Custom Pt. 05 - Judgement

Judgement

----

The trio had settled down by their campfire, stressed out by the events of a long day. The lazy crackling of the wood and the chirping of crickets were the only sounds that could be heard as the night sky shone bright under a canopy of trees. Talos stared morosely into the flames as Alanna looked on him with a frown. Casiama was playing with a silver Imperial between her fingers absentmindedly.

"They were bad people, Talos," Alanna told him unconvincingly, reading his fears as he created them in his head. She wrung her hands as she looked him over, "They deserved to die." She was troubled to note that she couldn't even convince herself of the last statement.

His eyes didn't move away from the fire. "People are idiots," he stated tersely as he finally spoke up in a low tone. He paused for a moment before looking at the girl.

"A person," stressing the singularity of the statement, "is rarely bad on their own. People, on the other hand, convince each other to be dangerous or fearful for one reason or another," he continued sadly. The two women didn't immediately catch the double meaning to his words.

"A thousand years ago, people sacrificed their own to dragons because they thought they were gods. Three hundred years ago, people attacked and slaughtered nearly an entire race of beings because their ears looked different." Casiama's ears perked up and swiveled at the statement. "Only fifteen years ago, people practiced slavery because one god said it was okay at some point. Think of what people will do tomorrow." It was Alanna's turn to look into the firelight.

"These guys were only out here because they had convinced each other it was the right idea," Talos said, applying his monologue to the present day. "So yeah. They were bad people. But get them alone? They probably weren't," the man finished as he thought back to the events of the day once more.

--

Casiama had spotted the fire the previous day while scouting their camp's perimeter, an action she always performed at sunfall. A large group of bandits were camped just under a mile from the trio, and the elf had convinced her new friends to strike on the party before they could be discovered.

Talos was looking over the band of outlaws from behind a fallen tree trunk, the once great timber now returning to the soil as fungus grew on its mass. Alanna, to his left, held his loaded crossbow as she mentally prepared herself.

Talos never liked starting a conversation with his crossbow. You don't get their point of view if you do, never give the accused a chance to redeem themselves. Some days he wished he was religious, to get the pressure of a life or death mortal judgement off his chest. He knew, however, that the weapon across from him and beyond the group of drinking men was worse.

He waited for the signal. Alanna would tap him on the shoulder when the elf fired her first shot, the sorceress already deep within Casiama's mind. Four seconds later and he'd attack, giving the princess a second shot before announcing his presence.

He found himself wondering if the men before him still had families back home. Grieving mothers, unknowing why their sons would leave their familiar home to instead plunder and rape. Tearful wives having to take care of their children without a man's stablility.

Alanna tapped his shoulder as the world went slow. She leveled the crossbow on the tree trunk. Talos counted calmly to four in his clear head before charging the group of sixteen men, sword in hand.

It was a massacre. The first man to greet him wore the comfortable silks and leathers of a merchant they must had robbed, wildly swinging his chopping axe at Talos. The swordsman sidestepped instinctively before slashing horizontally through the doomed man's chest. The second fell with an ungodly scream as the air was sucked out of him. Crossbow bolt to the lung. The third, the immediate nature of the carnage just now coming to him, tried to stand as his head was separated from his neck by cold, bloodied steel.

Talos rolled towards the mass of lost humanity as he swept their legs with a deft horizontal strike, bringing two down to the ground where they'd soon be buried. Several bandits behind them were clutching arrows lodged in their chests or necks as they fell, dying from a location they weren't aware of, for a reason they didn't understand. Talos rose as he deftly slashed the man in front of him with a backhand swing before stepping back to avoid the strike of another, piercing his attacker's heart when the bandit's weapon fell through the empty air between them.

Talos swung his sword lazily in his hand as he approached the last doomed soul. The cowering kid, no older than eighteen, begged and pleaded for life as the swordsman drove his steel through the bandit's neck. Talos wasn't listening.

Alanna walked with soft steps towards him as he passed judgement on the dying men, three still writhing on the ground and clutching ruined limbs. The swordsman stepped silently between them and ended their cries with little fanfare.

Casiama emerged from the forest last, arrow still knocked on her longbow, her eyes darting over their surroundings. A surprised bird here, a scampering rabbit there. Talos looked over at her when he believed the deed done, awaiting confirmation from her superior senses. Casiama waited another moment before nodding, allowing Talos to wipe the blood from his steel and sheathe it once more. Sixteen more souls had existed less than forty seconds ago.

--

"Them or us," Casiama whispered, her statement bringing him back to the present. Talos fished a fresh grindstone from his pack as he was reminded of the days events, bringing it to his sword. His eyes were focused on the cold steel as he worked it.

"Sure. And I bet the Emperor shouted the same to his legions as they assaulted Tor Remilla," Talos replied with a smirk at the witty comparison. The ancient elven capital had been just as doomed back then as the outlaws had been today, surrounded by twenty-nine Imperial legions each containing two-thousand armored regulars.

Casiama's eyes were quickly filled with grief at the mention. She had heard much of the story growing up. A hundred-thousand or two dead elves in the span of two days. She had despised all of humanity not four days ago because of it.

"Sorry, Cass," Talos softly said under his breath as he realized the error. It had been a valid comparison, but the mention of Tor Remilla probably stung her. Three hundred years isn't as distant to elves as it was to him. Some who experienced it first hand might still be alive.

Casiama shook her head in reply. "There is nothing for you to be sorry about." Four days ago she would never had said that to a human. She found herself taking the man's words to heart every time he spoke, and sometimes he said the wrong thing. As humans were accustomed to do.

The trio sat silently for several quiet moments before Alanna excused herself for bed, kissing Talos on the cheek sweetly. Her jealousy of her two companions' attraction towards each other had gathered momentum over the past two days, realizing that Talos' heart had fluttered every time he lay eyes on the elf.

"Come to bed soon, you two. Another long day ahead of us," Alanna said softly in a reassuring tone as she departed.

"We'll need a bigger tent, then," Talos smirked, the sorceress feeling her heart drop before realizing he was joking. The elf was blushing a deep red in the firelight.

Yeah. Joking.

The tired sorceress disrobed in her small leather tent, her probing mind picking up on deep conversations, jests, and minor flirtation as her consciousness drifted off to sleep.