Chapter Four: Trial by Fire

"No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them." – Despair Inc.

A golden eagle glided just beneath the treetops in the dim morning light, its sky blue eyes surveying the ground below. Though the unusually large bird appeared out of place in the dense foliage, it nimbly darted around the colossal redwoods with agility that better suited a thrush. It rounded a particularly large trunk and began slowly descending through the canopy. As it neared the forest floor it broke into a clearing through which ran a seldom trodden dirt road. It touched down, a short hop and a flutter spoiling its otherwise graceful landing. The bird looked up at the others who milled about the clearing. Two wore armor, though one was encased by significantly more than the other, while a third wore a long, heavily worn coat as black as his hair over a suit of light and flexible leather armor. The fourth, the only woman among those who stood, wore a singed, aging robe about which the most polite thing that could be said was 'it had seen better days.'

Twitches and spasms ran through the eagle's body, as if something within it was struggling to escape. Its body twisted and grew, its wings narrowing into slender arms and its talons lengthening into legs. A tiny metal loop that encircled one of the bird's legs seemed to melt as the limb grew. It trickled up along the rapidly changing body to one of the newly formed arms, were it coiled itself around the wrist and sank into the flesh. Three of the four who watched did so with indifference, though the more lightly armored man appeared slightly unnerved by the transformation. While Carlos had seen shape changing magic at work before, watching it up close still never failed to disturb him. The eagle's beak shrank into nothingness and the tarnished golden feathers on its head thinned and grew into locks of dirty blonde hair. The eyes, however, remained sky blue as the bird became an elven woman clad in armor made of animal hides.

Aleera faced her jailor. "We have company. Bellicosians."

One of The Major's eyebrows rose, though his face remained otherwise impassive. "Where and how many?"

"Two, maybe three." She pointed into the undergrowth in the direction she had flown in from. "Off the road to the north."

The paladin turned to face Tobias and Sarah and jerked his head northward. "Deal with them." The two convicts nodded and the former flashed a malicious grin. Seeing the smile, The Major quickly added, "And I want them alive. We need to know where the rest of them are hiding."

Upon hearing this, a look of disappointment flickered across the serial killer's face before he vanished in a plume of black fire and brimstone. The alchemist merely rolled her eyes at her compatriot's displeasure before likewise fading from sight.

A minute later a scream of pain echoed through the forest, sending a number of birds that sat in the canopy fluttering from their perches. Some, songbirds mostly, flew away from the cry, while others, mostly pitch-black ravens, flocked to the noise. Silence, broken only by the calls of birds, descended on the forest in the minute that followed. Rustling in the undergrowth on the side of the road put Carlos on edge, and he placed a hand on the handle of the short sword Tobias had given him the night before and now sat in a sheath at his side.

He lowered the hand when an indignant looking Sarah stepped out of the foliage, followed shortly afterward by a tall, brown haired man with a sword on his belt and a bow slung over his back. His eyes stared forward vacantly and his movements seemed far too stiff to be anything but forced. The sight made Carlos pause. Though he was slightly larger than the average man, as Bellicosians generally were, he did not look all that different from a native of Halcyon.

"So, this is the face of our enemy," he muttered to himself.

A moment later Tobias walked out into the clearing as well, dragging by the collar the body of a man similarly equipped to his vacant eyed counterpart. This one, however, had a look of pain and terror frozen on his face and a sizzling black hole burned through the center of his chest.

The Major shook his head as he looked down at the corpse. He gestured idly with one hand as he spoke and the irritation in his voice built with each word that left his mouth. "Now, my memory is not what it used to be, but I distinctly recall saying I wanted them alive."

Tobias nodded his head toward the stupefied prisoner. "This one is."

Sarah shot a contemptuous glare at the murderer. "No thanks to you."

He met her piercing gaze with his own and nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. "I did not know my target would die so easily."

The alchemist's eyes remained fixed on Tobias and she quickly rounded on him. "You shot him. In the back. Through the heart. At point blank range. Twice." Her frustration finally boiled through her cold veneer and she threw her arms up in the air. "What did you think would happen?!"

The murderer opened his mouth to shoot back a barbed retort, but the stern voice of The Major cut him off. "Shut it, both of you." The paladin strode over to and smiled at the vacant eyed man. "Now tell me, where are your former comrades?"

