Nodding, Kre moved in a bit of a haze. His mind was still trying to sort out everything that she had said, along with the idea that he was about to become a fugitive. He grabbed his pack and upended it next to the lightly breathing bodies and waited for additional direction from Kitalia.
She quickly scanned the table and pointed at a couple of items. “Only those,” she said simply. Kre nodded numbly and put the indicated items back into his pack. A change of clothes, a leather skin of water, some candles that had likely been made by Cal’s mom, and a jar of ointment that Landar’s mom had sent with him. He looked over the items that he was leaving behind, many of which had been gifts from other families of Mintas that he hadn’t even seen yet.
There was a new wooden pen, with his family name carved into it; a harmonica, also wooden, and looking less new; a white woolen scarf; various treats and candies, made with thought and love from the Mintas populace. As far as commencement gifts went, these weren’t going to break the bank for most-expensive or outlandish, but they were thoughtful, especially when the people of the town couldn’t be certain that Kre would even be able to keep them if he were incarcerated.
He glanced up at Kitalia, who seemed engrossed in disarming the two Rangers, and thinking her distracted, he quickly slid the harmonica into the pack with the other items she had said he could keep. He wasn’t certain, but he somehow felt that the harmonica had been Jem’s gift to him. If so, it was something he intended to keep and even if it was not a gift from her, it could still be a good item to have when he was sitting alone in a prison cell for the next fifty years.
As a final act, Kitalia gestured to the large dagger that Kre had left on the bench. “Do not forget that. It could come in handy.”
Kre nodded and hefted the dangerous blade. He quickly realized that he had no place to safely store it and stood there, dagger half-raised, looking lost. Kitalia rolled her eyes and gestured to the body of Ranger Marce. It took him a moment, but he understood. He stooped down to unbuckle the Ranger’s belt but found it difficult while still holding the dagger. He cursed softly at his own incompetence and set the dagger aside while he worked on the Ranger’s belt.
In his mind, he took a step back and examined the whole situation as if he were watching it from afar. It was, in a word, ridiculous. He watched himself fumbling with the older man’s belt, and briefly wondered what the Ranger might be dreaming of as he did so. Kitalia was busy on the other side of the table, binding Petriv’s hands in the off chance that the drugs wore off sooner than expected. He noticed that she was none too gentle with the tightness and wondered if Petriv would ever be able to use his hands again if the binding stayed on too long.
She shooed Kre away from Marce’s body after he managed to get the dagger sheath off of the Ranger and left him to equip it on himself while she bound Marce’s hands and feet as well. Finally, she stood and looked around, satisfied with her work.
“All right then,” she said happily, “we should get outside and finish up there before we leave. Follow me.”
“Finish what up?” Kre asked weakly. He hadn’t expected there to be more to running away than the actual act of running away.
Kitalia cocked her head to one side and regarded Kre quizzically, as if he were asking a question she had already answered several times now. “We need to burn Ser Sandiscoot’s body, of course,” she responded simply.