We rode in darkness and silence. The sun had fallen behind the mountains hours ago leaving only the moon's pale glow to illuminate the road, but even now it was slowly being taken over by coarse shreds of clouds. Under other circumstances we wouldn't have been riding the way we were. The dimly lit road was a hazard at this speed, and misplaced hoof would mean an unhorsing and perhaps even death, but Commander Blare spurred us all on as much as his destrier. It wasn't until a near-fall from Fenrey's mount that caused him to slow us down.
        I found it odd for Fenrey Dover to join us again. He had been with me and Blare in Engal and now he rode with us again under Blare's order. We were the only three soldiers of the garrison to ride out, though we had one more guest with us and I found her to be an even queerer choice of a traveling companion.
        Kelna sat ahorse with me, her beastly arms wrapped around my midsection lightly and her head pushing into the small of my back. She had fallen asleep not too long after our pace lessened, which also meant an end to the crying I had grown so accustomed to. I expected another bout of tears once we reached our destination, however.
        We had left the outpost immediately, so my comments were fewer than I wanted. I asked if it was wise to bring a girl whose own town was destroyed by fire to another ruined by the same cause, but Blare had refuted me. His reasoning was sound—Scurge was a two day ride from our outpost and a two day ride back, and we couldn't leave Kelna alone with the rest of the men—but it still didn't sit well with me. If she hadn't yet gotten over her own town's destruction, how would she react when she sees Scurge?
        We rode 'til dawn, swapped our horses for fresh ones at an inn and ate a quick breakfast, then sped off again towards Scurge. Blare was racing as if the criminals were still there, waiting to be caught, but after a day it wouldn't be at all likely that they'd stick around. When all was said and done however, the two day trip to Scurge was looking to take only half that.
        "How's the girl, Argyn? She troubling you at all?" Blare asked once our pace slackened a bit. The horses were panting from fatigue as we'd been making them gallop for the most of the ride.
        Kelna was asleep once more. She hadn't asked where we were going, let alone say anything since we left. She sulked when awake and wriggled while she slept, but I supposed either were better than crying. "No, commander. She's still asleep."
        Blare nodded. "Fenrey, do you know how many lived in Scurge?"
        "It was a denborn community, sir," Fenrey said.
        "That's not what I asked."
        Fenrey looked hurt for a second. "Sixty-seven, if I recall. Possibly more or less as it was two years since the numbers were recorded. Doubtful there's more than a hundred, though."
        Blare didn't respond. He looked forward and brooded to himself.
        I wanted to ask Blare why he brought Fenrey along. He was a good soldier, not the strongest but certainly smarter than most of the others. I figured it wasn’t a coincidence that he was brought along to both Engal and here along with me. Perhaps Blare has a trust for him as he does me.
 
---
 
        In the end, the ride to Scurge took a little under a day, but our horses were beyond exhausted and perhaps even lame, by the looks of them. Blare had spared no time for rest on the way here, and Fenrey and I were near as exhausted as our mounts. Kelna had slept when she could, including now, so she was well rested, but Blare looked awake and asleep altogether, alive and dead as it were.
        His eyes were bloodshot and his face was a windburned red, and when he relaxed it the lines of wrinkles showed white, as if he had his face scrunched up in a concerned expression the entire ride. His beard was a wiry mess with its hairs crisscrossing and flying off in every direction and a runny trail of snot had dribbled down into the whiskers on his upper lip. His skin was almost as white as his beard, and he walked in a stumble, like every step was merely to keep himself balanced and upright.
        The town was a mirror image of Engal, if a bit smaller. Blackened husks that were once houses lined up one by one like monoliths, the embers beneath them still smouldering. Nothing but stone, dirt and soot lay here, anything living had since been eaten by the fire. As I walked through the ruins I saw some other similarities: the boards of wood hammered over windows and doors to prevent escape, the incredibly thorough destruction of everything in town, the slaughter of the livestock and burning of the food stores. Charcoal crunched under my feet and the heat baked the land.
        Fenrey was silent, as was Blare. Kelna was still asleep by the horses, and with luck she’ll keep that way until we leave. It was wise not to leave her alone with the others, but this decision wasn’t much better. She’s seen enough dead bodies at her age, best not show her more.
