Robin and her team ride through the night and then all day. Their horses are tired, but the power flowing through Robin's veins lets her keep them going past when they should have stopped.
            When they arrive at Little Spring, the fighting is long since over. There are wounded, but no dead, and things are in good enough shape that they have aid with their horses.
            Grizzle, who is senior at Little Spring, greets Robin and tells her about the attack. It was very odd, because at first they expected it to be bloody carnage. They sent their runner when the enemy fell on them.
            But in the end, for all that the wild folk were vicious, what they did was t ake Breeze, a young Ranger. At a certain point in the fight, he stopped fighting the wild folk and began crying to go with them. Grizzle tried to stop them from taking Breeze and got a hard blow to the head for his pains.
            Grizzle has no idea what they wanted with Breeze or where they went afterwards. They just melted into the forest, and the troop from Little Spring couldn't find their trail.

"Breeze, hunh?"  Robin turns her eyes off into the forest, seeking the cold trail.  And answers.  The sudden stiffness shooting through the girl indicates that she's leapt to at least one of those things.
            "Grizzle?  I need to talk to whomever on your team knew Breeze best."  There's a certain grim note in Robin's voice as she turns toward the older Ranger.
            Casting her gaze back to where the rest of her team is taking care of the horses, Robin's green eyes spark with inner thoughts.  And in an equally grim voice she murmurs to herself.  "Dung."

[OOC - Given that the Rangers are a pretty private bunch, but also given that Robin's known many of these guys most of her life, she's reviewing her team for two factors.  1 -- Their parents -- does she know who or at least what they were?  2 -- Whom among her team are 'kind-lovers,' Ranger-slang for gay.]

[Totter's a kind-lover. Robin doesn't know anything about Rain, who was recruited by Brita. Nobody  has, to her knowledge, anything odd about their parentage.]

Grizzle brings forth a young man named Levet to meet Robin. He's Breeze's best friend, and Grizzle doesn't say it in a way that suggests they're anything more.

"Levet."  Robin nods to the young man with a sad smile, wishing they could meet under better circumstances.  "I have to ask you something about Breeze.  I wouldn't if it weren't important."  The girl's lips press together unhappily.  She doesn't like 'prying.'  "Do you know anything about Breeze's parentage?"

Levet seems a little in awe of Robin. He looks around, making sure there's not anyone close to listen.
            "Ma'am?" he says. "I don't know if the rumors are true, either 'bout you or 'bout him, but they say that the Warden, well anyway, what they say is the Warden's son is Breeze's father. Don't know if it's true, though."

Robin presses her lips together and nods to her interior thoughts.  "I don't know if it's true either, Levet.  But it might explain what happened here."
            "Well," the Ranger dusts her hands off on her thighs with short sharp slaps, "Going to have to go get him."  She smiles wryly to Levet.  "Thank you."

"You're welcome, ma'am," Levet replies. "If there's anything else I can do, or if you need one more on your team, I'm your man."

"Thank you, Levet."  Robin smiles and putting a hand on his shoulder, she gives the young man a rough comradely shake.  Looking the Ranger over, and remembering her own exclusion from the Brita-hunt and her exclusion of Conner from the Daeon-hunt... something gives within Robin.  And for better or worse, she looses a little of her edge.
            "Right then.  This way."  The Ranger gestures with her head as she turns back toward the encampment.

Then she strides back toward the bustle of Rangers.  A short whistle is let off to assemble her team, and she gestures for Grizzle to join them.

Everyone joins her, including Grizzle, and they wait for her word.

"K.  I'm going in.  This will be a Deep Dive.  Volunteers only."  Green eyes sweep over her team. "I mean to keep it small.  And since chances are we're on a Succubus Hunt," Robin cites an old argument used to allow women into the Rangers, "I'm only looking for Rangers who think they can out-stubborn Vista." 
            A wry twist slides onto Robin's lips.  She knows that list has got to be pretty short.  But when Artemis came barging into Heather Vale, it was Vista and Conner who retained their heads.  So that's the level she's needing.
            "Rain?  I figure you and me slide past that little requirement.  But for the rest of you guys, we're looking at some serious seduction power.  So *think* about it.  'Cause I don't mean for those Arcadian bitches to get any more of my men."  Robin's voice is grim as her eyes glow eerily green.

