Sigilian 20

So, this is the END OF PART 2 (Said in spooky echoey plot voice)

Robert stood up from his weeding and took a few steps towards the farm house.

Branwen had come back in a hurry, riding the horse hard, and she had barely stopped to dismount.

He stepped around the vegetable garden and walked to meet her.

“What is it?”

“You Soldier. There is a rumour going around that you are missing”

“I’m surprised it’s taken a week to get here”

“Rumour is you’re dead”

“Dead?”

“Dead. Some crazy woman killed you, stabbed you through the heart or poisoned you or something”

“What!”

“And then you fell off your balcony and your body was stolen. The rumours are flying”

“I…but, I’m not dead!”

“No, but they think you are. And if the people think you do then that means that there is likely something wrong with how the nobles are acting, especially your parents. So they may not think you’re dead, but they’ve done something to make the people think that they think that”

“I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go let them know I’m alive!”

“And more importantly you have to get the danger you represent away from my son”

Robert nodded.

“I’ll leave as soon as I’ve gathered my stuff”

“Best get to it. I’ll saddle your horse then pack some supplies. Then you’ve got to leave”

Robert didn’t waste more time, turning to begin packing.

Ten minutes later he sat astride his horse by the side of the road.

“Soldier. I have to thank you for everything that you have done to aid me”

“And I you Branwen. You’ve taught me a lot this week”

“Just don’t forget it. And make your way back as fast as you can. Don’t trust anyone, don’t tell anyone who you are. If they believe you they’ll just grab you for ransom, especially at a time like this. Understand?”

“Yes. I’ll trust nobody with the truth and try and be blunt”

“No putting up a false front or acting out. Stay anonymous. Now go”

“Yes. Luck to you Branwen”

“And to you Soldier”

He wheeled the horse and took off down the path. He glanced back once. Branwen had gone inside, was not at the windows.

Her son who she had forbid him from talking to waved from an upper story window. He waved back and then concentrated on the path ahead of him.

Hiros turned to check that the saddlebags were still closed and had not spilled anything. They were, and had not. Good.

This was the seventh trip in as many days into town. It was apparently taking quite a long time to move ‘as many chests as he could touch’ from the linked cave to elsewhere.

His plan had been simple and brilliant.

He had found the cave he needed and performed the necessary ritual to link it to the inside of the mine.

Sketching he had found himself inside the mine, next to the Chief.

Well, he had stabbed the Chief and taken a look around.

Not much in the room except for all the treasure they had collected. The room was at the far back of the mine, the deepest mine-shaft. He had not thought that anyone else would be there.

But it made his job far easier.

He knew that he couldn’t risk a second trip back, not with the sounds of fighting growing ever closer, but he had piled as many of the crates as he could and then laid across them, spread eagled.

He had tried to touch as many as possible, because that was the only way he could bring them with him.

It would require Completing to bring that many, but he had the time to do so…he had hoped.

He had had time, and had arrived in the cave with a dozen crates stuffed with the spoils of banditry. Money, trade goods, art objects…

It was a small fortune.

And it was all his, so long as he killed those pursuing him each day.

Which really had not been a problem.

After all, he was a crack-shot with a crossbow, and at least half the people he had killed had themselves had extra bolts for him. How thoughtful.

He smirked at the thought, stroking his crossbow already.

As good as it was to be rich it was almost better to be able to shoot people. Although that ran the risk of no success, so, being rich did indeed trump it.

However, now there was a slight snag. He drew on the reins, bringing his horse to a halt.

Two men stood in the path before him. Both of average height, both dressed in common clothing with leathers over top, both entirely innocuous, except for their stances.

They held themselves like murderers and thieves. And both had their lefts hand was curled into fists, but for the thumb which both pointed in towards their own legs.

“Ah. So, my fun has ended has it? Time to get back to plotting?”

He was fine with that. He’d linked pieces of gold off to enough hideaways that he could safely retire anywhere and end up rich. His favourite trick, linking his nondescript bag at his belt to anyone of a dozen identical bags scattered around the world, buried deep underground, left at the bottom of garbage heaps that were sure to never be moved, tossed overboard while the ship crossed a trench.

Each was sealed shut, couldn’t be opened, and for good measure was in a locked box.

But if he linked the bag here with one of those bags…

Oh ho ho, then the fun began.

Drop something in here, it would end up in whatever bag he had linked it to. Reach in to this bag, he’d reach into whatever bag he’d linked it to.

