Jak Koke - The Edge of Chaos

Slanya shrugged. “I am not worried,” she said. “They attacked us, and we held our own.” In truth, she’d found the fight exciting. “We should get going.”

Nodding, Duvan drew a dagger from one of his leg sheaths and kneeled by the unconscious body of the dwarf cleric. He started to press the dagger to the cleric’s neck.

“Stop!” Slanya said. “There will be no more killing.”

Duvan looked up at her, his eyes wide in stunned disbelief. “You’re not serious. If we leave her and that scarecrow alive, they will be back after us, and they might kill us the next time. Or worse.”

“Perhaps,” Slanya said, her voice measured. “But what they have done to us does not deserve death, and it is not our role to mete out this level of justice. Death will come to them on its own time.”

A scowl crossed Duvan’s face as his brows narrowed. He stood up and sheathed his dagger. “You knocked them out, so I will respect your wishes here,” he said. “But you’re being naive, and your decision now could cost me later.”

“You can’t kill the whole world, Duvan,” Slanya said. “You can’t even kill those who may do you ill in the future. That is not your role in the universe, and it goes against your responsibility to society.”

“I don’t want to kill the whole world, Slanya,” he replied, and his scowl gave way to an all-too-attractive grin. “I just want to kill these here. They are the threat. Your ethical code is just one way to approach things. One idealistic point of view. In the real world where I live, I’ve found it prudent to eliminate threats when the opportunity presents-because there may not be another chance.”

Sweat prickled on Duvan’s brow as he gathered up the rest of his throwing daggers. He removed a blade from the dead archer’s back and wiped the blood on the archer’s linen shirt.

“We must hurry,” Slanya said. “Beaugrat may return with reinforcements.”

Duvan squinted in the bright sun, trying to see his companion’s face clearly. “Beaugrat will be back, yes,” he said. “But he’s too much of a coward to attack when we’re expecting it.”

“When will he come for us?”

Duvan pulled out some rope to bind the prisoners. “Sometime when we’re already beaten down or otherwise occupied. Sometime when he thinks he’ll have a clear advantage.”

“That would be highly unethical,” Slanya said.

Duvan rolled his eyes. For someone so talented and well trained, Slanya was very idealistic about how people acted in the world outside her temple and its grounds. Tyrangal must be punishing me for something, Duvan thought.

He helped Slanya bind and gag the two assailants that she’d knocked out. It was foolish not to kill them; Ormpetarr was small enough that it would only be a matter of time before he crossed paths with these two again.

“They’ll just die out here anyway,” he said.

“Bind them to each other, but not to anything else. That should give them a chance, but they won’t be able to follow us.”

“All right,” he said, too tired to argue. She had defeated them, so as far as he was concerned, she held their fate.

Slanya peered at him. “Are you agreeing with me?”

Duvan smiled at her. “Let’s just say, I’m not disagreeing for the moment.” When he was sure the pilgrim and the cleric were tightly bound, he swung up onto one of their horses.

“What are you doing now?”

“Leaving. Taking the horses with us. I hope that’s not a trick question.”

“Help me get this one onto his horse,” she said pointing to the body of the archer.

“Just leave him here. Scavengers will get rid of the body.”

“No,” she said. “He needs a proper funeral-a ceremony to celebrate his connection to the living and the dead.”

Duvan gave her a blank, disbelieving look. “What?”

“Everyone deserves-”

“Yes, I heard you, and there again, I agree with you, but we don’t have time for ‘a proper funeral.’ It’s not like it’s going to matter to him.”

Slanya scowled. “It will matter to those who cared for him,” she said. “And it’s important. Either we take the body with us to the temple, seek out his loved ones, and give it to them, or burn the body here and now.”

Duvan shook his head and considered arguing. However, if past experience were an indicator, this stubborn cleric would not be swayed. Arguing would just waste more time. He considered leaving. These sorts of disagreements were why he almost always worked alone. But he had promised Tyrangal, and he wouldn’t back out of that promise.

Duvan sighed. “All right. You’re in charge,” he said. “If you insist on a funeral, then we should do it here and now. The fewer people who know what happened here, the better.”

Slanya nodded, then turned to the body of the dead archer. She knelt down and straightened his garments.

Duvan swung down from the horse and helped her prepare the fire. He dragged the corpse through the tall grass to the ruined guard outpost. Crumbling rock walls would hold vigil to his passage, and weed-pitted flagstones would be his bier.

The man’s clean and well-mended clothes told a story of aristocratic upbringing. He had a callused right hand, so he was well practiced at bowmanship. His face was round and boyish-the son of a merchant, maybe, who ran away to the changelands for his spellscar. Or perhaps he was an Order of Blue Fire recruit from a faraway land, moved here recently. He smelled of soap and perfume, but that was overwhelmed now by the iron tang of blood that leaked out beneath him. And that, in turn, was overwhelmed by the smell of his voided bowels.

There is no dignity in death, Duvan thought. He rifled through the saddlebags and found a small skin that smelled of fire oil. He doused the body with it.

Slanya bowed her head over the corpse. “May Kelemvor judge you well,” she said, “and guide your passage through the Fugue Plane to wherever next you land.” She stepped back and nodded to Duvan.

Striking the rings of his right hand together to ignite a spark, Duvan lit the fire. He stepped back as the oil caught. First the flames were yellow and the smoke billowed clear, but soon enough the flames turned orange, then red. The smoke rose in gray clouds, turning to black as the man’s flesh caught and his fat ignited.

Staring into the flames, Duvan remembered many burnings. Too many people gone to fire-the gossamer flames of blue fire. He saw his papa’s dark ruddy face beneath a black beard, always stern. And always right … until he wasn’t. Until he was gone. Spellplague. So many dead. And Duvan the only witness to their passing.

But that was another life, another existence. He had often wished he’d died along with everyone else, and perhaps he had. His death had not been due to fire, but to the loss of everything he knew. After Talfani had finally succumbed, leaving him alone among the decomposing corpses, Duvan had gone as cold inside as drifting snow.

He knew he’d gone cold hearted, and yet he didn’t care. It was better that way. Ice couldn’t be hurt. Imperviousness to emotional pain was far better than compassion.

As he watched the fire consume the flesh of this unnamed archer, he saw Talfani’s face in the fire. It had been a gossamer fire that had taken them all, but she-his sweet sister-had lingered on, sick and suffering.

Steeling himself, Duvan grit his teeth and forced away the memories. Since Talfani’s death years earlier, he’d shunned friendships. No reason to risk pain. Even Tyrangal was not a true friend, although they understood each other. Perhaps Duvan would miss her, ever so slightly, if she were gone.

“Good-bye,” he whispered into the flames engulfing the dead archer’s corpse. “I did not know you, but I hope that your continuing journey be not alone, but among friends.”