Eyes bright in the darkness, sweat beading on his brow. The bush he hid in whispered to him as he held his breath. A rustle in the distance, the silence of the forest making the smallest disturbance as loud as church bells.

Another sound off to the left, the circling of his pursuers shooting icy bolts down his spine. Fever fire gleamed from his eyes as he tried to maintain his stillness. The feeling of blood oozing from cracked scabs tugged incessantly on his focus, the sludgy trickle of pus leaking on his leg.

A short while had elapsed since he'd made his escape, treading as lightly, yet swiftly, as he could in this state. The wooden palisade nearly spelling his death as he scaled it with clumsy remmants of his normal grace. He'd only had brief moments of relief, before the hue and cry of startled watchmen awoke this chase.

At least he'd had the foresight to remove their main trackers - with what meager poisons he could scrounge he'd left the hounds in a cripplingly debilitating condition. No need to hide his scent for this run.

He shifted slightly, grimacing as he felt yet more blood and pus from the aggravated wound. Typical that the one time he tried to help someone he paid for it. They hadn't even gotten away, hit by a second volley just as they neared the edge of the wall, pierced straight through with a couple of quarrels. Their body had hung there nailed to the wooden surface, twitching as the last life fled from the mangled mess.

The sound of boots coming behind him had sounded like the tread of the reaper, coming to finally send him on as he stared at the transfixed corpse. His shock as, instead of the summary execution he expected, he was instead roughly grabbed and hauled to a cell. The agony as a sawbones came to remove the quarrel from his leg, carelessly cauterising the wound, providing just enough attention to ensure he'd be alive for what would follow.

Shuddering, he brought his attention back to the present. From the sounds he could hear, even through the haze and heat of infection, it appeared that he had been lucky. The guards chasing had missed him, sprawled under a large shrub and hastily covered with leaves. He picked out brief snatches of yelling, their meaning seemingly swimming through his mind like a swarm of minnows. Maybe he'd go do some fishing once this was all done - fishing was a nice quiet activity, guarranteed to end, if not well, then at least peacefully.

He shook his head. Focus! He had no time to lose himself to delusions. He flipped himself -

- The daylight woke him. A brief urge to flounder nearly overwhelmed his senses, before his years of training took over. First he stopped breathing. Then a wracking cough erupted from his lungs.

As he spluttered out the contents of his chest fragments of memory arose. There rose an image of a man, strong and lean, his muscles moving mesmerisingly under taut leather as he rapidly scaled the wall before him. Then, a long corridor, the memory rising of extreme tension as he crept after the same man, his partner, down a winding corridor.

This shattered into another moment - the alarm raising as they fled back down the same corridor, now later, the sun just beginning to stab through the deep windows to glint off the armoured guards behind him. He drew ragged breaths at the memory, the fear once more raising from his fevered memories.

He shifted onto his back, carefully this time, making sure he didn't jar his festering leg again. He slowly drew air, steadying himself, listening for the sounds he dreaded. He was no longer sure how long he'd been here.

They'd arrived just before the moon had risen, it's slim crescent providing barely any light - the kind of moon they used to pray for. They'd been ever-so-careful in their approach, checking the rotation and patrol of the guards with the information they'd bought.

It should've been so simple - a crumbling mansion in the midst of an overgrown forest, barely any guards to protect the remaining riches of a once-great house. Barely any guards. There'd been enough.

He winced, thinking of the last time he'd seen his partner for the last seven years. Seven years of good luck, or at least mediocre, before this travesty. The way his blood had pumped, then oozed. Even as he'd been hauled away, he couldn't stop looking.

He shook his head to clear it, sending the world into a kaleidoscope of colours as his eyes struggled to process past his current infection. He fell back, sweat beading on his brow as he once more faded to -

- *Slap*

He jerked up, restrained by unrelenting pressure on his wrists. It bit in as he struggled, uncaring for his effort, each thrust or pull generating a cascade of heavy jingles. The sound tugged at his ears, a memory trying to break through the shock of rapid awakening. His strained to see, but his eyes were so gummed he could barely make out the bear of a man in front of him.

"Reckon he's awake now, milord." The guttural rumble came from the man mountain, a human paw coming to rest once more on his face. He trembled, fever-strength denied to him.

"Good, good. It does bore me so terribly when they're all quiet and docile."

The sneering voice came from further back, a voice refined to be wielded like knife in the dark on those who crossed its owner. He sagged in defeat. That voice, what he now recognised as chains and his treatment thus far - it all spelt one thing.

"So this is the... daring... thief who thought he could take the last vestiges of my families wealth?" The voice came closer, the owner still shrouded behind a veil of blurs and unfocused lines. "Well. We can't allow that to stand. I do have to maintain the standards of my forebears, even in these... trying times."

A hand, finer but still calloused, swatted away the man-paw holding his face still. It tugged his head back and forth, firmly ignoring the kittens strength it faced. "Not a bad specimen, Mortains, though you will of course need to clean it before I add it to my collection."

"Yes, milord, once it's off we'll have it sparked and shined for you." The rumble chased shivers of foreboding down his spine. He remembered now. The hallway they'd come across. Most fine houses had some eccentric display to invite conversation, some exotic tat stolen from natives or traded from shady dealers.

The collection he'd seen had been far ahead of those.