The Broken Pieces(7)

“It shouldn’t be you,” Brute said, finally breaking the silence as the square came into view. “This man is one of mine. Crimes committed by soldiers should be tried, judged, and punished by other soldiers.”

Darius heard the words, and a large part of him wanted to accept. Brute had quickly become a good companion, offering advice earned from many long years of battle. His gray hair and numerous scars weren’t needed to convince Darius that his wisdom was more often correct than not. But this, he had to do.

“Who gave the order that the people of Willshire were to be untouched?” Darius asked.

“You did, but…”

“And,” Darius continued, “who warned Conn that if he forced himself on another woman, he’d have a choice, his prick or his life?”

Brute shook his head.

“You did, but you had no authority to make those orders, or those threats. You spoke them, but I made them law. Let me swing the blade. It’s not your fault.”

“I know it’s not mine,” Darius said. “It’s Conn’s. Who’d have thought the fool would rather lose the head on his shoulders than the one down below?”

To this, Brute could only shrug.

In the center of town was a great pit of ash. It was there Cyric had constructed his altar, where he’d planned to sacrifice many in the name of Karak. Once the mad priest had been defeated, Darius made sure every bit of wood and nail had been burned to the ground. Later they’d burned the bodies of the dead upon it, for they had little spare wood for the purpose, and the fire was already blazing. That the law required Conn’s execution to be held in the public square, on that same spot he’d fought and killed to prevent similar beheadings, felt bitterly ironic.

Conn waited on his knees in the center of the pit, hands bound behind his back. Two soldiers stood at either side of him, their hands on the hilts of their swords. At their arrival Conn looked up, then spat at Darius’s feet.

“Figured you’d be here,” he said. “Plan on using that big ass sword of yours?”

Conn was a fine looking man, but his heart was ugly. Twice Darius had caught him pressuring the young girls of the village to lie with him, implying harm might come to them otherwise. He’d been given warnings, but little else. Then one drunken night, not three days after they’d stopped Cyric’s sacrifices, Conn had flung a barmaid against a wall and tried to take her by force. Again Darius had stopped him, and then told Brute to declare the law. Trying to live by the forgiveness Jerico had taught him, Darius gave Conn more warnings, and every bit of hard labor he could think of around the town to keep him busy. It’d not been enough.

This time, Darius had not been there to stop him. They’d learned only from the girl’s furious father.

“You can change your mind,” Brute told Conn. “It’s not too late.”

Conn spat at his feet.

“You want me to live as half a man? That ain’t living. I’ll die whole, not like that.”

“You won’t die whole,” Darius said, pulling his greatsword off his back. Blue-white light shone across the blade, soft and subtle. It was the material manifestation of Darius’s faith, and by how weakly it flickered he could see how much his confusion had shaken him.

Conn sneered.

“Whole enough. Go ahead, unless you’re too much of a coward.”

Darius swallowed, and he tried to bury his frustration, his anger and hatred. Stepping closer to Conn, he knelt down so they could stare eye to eye. No matter what Conn was, he was not a coward, and he met Darius’s gaze without flinching for fear of what was to come.

“Don’t do this,” Darius said. His voice dropped low, as if it were just the two of them alone in the world. “There’s still a chance for you to change. There’s still a way you can make this right.”

“You want to make this right?” Conn asked. He leaned closer, his arms still bound behind his back. “Then let me go. I didn’t do nothing, and you’ve got no right mutilating me. What you said, it’s sick. Only have yourself to blame.”

Forgiveness and compassion, thought Darius. He saw neither, not in those eyes. He stood, then beckoned the guards to step away. Conn sat on his haunches instead of presenting his neck.

“I ain’t making it easy for you,” he said to the paladin. “And you,” he said, glaring at Brute. “We fought to keep that Cyric bastard from taking us over. What’s the point if we just let one god replace the other?”

“Conn Graham, you have broken the king’s law, and chosen a sentence of death,” Darius said, ignoring Conn’s snicker at the word king. “May you find peace in the hereafter.”