The cold snow soothed his overused body, cooling the fire ants of pain that swarmed on his legs and back. But it soothed neither his hollow stomach, nor his bruised wrists where the manacles had rubbed soar. Curling in a tighter naught in his snow cave, he positioned his ever alert, pointed ears near the opening that lead out to the white field above. 

A faint sound traveled through the tunnel and to his ears. His head wiped back, his eyes staring out on to a sight-blocking snowdrift. The sound of scurrying feet grew louder until a white mouse, previously camouflaged by the snow, stared him in the eye. He laughed, all that was left of his fettle mind winnowing away for a few moments of relief.

The sound of the mouse frantically leaving reminded him of them that came for him. He sobered up, his mind returning to saneness. He would need to act soon; they would find him soon if he stayed here. He could not let the illustrious Retribution to get him! But their noses, altered for the better when they combined with bloodhound dog's spirits, sniffed out his trail, their indefatigable legs carried them closer to him every minute, their eagle eyesight found each footprint. If he did not move now they would come, drag him to his birth town, and on him commit the abominable old ways-the burning, the racks, the stones, etc.-that they alone were aloud to do.

Most criminals decided to take the short root and turn themselves in when they were discovered, thus quickly gaining themselves one less arm, foot, or head. But he sure wasn't going to lose his head for a crime he never committed. He stabbed no priest in the back with a consecrated knife!

Making his choose, he scrambled out of the almost ice tunnel. The icy wind reddened his cheeks and brought the muffled sound of marching. He swiveled his head, not to look for the marchers, for knew he what was coming. Sighting a precipitous cliff, he headed there with a smile marring the corpseish figure that he once looked. 

"Stop...injunction..."came to him on the wind as he purposely backed off the cliff, making look like he fell. Before he hit the water, he straightened and dived a perfect dive, like his teacher taught him. Swimming upstream, never to requite again, never to be binned by the manacles of metal and society again, free to float the world as he wanted since youth, the thought one word: freedom.