Rain smirks and comes to stand by Robin. Totter moseys over as well, as does Levet.
            Needle shakes his head. "I need to stay in case Ranger Brita returns," he says.
   
Robin nods her agreement, a flash of gratitude in her green eyes that Needle come up with it on his own.  She didn't have to suggest.

Pistil thinks about it for a long moment, then goes to stand by Needle.  "Sorry, Robin. I ain't that stubborn."

A quick smile darts across her face.  There aren't many who are and No-Sun is going to need its Senior in the coming days.

Bay nods at that sentiment. "Julian's gonna need some of us who've been in the Deep since the Black Road left." He eyes Avid. "Course, you're a stubborn son of a bitch, kid, so maybe you should go, and leave us Cranny and Marquer."
            Avid looks at Marquer and Cranny and they look back at him. Marquer says, "Out. Sorry, but I'd be a liability on a succubus hunt right now." He shakes his head ruefully as he moves over to Bay and Needle.

A sympathetic chirp/chuckle goes through Robin.  Boy!  Can she sympathize with that right now!

Cranny says, "You got enough if you take Avid, Robin, or do you need me too?"

"If Avid wants to come, I'll take him."  She nods over at Badger's friend.  "But I'm figuring that five is close to all footprints I want to manage."  She nods grimly.

Avid and Cranny look at each other, and Avid comes to stand by Robin and her team.

"I want to push on as soon as you can manage."  She looks over those who have elected to Dive.  "But if you've got tiredness issues, I ain't looking to carry anyone.  So tell me if you need a rest."
            Then she turns back to the others.  "Needle.  Get back to the Warden as soon as you can.  Tell him that I'm thinking this strike might have been to gather... a son of his son.  And that *if* there are any others he knows about he might want to watch them."  It's hard to put that delicately, but even with all that's going on, Robin doesn't want to out any ranger who doesn't want to be outed.
            "Oh!"  As a thought occurs to her, Robin steps over to Needle, snags his arm and pulls him aside for a private whisper.
            "George.  Check in on her for me, will you?"  Robin raises one eyebrow pointedly.  "Damn fertility gods."  Is her muttered pronouncement.

Needle's eyes widen. "Oh, yes, Robin, I'll do that."
            Robin pressed the group reasonably hard to get to Little Spring, so they decide that a rest is in order. Grizzle provides them with a place to sleep, and arranges to provision them while they're napping.

Robin thanks Grizzle for his hospitality, but she's too keyed up to sleep.  While the others are dozing, the girl takes herself off to another area of the encampment – a private one.
            There she rushes through the last bits of her project with a sigh.  She kind of wanted to do this the natural way, but given the time constraints and the fact that Robin has no idea when or *if* she's coming back from this one, the Amber brat wants to get this done and on its way.  Thus, Robin tweaks things a little though she tries to keep her Pattern signature low.
            After a few hours, Robin is sealing up a large covered wicker backpack.  She asks Grizzle if he can send the pack with a runner to the Castle with instructions to look up Couth.  Robin figures that the Castle is a good place to start but she's thinking there might be another house or something where Couth is at, but the Castle can at least give directions if that's the case.
            The message for Couth is that the pack is for Paige and that Paige should feel free to vet it anyway she wants, Robin completely understands.  The message for both Couth and the runner is that the pack contains life, so be careful with it.  It shouldn't require care for a few days, but if things start running past that someone should open the pack and water the contents.

Off it goes.
            Several hours later, everyone awakens. They have a quick snack, check their packs and make ready, and then Robin leads them out.

Robin hugs or thumps companionably all those who are not going with her, and goes over a few quick integration details with Needle, considering she might be out of contact for a while.
            Then the Ranger turns, grinning, to her own team.  She puts Totter on notice that he's still on the Hunter job, Rain with him.  Avid gets Scout duty, Levet under him.  No horses, packs only.  Robin means to keep the whole team light and mobile.
            From the mashed area of general combat, Robin takes point, tracking the wild men as they withdrew from Little Springs.  And the girl is fully prepared to follow when the tracks fade from the green of Arden proper to the Deeper Greens of elsewhere.

