Death Flag

  “So, no objections? Nothing you want to point out that would reveal a major flaw in my plan?”

  “You mean you actually have a plan beyond charging in and swinging your sword about until everyone dies?”

  “Wait, you mean that’s not good enough? Alright. On a more serious note, what do we do with this guy?”

  “Are you really considering just leaving him like that?” Warren asked dubiously.

  “I thought you said you knew what I was capable of?” Madison asked. “I was serious: these guys are already getting off easier than they deserve.”

  “So, what then?” Shayna asked. “You want to leave him here to bleed out? What if someone finds him?”

  “I doubt that anyone is going to examine the bodies too closely—even if they happened to come along. I can’t imagine that anyone else would even be up here unless that group above decided to come down for some reason. That wound isn’t likely to be as fatal as he thinks it is. It’s going to bleed a lot and hurt like hell, but as long as he gets it treated and doesn’t let it get infected, he’s likely to live. Well, at least I don’t think I hit anything major, anyway. We really could just leave him here if that’s what you guys want. I don’t like the idea of just letting him go, but . . .”

  “You think he deserves to be punished?” Warren asked. “For following his beliefs?”

  Madison raised an eyebrow. “That’s a dangerous, leading question, and one that’s likely best saved for another time with a bottle of whiskey. The short answer is yes. When his beliefs dictate killing me? And he tries? Yeah. He deserves to be punished for that. It’s actually pretty simple. I’m a firm believer in the fact that I have more of a right to live than he has a right to kill me.”

  “You have a point,” Warren conceded. “But there are ways things like this should be handled. I can understand wanting or needing to defend yourself, or killing someone in the heat of battle, but the alternative to letting him go is cold-blooded murder.”

  Madison shrugged. He strangely wasn’t as bothered by the idea as he really should have been. Even he had to admit that his sense of morals was becoming skewed since coming to this world. He definitely knew the difference between right and wrong, but he didn’t feel the same gut-wrenching pressure he would have back home to act accordingly, and that worried him. “If we don’t do something about him now, who’s to say that he won’t come back for his own vengeance later? We certainly can’t have him running off and warning everyone that we’re still alive and coming for them. Judging from what I saw in the air, that camp is huge. We’re already going to have a hell of a time sneaking in there and getting Lord Fox or Alyanna out. And these guys up ahead? They chose their spot for a reason: no one can get in or out without them noticing. The last thing we need is this guy strolling up the road, screaming out a warning.”

  “That’s fair, but you’ve already let one escape,” Shayna pointed out.

  “Hey!” Madison cried defensively. “If you and Warren could actually . . .” Madison left that statement unfinished. “Okay. So, no one has a solution?”

  “You’re the one in charge,” Warren said pointedly, turning his back to them and trotting off again to make another round. “Just make sure you decide quickly.”

  “Yeah . . . right.” Madison had expected Shayna to argue that point, about who was in charge, but she simply remained silent, her gaze fixed on the unconscious man at their feet. Madison chewed on his lip and thought about what to do. He wasn’t lying when he said that he felt no sense of empathy for them at all. He knew he should, but he just didn’t. The litany of things that they had done had surpassed his ability to rationalize it, religious beliefs or not. There was no way he could condone attack and killing people, and doing that here and now in cold blood would make him nothing more than a hypocrite. Still, he knew that he was also correct as well. He couldn’t risk having this guy run off to warn the others that he was coming or attack them from behind.

  He was more than a little tempted to just leave the guy where he was and let the fates or his goddess save him as they saw fit. Still, he knew he was at least somewhat obligated to give the guy a fair shot. Madison had only rendered him unconscious during the battle, and he had implied that the man had a chance at surviving if he cooperated—which he had. If he had wounded the man during battle, it would have been different—but he hadn’t. He had wounded him after the fact just to get what he wanted. As much as it irked him, Madison knew that he couldn’t kill the man.

  In the end, he decided on something of a compromise. He hated to waste the small amount of healing drought they had on someone like him, but it was necessary in order to stop the man from bleeding to death while he was unconscious. Madison reached down and jerked his knife from the man’s thigh, not bothering to take any care as he removed it. If he was going to have to waste even a small portion of his precious supply of medicine, he was going to make sure he got his money’s worth for it. He laid the man’s right hand flat on the ground, spread his fingers apart, and then stabbed his blade down, severing the man’s index finger off at the knuckle.

  The bandit jerked awake with a start, howling in pain before he likely ever even came to his senses. He held his hand out in front of him and stared at the missing finger in disbelief.

  “Shut up!” Madison growled, momentarily gaining the man’s attention. The fellow’s eyes grew even larger as he glanced up at Madison and then down at his leg, almost as if he was remembering where he was and what was happening to him before he was rendered unconscious. Madison materialized the mostly-empty bottle of healing drought that he had been feeding Shayna earlier into his hand, removed the cork, and then pressed it into the bandit’s good hand. “There’s just enough left in there to make sure you’re healed. Don’t waste any.”