"They're camped near-"

A sharp whistle sliced through the air and a slender, oaken arrow lodged itself in the captured Bellicosian's neck. A geyser of blood shot from the wound and the man collapsed like a marionette that had its strings cut. Carlos swung his shield down from where it hung on his back just in time to catch a second arrow in the heavy wooden disk. A third arrow came sailing in out of the undergrowth, this time toward Tobias, but the spry old man ducked the shot and, with a flick of the wrist, sent a bolt of pure darkness lancing back along the path the arrow had traced. An agonized scream ripped through the forest as the black beam sliced into the undergrowth followed by total silence.

When no further arrows flew from the foliage at them Carlos slowly relaxed. Tobias lowered his outstretched arm and calmly strolled over to the patch of the undergrowth he had fired into. The younger warrior hurried after him but soon regretted it. In a small opening just off the road lay the body of a man who wore cloths and gear similar to the first two they had found. This one, however, stank of burnt meat and boiled flesh. The man's face was marred by a smoldering black burn that had cooked away his skin, hair, and eyes. The only visible feature on his head was his blackened jaw, which hung agape in a silent cry of pain.

Tobias smiled down at the corpse, admiring his own handiwork, though Carlos merely let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head. "Not again." He looked over to where the serial killer stood over his latest victim. "Tobias, could you please, just for once, resist the urge to brutally maim everyone you come across."

"Well, since you asked so nicely, I will put it under advisement."

Tobias stooped down and took the sheath and long sword that the Bellicosian had worn on his belt. He handed the sword to Carlos, who accepted with a nod and clipped it to his own belt. The warrior then gave the serial killer back the short sword that he had been lent the night before. The two walked back out into the clearing and Carlos, upon seeing three inquisitive pairs of eyes gazing back at him, shook his head.

Sarah turned to face The Major. She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder at Tobias. "Well, since the psycho here just toasted our only remaining lead, now what?"

The paladin appeared entirely unconcerned by the turn of events. "Plan B." He looked over to Aleera who, after a moment's hesitation, nodded back.

The druidess closed her eyes and began whispering smooth, elven incantations. As she did, her face elongated into a muzzle and her skin grew a coat of gray fur. She dropped to all fours, her hands and feet thickening into paws. The animal hides she wore merged into her own, disappearing entirely. The metal band that encircled her wrist, however, did not vanish along with the rest of her gear. Instead, it appeared to melt and flow up along the rapidly thickening fur to coil around neck.

The wolf that now stood where before there had been an elf lowered its nose to sniff the body of one of the fallen Bellicosians. Aleera turned and, guided by unseen signs, trotted off into the forest. As the remaining four humans followed the wolf, Carlos saw Sarah smirk and open her mouth to speak. The warrior had a feeling that he knew exactly what the smart-mouth alchemist would say and he really wasn't in the mood for it.

He cut her off before she could utter a single syllable. "Don't."

"What?" The young wizard looked more than a little bit annoyed at the interruption.

"I know what you were going to call her. Don't." Carlos was quite pleased to see the startled expression on Sarah's face. She was surprised that the warrior had been able to guess what she was going to say, but quickly replaced the look with a sterner, defensive veneer.

After composing herself, the alchemist managed to shoot back, "But now she really is a nosy bitch."

Carlos let out an exasperated sigh. "That doesn't mean you need to say it. If you're not careful that big mouth of yours will get you killed."

She scoffed at the suggestion and said, in a haughty voice, "I'd like to see someone try."

"I did." Tobias chimed in from behind them.

Sarah glared over her shoulder back at him. "And you failed."

The serial killer nodded. "Perhaps, but next time I will not."

Her eyes narrowed at the murderer. "Is that a threat?"

"No." He flashed a chillingly confident smile. "It is merely a fact."

Once again Tobias had demonstrated his aptitude in the murder of all things, his words effectively killing the conversation for the rest of their trek through the woods. The convicts and their jailor wound their way through the towering trees, rising up the side of one of the many mountains that formed the Duskfang range. Massive redwoods gradually gave way to cold, gray granite and jagged cliffs. When they at last came to a halt it was overlooking a small gully that looked as if had been sculpted by a massive river of ice that had long since passed. As he looked down into the ravine, however, Carlos could make out a number of shapes moving amongst a cluster of tents. They were warriors, ones similarly armed and equipped to the Bellicosians they had killed earlier.

"The lion's den." The Major smiled and gave Aleera a curt nod. "Good work."

An eager grin spread across Tobias' face and he held one of his hands. "Let the carnage begin." He wreathed his hand in plume of black flame that crackled with glee, mirroring the expression on its master's face.