It allowed him to have access to any number of things, whenever he needed them.

Most handy.

Unfortunately he couldn’t really go about pulling trade goods in and out of them; their locations meant that putting those kinds of things in the bag would spoil them, as well as the fact that they would not physically fit.

All that the bags meant is that so long as he could find a plain burlap sack the size of his two fists then he would have money.

Which meant that even if these two fools led him on a wild goose chase then he would still be able to get back to where he was right now, circumstances wise, not physically.

“You’re needed. Where have you been?”

“Busy. You have any idea how hard it is to find my way out after everything goes to hell? Escaping a bad situation takes a lot of work, and always leaves me in the middle of nowhere”

Even his closest allies didn’t know how his power worked. It let him make lies like that without fear of being discovered.

“Well, it is a good thing we found you”

“Yes, whatever would I do without you loyal bloodhounds?”

Hiros sighed as he got down from his horse.

“I’m assuming you’ve got some other means of getting out of here? Or something that will require leaving behind what spoils I could gather?”

“Of course. Follow us”

Hiros started after the two killers and shuddered slightly.

He was glad that they were on his side. Those two would be able to kill him without any trouble at all. They had been assassins on the mainland, top killers able to hire themselves out to anyone for any price they chose.

He still had no idea how Natasi retained their services, but he assumed that it was costing her a fortune. Otherwise those two would not suffer the idiocy of this plan for very long at all.

A shadow fell over him and he slowed.

Looking up his jaw dropped open before he ran to catch up.

Grabbing onto the ladder that had been lowered he scrambled up to the doorway as best he could, pausing only once to look back at the horse with a sad look of longing.

They expected him to be sad about losing the money after all; he needed to appear to need them or else he’d become a liability.

But, he was beginning to think that it might be worth allying with the conspirators for good at true this time.

As he finished the climb into the main floor of the floating Border Tower he shrugged aside his past concerns.

Yes, they may be foolish and the plan may be ill-considered, but anyone who was able to hijack a Border Tower was worthy of his respect.

Realizing that he’d best make sure he wasn’t left behind he scurried up the stairs after the two towards the control room.

He’d been in a border tower once before during a con. They’d thought he was helping them, and in fact he actually had been. The ones he’d been conning had been the bandits, and with the arrival of a Border Tower over their headquarters they’d been very happy to surrender, leaving Hiros free to plunder what he had needed.

And so he knew that it took a lot of training to be able to fly these things without crashing, and that to even be able to control it required years of training.

So the mystery of how they were piloting it was something that intrigued him even more than how they had gotten a hold of it.

“Is everyone aboard?”

The crisp military tones seemed to imply that they had the pilot working for them.

But the pilots were chosen because of their unshakeable loyalty to Destria. And then they had it drilled into them, day in day out for years, that Destria was the only true power that they could obey.

In Hiros’ personal experience, and in the tales, they were all zealots and insane, unable to do anything, unable to think for themselves.

The fact that they had corrupted one had him even more frightened.

“Yes Captain. The special passenger is aboard. We can about the KIng’s business now. The special order is from the King himself, as is proper”

“As is proper”

The tones were slightly distorted, dimmer maybe, and as Hiros climbed the final stairs he could see that the pilot was slouched, slumped in his chair. That in itself would have been unusual enough, but the vacant look in his eyes and the shadows trailing from the wounds in his body told him the rest of what he needed to know.

The man was less of himself than usual; he was a puppet controlled.

Stifling a shiver he took a seat as the Tower slowly spun and began to accelerate towards its next destination.

Tomas sat in the chair in their room at the inn. He was so engrossed in the book, reading about the area and its history with bandits that he almost didn’t hear when Laerian walked in.

“I’m back. No more news”

“None at all?”

“None. The good news is that the last of the captives we rescued has been picked up by someone. Which means that we can save on the rent for the inn room”

“We can save on ours too. We’re leaving”

He closed the book gently and turned to face Laerian.

Dark bags still hung under his partner’s eyes, and there was a bit of a haunted cast to his face. The captives had not seen it, every last one of them thinking him dashing, if still being as scared of him as they would be of any man after what they had gone through.

But Tomas could see. Seeing him before, and then now, he could see how the darkness had grown within the man, how old pain had been reawoken, how he was fighting something inside.