The Green, deep and enveloping, comes quickly and time and tide play the tricks they always do when one dives into the verdant depths.  Robin leads the team warily, watching for ambuscade or sentry posts, but finds none.  The path seems difficult and she feels as if something resists her, but she cannot get a handle on what it is or how to prevent it.  She manages to keep to the trail, but it takes effort.
            The moon ripens and fades as she tracks the running wild men.  Eventually it stabilizes just past full, and the light helps both the pursuers and the pursued.  The moonlight breaks into a clearing, strangely familiar to Robin.  There are hoofprints, and blood, and other signs of a struggle here.  Multiple trails lead from this clearing, and it would be difficult to determine which one the wild men took.
            From the leafy canopy above, a voice breaks the silence of Robin's search party.  "Girl!  Get 'em out of here!  This place isn't safe for their kind!"  Totter starts moving towards the trees and Avid and Levet are trying to pinpoint where the woman's voice came from.
            As she moves around the clearing, Robin realizes that when she last saw it, it was as a tattooed image on a man's chest.

A wry smile lines the Ranger's lips as she recognizes the clearing.  Well, that at least saves her looking for it.
            Then she turns her green eyes to the foliage above her.  "They know that.  And they're here of their own will.  Besides, they're under my protection and I would take it... personally amiss if anything untoward were to occur to them."  Even as that comes out of her mouth, Robin rolls her eyes at her own phrasing.  Yep, yep, she's definitely been around Dad again.
            "But I do appreciate the warning, ma'am.  Thank you.  Would you care to elaborate?"

Sitting high on a branch that is obviously too light to bear her weight, Robin and her scouts see a woman with dark curls wearing a simple white robe.
            "There's no time, Girl!  Listen!"
            In the heartbeat's silence following the outburst, Robin hears a sound so faintly that she is sure that none of her Rangers can hear it yet.  From the west, deeper into the green, comes the light tones of some kind of flute.

"Huhn."  Robin blows a breath out, she's definitely feeling edgy.  But she's not sure she wants to be stampeded by the first thing she runs into.
            "Totter?  Got flute music de'droit far approaching.  Mean anything to you?"  With one quick hand gesture, Robin puts her team on alert.

Totter signals a quick negative.
             "Maenads, Girl!  It's to summon the Maenads.  Do you know nothing of the wood?"

"Maenads?!"  Robin's green eyes widen.  She know that word.  Vista ordered the withdrawal of an entire ranger force rather than face the Maenads.  And here she is with four... tidbits, that's what they're going to be.  Tidbits.
            "Little enough." She answers to the dryad with a shake of her head.  "Offering guide service?"  A series of loops with one hand pull her team tighter as she prepares for an immediate relocation.  The Ranger lets the blue fire of her desire flare along her nerves.  Her desire?  Breeze... Daeon... her incipient cousins... all those taken into Deep.

"Seaward, East a quarter-mile, then north across the chasm, I'll meet you there."  She stands on her high branch and heads off to the north, running at reckless speeds across the lower canopy of the trees, as if she were on clear ground.
            The rangers now hear the flute music, and Robin wonders if she hears the screams of the Maenads.

"Oui."  Robin nods currently and moves out, drawing her team after her.  She pushes them hard hoping to open the gap between her men and the Maenads.  But she keeps the fire with her, just in case they need to be suddenly elsewhere.
            Even as she turns her trail eastward in the direction of the sea, she wonders if she's going from one trap to another.  But Hell, she figures that's probably just the way this particular stalk is going to work.

Robin's team heads East, quickly covering the quarter mile mentioned.  The sound of the flute fades as they move.  The chasm, when they come to it, is just that.  Perhaps it is an instance of the same gap Robin ran into earlier with the riders out of Girth's.  There is a bridge here, and on either side of it there are clearings.  The bridge looks strong enough to ride across and the rangers spread out on the forest edge of the nearer clearing, looking for signs of trouble.
            Indeed, as Robin and her scouts are making sure it is not guarded, they hear hoofbeats from the far side.  A horse breaks from the woods into the clearing and rides halfway across.  From the woods come arrows, piercing it and it falls., throwing the rider to the ground.  Robin and her group, on the other side of the river, can still hear approaching horses.  The rangers look to Robin to decide what they should do.

"Heh."  Robin chuckles grimly.  "Well, ya don't get a better invitation to trouble than that."  A wry half-smile cocks the girl's lips.
            "Totter – overwatch.  Rain, Levet – harassing fire as necessary.  Stay under cover.  Avid, you're with me."  A flash of white teeth to the other Rangers and Robin dashes across the bridge as fast as her booted feet will carry her.

