“Could you move?” the driver asked Darius.
“Certainly,” Darius said. “Though I’d prefer we talk first. I’ve run low on supplies, and wonder if you have any to spare?”
The men exchanged a look.
“I can pay,” he insisted.
“Not got much to trade,” said the larger man beside the driver. “I suggest you move on. Town’s not far back behind us. Buy your fill there.”
Darius tried to show no insult for their inhospitable nature. While at times he’d received preferential treatment for his allegiance to Karak, he also knew there were plenty who wished nothing to do with the gods’ champions, or any matter of faith. With dark paladins hunting those of Ashhur all across Dezrel, they also might not wish to traffic with either side, lest they be caught in the middle.
“Just a scrap of food,” Darius said, doing his best to show he posed no danger. “I will pay fair prices, and be grateful for your kindness.”
Still they looked at one another, neither saying a thing.
“It’s that, or you run me over,” Darius said, his patience wearing thin. “I’m not moving.”
“Fine,” said the driver. “Grick will see what we can spare, if you’ll curl around to the back.”
“Much appreciated,” Darius said, bowing. He walked past the wagon, smacking one of the oxen across its muscular side. Grick vanished into the covering. For a brief moment Darius thought the driver might resume now the road was clear, but he did not. At the rear of the wagon, Darius peered inside. Various bags and crates were stacked to either side. Many of them were already open. Grick wandered around them, as if unsure of what he was looking for.
“On the way to market?” Darius asked.
“Huh?” Grick looked over at him, then shrugged. “Yeah, right. Been lean, so me and Gacy thought to take some things to sell down at Murkland. Now where…”
Darius watched him search as a cold feeling settled in his stomach. When Grick turned aside, Darius stepped closer, and peered at the visible boards of the wagon.
Dried blood.
“So are you and Gacy brothers?” he asked, swallowing hard.
“Brothers?” Grick chuckled. “Yeah, we’re brothers. Ain’t we brothers, Gacy?”
“Just shut up and sell him what he wants,” Gacy shouted from the front.
A strange sensation hit Darius, though it was less of a sensation and more of a certainty. He knew, without a shred of doubt, Grick had just spoken a lie.
“Poor wagon looks like it’s been through plenty of hard winters,” Darius said, making casual conversation. “Had it long?”
“Yeah,” Grick said, pulling out two loaves of bread from a sack. “Had it forever, it seems.”
Another lie. Darius knew that Jerico had always possessed the ability to detect truth, and now it seemed Ashhur had granted him the same gift. Darius slowly pulled his sword off his back and rested it across his shoulder.
“Where’d you get it?” he asked.
Grick was about to offer the bread, but paused. Something in Darius’s voice must have set him off, for he pulled back.
“Asking a lot of questions, mister,” Grick said. “Why you care about my wagon?”
“I don’t. I care about what you and Gacy did to the original owners.”
“Go!” Grick shouted, ducking further into the covering. Darius climbed after him. On his knees amid stolen goods and atop wood stained red with blood, he felt his anger rise. Before he could take to his feet, Grick was back, knife in hand. He lunged, the small blade aimed for Darius’s throat. It was a meager weapon, suitable for robbing peasants, not combat with an armed professional. Darius smacked it aside with his gauntleted hand, then kicked himself forward. The headbutt knocked Grick to his rear. The ensuing kick sent the knife flying.
The wagon shuddered as it started to move, and then Gacy was there, climbing over the divider between the front seat and the rest of the wagon. He wielded a heavy club, and swung it overhead with all his strength. Darius blocked it with his sword, kicked Grick again when he tried to get up, and then swung. His sword slashed across Gacy’s arm, severing tendons. Howling in pain, Gacy leapt at Darius, his hands reaching to strangle him.
Darius reacted as he’d been trained to a thousand times. Stepping back, he put the tip of his sword between them and let the man impale himself on the blade. Gritting his teeth, he kicked the man away and pulled his sword free. The body collapsed on the floor beside Grick, arms and legs sprawled atop various crates. Grick’s lower lip quivered, and he pushed at the corpse.
“Don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “Take it. Take the wagon; it’s yours, all of it, yours. Just don’t kill me!”
Darius pressed the tip of his blade against Grick’s throat. Blood trickled down the sword, obscuring the blue glow beneath. His pulse pounding in his ears, Darius tried to think, tried to decide what Jerico would do.
“You’re thieves, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Grick.
“You stole this wagon, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I…I didn’t want to, it was Gacy’s idea, I swear.”
“Shut up!”
Darius felt his jaw begin to tremble, so he clenched it tighter. He ground his teeth as he fought for calm.
“What did you do to them?” he asked. “What did you do to some poor farmers on their way to market? Tell me, Grick.”
“We just roughed ‘em up,” Grick said. “I swear, roughed them up, but they’re alive. We left them alive.”
Again came that certainty. The man spoke a lie.
“They’re dead,” Darius whispered. The tip of his sword pressed harder against Grick’s neck. “That makes you a thief and a murderer.”
“Please, no,” the man said, barely understandable between his sobs. He was a wretched man, poor, uneducated, without a shred of courage. His skin barely clung to his bones. Yet he had taken a life. Many lives, most likely. Gacy was already dead, and Darius could only imagine Jerico’s unhappiness at that. But what was he to do? Turn them over to the law, and risk capture himself? Let them go free, with an easily broken promise to do no wrong?
Mercy over vengeance, Jerico had said. Grace over condemnation. But what of justice? Grick continued to sob, and in Darius’s mind, he became the wounded stranger that Karak’s prophet Velixar had brought him to on a dark night. Velixar’s lesson was that killing could be done for good, that the ending of a life was a mercy. How could Darius reject Karak’s teachings, yet desire nothing more than to shove his sword right through Grick’s throat? He would not be a hypocrite. Darius would rather be a failure-or a weakling-than a hypocrite.
“Get up,” he said. He saw a coil of rope in the corner and gestured to it. “Grab it, and step out of the wagon. Slowly. If you run, I will chase you down and make sure you get every scrap of pain you deserve. Have I made myself clear?”
Grick nodded.
“Good. Now do it.”
The man slowly stepped out from the wagon, wincing every time the tip of Darius’s sword nudged his back. When they were both out, Darius tied one end around Grick’s wrists, then looped it about his neck, always careful to keep an eye out for Valessa in case she thought it an opportune moment to strike. When finished, he took the other end and held it while he replenished his store of food from the wagon.
“We’re going to travel the way you came, Grick. You’ll lead. We’ll find those bodies, and if you and your bastard friend didn’t bury them, then we’ll do that, too. After that, we head to town, find someone who knew the people you killed, someone related. They’ll decide your fate. But first…”
He nodded toward the wagon.
“Grab Gacy out of there. You have a body to bury.”
Darius left him plenty of slack as Grick climbed inside and dragged out Gacy’s body by a leg.
“In the field,” Darius said when Grick paused.
“What am I going to dig with?” Grick asked.
“The gods gave you hands for a reason. Now start.”