Tomas fought the same thing every day, but he could tell that whatever Laerian was fighting it was far worse.

“Are we?”

Learian was leaning against his bedframe, trying to look casual, but still tense.

“Are you still in the State?”

“What if I am?”

“Leave it now”

Laerian grimaced for a minute, then let it go.

The tension flowed out of him, but it seemed that the strength did too. He sagged onto the mattress.

“So, where are we going?”

“The Ferrian Reach”

“Whats that?”

“It is the bandit headquarters. Nobody has ever been able to get in or out of there unless they’re a bandit. Nobody has ever been able to clear the bandits out of that place. Its a hell hole, and a home of debauchery. Even the army was defeated when they tried to clear it out”

Sitting bolt upright Laerian’s eyes went wide.

“No, you’ve got it wrong. Not ‘Ferrian Reach’. ‘S called Hell’s Gate, for obvious reasons, and its not even pronounced like you said it.

“Its called Faron Rek. The spelling is all weird, but it’s Faron Rek. And no. We are not going in there. No way, no matter what you think. Even what I did in the mine wouldn’t be enough there; nothing would.

“We’d be killed for sure. We can’t just walk into the home of the bandits, of the Blood Red King, and expect to survive. Plus its on an island. We’d need to take a boat there, which would delay us further, and would make all kinds of trouble, and we’d need to find a captain, and they’d kill us on the way there and-”

“Laerian. Calm. There is a way to go there without being killed right away. We become bandits”

Laerian’s eyes became truly dark. The bags, shadows, the slack in his limbs a looseness, readiness for motion of any kind, the sudden light in his eyes the surge to kill.

“We are not becoming them in order to kill them”
“No. We’re not. But we can say that we are. We tell them that we were the ones who killed this group, and let them know that we want to start our own. We can tell them that the others were infringing on the territory that we had claimed, and that in response we killed them”

Laerian relaxed again as he considered.

“It…is a good plan. It would likely get us in. What then?”

“We can then use the cover of recruiting others to bring Hiros in. Once we have him we can either wait for him to try and clue us in on the plan, or we can torture the information out of him. Once we’ve done that we can do whatever else we need to to get out. Perhaps if we have time we can kill the Blood Red King”

“No. We are not killing the King. If he is killed it will spark a succession war among the bandits, which means that each group will try and prove its own worth and attack the others, attack more targets of opportunity. They’ll cause as much damage to Destria as a real war would, or at least to this coast of it. We’re not going to take out the king, no matter what. Agreed?”

“I can agree to that”

“Then let me sleep for a night before we get going. I’ll find a boat going that way in the morning and we can get going then. But, sleep first”

“Of course”

As Laerian lay down again, even now taking the time to undress, check his clothes over, and fold them nicely off to one side before sleeping.

And Tomas really couldn’t blame him; if he had the power to awaken clothes like Laerian had done then he would want to take good care of his clothes as well.

In fact, for the last week he had been doing so, trying his best to care for the clothes, keep them clean and in good repair.

He would need to buy a set of fashionable clothes that could serve him in the court of the Blood Red King, and then he would be ready. The plan was foolproof, especially with the backup that he had decided upon.

If all else failed he would sacrifice Laerian in order to complete the plan. It would not even be hard to do; the man was self destructive enough already.

Tomas sat back down at the table and continued to read.

Sigilian 19

His clothes finally stopped trying to drag him into the mine and so Tomas stood up cautiously.

It seemed that whatever Laerian had been doing it was over now.

As he stepped into the mine the first thing he saw was the bandit.

From the waist down he was a bloody mess, his knees and crotch especially bad. His arms were just as bad, so little flesh at the elbows that it was surprising his forearms were still connected.

Tomas crouched down taking care not to slip before he realized that there was no blood.

None at all, despite the wounds the man had suffered.

Trying to ignore the fact for the moment he shuffled over to the man’s head.

He checked for both a pulse and breath, and was surprised to find both.

“Are you awake?”

“The…the pain. The threads. They burrowed. They burrowed inside me. Stop them. Get them out. Help me”

The voice was both exhausted and panicked, weak and desperate. Tomas had never before heard anything like it, but if he was to say anything about it he would call it the voice of a man about to die.

“I can. If you tell me what you know of the plot to kill the king”

“You’ll take the threads out?”

“Of course”

“The…Hiros. Man named Hiros. Brought us the idea. Told Chief”

“And why did Chief listen?”