A mailed hand rose to hold the murderer back. "No." Tobias gave The Major a confused look, though it faded as the paladin continued. "The druidess led us here, I think she should have the honor of exterminating this little nest of vermin."

Aleera's soft eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and she gaped at her jailor. "What?! You can't be serious!" She frantically waved a hand in the direction of the Bellicosian camp. "I can't take on all of them!"

"You can and you will." The Major's eyes narrowed and his tone became markedly more severe. "I would also suggest you refrain from questioning my orders."

"Or what?" she snapped back. "You'll kill me? If I go down there I'm just as dead."

The Major calmly shook his head. "You sell yourself far too short." He flashed a frightening grin. "And I never said anything about killing you." His eyes swiveled to meet Carlos'.

Before the warrior could say a word, his mind was practically ground to a pulp under a deluge of pure, undiluted agony. In a tiny corner of his head, Carlos felt his hands shot up to and grip his scalp. His knees buckled and failed, sending him falling toward the cold ground. He might have been screaming all the while, he honestly did not know or care. It felt as though a white-hot poker had been rammed into his skull and was stirring his brain, boiling it and all of his thoughts away.

Even through the pain, Carlos could hear a voice at his side. "No!" Though it was muffled by the avalanche of mind numbing agony, he could still hear the terror that tainted it. "Stop!"

A second voice drifted through his reeling mind, this one as cold and firm as the rocks the warrior lay on. "Only you can stop this and only by obeying my orders."

The pain intensified, crashing into his besieged mind like the ocean waves pounding against a cliff face. Everything burned. His throat, and lungs were a blazing inferno screaming for air and water as his mouth screamed unrestrainedly. The world hurtled past his eyes, rolling back and forth as spasms shot through his wildly thrashing body.

"Fine, I'll do it! Just stop hurting him!"

Just as suddenly as it had beset him, the pain that was drowning the warrior's mind vanished. Slowly, timidly, his mind crawled its way back into his skull. Carlos looked about, still trembling from the ordeal. The first of the others he saw was Aleera, whose arms had caught him before he had gone farther than merely dropping to his knees.

Sarah stood not far away, though from the way she now carried herself she might as well have been a completely different person. Her confidence and haughty attitude were gone and she now looked more than a little unsettled, an expression that appeared severely out of place on the drug runner's face. Tobias sat on a large rock like a great black buzzard watching him struggle to stand with mild indifference.

The Major wore a satisfied smile on his face. "Excellent."

Aleera glared back at him while she helped the quivering warrior to his feet. "Whatever happened to paladins being beacons of good?"

"Child," Tobias chimed in from his perch, "our dear Major is a Royal Vandian Crusader. They serve the King first, the law second, and the people last. 'Good' is not in their vocabulary, only tyranny."

Her glare shifted toward the murderer, and she opened her mouth to say something but her breath caught in her throat, her entire body stiffened, and her eyes widened in terror. When she managed to speak, it was so softly that only Carlos was close enough to hear her. "No, not now. Of all times, not now and not you!"

Equal parts desperation and dread had seeped into her voice, making the words sound more like a plea to a distant god than a response to the murder's interjection. A deluge of questions buried his mind upon hearing her mumbling, though one stood above the rest. Who was she speaking of? Tobias? He looked searchingly up at her face. If so then why were her eyes clouded with fear instead of frustration or resentment? And if she was speaking of someone else, then who?

She blinked.

When she opened her eyes a split-second later they mirrored the psychopath's in intensity and soulless composure, a feat that left the mercenary speechless. All vestiges of the doubt and fear that had weighed on her features vanished, leaving in its wake a spine chilling frost in her gaze.

He saw no more, as at that moment Aleera unceremoniously tossed him aside like a sack of potatoes and turned away. The warrior's legs, still unsteady from The Major's rampage through his skull, bowed under his weight and sent him toppling back down toward the dirt, though this time he had his arms to catch himself. Carlos looked over to watch her leave, still more than a little shocked by the sudden change that had washed over the elf.

She stormed past the others without so much as a glance in their direction, as if she no longer knew or cared if any of her fellows even existed. With a muttered elvish phrase her skin rippled and hardened into stone as cold and gray as the ground she crossed. As she neared the edge she showed no sign of slowing. Without hesitation she stepped out into midair and found solid footing in the open air.

