Kaide opened his fists, and he stared at them as if he’d never known they were clenched.
“Will you stop me?” he asked, his voice suddenly quiet. Jerico let the question hang in the air, let it have the gravity it deserved.
“I’ll pray for you, Kaide. And I’ll be here for you. But I won’t stop you.”
“It’d be wrong to stop me.”
Jerico shook his head.
“That’s not why. I won’t stop you because I trust you. That’s all. This world is dark, and we’ll always need swords, but hatred is no such need.”
“Are you really so free of it yourself?” Kaide asked.
Jerico cast his eyes to the dirt.
“No,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Ashhur forgive me, I’m not. But I love my enemies as much as I hate them, and hate myself as much as I love my friends. Luther doesn’t deserve your hate, only your pity.”
“Pity?” asked Kaide. “You would offer your pity to such a pathetic man? His cruelty surpasses anything I’ve ever done. He’s sick, he’s mad, he’s ruined me, ruined everything. Let me hate him, Jerico. Why can’t you just let me hate him? What does it matter if I live or die trying to kill him? I must, damn it, I must.”
Jerico could see him, his strength, could see the iron breaking. It was a man wishing for death, almost begging for it.
“You insult your daughter seeking death so openly,” he said. “Go to Beth. Live. Don’t make me go to her, and tell her of her father’s death. She’ll ask me why. She’ll ask what happened, and what will I tell her then? Your rage against Luther was more important? Your love for Sandra greater than your love for…”
Kaide slugged him, his knuckles splitting his lip open across his teeth. Blood splattered, but Jerico did not react, nor move to strike back. Instead he stood there, letting the blood drip down his lips and neck.
“You bastard,” Kaide said. His face was red, and he openly wept. “Is this what you want? Do you want to break me and send me in pieces back to my daughter? Live, you say, as if it were so easy. Live, as if the world would be so kind. You know why I can’t go back to Beth? Because whenever I hold her in my arms, all I’ll feel is dread. All I’ll feel is sorrow. Every shadow will be Luther ready to take her away from me, to make me feel that same pain all over again. You think revenge will be what ruins me? I’m already ruined. I’m already broken. I’m a dead man, and Luther prevents me from coming back to life. Let me kill him. Revenge isn’t my doom. It’s my salvation.”
“You won’t find salvation with a blade through another man’s heart.”
“You won’t find it eating the flesh of another, but I did it to live. I’ve done so many terrible things to live, Jerico, and this won’t be the worst. You tell me to live, and I shall, and the way I have always lived. You have nothing to offer me.”
Slowly Jerico stood, and it felt like all of his limbs weighed a hundred stone.
“I would love you,” Jerico said. “Despite all you have done. All you will do. I would have you forgiven for it all, and sleep through the night without guilt, without nightmares. I would give you peace. Strike me again. Scream, cry, beg, I don’t care. And then go home without a splinter in your heart and without blood on your hands.”
The seconds crawled along. Jerico held his breath.
“I can’t go home. Not yet.” Kaide looked up, cutting him off when he saw Jerico was to speak. “Not while Cyric is still alive. If he’s the threat you say, you need my help. I won’t let Beth be forced to kneel before that bastard and choose slavery or death.”
“And Luther?”
Slowly Kaide let out a breath.
“I make no promises. Now leave me be.”
And so Jerico did, returning to his camp. By his fire he tried to sleep, yet the hours crawled, the stars shone, and sleep did not come.
Warfang watched until Redclaw’s band of cowards was beyond even his excellent sight. Then he ordered his pack to rest, for tomorrow they would fight their most important battle yet. Despite his own orders, Warfang could not sleep. The power coursing through him was too new, and along with it came an excitement coupled with dread. What they had done, they had done in the shadow of their god, hidden from his eyes. What would Cyric say when he saw who now led his chosen warriors instead of Redclaw?
More importantly, would he give him the pleasure of hunting down the cowards and ripping the tendons from their bones?
And so at the edge of Cyric’s camp he waited, until just before the dawn the moon-made-flesh came walking, and his face was without emotion. Even his scent did not give away his true thoughts.