Rudolf Shilage
Shadows coiled tight and still, daring not to show their hand as the demonic jester hung above, a spot of black against the rising moon. Off at Esben's side, there was the muted slide of steel against leather— Rudolf repositioning himself, closer to arm's reach of the spy and just as much in the path of their pursuer as he could get away with, relative to their wounded, without being too overt. In truth? The assurance dripped off Ferdiad's posture enough that Rudolf didn't really believe any movement short of outright breaking their little ceasefire for repartee would set him off, but even so...
A flickering next to his soul, silent and sullen again. His passenger, naturally, had decided this was worth being cagey with— after all, they were at half strength at best right now, down their only sources of truly leverageable White Magic if whatever shared history the two demons reignited the feud in full... and with how thoroughly involved his contractor's presence was upon himself and his armor, anything more than that barest flicker was asking to set the whole potential powder keg off. Ferdiad had already come dangerously close to smelling the smoke on him once.
Even then, that disdainful twinge rippled out into a knot through the Edreni swordfighter's brow, an echo of the unspoken "do you see why I hate this prick?" that rode the tightness of his jaw. For Rudolf's part, he kept his own contributions low-voiced, brief, and suspicious as ever, given the subject.
"I'll throw the lecture back at you: Careful with him. Don't fall into his pace. I can just about reach most of us from here otherwise."
He made no effort to hide the bitter tone. Those with the usual objections were wisely keeping mum. He remained coiled, falling into relative silence thereafter. The cautions bore repeating in every instance; instructing boilierplate ideas like "try to tease out what the plan behind all this is" would be only self-serving belaborment of the point with the obvious.