While the other convicts watched, Aleera strode out into the air above the gully. The Bellicosians, no doubt having been tipped off by Carlos' agonized screams, were alert and quickly spotted her hovering well above them. The first few who raised their bows did not even manage to loose the arrows, the bow shafts contorting into a collection of useless coils of wood with a mere wave of one of the druidess' willowy hands.

The floating elf dropped from the sky and landed amongst the startled archers, most of whom were still busy gaping at their mutilated bows, with unnatural grace. She placed her palms on the stone and a ripple shot through the rock accompanied by a resounding gong. The ground warped, rolled, and rushed upward, carrying her skyward atop granite spire the zenith of which expanded outward into an enormous disk. The pillar that held the edifice aloft thinned at an alarming rate even as the burden it carried grew.

When the stone finally settled into place only a matter of seconds after Aleera had landed it stood as a massive slab above the archer's heads supported only by a pencil thin column that immediately broke under the strain. The chunk of rock plummeted down and slammed into the ground with a sickening crunch, mashing those standing beneath it into a thick red paste and splattering the surrounding dirt with blood. Aleera herself, however, did not fall with it and instead hung suspended in the air once more.

Raw, divine energy rolled forth from her palms like water from a spring as she drew intricate patterns in the air around her, like a conductor guiding an orchestra of elemental fury. The wind followed the motions of her slender arms, whipping about her and howling through the ravine. Pieces of the camp and even a few of the soldiers were swept up, tossed about, and smashed into the stone walls by the gale as a vicious storm sprang to life with Aleera as its eye. The afternoon sky darkened to steel gray and shards of ice poured forth from the churning clouds, eagerly burying themselves in any Bellicosian skull they could find. A nest of stone spikes burst up from the gully floor and skewered a number of warriors unlucky enough to be standing where they formed.

One of the soldiers began howling above the wind in a tongue that Carlos did not understand, though it was clear he was trying desperately to rally his comrades. Aleera raised one of her arms skyward and a brilliant bolt of lightning answered her call. It lanced down out of the darkening sky and stuck the man who stood madly shouting to his fellows. He dropped to the ground, his skin and clothing charred beyond recognition, and the gale scooped up his lifeless corpse, sending it hurtling through the air and deftly impaling it on one of the many stone spikes that now littered the ravine. Upon seeing this, a few tried to turn and run but a second, third, and countless more bolts of lightning arced down and reduced each to a smoldering black husk.

Carlos gaped at the carnage in the gully below. "How does she do that?"

"As I said, you each have your talents." The Major gestured idly toward the floating druidess. "Though she may not put much stock in her own abilities, they are quite formidable." His head turned toward the warrior, a slight smirk on his face. "She merely needed the proper motivation."

"Then why am I here?" He waved an arm in the direction of Tobias and Sarah, who sat watching the butchery. "The rest of you wield magic with some skill but I'm just a thug, a pretty good one if I say so myself, but nothing extraordinary."

The paladin chuckled at the claim at first, but in the silence that followed his amused expression shifted to one of mild confusion. "You honestly believe that? You don't know?" His smile slowly returned when he received no response from the bewildered convict. "You really don't know. Interesting."

The warrior's eyes narrowed, the paladin's smug sense of superiority was quickly getting on his nerves. "What are you babbling about?"

"Don't worry, you'll find out for yourself soon enough." He gave Carlos a dismissive wave of his hand and turned back toward the slaughter that lay before them. "For now, just sit back and enjoy the show."

The Major smiled as he saw Aleera wave one of her hands, causing a trio of enormous wolves to spring into being. The massive beasts appeared to have growths of bone jutting out from their backs and were far larger than any wolf Carlos had ever seen. They rushed forward, joining the fray and shredding any hapless Bellicosians they caught in their jaws.

"We'll make a killer out of her yet."

A half dozen of the soldiers who stood their ground managed to sling bows off their backs and loosed a volley of arrows at the floating elf. The arrowheads, however, could not bite into her and instead skittered of her granite skin without so much as making a dent. Aleera, caught up in the symphony of destruction, merely waved an arm in their direction. The ground beneath them liquefied, turning into a watery mud that they sank up to their waists in. The druidess' head snapped around to glare at them, her eyes radiating wild, untamed power, and spat out an elvish phrase that was quickly lost on the wind. The mud the Bellicosians stood in hardened into stone, leaving them trapped in the ground itself. The hurricane force winds whipped up the pebbles that littered the ground creating a veritable tempest of dirt and gravel that engulfed the half buried soldiers, scouring the flesh from their bones. Their gurgling screams as they were skinned alive could be heard even above the howling wind and when the tornado of stone shards finally moved on it left nothing but a collection of bloodstained skeletons in its wake.

