Chapter 23: Chapter 22: Grim Resolve

Jack oriented on the bandit, hesitated, and then turned back to her. “You understand what this bastard is, don’t you, Tiarraluna?” he asked in a serious voice. “You understand what he and his friends did? Probably a good many more times than this, given their ranks.”

“They may have been soldiers, Jack san,” she tried. “They may have gained their ranks before becoming bandits.”

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” he rolled his shoulders. “They’re butchers who prey on the innocent. On those who can’t defend themselves. Whatever they may have been before, that’s what they are now.”

“What are you getting at, Jack san?” her eyes were narrowing.

He heaved a deep, shuddering breath before answering. “We don’t owe them anything,” he said flatly. "No mercy, no compassion, no empathy. You need to keep that in mind for what’s about to happen. You need to focus on that and translate for me.”

“What are you planning to do, Jack san?” her voice deepened.

“I’m gonna ask him some questions,” he replied.

“And should he not answer?”

“He’ll answer,” Jack laughed, no humor in it. “Might take a few tries to get the right ones, but he’ll answer.”

She was still working through that statement when he turned back to the bandit and fetched him a solid kick in the ribs. She thought she might have heard one of them crack.

Dimo howled as he came awake, the pain washing through his entire torso. He looked left and right, owl-eyed with terror, mouth gaping wide. He tried to surge to his feet, but his hands and legs were tied tightly together, and he only managed an ungainly flop onto his face.

Jack grabbed the bandit by a hank of his greasy hair and lifted his head, flopping him over onto his side. “Ask him where the rest of them are,” he ordered in a barking tone Tiarraluna had never heard him use before.

“She hesitated, unsure of what he was up to. He was glaring into the bandit’s face from only a foot or so away.

“Ask him!” he roared, spraying spittle on the clearly terrified bandit’s face.

“Dimo,” she called the name she’d heard his dead compatriot use.

“Where are the others?” she went on when his eyes switched to her.

“O-others?” he squeaked.

“The others,” she repeated. “Where are they?”

“N-no others!” he cried.

She repeated the claim for Jack.

Jack thrust the man away, rolling him onto his face. He reached down and grabbed hold of the man’s right pinkie finger. “Where are they?” he leaned in.

Tiarraluna repeated the demand.

“N-no—! AIIIIIE!”

Tiarraluna flinched at the loud snap of the finger bone. “Jack san!” she accused. “You did not even wait—”

“He’s not gonna tell the truth on the first try,” he told her without looking away from his victim. He leaned in close to the man’s ear as he took hold of the next finger. “Where?” he shouted.

“J-Jack san...”

“Translate!”

“W-where are they?” she sputtered.

“I don—” snap! “AIIIIE!”

“Where?”

“Please! The man cried. I can’t—” snap! “AIIIIE! Jesha, help me! I don—” snap!

The scream this time wasn’t so loud, and trailed off into whimpers. Tiarraluna had her hands to her face, aghast.

“You’d better answer me before I run out of fingers,” Jack hissed into the blubbering man’s ear. “It gets worse after that.”

“He... he’ll kill me!” Dimo cried when the next finger went.

“You’re already dead,” Jack told him. “We’re just discussing how much it’s going to hurt.”

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Tiarraluna was weeping now at the brutality of the man she’d been thinking of as a hero. What was more, she was no longer translating. Somehow, Jack san was speaking —shouting— in tandrian. Was this the black beast? Freed at last from the iron bars?

Jack was well into the second hand when the bandit broke. “A- a d-day’s ride to th-the west,” he cried. “N-near th-the r-river... Th-three tall trees n-near a promontory! West of the road! An-an old f-ferry st-station!”

“Now,” Jack hissed. “Who and how many?”

It took awhile longer, and he did indeed run out of fingers, but eventually Jack had gotten all he figured he was going to. The bandit was a gibbering wreck, and had soiled himself. Tiarraluna was little better.

“Look away,” he warned then, his voice returned nearly to normal.

“What?” she demanded. “Jack san, you promised—!”

“I promised I’d make the pain stop,” he said.

“I thought we would heal—”

“Look away!”

Instead, she covered her eyes as he reached beneath the neck of the sobbing man with the blade of the archer’s knife and let loose his life’s blood onto the grass.

“Alright,” he sighed. “It’s done.”

She didn’t uncover her eyes, though. She was crying almost as hard as Dimo had been. Jack watched her for a few moments, sighing inwardly. Ah, well. He’d been trying to get rid of her since the second day anyway, hadn’t he?