        “Think this was done by the same people?” Fenrey spoke after what felt like an eternity.
        “I can’t see how it could be anyone else,” I said after Blare didn’t answer. He was shuffling through the streets, caught up in his own thoughts.
        Fenrey looked over the wreckage glumly. There was certainly a kindling flame of sympathy somewhere within him, however stalwart his stance on denborn may be, but if he didn’t learn it in Engal he knew it now in Scurge. Denborn or no, this was no way to die.
        The bodies were much like those in the other town as well, devoid of any features but their charred black skin. Some were sprawled out on the floor, crawling for help, some were clawing at the walls, some had curled themselves up in tight little balls and some seemed serene, almost as if they had died in peace. But they were all equally gruesome, and I felt my stomach turning itself inside out when I stared for too long. One family of four had been laying shoulder to shoulder, shriveled hands placed across their chests and a knife clutched in the last one’s death grip. They had taken their lives before the flames could. I caught my breakfast in my throat and swallowed it back.
        Scurge was smaller than Engal in population only, it seemed. Where Engal had clustered buildings and narrow streets Scurge had lots of room to breathe between houses, and the square in the centre of town was spacious despite the rather large inn that dominated the plaza. Next to it was a well with multiple bucket-and-pulley systems that suggested it was a place of considerable traffic.
        None of this was of any use to us, though. There were no signs of the criminals but some bootprints left in the dirt. Anyone that might have given us information had burned along with the town, and the arsonists will be able to sleep soundly for the next little while.
        There were no survivors this time around. No men that managed to ride away on horse or little girls that sheltered themselves in bricks like last time. Whatever mistakes the men had made in Engal they amended them here. Anything and everything had been put to the torch and were nothing more but ashes and embers. A lonely wind whispered so softly between the broken and burnt boards that it sounded like the land was crying. Where there was once life, only death remained.
        I found Commander Blare before a building, hunched over some things on the ground. The wind tugged at his cloak weakly and the furs on his shoulders seemed like they were about to slough off onto the ground. I called to him, but if he heard me he gave no sign. His attention was cast on whatever was in front of him, and with my interest piqued I decided to look as well, and immediately regretted it.
        "Oh gods . . . Why? Gods, -why?-" I could taste the bile in the back of my throat as I turned away from the scene. I felt more than just nauseous and I struggled to keep my balance as a dizzy spell set over me. I clutched my head as a parade of drums and horns marched through it. The whole time Blare didn't say a word, and after a minute I gathered the courage to look again.
        It was another family. Denborn. Six bodies in total: a mother, a father, two daughters, a son, and a baby. They all had jagged pointed ears and bluish skin that sparkled in the sunlight. From the waist down they were covered in glittering blue scales similar to Kelna's, but their legs ended in lizard-like feet and a similarly decorated tail grew from their lower backs and piled on top of each other like a coil of blue snakes. Two of the children had died face up, their eyes were glassed over and their mouths hung open in perpetual screams. Much like the rest of the town, they were dead, but there was one major difference between this family and the others in Scurge and Engal.
        They had not burned to death, they had been slain by steel.
        The father had nearly been parted in two as a valley lay between his left shoulder and his neck. His wife's dress was dyed red from multiple stab wounds found across her torso. Both of their blood had pooled around them but the dirt had thankfully drank most of it up, but a dark stain was still left behind. The three older children had met the same fate as their mother, their clothes ruined by blood and dirt and tears and other fluids that had leaked from them during their final moments, or possibly after them, I couldn't say but I didn't want to dwell on the topic. The baby had a ribbon of crimson under its chin which stood out against its pale blue skin. I wasn't sure if that was merciful or not, but it made me ill all the same.
        Flies had long since gathered around, and the smell was overwhelming, but Blare and I stood without anything to say. My stomach got the better of me in the end and the eggs and bacon and cider from earlier in the day all came up in a torrent unexpectedly, and as I retched Blare cleared his throat with a sound like metal grinding on metal.
        "May their Search be short and their next lives peaceful. May the Maid help the children find their way," Blare prayed for them with eyes unblinking. It was a short prayer, but it was more than what most denborn got, though depending on what gods they worship Blare's blessing may not be met with the courtesy it was given with. Not that there was anyone to correct him now . . .
