Climbing a rope held fast by a javelin plunged into the ground, Vijaya the Amazon emerged from the courtyard well, covered in stone dust and green muck. Planting her feet at the base of the well, she reached back down to help her weary companion the Paladin up the last yard of the climb.
"Thank you," he said, brushing futilely at his equally soiled clothing. "I owe you my life, my friend."
She smirked. "Thank Athulua. It was her Valkyrie who sheltered us and broke through into that underground river." She paused as she looked in the direction of the infirmary. "Oh, no…"
Nothing but a rubble pit remained of the house of healing now. When the supports had given way, the upper floors had fallen inward, collapsing into the deep cellar, taking the clinic and all its occupants with it. Broken cots and piles of shattered potion bottles showed through the lingering cloud of dust, behind the fallen façade and its weathered cross.
"Damn." Vijaya shook her head in frustration. "The townsfolk will see only this destruction, never knowing what we have saved them from. We'd best move on before—"
Justiniel looked at her with an expression of unadulterated anguish, and she halted in mid-sentence. Dismayed, she reached toward him, but he turned and walked silently away, clambering onto the pile of rubble.
Near the center of the heap, a pale human hand protruded from the wreckage. It wore a ring bearing a mark like a darkened eye. Justiniel fell hard on his knees in the crumbled masonry, desperately clasping the hand between his own – but there was no life left in it.
Tears streaming down his face, Justiniel prostrated himself to reverently kiss the ring, then curled the dead hand into a defiant fist. Genuflecting there in the rubble, the Paladin began to pray.
Spires of red-gold light swirled up from the ruin and pierced the clouds, as the Zakarumite's prayer of Redemption released the spirits of the buried dead. He remained there in vigil until the sun set and rose again, and only then did he return to his traveling companion's side. Without saying another word, the two of them resumed their journey.