The Snows Of Gaul - Episode 1 - Chapter 3 alt
The skies the next day were glorious, you could actually see the sun. Almost. Metela waded through the knee high snow as her entourage marched behind her. It was marginally less cold than yesterday, but the sun bore down on the snow and the fog and reflected the full power of Sol Invictus into their eyes.
They trudged through, every once in a while Metela stopping and getting her bearings as Marcus and Gaius stood around awkwardly. It was upwards of an hour of this rhythm, of stopping and starting, and of Marcus trying to study Metela to see what she could see. He discreetly craned his head in the directions she was looking. She nodded in a direction and they trudged that way, leaving Marcus furrowing his brow and scanning around even more confusedly.
While walking, Gaius waded forward, ahead of Marcus, and opened his mouth at Metela before shrinking back next to Marcus. A few minutes later he did it again: Wade, open, close, shrink. He made a run up for a third time before—
“What?” Metela said, not looking back.
“Um,” Gaius said with a guttoral sound like he had been punched in the gut. “You said you had been robbed before we found you. Did you see them?”
“Don’t talk to her, Gaius,” Marcus said with the tone of a disappointed father.
“I agree,” Metela agreed.
A gust of wind whipped snow into their faces to punctuation the moment. Gaius made a move to shrink back as he wiped his eyes, however he marched back up again. “Was it people you knew?” Marcus grumbled and Metela kept marching at the same unchanged pace, keeping more discipline in her strides than the soldiers behind her. “Because if you’re still worried we can protect you…”
A snort let itself out of Metela. Gaius looked to Marcus who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “What?”
Metela looked back to where she was navigating. A strong, dark oak tree came slowly into view and faded out into the sky. They made a beeline for it and all leaned against the trunk, breaking out into puffing and deep breaths. Marcus walked around the tree but tripped and fell over a root.
“Te futueo et caballum tuum!” He shouted as he stood back up and kicked the root. It flipped over and revealed the frozen corpse of a vagabond. “Gaius!” Gaius ran over and stared with him. Both hauled the body up against the tree and Marcus began patting him down. Metela walked over, transfixed on the face of the figure.
Gaius looked over to Metela and got her attention. “Are you okay?” No response. Gaius walked over and clapped in front of her face. She snapped out of her trance. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a corpse”
“I can see that.”
Marcus stood up and held a dagger and a note. “Can you also explain why this is here?” The piece of paper was a point for point perfect physical description of Metela. Metela stood unwavering looking back at him. “This person was stabbed just below his ribs. You’ve lied to us about being mugged, what else is going on?”
- Corpse scrambles up and yoinks the dagger, Gaius is grazed in the process
- Arrive at town, it’s a Gaul village. Oh shit
- Metela can steal them some clothes to blend in