Carlos closed his eyes and shook his head, trying not to watch someone who he had thought of as an ingenuous child massacre countless strangers. "She didn't kill Bly, she was innocent."

The Major didn't so much as bat an eye. "I know."

"Wait, you do?"

"Yes, as do my superiors," a smirk tugged at the corners of the paladin's mouth, "and the court that convicted her in the first place."

Sarah, an eyebrow raised, glared askance at the paladin. "Then why is she here?"

"Because she's useful. Those Commonwealth fools let a marvelous druid fall right into our hands. Once we framed her for the murder that Ladimor so generously provided us with, it was a simple matter of arranging a guilty verdict so that she could be placed in one of these parole groups. Here, her abilities can be put to good use killing those Bellicosian wretches instead of tending to rotting trees and sickly beasts back in her farce of a homeland."

The alchemist's eyes flitted back to the tempest that raged below. "If she's so powerful then why didn't they try to get her back?"

"Because all power has a price, child." Tobias wore a disturbingly knowing smile on his face, though his gaze remained locked on the scene in the ravine. "But that price is not always physical."

Sarah shot the murder a contemptuous look and snapped at him with unmitigated scorn. "Thank you for that wonderfully quaint answer." She turned expectantly to The Major, still waiting for her answer. "Well?"

"Because, though they may be formidable druids, those treehuggers are weaklings at heart. They're cowards, afraid of drawing first blood when, in reality, they have the power to simply do as they please. The buffoons just sit on their hands, paralyzed by the idea that they might be in the wrong. 'Power corrupts' and all that nonsense." He let out a short scoff as he spoke the phrase. "What's the point of power if you don't use it?"

Carlos glared at his jailor, his eyes narrowing in disdain to match his tone. "And how are you so sure that you're doing the right thing?"

The contempt in his voice rolled off the paladin like water off a duck's back leaving The Major unfazed and, in fact, smiling. "Because I have the strength to do something in the first place, because the power is mine to wield as I see fit. Might makes right. The Royal Vandian Crusaders are strength incarnate and thus virtue incarnate. It only took one of our number to subdue each of–" He hesitated for a moment and his eyes darted to meet an intent steel gaze before continuing. "Most of you, and therefore we had every right to."

The winds in the gully subsided, revealing the true extent of the carnage. Only a tiny number of recognizable corpses remained, the majority of the Bellicosians having been ripped to shreds by howling wolves and wind or ground to a pulp under the relentless barrage of ice and rock. The gale had splattered the gulch walls with blood, soaking the stone and painting the gray rock deep crimson. Aleera herself hung suspended in the air above the massacre, the hides she wore stained with the blood of the red geysers her victims had become. Slowly, her every step adding an unseen weight to her slender shoulders, the elf walked through the empty air back to her fellow convicts until her feet met solid ground once again. Flecks of blood peppered her pale face as she glared accusingly at The Major, bearing in her eyes a contempt that Carlos was shocked to see in the piteous wisp of a girl.

The ice in her gaze seemed to seep into her voice as she snapped at her jailor. "There, I've slaughtered men and women that I had no quarrel with for you. Are you happy now you sick bastard?"

"Ecstatic."

With a smile on his face, The Major turned and walked downhill along the rim of the gully.

As the convicts followed suit, Carlos hurried to catch up with Tobias. After a moment of walking in silence he turned to the older man. "What did you mean earlier about the price of power?"

The serial killer smiled at the question. "I meant exactly what I said and said exactly what I meant." He glanced back in the direction of Aleera, who trailed behind the others.

The elf was shivering noticeably and focusing intently upon the ground beneath her feet. The cold, calculating glare had fled from her eyes, leaving behind the those of a frightened and confused child. For the second time since they had arrived in Warren's Fall, Carlos found himself wondering how such confidence could simply appear out of thin air and vanish just as quickly.

Tobias' smile broadened into a grin. "I told you before, I know my own kind when I see them."

After a moment of thought the warrior slowed his pace, falling behind Tobias until Aleera caught up with him. It took a few seconds for her to notice him, and in that time Carlos saw something in her eyes he had not noticed before. While they where still the eyes of a restless child, he could see something beneath that. Though she may have been walking beside him, her mind was somewhere else entirely and, for an instant, he caught a glimpse of its aim. She was concentrating on something, as if trying to pin down an errant idea or pen in a rampaging and unwelcome thought. Noticing him at last, she turned toward him with a start but calmed when she saw Carlos looking back at her.

