Villagers screamed and shouted when Bran fell. Many of them had known Bran all his life. Watched over the years as he grew from a baby in his mother's arms into an earnest young man.
And now he was gone. He had lived to see the sunrise, but not the sunset.
The day was quickly becoming one of terror and sorrows.
* * * * *
Jensen had wasted valuable time, and he knew it as he came around. The shock of Bran's death had struck him too. In those precious seconds he could have closed the small gap between himself and the murderer Mischa and engaged her. Fought her and with the blessing of the gods slain her, before she killed another of his fellows or more of the villagers or even the misguided blonde woman.
Rickard, to his credit, took great and staggering pains to put away his emotion after his outburst and got back to his feet immediately once the roots binding them all slipped away. He, like Jensen, thought of who he needed to protect, and he knew his duty demanded that he act swiftly and grieve later.
So Rickard began his charge. And this, in turn, inspired his old sponsor to action as well.
Mischa, meanwhile, watched Alani drop the spear and back away with wide-eyes. She'd seen that look before. Yes. The dwarf, in
Elbion, inside that dimly lit shop; he'd the same face as Alani had now when Mischa told him about Marcie. The dwarf did not understand, and, just as Mischa anticipated, Alani also did not understand.
They did not know what it was like to love something or someone so dearly that no sacrifice demanded for the sake of it would be too great. Perhaps they lied to themselves. Abused the spoken word by boldly proclaiming that they would do "anything" for their wife, their husband, their son or their daughter. Would the dwarf, would Alani, would
any of those she met while in exile, would they have done the things Mischa had done for those they loved?
No. None of them would have. Had they been cursed to walk a path similar to Mischa's own, had the Great Holy One likewise offered them a hard but hopeful remedy to their woes, they would have been content to wallow in their miseries, their love too weak to conquer their morals, their fears. And for this, Mischa judged, they lived lives more pitiful than her own. Alani might well be a better person--a better orc--than Mischa, but this too carried a cost.
Mischa killed Bran because she had to kill Bran. She would kill these other Templar because she had to kill them, for they brought the fight to her, and she would suffer no weakness. In victory or in death, her strength would resound throughout
Arethil and none of the ancestors of the Dm'rohk tribe would doubt it. This, all this, she did for the love of her father. No sacrifice too great.
"Together!" Jensen shouted.
Mischa whipped around. Her spike-arm, morphing into a wicked hook, nonetheless deflected by Rickard's shield. Jensen thrust his sword forward. The living armor upon her stomach stretched out and the strands deflected the strike with force enough to send Jensen stumbling off-balance. But Rickard also thrust his sword forward, at near the same spot as Jensen, and the living armor could not keep up--a vulnerability in her formidable defense.
Rickard ran her through. Shoving the blade up to the hilt into her abdomen, the tip of the sword bursting from her back to a small spray of strange white and yellow blood and some lingering remains of red orcish blood. Rickard and Mischa were face-to-face, inches apart from one another, both glaring at one another with burning pains each their own.
Abby had been limping toward the confrontation. She had her battleaxe up, looking for an opportunity to strike. And the man she loved may well have provided her with one.