He left her to it as he took care of the dead man’s gear and wandered over to the horses. She was still crying when he’d finished pulling all of it apart and re-tying the lot into a single bundle on the scrawniest of the horses; a sorry looking buckskin. He tied the reins to the saddle of the bay and brought them over.

Then he waited. It took awhile.

“H-how could you?” she wept some time later. “You are supposed t-to be a hero!”

He’d long since seated himself in the grass, well away from the corpse. “Look at the bounty, little sister,” his voice was calm, without any trace of the rage he’d shown his victim.

When she didn’t move, he helped her out. “Scout,” he said. “Locate. If possible, eliminate.”

He waited some more. “Did you think we were going to invite him back to town for tea?” he wondered. “Or that he’d get a fair trial and be held in some sort of jail by the vast forces of the Mokkelton town guard? After what he and his friends had done? To these people and no doubt others? No, little sister,” he gave his head a shake. “He reaped what he’d sown. As the rest of them will.”

“I... I cannot....” she struggled to form the words.

“I know,” he let his voice go soft. “You’re too good for this sort of thing.”

Her head shot up, her eyes flaring. “Do not mock me, Jackson Thomas Grenell!” she warned.

He shook his head again. “I’m not," he insisted. “No sarcasm here, little sister. You’re genuinely too good a person for this sort of thing. I understand, that’s all I’m saying. It takes a certain sort, and you’re not it. I’m sorry I got you involved.

“D’you ride?” He asked, now that the flash of anger had burned through a bit of her grief.

“Barely,” she admitted. “Why?”

He chucked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the pair of horses. “I want you to take those two and the plunder I’ve packed them with and head back to town,” he said. “Maybe you can sell some of it and recoup some of our debt. Leave them with the guildmaster if nothing else. Here, take this,” he tried to pass her the pouch holding the gold and silver they’d taken.

She was rubbing at her eyes with the palms of her hands, sniffling. She made no move to accept the offered pouch. “How are you so calm, Jackson Grenell?” she demanded with no great force. “You have just killed three men. You have tortured a man and then murdered him. You have made me help you to murder a man. Is that nothing to you?”

He tried not to frown at the lack of honorific. He knew what it meant, and was surprised at how much it hurt. Well, he’d been after this very thing, hadn’t he? “I’m sorry you had a part in it,” he told her. “I’m sorry I caused you to do something so contrary to your moral code. I promise it won’t happen again. Now, do you think you can make it back to town alone?”

A hint of the anger shone in her eyes, but only for an instant before she deflated. “I can.”

He watched her for a few moments longer, trying to understand what was going through his own head. But he had a job to do.

“How do I handle proof of death without your ritual?” he asked hesitantly.

She fished around in her satchel and withdrew the bounty token, throwing it unceremoniously in his direction. “Touch this to the forehead,” she told him. So long as the... the deceased falls within its parameters, The bound spell within it will free the soul and grant Jehsha’s blessings, although you will gain no experience from the casting of the spell. You must also gather the life stone for the bounty. It will drop with the rest of Jehsha’s gifts.”

He caught the token and stared down at it while she spoke. When she was done, and with a sort of forlorn sigh, he surged to his feet, startling her with the suddenness of it, and hied himself off to the last and best of the horses they’d captured. A big chestnut gelding he’d held for himself because he’d known in his heart what would happen. He reined the beast over to where Tiarraluna Galbradia still sat, eyes wet with tears, glaring up at him. He tossed the pouch down to her, a little surprised when she caught it.

“I’m sorry,” he said sad-voiced. Then he reined the horse around and kicked it into a canter. Westward, his back straight, his shoulders square. Nor did he look back.

Tiarraluna remained where she was for nearly half an hour before she could bring herself to move. Until the very last, she’d been convinced he’d come back to town with her. Any sane person would. Eleven, poor broken Dimo had wailed at the last. Eleven more of them, all rank twelve or greater, and among them a rank fourteen dark mage. And their chieftain a rank eighteen Plunderer, and alone a match for them all. Jackson Grenell had only laughed at him. And now he went to the west, seeking them out. Alone.

Eventually, she rose up and performed the soul release for the bandit, striving to keep in her mind the evil in his eyes when first she’d beheld him. The evil he’d so obviously been a part of. But as the power built and the glow enveloped him, all she could see was the weeping wreck the man had become, and all she could feel was pity, and guilt at the part she’d played in it.

When he’d gone, she gathered up Jehsha’s gifts and the dead man’s life stone and moved to the horses. Taking up the reins of the bay with the empty saddle on its back, she set off for Mokkelton, struggling with whirling emotions and trying not to think of the man riding west alone and to his almost certain doom.