Totter is, in fact, halfway up a tree before Robin finishes, and Avid has already started at a dead run, knowing Robin will pass him before he reaches the bridge.
            As Robin hits the bridge she sees a group of riders emerge from the edge of the woods and bear down on the fallen man, who is stirring, and who calls out, unintelligibly.  The riders are almost on him.  Robin thinks there are at least eight of them.
            The horses hooves thunder like the blood in Robin's head and two of the
riders turn towards her and draw sabers.  From behind her she hears the sound of steel on leather as Avid draws and she sees a pair of arrows fly past the riders and miss.  Robin does not think there will be time for another such before she is upon them.

Robin's smile grows feral as she watches the oncoming riders commit the fatal stupidity of drawing steel against her.  Trusting her team to change their targets, Robin leaps at the nearest of the riders, intending to overbear him off of his charging mount.

Robin hits the man at speed, batting his arm out of the way, and carrying him off of his horse.  His foot catches in his stirrup as he comes off and his horse rears up.  Robin lands on top of the man as his chest cushions her fall and she feels the cracking of his ribs.  Unless he's immune to pain, he's out of the fight.
            Robin spares a glance across the clearing and sees a mass of confusion near the downed man.  Horses rearing, some yelling, and a naked youth pulling a man from a the saddle of frantic horse.

"Huhn."  Robin's breath gusts out at the sudden appearance of the youth.  Yep, yep, yep -- more Arcadian weirdness.  Well, she'd better just get used to it.  At least he seemed to be muddying the waters *quite* sufficiently.

Robin turns suddenly as a shadow comes over her.  The second horse is up on her hind legs, and her flank sports a handful of Ranger arrows.  The animal is either about to kick Robin in the head or fall over on Avid, who is, like Robin's own erstwhile attacker, on the ground, not moving.

The Ranger attempts to duck under the horse's flailing hooves and throws her shoulder against the creature's flank in a massive body-check in an attempt to get the thing to fall anywhere other than on top of Avid.

Robin hears, pealing over the cries of men and horses, a horn being sounded, then answered from afar.  [First horn, edge of the woods, in the direction that the lads seem to be firing arrows.  Second horn, farther away, same direction.]

Robin desperately body-checks the wounded horse and lifts and shoves it back.  The creature goes back in the direction Robin pushed it and its legs go out from under it.  The horse ends up crashing to the ground solidly against a rock, and Robin guesses that it's back is broken.  The rider was thrown off and is lying on the ground.  Robin sees an arrow in his arm and he's also landed badly.
            Robin looks quickly around for more opponents.  The riders around the naked youth are either down or fled, and those near her are both down.  Avid and the original rider are still on the ground, not moving.  Totter and Levet are crossing the bridge at speed.
            The naked Arcadian is also scanning the field for danger.

Adonis checks the remaining riders aren't regrouping, that the fallen riders are likely to remain so and no third parties are liable to intervene in the next few minutes.

The riders are off in the direction of their horn, which means at least a 10 minute margin in this woods at that speed, if the other troops are coming at speed.
            The only unpeaceful thing on the small field is the wounded horse, thrashing through its death-throes near the Rangers.

Once assured that there will be at least a few minutes of peace, he turns his attention to Luke. If the female ranger looks his way he'll catch her eye but Luke's health is for the moment more urgent - there's always a premium on prophets.

He's got a bad, bad break in his leg from the fall, and he looks like he's taken a hell of a beating in the last few days.  He's lost a great deal of blood as well.  Probably some broken ribs as well.  Adonis can tell from Luke's eyes that he recognizes Adonis, but he doesn't speak.

"Avid?  You dead?"  Robin calls as she scans, holding the ground until her team-mates get there.  [If either of the fallen riders seems to be getting frisky, Robin will put a swift boot to their temples.]

"I'm hard to kill," Avid says,  "advantage of a thick head."  He sits up.

"Knew there was a reason we kept you around."  Robin grins at Avid, relief evident in her green eyes.

The boot is necessary and puts the one stirring rider definitely out.
            The horse that Robin pushed over has clearly broken it's back.  It is screaming in pain and writhing on the ground.

With sharp gestures, she indicates her plans for Totter and Levet to take flanking positions while she falls back to check on her downed man.  A quick whistle is sent to Rain to let her know that once Totter and Levet have secured cover, Robin wants her over here – at speed – as well.  After all, that little dryad thing said they were to meet on *this* side of the ravine so there's no sense in letting a medium tussle get in their way.

