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I couldn’t bear watching him go, but as his blade sank into the belly of an assailant, I knew he was strong enough to take care of himself.
“Come on!” I led a growing number of women and children to a cluster of trees beyond the town, hidden behind a hill, to obscure them from the image of destroyed homes and falling husbands. Others had arrived before us. The children’s sobs and the mothers’ stoic grimaces were too much for me.
Tearing back to the village, I knew I had to stop the violence. No one, especially not innocent farmers, should have been subjected to such horrors.
I wove around fallen bodies, ignoring the blood splatter. Most were peasants, evident because of their crude attire. These people worked to provide for their families what meager comforts they could. And it was all taken. Anger swelled inside me.
Swords clanked together. Where were Mathonwy’s men? I pressed on, running faster than any mortal. In the center of the village, beside the crumbled walls of a well, a dozen men—Kelyn among them—fought. Kelyn’s soldiers, the guards stationed in this small village, or what was left of them, fought the miscreants.
They’re almost there, Seren said. Mathonwy’s driving his company with haste. Seren was doing her best to take out the enemy at the edge of the village. I was sure they didn’t expect a towering beast with deadly claws.
The village was farther away than we suspected. This wasn’t good. The enemy would be gone and the damage done before Mathonwy arrived.
As I neared, Kelyn ran his sword through an attacker. His chest heaved as he whirled to face another opponent, taking no pause for the life he took, not now, not in the thick of battle.
Would he feel remorse later? A life was a life, was it not? No man, whether good or evil, had the right to take life. No man could pronounce judgment. Could they?
Mortal men are evil.
The truth slammed me. I had stepped into a barbaric realm of men who believed in destroying wholesome, wondrous life.
Every contest, every mock combat and training scenario I’d engaged in hadn’t prepared me for this corrupted exhibition, this display of human brutality and vulgarity. An ache for home spread through me and penetrated my very being. I shouldn’t have come here. How could Deian have created this people—this frail race of mortals—who killed with no thought? Their inferiority waved through me.
Maybe they deserved their fate.
Even as Kelyn struck a man, even as I thought about the friendships I had made, I knew mortals weren’t mere dogs. Humans had worth. Owein’s amused heart and cheery eyes filled me, along with Kenrik’s hope for love and family, and Brenin’s innocent smiles and giggles. The poor bricklayer and his friends who feared for him. These people had worth. And Deian saw that.
Whatever worth he placed on the attackers, I didn’t know or care to see.
With a dawning understanding, I weighted the scale of justice in my mind. I understood how men believed they could do the same. Judgment was birthed from a division of right or wrong. One person believed he was correct, and whoever felt otherwise was judged unworthy.
But I could stop them—all of them. I could end the death.
Though I didn’t want to ever engage in combat again after seeing these monstrosities, didn’t want a man to fall because of my actions, I found myself stepping between two assailants.
Without second-guessing myself, I immobilized them. My light wrapped around their bodies, cementing them in place. I grabbed the wicked man’s double-edged axe and whipped it into the air, embedding it into a wooden post. I released Kelyn’s man and urged him to help his comrades.
I met the enemy’s eyes, for only an instant. The black cruelty behind his mind and in his heart slammed into me. I knew, without a doubt, the man was no man worth saving. I left him immobilized and fought on, working my way to Kelyn.
He spotted me and yelled words that were lost behind the scrapes of combat.
“What?” I yelled.
His blue eyes surveyed the carnage around me. “Protect my men! I know you can shield them. Please. Too many lives have been lost.”
I nodded.
Before I could turn, my world slowed.
Seren was too late to warn me, even though she saw the danger from the outskirts of the village.
A wall of darkness, thicker than sludge, filled my vision. I gasped. Alarm stabbed my senses. The enemy was closing in, circling us, and I felt their ugly spirits.
They wanted Kelyn’s people dead. Slaughtered.
“Kelyn!” I had no time to alert him.
I blinked and brought the carnage back to my sight—that was all it took.