  Madison rocked back onto his heels and pushed himself up to his feet, standing back as he watched the man greedily consume what little healing potion there was left. He knew from experience that it wasn’t enough to fully heal the man, but he also knew that it would dull the pain within minutes and render him unconscious soon after. He’d wake up within a day or so without having any real harm done, so as long as he took care of himself after that, he’d make it out alive just as Madison had said he might. That was the best compromise he could come up with without actually killing him. By the time the man woke up, he’d be healed and Madison and his friends would be long gone. He had taken the man’s index finger so that he would never be able to properly wield a sword or any other weapon again. A man could still hoe a garden or rake a lawn or drive a team if he was missing a finger—but he couldn’t swing a sword with the amount of finesse a real battle required. He could still try and fight, or he could teach himself to fight left-handed, but it would be years before either of those came to fruition and both were unlikely.

  The man clutched onto the severed stump of his finger and stared up at Madison with unabashed terror. “I knew you were a monster,” he said through clenched teeth. “I heard what everyone said about you, but I never believed it. I never believed the rumors would be true, but they are. Only a child would believe such outlandish tales—but they were right, weren’t they? Every one of them. You deserve whatever the goddess brings upon you. She will seek vengeance for this. You hear me? She will smite you down, and you will suffer for harming her chosen ones.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Madison droned. “Whatever you say, boss. Why don’t you just sit tight and take a little nap for a few days. You can thank me for saving your life and patching you up by going home and deciding to do something for yourself other than follow around the foolish desires of fake gods.”

  “Even you won’t be able to stand against what’s coming,” the man said, his eyes losing focus and growing dimmer. “There’s too much in motion, too many men. If Fane doesn’t get you, she will. Just wait until we join with the blood of her people . . .” The man’s head rolled to the side and then dropped down to his chest exactly as it had before. Madison gave him one
last good kick in the boots to make sure that he wasn’t faking it or somehow plotting on attacking once Madison turned his back. Once he was satisfied, he then turned away, pulling Shayna with him.

  “I . . . didn’t expect that,” Shayna remarked. She had stood beside him and watched as he went through the procedure without so much as saying a word or even flinching. Every time he thought he had her figured out, there was another little bit of her personality that came out.

  “Which part?” Madison asked honestly. “The part where he said some mythical goddess is going to seek revenge? Or the part where I wasted good, valuable medicine on saving his worthless life?”

  “The first part shouldn’t be that surprising,” Warren commented as he came strolling up. “People have chosen to worship many different deities in ages past, and a goddess is among the least remarkable out there. It’s not uncommon at all for them to partake in ceremonies that might induce mass hallucinations capable of—”

  Madison held up a hand, cutting off Warren. Whatever had been wrong with him a little earlier was certainly gone now, and he was back to his old, know-it-all self, full of bookish knowledge. “Does anyone else get the feeling that guy flip flopped back and forth between personalities a little too fast? He was set to show us his determination to the cause at the start, ready to prove his grit and resist our questioning, but he gave up everything we wanted to know without much of a fight at all. He didn’t even try to get up or run away or keep fighting. Then he went from playing the part of the poor, sobbing wretch to the angry, vindicated victim. He changed personality faster than women change dresses.”

  “It seemed normal enough to me,” Warren commented, leading them in between a pair of closely-grown trees and around a particularly soft patch of ground. “The guy watched everyone he was traveling with die and then had someone threaten him with torture. It’s not surprising that he was an emotional mess.”

  “Maybe,” Madison admitted. “What do you think, Shayna?”

  She shrugged, her slender shoulders rising and falling underneath her armor. “I think I want my sister back. Warren said it earlier: It doesn’t really matter whether we believe him or not. We’re going after them either way, right? I just have to be ready to fight.”

  “You mean you’re looking forward to being the one to save her for once?” Madison questioned, only slightly teasingly. He knew that Erin was often the one chastising Shayna for acting out and getting in trouble. It was in slightly bad taste for him to tease her about that under the circumstances, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “That’s the way it’s always been,” Shayna said quietly. “I’m the one with the temper. I’m the one who always acts up and gets in trouble. Quiet little Erin, the stickler for the rules, ever destined to follow after me and clean up my messes.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Madison observed. “They say that opposites attract, and that’s not just in love. Sometimes it just takes two people who are total opposites to compliment each other and get things done. You each have your own strengths and weaknesses, right? Where one excels, the other may falter. It’s not bad having someone like that whom you’re close with or that you can depend on.”

  “It really doesn’t bother you, does it?” Warren asked, suddenly shifting the topic.

  “What?” Madison asked, even though he had a fairly good idea what Warren was talking about.

  “Never mind,” Warren answered instead, clearly not wanting to pursue the topic despite bringing it up.

  “Is there anywhere around here that we can go to rest for a while?” Madison asked. “Did you happen to find somewhere shady that we can stay out of sight for a while?”

  “What?” Shayna asked, clearly unhappy with what he was asking. “You’re not seriously thinking about taking a nap at a time like this, are you? We don’t have any time to waste! The longer we wait, the longer . . .”

