Chapter 4:

Ilta was beginning to feel exhausting at the corners of her mind. She was an assassin, and even with all of her training and stamina, this game of cat and mouse through the snow was hard to endure. Firstly, it involved running in calf-deep snow; it tired her legs. The bandits chasing her didn't make it easier. She consoled herself with the fact that Tino was more or less safe as an archer and that the climbing and descending of trees must be way harder than what she was doing. As she dashed away from them again, having distracted them long enough for Tino to kill his sixth man out of seventeen, an arrow lodged into her thigh. She smothered a scream and immediately dived behind a snow bank. Quickly, she yanked the arrow out, grabbing the snow and pressing it to her gushing wound. She threw the red-soaked snow and applied more over and over again, until her skin was numb and the bleeding stopped. Then she wrapped her leg with the ever present bandages she had with her. Up she was again, forcing the pain to the back of her mind and running again. She turned south more, hoping to the gods that Tino had seen what happened. When they escaped from the village, they made an agreement: if they didn't have contact within two hours of seeing each other, the other should leave immediately because it was likely that the other was killed. The date to reunite with each other, if by some miracle they were still alive, would be at Denmark's capital. As Ilta kept running, she could feel the wound tiring her faster than before. Already, she was planning what words to say to make them kill her outright; she would not suffer the shame of being raped. Dressed as a male, it was not impossible, but once they found out she was a female, it was inevitable. She emerged in a clearing and cursed. This was not the ideal spot- the thought was flushed out by pain as right arm was hit. She hit the snow with enough force to stun her.
"Finally! Caught yah! That was almost too hard! Lost six men!" the leader said, dismounting with a smile. "It sure woke me up though, huh boys? What about you?" The men groaned with agreement. They were drunk and obviously felt sick. The leader stalked over to where Ilta was rearranging her wits and grabbed her by her short hair. She hissed, using her good left hand to scratch at the leather glove covering his hand. The leader's eyes widened in surprise.
"Hey! You're a pretty man! You'll fetch a good price in the slavery business!" he said, his eyes alighting with greed. Ilta spat in his face. Almost immediately, a knee connected with her chin, knocking her head back. Thankfully, the leader had let go of her head to wipe his face, letting Ilta discharge a bit of the impact. Even without the pain and the blood rushing down her face, she knew her nose was broken. The leader picked her up by the hair again. "We'll have to train that out of you." He said pleasantly-
Before screaming in pain.
From the hand holding Ilta's hair, an arrow sprouted.
Tino's arrow.
Oh you bloody fool! She thought, her vision dancing between red, black and white. You stupid boy. But she couldn't move a muscle to stop such a dumb boy. That's when Ilta felt the heavy drag on her body, calling her beaten and battered shell to sleep and heal.
In a last, momentous effort, she shouted, "LEAVE!"
Tino didn't go.

"We'll need a distraction." Ander was saying, "There's no guarantee that the two are still alive." Berwald nodded, only half hearing the man's words. Two men? With no swords or armor taking down horsed men? It was amazing to hear.
"There!" came a muffled cry. Everyman looked. There was a clearing, left by woodmen, and in it stood a group of horses and men. Berwald could make out bloody snow around a still, lying form that the men surrounded. On the opposite side of the clearing stood another, his hood drawn up and an arrow notched in his bow. He spoke Swedish, telling the men to stop what they were doing, that he could pin a fly to a tree thirty meters away. Berwald almost though it was and exaggeration, until the boy loosed an arrow, going straight through the eye of the bandit farthest from the archer. The seeming leader of the group grabbed the one on the ground, holding a knife to the boy's throat.
"I'll kill him!" he threatened.
"Go ahead." The archer responded, another arrow already notched, then loosed. "It would be kinder." The arrow hit another man, straight through the heart. Berwald and his men were staring in wonder. That had to be a long bow the boy was handling, one of the hardest to draw, and yet this slight man handled it as if it were no more trouble that a string attached to a curved branch.
"I'll really kill him!" the man threatened again, desperate now. The archer took a step forward.
"Go on. But none of you will leave this clearing alive. That I can promise you."
"NOW!" Ander roared. Berwald stood still, letting the soldiers surge around him. He watched, fascinated, as the captured male latched onto the arm that held his hair, swinging his body up wards to kick his captor in the jaw. His eyes flashed across the clearing to the archer, who shot his arrows at the bandits while running towards his friend. Said friend was fighting furiously, silver daggers like butterflies, slicing up the bandits before Berwald's men got there. By the time the bandits were dead, the archer was cradling his bloodied friend, crying.
"Ilta! Ilta! Gods forgive me, don't die. Ilta, oh my dear Ilta!" Berwald faintly recognized the female name as he dismounted and approached the two. Closer, Berwald could now recognize the beauty of the two; like flowers blooming in a burned forest. The one called Ilta fastened her stormy grey eyes onto Berwald.
"Take Tino." she croaked, "Take him, protect him, please." The blond Tino stroked her bloody hair.
"What are you saying Ilta? We were going to go to Denmark together, right?" he asked, and Berwald recognized the beginnings of hysteria.
"Take him. He's in danger!" Ilta cried, trying to sit up. Her wounds gushed even more and Berwald could see that the bandits had managed to strike her before she killed them. Tino began to shout at her in Finnish and she shouted back. What a resilient woman. Berwald thought. He barely completed the thought when she reached up to slap Tino across the face. She spoke in Finnish and said only one word Berwald recognized.
Kasvoton.
Berwald shivered. The assassin group Kasvoton was infamous. They got the job done quickly and silently. Being on the Kasvoton hit list was akin to dying that very second. Ander came up by Berwald.
"Sir, it's almost night, we have to leave now or we'll get stuck in the freezing dark."
"Take him God dammit!"
"No!"
Realization crashed onto Berwald's shoulders.
For the first time, he'd have to make a life or death decision.