“Hiros…brings lots of ideas. Tells when caravans coming. Sends messages through pens. Tells us from far away…what’s happening”

“Is he a Sketcher then?”

“Maybe. Never showed me. Now heal me. Take the threads out”

“No”

Tomas grabbed the man’s head and snapped his neck in one swift motion.

There would be no mercy for these men who allied with traitors, those who would use him.

And he had found out everything useful. It was time to move on to the next bandit.

He stood and leapt backwards, skidding to a halt as his hands flew into a guard position.

A blood-smeared man was coming out of the tunnel towards him. His head was just a black orb without lines or definition and his hands were bloodsoaked.

After a moment Tomas realized that the figure was wearing Laerian’s coat.

“Laerian?”

He stepped forwards as the figure came fully into the light.

Laerian’s face stared back at him from behind the black. It was a mask that transformed his face into close to a skull, his hair all flat, his eye sockets hollow and empty looking, his nose just a point and his ears bumps.

The only thing that had detail as his mouth. He could see every line, every tooth, the wrinkles in his lips, and the too wide grin.

Hands came up to point at him as the blood began to disappear fading into plain white silk.

“Laerian, it is me, Tomas. Is everyone incapacitated? Are the captives all freed? Laerian?”

The figure swayed and then began to peel off the gloves.

Tucking the now pure white gloves into his belt again Laerian raised his hands towards his face.

As he did so the mask sagged and fell away from his skin leaving only a loose black hood.

He pulled that off too and tucked it into a pocket, and he was just Laerian again. His clothes weren’t even bloody or rumpled.

“Partner”

He had a kind of sad half smile on his face as he walked forwards and dropped onto a partially collapsed crate.

“I think its all done now. Some of them over there are still alive, but they won’t be getting up again. Unless you heal them of course. I’ll let you interrogate them. I need to rest for a few minutes, and then I’ll let out the captives”

He stifled a yawn as he staggered over to sit against the wall.

“You just” Another yan “Go ahead. I’ll be right here”

He rubbed his eyes, and then leaned his head back against the wall.

A moment later his breathing became even and regular as his eyes slid shut.

Tomas looked down at the bandit’s corpse.

“Well, it would seem that his fight with you and your fellows was too much for the mighty magician. You stay here and watch over him while I interrogate the others”

He marched off leaving the blank and sightless eyes to look at the closed ones.

Sigilian 18

Branwen paused in her work. Setting down the handles of the plow she let the horse come to a stop.

A lot had changed on the farm since Soldier had arrived. He’d paid for a new work horse as well as enough food stores to last the two three winters.

Which left Branwen free to turn the crops into food for now, or to sell the extra food. And she was using going to use that money in turn to improve the farm.

The only bad thing about Soldier being there was Soldier himself.

Staring across the field at him trying to coax the riding horse he had bought into a harness was a task in and of itself.

His total lack of experience with anything real made her want to strangle the man, and his idiot parents, and all of the nobility for not teaching their children how to do something as relatively simple as hitch a horse to a wagon.

Of course the fact that he was trying to hitch a riding horse to a wagon was in and of itself an error. Watching him now she struggled not to go over and help him, but she had decided that she would not help him.

She picked up the handles of the plow and set it moving again.

She wouldn’t help Soldier until the stubborn man learned that asking others how to do something was just how the world worked.

Tomas glanced over at Laerian before moving to the entrance.

The man’s scarves were not at the ready, and there was something about his face that made Tomas worried.

A darkness that had not been there before. But, so long as whatever it was did not get in the way of their quest then he did not care what it was.

He didn’t care about Laerian either. The man was unimportant. The bandits were unimportant beyond what they could tell him.

Nothing mattered right now but stopping the war to protect his family, and having revenge on whoever would try to use him.

Those were the things that mattered to him at the moment.

“Laerian, are you ready?”

He put his palms on the blockade of crates and set his feet.

“Laerian?”

“I am ready. When you clear the way, step aside. And when you follow me, watch out for the bodies”

His voice was a monotone. Tomas glanced back again, but the man’s face was entirely in shadow. His clothes seemed to blow in a non-existent breeze.

“Are you saying that I won’t be there beside you?”

“No. You’ll be out here so that you’re safe from me”

“Safe from you?”

“If you go in, no telling if I’ll tell you apart from them”

“Will you be able to tell the captives apart?”