  “I get that,” Madison answered as soothingly and as carefully as he could. “But we can’t go charging in right now. I need some time to put together a plan, and risking an attempt to make it up there in broad daylight would be suicide.”

  Shayna clenched her jaw and chewed on it for a moment, clearly unhappy with what he was telling her. She actually wanted him to do exactly what he was good at, the same thing she chided him for earlier: rush in swinging and rescue Erin. He couldn’t blame her for wanting that, but he was the one responsible for Erin being there to begin with. He couldn’t risk her life—or anyone else’s—unnecessarily while trying to save her. He accepted the fact that he was going to have to ask Shayna and Warren to put their life on the line, something that they would likely volunteer for even without his asking, but that didn’t mean that he was going to do it without figuring out the best way to go about it first. Despite what she thought, he usually had a good reason for everything he did, whether he told her about it or not.

  “We’re going to have to sit tight and wait for just a little bit longer. I very much doubt that she wants us to get killed while trying to rescue her,” Madison continued. “Plus, that man gave us more than just the ramblings of a pious believer and the location of the people we need. He also told us a few things I need to think over.”

  “I think I know the place,” Warren added. “The sun’s already up, and it’s pretty close to their encampment, but we should be fine as long we hurry. I think you were right about what you said earlier: they spent most of the night traveling, so I doubt that anyone other than a sentry is awake right now despite the hour.”

  The wind suddenly picked up noticeably, and Madison glanced up between the swaying branches to spot a patch of sky. There was little to no canopy here, a drastic change from down below where there were several thick layers blocking out the everything above, and he quickly spied several large, ominous-looking clouds drifting across the sky. “I hope this place has some type of cover,” he observed as another gust of wind tore through the trees. “We’re either going to be hunkered down in the rain or praying that they don’t spot a tent through the trees.”

  It turned out that they wouldn’t actually need a tent. Warren led them almost all the way to the base of the cliff they would have to scale and then turned and followed it a short distance before turning and ducking into a tight crevice between the rocks. Madison followed closely behind Shayna, somewhat hesitantly and somewhat curiously, until he reached the narrow opening. It was too tight for him to fit through with his armor on, but after stashing it away in his magical footlocker, he was able to slide through fairly easily by turning sideways. Much to his amusement and her disdain, Shayna was able to walk through without so much as a hassle. Once he was inside, he discovered a somewhat shallow cave.

  “It doesn’t run too far back,” Warren said reassuringly in a low, quiet voice. He was probably afraid of his voice carrying outside and drifting up to the problem who was camped above. It was unlikely, given how far away they were and the fact that the wind was still picking up, but there was no reason to test that either. “I found this just after following them here. If I’d have stayed here and waited, I’d never have run into that random guy or met up with you all down there.”

  “So, what’s this that’s bothering you?” Shayna asked impatiently. “What’s so important that you need to think it over before rescuing Shayna and Erin? Or going after Lord Fox . . . our actual goal in all of this?” Despite his insistence, she was still clearly ready to charge up the hill and rescue her sister, and there was likely nothing he could do to change her mind.

  “Wind’s howling,” Madison observed, looking out into the rapidly darkening dawn sky. Trees were whipping back and forth now, and he could hear the gusts as they tore around the base of the cliff.

  “Stop talking about the weather!” Shayna said petulantly, stamping her foot for attention as she often did. “My sister is trapped up there, and sitting here thinking about things isn’t going to get her back any faster! Do you have any idea what they would do to her if—” She choked
up suddenly as if talking about it made it too real for her to actually consider.

  “Yes,” Madison answered coldly, staring her directly in the eyes. “It was only for a short time before I came to K’yer Utane, but they held me hostage as well. It took less than a full day for someone to threaten me with the exact same thing that you’re worried about, so I know all too well exactly what she’s going through. I also know that, after what I did, they aren’t likely to go easy on her. But I also have a feeling that the people up there aren’t slavers. If they’re the same group of bandits like the ones we fought back there, they’re likely to be a bit more civilized than the ones I encountered. Despite whatever you or I think about the man’s belief in some mythical goddess, he still had a belief system, and I’ve never heard of any religion, no matter how inane, that openly encouraged or condoned that sort of thing. I highly doubt any goddess would look favorably upon someone who forced themselves on a defenseless young woman—and if she does, I’ll kill her along with every single one of them.”

  Shayna held his gaze the entire time, though she looked slightly surprised by the time he was finished, likely from the confession as much as the obvious determination behind his words. “Fine.” She finally acquiesced, practically throwing herself to the ground and crossing her arms over her chest. “But I’m not happy about it. Now, tell me what’s so important.”

  Madison held her gaze for a moment to make certain that she understood he wasn’t going to budge on when or how he chose to attack. They had tacitly given him control the moment they refused to make a decision on how to treat their captive. Warren had actually spoken up with a suggestion, but he had ultimately backed down and let Madison make the decision and follow through with it. Whether they realized it or not, they were both caught up in his flow now and turning to him for answers.