Rain is across quickly after Totter and Levet are in place.

With a disgusted tongue tick, Robin draws her sword and swings to end the horse's noise with its life as quickly and humanely as possible.

What should be a simple and humane strike for the neck turns quickly into something else as the blow lands.  The horse's tongue whips out of its mouth and wraps itself around Robin's sword arm.  The base of the creature's tongue is green and scaly and it's teeth are sharp and it is pulling at her.  It has a green malice in its eyes and it is squeezing her arm.  The ranger hears Avid call out 'It's attacking Robin!"

Even before Avid's call, something makes Adonis look up from his concern for Luke.

Robin knows that her surprised laughter is inappropriate.  But that doesn't stop it from welling up out of her throat even as the tongue constricts around her arm.  Green teeth, green malice, green scales.... hello Dragon.  The Ranger feels strangely flattered at this immediate attention even if the creature is threatening her life.
            Digging her booted heels in, Robin rears back against the tongue.  With her other hand, the girl snatches a dagger from her belt and hurls it toward one of the 'horse's' balefully glaring eyes.

The dagger sticks out of the green eye and a swirl of red and green liquids run down the creature's face, but the thing seems unaffected.  Avid has run in and is chopping at the tongue with a little camp axe, and the horse's mane is curling towards him.  The other Rangers are also reacting, drawing steel and/or preparing to attack the creature that's attacking Robin.

Adonis, still with his aspect upon him, walks purposefully over, evaluating the scene. "Make fire!" he commands, apparently to no one in particular, though only the other rangers can hear. [Or Luke, though he's doubtless unable to respond.]

"Rain.  Light her up."  Robin confirms nature's boy suggestion, remembering her father and Vista's plans for the Girth-bits.  And hopefully, messing with a fire will keep Rain's mind on something other than the Approaching Aspect.  A grim chuckle shakes the girl as she continues to pull back against the tongue.  Here she was worried about a *succubus* hunt. 

Then, without breaking stride, he passes behind the prone horse, kneels on one knee and leans in over it's head, fixing the ruptured eye with his own implacable, blinkless stare. Unlike the previous fight, which he clearly reveled in, his expression is impassive, that of a man about his job.

Being a firm believer in not getting in a professional's way, Robin holds herself steady with a minimum of sudden movements.  With her free hand, she flashes a quick signal to her team to let Mr. Aspect have a quick minute to work his stuff.  If it doesn't work, then it'll be time to make Ranger hash out of the horsey.  Once done, Robin grabs another knife and prepares to skewer whomever needs skewering.  

Firmly pressing Avid's axe away with his left hand, Adonis' right seizes the horse's muzzle, clamping its own jaws shut on the tongue.

Adonis hears a cracking sound and splinters of teeth fall out of the mouth.  The creature shows no signs of pain.

Then his left hand also finds a grip on the head where it joins the neck. He spits in the horse's eye.
            And he pulls...
            And he twists...
            And then his foot lands on the horse's torso to give him more leverage and the head tears away as he applies his full strength.

The head tears away, but does not release the grip the tongue has on Robin's arm.
            Adonis still has a firm grip on the head, but the tongue is starting to retract through the broken teeth.  Robin's arm is starting to get numb.  Adonis finds that his foot is being laced into the horse's mane, a carpet of tiny hairs, wrapping over his foot and holding it surprisingly tight.
            The headless horse is starting to rise, despite the clearly broken spine.  If it does so and Adonis' foot isn't free, he'll certainly be in a bad situation.
            In the distance, Robin and Adonis hear the horn sound.  It's closer than it was before.

"Dung!"  Robin curses.  So much for the professional.  Her turn now.  "Totter!  Overwatch and cover fire – make 'em count.  Levet, Avid – hash this thing.  Many small pieces now!  Rain, you're on barbecue duty."

Rain works on making a fire, quickly, while Totter heads for the edge of the clearing.  Avid and Levet have short swords drawn and are attacking.

Robin tosses her knife, *handle first,* to Adonis.  "It's not a contiguous creature, Nature Boy.  More like a collection of malevolent cells.  Best answer is to separate 'em from one another ASAP," she says with a pained grin and a wink.  Then the Ranger drops the sword from her numbing right hand, to catch it in her left, and swings the blade up again in an arc designed to sever the tongue holding her.

