Subject: Re: Two wizards out of town; The wrath of Elise

Kasen stirs uncomfortably on his saddle, feeling like something of a voyeur. He is torn between averting his eyes and letting Farron slip on with dignity and grabbing Sa'id by his collar and hauling him down the road. While touching, there was nothing they could do for Farron now but remember his name and wear it on their lips when they bring Elise her justice.

"There's time," he thinks, "A little time to collect himself. To collect ourselves." The sight of Sa'id over Farron's body threatens to take him back to his memories of Conal's corpse, memories he could do without visiting again tonight. To escape he nudges Stormcloud's flanks and they trot a few yards from the road, ostensibly searching for a sign of Farron's mount while giving both men some privacy in these last moments. Not that there was a hope of finding the animal without light; not that it matters now. He ticks off the passage of time and puts off leaving a while longer, pretending not to hear Sa'id's cries and steeling himself to deal with one dead man and one broken one.

"This is no time to be soft," He thinks, looking back at Sa'id. They were pissing time into the night. Farron was neither the first nor the last to fall; indeed there was nothing remarkable about his passing at all. Justice already demands Elise's head and there was always room for another name. Let yet another man relish in her death. "She can kill as many as she likes," he thinks, "It will make her fall the sweeter." But these tears, these tears would drown them if she found them while they wept. He had given Sa'id his peace, but now it was time to move on. Straightening in his saddle he moves back to the road.

Kasen clears his throat. "We should move on. The bitch knows where we are, and she may know that her spirits failed to kill us. We are in no shape to fight right now. We can," he pauses uncomfortably, "we can take him. To bury later. If you wish."

It is too late that he sees the blind anger and hatred in Sa'id's eyes. He had completely misread him and, caught utterly by surprise, he jerks backwards in shock without even reaching for his sword. "The man is broken", he realizes, "but not crumbled under the weight of despair, despair has simply weakened him enough for his hatred to explode." Kasen blinks, hands dumbly holding the reins, "I'm going to die," he realizes.

On his knees, Farron sucks in a huge coughing breath. He does not wake, but his heart beats and his breath is steady. In minutes, his flesh begins to warm. And, thankfully, he draws back Sa'id's focus.

Kasen tries to give an easy laugh, but it sounds timid even to his ears, "Your cries truly did wake the dead, Sa'id," he says, grateful that his voice does not break, "let us be off before they wake Lady Elise's ghosts as well."

Subject: Re: Black Magic 6

As they ride into what had been the town's camp, Osred's mouth flattens to a thin, grim line. His gaze flits back and forth across the carnage, finally settling on the small form he'd known he'd find--the blacksmith's boy, sprawled prone in the trampled grass. It was for this one, writhing in agony after being run over by his father's wagon, that Osred had sacrificed the ability to summon the wall of wind that could have deflected the halflings' arrows, could have prevented the route. Now the cleric couldn't even think that perhaps he'd been guided by some force he didn't understand, saving the boy for some higher purpose. He kicks the corpse once, savagely, and turns away. The enemy will not find him so foolishly soft again.