Arc II — Echoes in the Snow
Chapter 14 — The wight of longing
Phil looked at the carriage and shouted, "Karel, get on the driving seat right now."
Karel popped his head out from the back side of the carriage curtain.
"What are you saying? You just had an intense fight and you want to continue to move forward. What are you thinking?"
"Can't you look around at the situation we're in right now? Do you want me to explain everything to you?"
Karel looked around the carriage: the condition of both Niki and Phil, the wolf they thought they had defeated coming back to haunt them again, and above all the fog and the village. All of these things were hard to explain.
"Also throw away all the things that are of no use to us and have no apparent value. We are going at full speed until the horse is tired."
"W-what do..." was the only thing that was able to leave his mouth when he suddenly realized the situation was not at all in his favor.
Karel just nodded and looked at the things inside the carriage: the four boxes of goods and the two dead bodies lying there.
Phil came to the back side of the carriage and opened the curtain. He looked at the puzzled face of Karel.
"You know what we have to do, right?"
"You can't mean to leave them here, right?"
"You know we can't take them. If we do that, we'll just put a target on our back like this time."
"Bu-but we can't leave them here."
"Look at me," Phil said in a clear and slow unshakable voice, looking directly at the face of Karel.
"You know we don't have time, right? We all have lost someone precious to us. And that is the reason why we have to do any and everything in our power to survive this."
Phil took a pause and silence started to creep in. Phil was waiting to hear something, anything, but no sound came.
"We have to go home and inform their families. What excuse will you give them when you'll meet them early because of this? That we were too busy taking care of their bodies that we couldn't survive?"
Karel had nothing to say to that and nodded.
Phil helped Niki sit inside the carriage and then helped Karel take out all the things that had no use and the bodies of their comrades out of the carriage with the utmost dignity he could offer.
They hid the bodies at the side of the road with snow. Phil quickly paid his respect and returned to the carriage.
Karel sat by the side of the dead and paid his respect, and Phil got inside the carriage and started to do something.
Phil was writing something with a glowing thing in the center of the carriage.
When the shape was about to complete he stopped and looked around him, seeing everyone sitting in different places.
"Karel, everything is ready. We need to move quickly."
Karel understood that and stood up and sat at the front of the carriage, holding the reins and ready to move.
Phil looked at Niki, who couldn't look at the people lying there and had just closed her eyes to pay her respect to them.
"I'm ready," Phil said and completed the formation.
Karel moved the carriage and we started to move forward once again.
But this time less weight in the carriage and more weight in the heart.