        -Whatever gods they prayed to, they're with them now,- I thought, wiping my lips with a sleeve. I forced myself to look at the bodies further, but my mind was swimming, drowning in despair. -They were children. Bloody children, and a babe.-
        "What goes? Is there a clue here to all this madness?" Fenrey said as he walked up to us. He saw the same sight and stumbled back in surprise, tripping over a stone and falling on his rear. He was too in shock to feel the pain. "B-Bloody hell! What in Tenn's Vault is that?" Fenrey sat awhile blabbering on and cursing before gathering himself and stood beside us. He could only stomach the scene for a few sparse seconds before pulling away. "I'm . . . queasy. This is all too much. All too fucking much. I'm not a bloody coroner. Not for denborn, not for humans, not for nobody."
        Fenrey's departure spurred me on to do the same, and I felt my stomach wasn't quite empty yet and was preparing for a second bout. "Commander, we should head back soon. We'll have to look this place over-"
        "What do you think happened?" Blare asked. His eyes were distant and his mind was elsewhere, but his question was directed at me.
        I thought for a moment. "They had escaped. However they did it, they managed to break through the boards that were nailed over the door somehow." I frowned. "The arsonists must have seen them escape and caught them before they ran off. That's as much as I can guess."
        "You're certain they escaped after the fire started? They didn't walk out before the arsonists could put a torch to their house?"
        "The man here has burns on his hands. He probably pried the boards off himself and didn't realize they were waiting for him outside of their house."
        The old commander shook his head. "So they didn't leave right after setting the fire. They wanted to make sure no one made it out alive, so they staked the place out until the end."
        I grimaced at the thought. "There had to have been a reason for all of this. Maybe they were looking for someone, or maybe there were revolutionaries here plotting to overthrow the king . . ."
        "Do they look like revolutionaries to you, Argyn?" He pointed at the small mound of children. "This was borne of hatred, nothing more. No deep plots, no conspiracies. There's a cult of humans looking for denborn to kill, that's all. Now rein Fenrey in and get him searching for clues again, I'm going to dig a few graves."
        I didn't need to ask whose graves he was going to dig. I nodded and followed after Fenrey, who was returning to the horses. He was tired as we all were, but he was on the verge of retiring for the day. From behind I saw he walked with a lurch and his exhaustion had him walking in zigzags.
        "Fenrey, we need to keep looking around. You take the north side, I'll take south."
        "You can have both, for all the good it does you. I'm done for the day," Fenrey said. He didn't stop walking forward as he replied. "There's nothing to find, and even if there was there's no one left to save."
        "Don't say that. You're a fool if you think this will be the last town that will be targeted. Whoever did this is still out there and I have a feeling they won't stop with just this."
        "What does it matter? They're denborn anyways. They've been leeching off our land since the War. It's about time they realized their position beneath us."
        "By the gods, listen to yourself. They may not be human but they've done nothing to deserve this. If you want someone to blame then blame the crown for allowing them to live here."
        "You're siding with monsters, then? Are you and the commander both bloody denborn apologists? I don't -care- what happens to them or their bloody towns. I joined the garrison to protect the lives of humans, not monsters. And this . . . -this shouldn't concern me!-"
        "Like hell it shouldn't!" I grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around. My fists grabbed hold of his surcloak and I pulled him close to me. He was witless and raving and I knew he needed someone to talk him down before he endangers his position. The others may not care much for non-humans, but by law we're required to defend them if need be. Outwardly refusing to assist is grounds for getting fired, and the garrison isn't in short supply of enlistees.
        But my anger towards Fenrey's outburst all but vanished when I saw his face. His eyes had been red and puffy all day from rubbing them constantly, trying to keep awake and alert. But now they were red for another reason.
        Fenrey Dover was crying.
        "This isn't my job, Argyn. This isn't what I wanted to do, -this isn't why I joined the garrison!-" He bellowed, both tears and spittle flying unbidden. "Denborn started the War, they invaded -our- land and killed -our- people, they're the monsters, not us!"
