 'Would Askel approve, do you think?'

Meeting Daniyah's gaze, Tusk let the question simmer in the space between them. Too hot to touch. 'To use what remains of him... to fix what's left of me?' Tusk already knew the answer, felt in his bones.

Did she?
 
"Worry not. I think Askel would rather see you breathing than buried."

Askel would sacrifice himself for a friend in life as in death. It wasn't often that the dead could actually help the living. But this was one tool for it. The ashes of the dead had a special power. Just like the blood of the executed or the hanged man's secretion. There was a reason why mandrakes only grew under gallows and why women used the hems of their dresses to wipe the executioner's sword. Power. "It will be the last good deed he does on this plane of existence."

She reached for the urn that sat by the fire, its bronze sides blackened from the heat and travel. She poured a small heap into "It is better this way,” she continued, “is made for men bleeding on the inside. For hearts that have ruptured, and lungs that drown themselves.” She poured a heap of ashes into a bowl. This was the remnants of a man who had once laughed, fought, and died beside the Cazadores. Then she added a few drops of oil. She stirred it with the tip of her knife until it thickened into a gray paste.

Setting the knife aside, she dipped two fingers into the paste and stood. Her fingers came down on his bare chest, cool and damp. With the ash-paste she drew the runes: one over his heart, a line of them like a belt over his belly, one on the middle of his throat, one under each eye before she moved around him and painted a trail of runes along his spine. Lifted his hair and painted one just under the hairline. She painted runes on the back of his hands.

Old, odd shapes, older than any written tongue.

Done with the ashes she set the bowl to the side and wiped her fingers clean on her trousers. "Lie down... I’d rather not have to wrestle you to the ground.” Next she reached for her pack and searched for the crystals. They rested in a double-lined midnight blue velvet bag. When she pulled it out, they clinked gently and faintly musical in their soft darkness. "One of each has trailed one of the eight moons." With two fingers, she fished out a red crystal from the pouch. "This one has followed The Beast..." How fitting this one was pulled out first.
 
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Tusk held still as Daniyah drew the runes across his flesh. Magic was fickle and ofttimes volatile when not done properly. The slightest imperfection, the minutest of flaws, and that which healed would instead hinder, maybe even hurt. Insofar as he was concerned, a little pain was preferable to no pain at all.

For only the dead feel nothing, thought Tusk, focusing on a point straight ahead. Like she said, better I remain breathing than buried.

Featherlight fingers traced the length of his spine, weaving shapes and patterns across the patina of old scars and aged flesh. Good thing she used ashes - salt would've burned like buggery. Still. Anything to feel alive.

'Lie down... I'd rather not have to wrestle you to the ground.'

'Are you sure? Could be fun.' Doing as bid, Tusk settled down, cold stone pressing into his back like that of a mortuary slab. Figures. He was already half-corpse. 'Intriguing.' Closing his eyes, the Cazadore listened to the melodic chime echo throughout the long hall. The renewal of dead air, it gave newfound life to those lifeless places lost to shadow and darkness. A low, hungry moan followed. Cadavers reacting to stimuli. Nothing more.

'And the next... Enraptured by The Mirror's reflection?' A second crystal, this one cut from sunlight. White-gold in its radiance. Tusk could've stared into it till his eyes burnt out and his mind went numb. 'Where did you find these, Daniyah?' The old man asked, blinking.

'Do I want to know?'
 
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