“I’ll be able to feel their ropes”

“So can’t you…how will you feel their ropes?”

“Break the barricade partner. Do it now”

Tomas turned to push on the wall, but then turned back.

“No. Laerian, we are partners, correct?”

“Yes”

“Then explain. This. All of this”

“No. Break the barricade Tomas. Do it now”

He looked at the man’s face and one more time and decided to give up.

The argument was not worth the energy it would take.

“Someday I would love to see a partnership where both sides are truly equals”

“It will never happen Tomas. This world is too cruel”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the light-hearted one?”

Without further ceremony he dug his heels in and began to push. After a moment the crates slid backwards, and then with another shove they exploded inwards.

Splinters and supplies flew as Tomas leaned back then threw himself bodily into the crates, breaking through then turning into a dive.

A few crossbow bolts went past him, and he was for a moment concerned he would have to clear the mine on his own.

Then Laerian stepped through the doorway and there was a moment of stillness.

“Step outside Tomas”

Something in Laerian’s voice made Tomas comply. He suddenly realized that he truly did not want to be there for whatever was about to happen, his fear of being hurt overriding everything else.

He just needed to escape the madman who had been unleashed.

Laerian took another step into the fog. A bolt flew at him, but it was aimed at his chest. It would not be a problem.

It impacted and he barely felt a brush on his skin, his coat turning hard as steel, alive and angered at the assault.

A grin began to play across his face as he pulled a pair of white silk gloves from where they were looped in his belt. Pulling them on he felt the softness of the cloth and the squirming of the threads, each and every one. His skin became the thread, his thread became the skin. They were one, as he was one with the coat as he was one with the clothing on those around him.

He could feel the thin black material of Tomas’ outfit drinking down the fear sweat. He could feel the places of wear and tear, where Tomas had abused it, where it was damaged, where he was not properly caring for it.

Tomas’ clothes were none too happy with their owner, which was why he had told Tomas to leave. When he let the clothing free it would not be a pretty sight if he was still there.

His own clothes however…they loved him. He cared for them, wove in new threads of just the right shade in just the right way, made sure that they were never patched, never needed to be patched. He kept the, clean, but fed them regularly, their favourite foods, dyes and threads, care, soap, water and blood.

And so they loved him.

His grin grew wider, too wide as he drew the cloth hood from his pocket. It was also silk, and fit his head loosely. He drew it on and then let it too come alive.

His coat continued to catch and stop crossbow bolts as he took another step in. The hood adjusted itself, closing around his head, tightening until it was, like the gloves, another skin. It pressed into his eyes, filled his mouth perfectly forming his grimace, outlining his nose, flattening his hair until it was almost not visible.

He did not know what he looked like when he donned the hood as he could not see. It was possible that it to others appeared as a black silk bag over his head, no shape at all.

But he could feel it pressing against his skin so tightly he was sure that that was not the truth.He was sure that his anger was represented faithfully in the hood.

He could not see while he wore the hood, no.

But he had other means of sensing things.

The clothes of others told him things. They knew that he was a friend to clothing, that he cared for it and repaired it, loved it and was kind to it. So they told him where they were, where they were moving, going, where they had never gone.

He could almost see the world in shapes with the hood one.

Except for the clothing. He could always see the clothing, knew where and what it was, every single detail.

While he wore the hood the clothes were more real to him than those that wore them.

And so it was easy to bring them to life, to let them do what they would with their owner. And he didn’t need to worry about himself as his own clothes loved him too much to let him die.

He took another step in and raised his hand to catch the sword that was coming at his stomach. The other man’s sleeve had told him where the sword was coming from. It had been simple to catch it on his palm.

As his glove closed around the end of the blade and crumpled it he turned his attention to the man’s shirt.

“Do you hate this man?”

The answer was always yes.

“Do you want to have your revenge on this man?”

He let the pants have enough life to hold him still.

And again, the answer was always yes.

“Where has he hurt you? The elbows, yes, a common sin. Here, you have my permission, an eye for an eye”

The man began to scream as threads pulled out of his shirt and dug under his flesh. The screaming got louder as those threads began to weave together again and pull outwards, slicing through skin, muscle and bone more easily than a sword could.

“Is that enough? Or has he hurt you in other ways?”

Again, the answer was always yes.

“And you pants? Do you also wish your revenge?”

