Squelching mud underneath decaying leaves, and he has those, too, in handfuls; shoved into his ridiculous clothes, but they were at least easy to move in. Down the front of his shirt, and he feels the damp, ducks and brings Chenqing up to deflect, calls to Lan Zhan:
"I'm here, at your rear left," and uncertain of the number of feathers he's grasped. Enough, he thinks, for two, three, four doses; he has to hope. It's a start, and would half a dose make it survivable?
No, but only he would try, as the dead shift and sway and for improbable moments take turns, rather than rush again at Lan Zhan, the bared blade, their wounds nothing to their nature but an impediment to movement.
"The horses?" A pause in words, but not movement, not the brief, smooth staccato he trills, and the pause it buys them all, as the dead jerk and shudder and listen, as ordered, stop. No, a pause after that, too, and he asks, "Do you know where yours stays? No, it doesn't matter. Lan Zhan, fall back, this way."
A hand reached out, a sleeve grabbed, then sliding fingers to a wrist, to an arm, offered support in flight. This way, to the horse he knows, and to the tune of heartbeats purchased against Chenqing's dark weavings, and the cry of whoooooo they leave behind.
The one horse, found, stomps and throws its head, nostrils flared at the scent of blood. It stamps and dances away, but stays silent, capable of that much self preservation, and if any other horse is here, Wei Wuxian does not see it at first. Intends, in the way of men walking narrow bridges, to get Lan Zhan up first, saddled and before him, because speed and haste and other, deeper fears, the ones that have visited nights like these, and his own lacks highlighted against the Rembrandt shadows of his strengths, one and the same, inextricable.
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"I'm here, at your rear left," and uncertain of the number of feathers he's grasped. Enough, he thinks, for two, three, four doses; he has to hope. It's a start, and would half a dose make it survivable?
No, but only he would try, as the dead shift and sway and for improbable moments take turns, rather than rush again at Lan Zhan, the bared blade, their wounds nothing to their nature but an impediment to movement.
"The horses?" A pause in words, but not movement, not the brief, smooth staccato he trills, and the pause it buys them all, as the dead jerk and shudder and listen, as ordered, stop. No, a pause after that, too, and he asks, "Do you know where yours stays? No, it doesn't matter. Lan Zhan, fall back, this way."
A hand reached out, a sleeve grabbed, then sliding fingers to a wrist, to an arm, offered support in flight. This way, to the horse he knows, and to the tune of heartbeats purchased against Chenqing's dark weavings, and the cry of whoooooo they leave behind.
The one horse, found, stomps and throws its head, nostrils flared at the scent of blood. It stamps and dances away, but stays silent, capable of that much self preservation, and if any other horse is here, Wei Wuxian does not see it at first. Intends, in the way of men walking narrow bridges, to get Lan Zhan up first, saddled and before him, because speed and haste and other, deeper fears, the ones that have visited nights like these, and his own lacks highlighted against the Rembrandt shadows of his strengths, one and the same, inextricable.
"Lan Zhan, can you mount?"