“No, ser,” thin Jude shook his shaggy head, the furs about his ruff curled and stiff with cold and frozen water vapor. He was a man with ear hairs and grey at his temple, for all his youthful appearance. His knobby hands had long fingers which were lighter than the more social Pinter and he often hid behind the prettier man – clinging to the acceptance of his odd self in conjunction of the more capable thief. Still, under it all he was a watcher and he had seen the danger flash before them in Commander Rundall's dark eyes, like fire on a far hill. Then, like the fire hitting a pine, the commander flared. Pinter grunted at the plate into his face, falling off the log into the packed snow behind him. The smaller man made a soft curse and Jude swiftly went to help him stand. 

Pinter, suddenly silent as Jude, stood to attention and allowed for the remonstration. There was blood at his nose and across his lips, diced potato on his coatfront, and he did nothing to wipe any of it away. His own gaze glittered but his own fires had banked, successfully brought to heel by a single, well timed blow of a man who was far more wise than either of them. At his side, Jude gave a stiff bow and left to do as bid, leaving Pinter to bow stiffly after. “Ser,” the blatant thief allowed, bent to get his own plate and pick up the Commander's. 

Across the fire, it was quiet and like a group of hounds, the rest of the company watched the interaction, not truly understanding the meat of the issue, but well aware that something of import had happened. When Pinter went to get a pick and, slinging it over his shoulder and wiping his face with his sleeve, stalked toward the privy line, there was a run of sniggers down the line. Lurch was a fair master well enough, provided you didn't genuinely piss him off. Then he could be spiteful. This was of the kind variety. Pinter and Jude were reprimanded but not ousted, which was well enough for everyone else. 

Pinter gone into the shadows, Jude was quick about getting more food and setting it onto a new plate, new biscuit, new serving of meat, new of all, returning with it presently and offering it to the commander then going to sit in with the rest of the group which had, as soon as Pinter had begun to work on a new latrine, begun to chatter and game and sing and joke with one another all over again. Like a child who had lost his stronger sibling, he looked a bit lost as he bopped about the camp attempting to find a card game to take part in or a joke that he would not be the butt of. In due time, he settled at the second fire near a large shouldered man named Karl who often took in the more unaware ones for a time simply out of the goodness of his Church born heart. 

No one else bothered the commander, uncertain of their welcome now. He wasn't a bad man, but he wasn't the most friendly of them either and men quickly learned, in much the same way as Pinter had, to leave him to his devices if at all possible. 

Beyond the campfire, in the great white darkness, the troupe of three paused for a moment. The sky distant trees were backlit by the starlit sky and strangely, the snow managed to be the darkest thing in the world, while simultaneously glowing all around. The three huddled, then one went on while another huddled in on itself and tramped back the way they had come. A breath, then the one in the center turned and followed the first on again. Far beyond them, the giant, skeletal trees reached up into the sky and sleeping branches turned to stone from the ages raked fingers across the stars and glowed unearthly white agianst snow and stars, nothing giving any more light than the stars themselves, yet all reflecting their light back to them. 

Cat, the bitch, shook herself and followed her mistress, her breath leaving ice on the many small whiskers on her muzzle. Thirsty in the cold, she paused and snatched some snow then trotted back on the woman's heels while the great man behind her huffed and bellowed, his great chest trying to get the air in that his large body needed. He was far too big, really, to not have to break trail a second time after the woman's more slender self had cut into new snow over the old trail. The bitch could scent the otherness under the snow where something had passed days before. She had scented a bear behind at one time, but the bear track was even older and had crossed then went on its own way. There, deep under feet and feet of snow there was life here. Her keen ears caught small minute animal stirrings of miniature life forces warmth and filled with purpose. The humans missed the many tells that they were not alone, but the dog did not. She sneezed once then followed again, not yet time for her part in their hunt. Now, it was the woman's eyes which led them. 

Bart had opened his coat to let the cold hair in to cool down his heaving chest. Karis was a slender shadow ahead and no matter how long they'd walked in the dark, his eyes could only catch snippets of the dog's presence, her more slender, delicate frame lost in the trail's shadows. Ahead of them, the trees remained far away. It was, it seemed to him, almost as if Werric's prattling about how things were always further away than they seemed was true here in the steady trudging. For no matter how long they walked, the trees did not seem to grow any faster than a hill or a mountain in the distance would. He frowned at the quiet around them. They had been walking for some time after Karis sending Werric on his way. Not that Bart had been against the decision for the man was starting to wear on Bart's ears. She and Bart had that in common. Still.. 

“Think 'e's right?” he rubbed his chest with a meaty hand. “Seems they's not getting' closer. Bigger'n they seem at first?” he asked her opinion for if there was magic in the air that kept their path from gaining on a copse that should have been reached long before, the woman would know of it. Her keen tracking wasn't just recognizing where something had passed, but – of greater importance – [i]how it had passed[/i]. 

As if his voice had been all that was needed to call more out of the silence, there was a sudden coughing grunt to their side. An instinctive drive to survive honed by years, Bart dropped to a knee and whipped out the long sticked gun from his back, facing into the distance where, despite muffling effects of snow, he could hear something large lumbering their direction. It wasn't visible, he realized a moment after, not because it wasn't large enough to see. Rather, it was white as snow itself. It barrelled toward them. There was a brief moment he wasn't sure where its head was and wasn't sure where he should shoot. Then, the bitch sounded a yelping howl of anger and fear and the huge creature skidded to a snowy half and shoved itself to its back feet, rising over them. 

Bear. He recognized it as bear, though it was larger than any bear he'd ever seen. White as snow with black claws on its huge paws, it roared at them and the bitch squawled back at it, her high pitched yelping obviously confusing it. Bart held fire, squinting against the darkness to try and make out an eye. The skull of the beast was likely thick enough that only a particular shot would take it down. Where had it come from, anyhow? His mind wandered in that long eternity of emergency when more thoughts and moments could live between one breath and the next. If it turned, they'd be better off not antagonizing it if it were like bears in other worlds. If not, he had to be ready.