"Thanks." He jerked his head back in the direction from whence they came. "For what you did back there."

She managed a smile but shook her head. "It was nothing."

"I would hardly call it that, you kept The Major from killing me."

"I didn't really have much of a choice."

Carlos shrugged. "You could have just let me die." He had known quite a few people in his time who would have done so.

Aleera's eyes lost focus and for an instant the warrior could see in them a change, a sort of mental handoff like a blink in the mind instead of the eyelids. When they dialed back into focus the change had washed over the rest of her features, making them softer and yet stronger at the same time. The confidence that her eyes had held returned, though it was now calm, warm, and comforting rather than the cold, calculating glare he had seen before. Her smile steadied.

"That wasn't an option."

The reassuring and consoling empathy that practically radiated from the druidess startled Carlos. How could one woman have so many conflicting facets to her?

The five eventually reached the mouth of the ravine and, following The Major's lead, doubled back to survey the massacre up close. Only a few recognizable pieces remained and the largest of them immediately drew Carlos' attention.

The Bellicosian's left arm had been suddenly and violently wrenched out of its socket leaving strands of torn muscle, sinew, and shreds of skin mingling with the blood that spurted from the empty shoulder. He was a little bit taller than Carlos and his hair might have been equally brown, though it could have merely been colored by the soup of blood, grime, mud that soaked it. His remaining hand tightly gripped an immense stone spike that jutted out from a hole clean through is stomach just below the ribcage, no doubt punching through his spine like a fist through wet paper.

And he was still alive.

While Tobias had been proud of his own handiwork, Aleera was horrified by hers. She rushed forward, a soft green glow already radiating from her palms, but a mailed hand clamped down on her shoulder and yanked her to a halt. She looked up and saw The Major stride past her toward the crippled soldier.

When the Bellicosian saw the paladin approaching his lone remaining hand began frantically scrambling for a sword that, though closer than any of the other weapons that littered the ground, still lay tantalizingly out of reach. A thick plate boot slammed down on the impaled man's wrist, snapping the bones like so many twigs and eliciting what might have been a cry of pain, though the blood flooding the man's chest muffled it to the point where it was little more than a pitiful gurgle.

A mailed hand dropped to the man's neck, its fingers curling around a small piece of metal that hung on a rough cord encircling his neck. A sharp tug snapped the cord and brought the bit of metal, a scrap of iron in the shape of a bear's paw, up to The Major's eye.

"Bloodclaws," he said idly as he rolled the insignia over in his grasp, "I thought as much." While he mumbled to himself he almost absentmindedly kicked away the sword that the Bellicosian had been madly clambering for.

The plate encased leg slowly swung around and the heavy boot came to rest atop the impaled man's neck. The Major gradually put more and more of his weight on the boot, eliciting a series of wild thrashes from the dying soldier, who made a weak gargling noise as he struggled desperately to breathe. The Major's face slowly contorted into a mask of pure spite as he crushed the last vestiges of life from the Bellicosian until at last he gave his boot a sharp twist and a nauseating crack flooded the ears of all those present. A final wave of spasms rippled through the impaled man, then he lay still, an expression of terror and desperation etched on his blood spattered face.

The paladin turned and strode past the four convicts. "This is war. Get used to it." Though his eyes never lingered on any of the expressions of horror and hatred that greeted him, his words were obviously directed at them.

The last voice that Carlos expected to object did so. "There is war and there is murder. I know the difference well." Tobias' gaze, vacant and unreadable, remained locked on the corpse. "That was the latter."

Sarah, after taking a moment to set aside her surprise, joined in. "Though I hate to agree with the psychopath, that was uncalled for."

The Major stopped and shot a glare back at them, then held the iron bear's paw up for the others to see. "This insignia marks him as an initiate. The Bellicosians frequently send their new blood out behind our lines to harass us, it forces them to learn how to survive without support. It means that he would know nothing of value."

"And that justifies killing him?"

"Yes."

"Have you no shame? No pity?" The Major glared down at Aleera, though the elf's words did not seem to affect the stone-faced paladin. "Is the idea of showing compassion that alien to you?"

He let out a bitter, mirthless laugh that echoed off the sides of the ravine and for a brief instant it seemed as if the entire world was mocking her question. When it faded, he practically spat his response.

"The world showed no compassion to me."

With that he turned and began the long walk back to Warren's Fall.