Carrion Sleigh [OPEN]

[This thread is open at any time, but I will continue it as a solo if no one jumps in. If you're not sure how to start, just contact me!]

“Be quick with that corpse, and keep it up outta’ the snow! They upset the pile if they’re already frozen when ya toss ‘em on.”

“Why don’t you lend a hand then, you waistcoater? Get some death on your gloves for once.”

Harlan Tresk chuckled beneath his breath and shrugged his bulky shoulders, getting a better grip beneath the dead man’s armpits.

“What’s funny, Tresk?” Snapped the least scruffy looking of the three living men. He wore a slender beard that matched his frame, after the noble fashion, and fancied himself a lordling among peasants.

“Not much… ya waistcoater, Harlan said, and chuckled heavily again. The man carrying the corpse’s bare legs joined in laughing this time.

“Can’t expect a lapdog like him to get his hands dirty,” the flat-nosed fellow guffawed. “Not when there’s rumors of the black death on the rise-”

“Stow it, you idiot,” the thin man leading the trio snapped.

“What, did we hurt your fancy feelings?” Tresk snorted.

“No you nitwit, I see the sleigh down at the bottom of the slope. You think we can catch them?”

Tresk rubbed his eyes and peered blearily down the hill. He could make out the moving shapes of the men and horses guiding the carrion sleigh, but he could not discern much of their speed and probable course. His eyes were not what they’d been when he was a boy.

“I dunno,” he said, and nodded at the man carrying the corpse’s ankles, “what do you reckon?”

“Can’t catch ‘em,” the,” the stout man mumbled. He belched, coughed, and spat in the snow, and t hen inhaled and let out a fearsome, single syllable roar.

“Waaaaaaait!”

Tresk squinted down at the group. It seemed as though they had heard and stopped moving.

“Good,” their narrow would-be leader said, stroking his beard, “now hurry up!”

“We should just kill you and cut you out of the bargain,” Tresk grumbled.

“Not so,” the thin man replied, putting his hand on the hilt of a long dagger, “I’m the one that found the body. I’m entitled to my third of the corpse recompense.”

“Whatever,” Tresk mumbled, “but next time, you’re doing some of the carrying.”