Robin obviously doesn't yet know of Adonis' aversion to metals but even were it not both his hands are still full of head so the knife bounces off his chest into the grass.

The head is getting slippery in Adonis' hands, and he realizes that he's bleeding.  The horse's individual body hairs are attacking his palms.

Adonis realizes he's again completely out of his depth and turns to his last resort. Throwing his head back, he prays to the aspect of his mother probably best suited to offering aid in the circumstances. The language is Arcadian, which sounds much like a cross between ancient Greek and Latin.

Adonis keeps one foot on the ground while the other is lifted in the air by the headless horse.

"Ishtar! Dose boitheia Tammuz, tous oupaios guios!" (Ishtar! Lend aid to Tammuz, your beautiful son!)  [Any true Greek speakers out there please forgive my mangling a beautiful language.]
            But since gods like to help those who help themselves, he holds the head well above his head while trying to tear his foot free of the mane.

The head speaks, remarkably clearly since the tongue is still wrapped around Robin's arm.  While the language is Arcadian, the words are archaic forms and the head has a decided accent, one that Adonis cannot place but has heard before.  "(You shall receive no aid from my daughter, incomplete and tainted one!)"

Adonis gives no sign that the horse's words mean anything to him, semantically or metaphysically.  But something deep inside him notes that Mater did not mention this, that she probably would have had she realized and ergo it might be a good idea to let her know ASAP - assuming he can get out alive, of course.  [BTW, is the accent from the CoC?]

[why yes, yes it is. :) specifically, like the dragons you spoke to there.]

Adonis is pissed-off, he had hoped the recent wars would have given a rather longer truce than this. And they still meddle in Arcadian affairs?

With a yell, Avid reaches Adonis.  He hacks on the outstretched tongue once, twice, thrice and severs it.  The tongue is still wrapped around Robin's arm, but it's not squeezing as hard.
    [Adonis can hold on to the head and fall over, or he can drop it and maintain his footing.]

With the tongue severed, there's no need to keep hold of the head. Since freeing his foot is the next priority, he hurls the head down onto the horse's torso, using the impact to provide a counter-thrust against which he can pull his foot free.

Robin looks at the situation and sees that Levet is in trouble.  He's gotten tangled up in the horse's tail.

The Ranger flashes a quick grin of thanks to Avid and bounds over to the Levet-tangle.  She begins hacking away with the sword still in her left hand.  Her theory is to free Levet from the main body of the horse first and thrust or roll him a little further from the creature.  Then she will attempt to do some close shave work designed to get individual hairs off of him.
            Robin will be careful, but not slow -- if Levet ends up with some Robin-inflicted shallow cuts, the girl figures those'll heal better than having the tail hair still on him.
            [OOC - Robin's paying close attention to the tactical implications of this fight.  Right now, she's thinking it's dangerous and ugly, but that she and her team have the advantage of numbers and weapons.  But if she starts to feeling that her people are way over-matched or the approaching horn-enemy is cutting their time too short, her tactics will change.]

The tongue gives up on squeezing Robin's arm off and now works to actively interfere with her sword arm.  She is not as precise as she might have been, but she does get Levet freed and throws him down away from the horse's tail.  Avid is attacking the other flank, trying to keep a safe distance from the tail which is shorter but flicking dangerously towards Avid.
            Rain is busily burning the head, which is now screaming in the same language as the naked youth.
            Of Totter there is no sign.  Nor is there any further indication of the approach of horn-blowing enemies.

Once he's gained a few yards of space, Adonis assumes a sitting position on one haunch, bloody foot rested on a calf, and takes stock of the situation. He glances first at Luke, to make sure he's not in immediate danger.  [I'm hoping he won't be, since Adonis had to move to the horse, but I know the thing's thrashing around, so...]

[Luke is not in more immediate danger than he was in before, but his wounds are serious to the point of life-threatening.  He hangs on the cusp.]

Adonis does not want his new prophet to expire but things are a little difficult for the moment.  [If Luke really does look like it's a choice of immediate first aid or a coffin, Adonis will have to see to him now, otherwise he lays a bloody hand on his head in passing and grants him a brief blessing, hoping a little surge in his life energy will keep him going.]

Then he glances at his hands and back to where he's just come, looking where his blood has fallen to the ground.
            [He's looking for flowers, does he see any?  Of course, if firelillies are still springing where his blood falls, he will do something else, like ring the horse round with fresh flowers. And we may find out if the little darlings can serve a useful purpose.  :-) ]

[No!  Perhaps if you ripped open your wounded side again...]