The pants had suffered worse than the shirt. Both were stained with food and worn at the joints but the pants had been exposed to worse indignities while the man had forced himself no captives over the years.

“Yes, I can see your point. Imagine what those poor people did to their clothes. Not their fault, but imagine what the hurt this man gave to them made them do by accident? Imagine how those clothes felt when their owner was hurt in this way. Probably the owner was nice to their clothes, and now because of this man they never can be again. Why don’t you make it so that he can never hurt someone in that way again?”

The man’s screams took on a far more pained note as his pants began to cut at his knees and crotch in the same way as the shirt had done to his elbows.

“And shirt, you may do whatever else you like to him, but the beat of his heart must continue. That is my contract with you. You gain the power to have your revenge so long as he still breathes, so long as his heart still beats”

The clothing was more than happy to agree.

There was a tearing shredding sound as his crotch was turned inside out. He could feel the clothes soaking up the blood, reveling in the revenge against their erstwhile master.

Laerian stepped forwards as the other bandits broke and ran.

His grin stretched ever wider, the threads of his face unraveling to allow it. The fun was only beginning, and there were still so many left to punish.

Tomas struggled to take a breath.

His shirt was crushing his chest, his pants holding his legs rigid and near immobile. Only his great strength was allowing him to continue to breathe, continue to stumble away from the entrance.

Laerian had been right when he said that he would not be able to protect Tomas. He had been right when he said that Tomas would die if he stayed.

Tomas’ legs continually tried to backpeddle, to move him back towards the mine entrance as his pants swung backwards every time he lifted a leg.

He would use his arms to help, but he had learned his lesson when, upon lowering his arms at first they had swung down and his pants had in some way grabbed his hands. As his arms had swung backwards they had helped his legs to overcome his own strength.

It had only been through luck and pulling at just the right moment that he had gotten his hand free.

Even then it had been covered in tiny writhing hairs that had soon fallen still. They were still there, poking out of the skin of his hand. It was really disconcerting, and Tomas was sure that if he wasn’t so busy trying to win the fight with his pants he would be terrified.

Laerian stalked further into the mine. His clothing had run out of arrows and swords to block. And eventually the bandits had caught on that it was their own clothing that was killing them and stripped down.

Those that worried about modesty at a time like this died.

Those that didn’t worry about modesty also died though, so there was not much of a difference in the end.

It was merely those who died as screaming mewling cowards like they were, or those who died with swords in their hands and battle on their lips.

Laerian had so far spared seven bandits, leaving them in states of mortal agony, and eight captives. They had all been in one room, so it had been easy to stop the clothing from coming alive. Just make sure that no clothes in that direction came to life.

It was simple enough, since there were so many other clothes that wanted to be awakened.

But with the bandits now without clothing it was going to become even more fun.

His clothing was almost moving too fast for him now, eager to hunt.

With a quick reminder not to stretch him or break him, he let it off the leash.

There was a thrill to letting his skin take control. It felt so…easy.

He didn’t need to worry about anything anymore, didn’t need to worry about the blood on his hands, didn’t need to worry about repeating his father’s mistakes.

And he didn’t need to worry about dying. Even if something got past his clothing it would sew him up as fast as it could. He could stay in the State at least that long, long enough for it to save him.

And once he was saved it would be easy to stay in the State.

He returned to focusing on the fight, revelling in the release of control, in sacrificing his will, his body, to the desire for revenge that had soaked into his clothes and dried like day old blood.

It was never coming out of these, and he was fine with that. The revenge was channeled, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone except killers.

And his clothing had a very good nose for killers.

He felt his arm come up and then down again, felt warmth soak through his glove.

“Remember, try to leave them alive”

But he really didn’t care, and his clothes could tell. This had started as a way to find out who was starting the war, and to Tomas it still was.

But to Learian that didn’t matter anymore. It was about having revenge on these killers, rapists, thieves and worse, having on revenge on those like his father and fellow soldiers.

He had been denied the justice of killing them himself, so instead he would kill the others with similar crimes.

He would save these captives from the fate he his family had endured, save them from the fate that he could not save the families of the dead on the mainland from, save them from growing up with the same darkness inside that he carried.

He would save them, even if it meant killing every last bandit himself, with his bare hands.

His hand came down again on the face of the man he was straddling and something warm splattered across his face. It was all going to be ok.

His teeth parted enough for his tongue to get a taste of the goo on his hood.

He was going to kill them all and then it would be ok.