[Adonis is not actually in to self-mutilation. Evidently the birth event is past and there's now plenty of mundane fire in the vicinity.]

As he does this, Adonis chants a short couplet that sounds like something from a much longer hymn, "Strike a match to catch the Devil's eye, bring a cross of fire to the fight." Something about his voice (hopefully) makes Rain look his way and Adonis gestures at the brand in the ranger's brand. "A cross...of fire!" Then he looks round for some dead wood himself, hands still dripping. If he finds two pieces, he'll lash them together with some grass and then light it from Rain's torch, after limping over.

There is appropriate wood just at the edge of the clearing, a short hobble from his current position.  As Adonis reaches into the woods, he hears a voice from above him say, in Arcadian (*You must burn it utterly and cast the ashes into the gorge, else it will spy on your plans from the corpse.*) The voice is like to but different from both Calliste and Artemis.  A quick glance upward reveals nothing but a rustling branch.

Robin blisters the air as she takes a quick minute from the shaving of Levet to disentonguel herself.  If she can free herself, she'll toss the offending appendage onto Rain's fire.  After which she just can't help herself and the girl takes a quick swing, hoping to sever one of the creature's hind legs.  Not the one near where Adonis is sitting.

Robin's blow is mighty and her swing severs the leg.  The leg falls away from the body, where it lies kicking on the ground.  The three-legged headless torso with the broken back is still dangerous, but between the Rangers and the fires the remains are quickly no longer a threat.

Adonis limps over from collecting firewood, lashing two straightish pieces into a semblance of a cross. He does not mention the voice but he pays particular attention to what she said. He sets the cross burning well and places it on the hacked remains of the horse's torso. At intervals, he gathers more wood and adds it to the flames.
            When he's sure everything is burning well, he turns his attention back to Luke.

The Ranger grants herself the luxury of one quick barking victory dance.  And the manic grin under the blood spatters, the flashing green eyes -- yep, that's a happy Robin.  Then she's all business once more, making sure her team, especially Levet, are ready to move.  A sharp hand signal is sent to Avid to check up on the man down near Adonis' original pile-up.

[Is this Luke? Hopefully by now Adonis is seeing to him. By my reckoning, there's still several bad guys lying around, all still alive.  One has a broken back but the others should survive with a little care.]

[Yeah.  I was thinking Luke.  Robin doesn't particularly care about the bad guys.  :) ]

[Actually timing should be such that Avid starts looking at Luke while Adonis is burning horsebits.  Pyrozoomania is a hobby that takes some time when you're working with horses.]

[Pyrozoomania...  :)  I like that! Let's do some squirrels next, just for a lark.  <evil grin>]

When Adonis turns to Luke, he finds that the ranger (Avid) is treating his wounds.  Luke is unconscious but seems to be out of immediate danger (he's not bleeding anymore).  It actually takes Adonis a moment to determine this, since Avid is himself quite bloody.  His face in particular looks as if it has lost a layer of skin and his hands are, like Adonis' cut and bleeding.

Adonis flicks a glance at the two of them, then at his own hands. He seems to be thinking hard. As he does so, a minor flurry in the breeze wafts some of the smoke from the burning corpse across him and he raises a bloody hand as if shielding himself from the stench. Despite this, he clearly sniffs the smoke deliberately.

With other quick gestures and whistles, Robin indicates to all that she wants to move out as soon as feasibly possible.  Between the rising plume of smoke and the chasm at their backs, the Ranger is feeling far too exposed and visible.
            During all of this, the girl is very very carefully not looking at or even truly acknowledging the presence of Adonis.

Avid returns a whistle that tells Robin that Luke won't be moving quickly.

Avid's report brings a grimace of distaste to Robin's face.  So much for moving out immediately.  Dung!  Isn't that always the way, no good deed goes unpunished!   Remembering Dannan, the Ranger wonders why no one can be rescued and then be just fine?!  But nooooo, there's always something else.
            The girl snorts herself out of her mood as she listens for Totter's sign.

Totter doesn't respond at all.

[Presumably Robin is a little concerned by Totter's non-response. If possible Adonis will exchange a 'significant glance', just enough to show he understands her concern - and incidentally revealing that he knows more of ranger calls than he's let on so far.]