        I was taken aback for moment. Fenrey was always sharp and collected, his emotions never getting the better of him. With him the way he is now, I could almost feel sympathy for him. But Kelna's face flashed in front of my eyes as he spoke. "Are you saying these denborn deserved this?"
        "No . . . Yes, they might have fought in the War, so they might . . ."
        "And those children? How many of them fought in the War twenty years ago? Did they deserve to die?"
        Fenrey's skin took on a paler tone when I mentioned the kids. His eyes shifted uncontrollably. "By the gods, I've only just started. I've only just joined the garrison and I'm already digging graves," he sobbed, changing the topic.
        "You're not the one digging them, he is." I pointed to Blare who had begun making the first of six holes for the family.
        "Why me? Why Fenrey? There are others that have been in the garrison for longer than I, why -me-? I'm still green, for gods' sake, so why does he want me to see all of this? What can I do to help?"
        His eyes pleaded with me for an answer. Any answer. It's true that he was still very much inexperienced, and as for why Blare brought him for this trip knowing full well it would be a repeat of the visit to Engal was beyond me, but the fact that he could show some form of sympathy, though repressed, might have been the reason for why he's here with us. Considering such was the reason for why Blare chose me and that Fenrey and I were his only two escorts on these ventures made me wonder if we were on some separate level compared to the rest of our brothers.
        Whether that's a good thing or bad is up for debate.
        "If you want to help, grab a shovel," I said, coming off more sympathetic than I wanted.
        Fenrey wiped his face with his surcloak, cleaning off the tears but doing nothing to fix the puffy redness of his eyes. He sniffed, horked and spat (which came out more as a cough) and blinked at me. He wasn't satisfied, but he had calmed down somewhat and was no longer hysterical. "Right. I'll go," he said. He began to walk towards Blare but turned back to me for a second. "Don't tell the others about this, alright? I'd rather not be the butt of any jokes. I had enough of them during training last year."
        "Can't be any worse than what I'm going through. I get as much respect as the girl I'm taking care of now."
        "Oh right, I forgot . . ." Fenrey said, sounding guilty. He shuffled around anxiously for a bit, then looked up at me. "Why is it that you're caring for her, Argyn? She can't be a terribly desirable companion."
        "It's not like I'm watching over her by choice. Blare gave the order and I'm obeying it. That's all."
        Fenrey shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I mean that you're taking care of her like she's a little girl."
        I rubbed my jaw in curiosity. "But she -is- a girl."
        "A denborn girl."
        "A denborn girl, aye. What difference does that make?"
        As I narrowed my eyes at him, he flicked his away. "Might be none, I suppose."
        "No, you don't suppose. You think we shouldn't waste our time on her, aye? That we should cast her out and let her lick her wounds herself. 'She's denborn, so why must we watch after her?'" I spat on the ground at Fenrey's feet.
        "You care for her, then?" Fenrey asked pensively.
        I hesitated with my answer. "If you're asking if I'd care more if she were human, I can't say. But her family is dead much like the one over there. If you say you don't care an ounce for her after what she's been through, I'd say you're lying." The sun began to dwindle in the sky, lighting it with orange fire. The light was strong in my eyes but I didn't squint it down. "Denborn eat, sleep, live and die just like us. Just because they're half monster doesn't mean they don't feel pain like we do. She's still trying to cope with her parents' death, and if I neglect her there won't be a girl left to care -for-."
        "But for all we know, her father could have fought in the War. He could have killed our soldiers."
        "Her father could have been in the War, but I doubt he killed our men. He was human."
        Fenrey was stunned. His mouth hung open like a flaccid bag. "Her mother, then . . ."
        "Most likely a farmer, or an inngirl perhaps. A non-combatant, anyhow. Kelna's kind can barely hold a ladle, let alone a sword. Her mother didn't fight in the War."
        "She was still on the wrong side of the mountains, though. Everything beyond the Thicket was an enemy to us back then, and she makes no exception."
        "And what of her daughter, a girl born and raised in Veradan?" I struggled to keep my temper in check and found myself wondering why I was getting so emotional over the matter. At any rate, Fenrey had found his compsure and was getting upset over the wrong things, much like I found myself doing as well.
        "She'll grow up and start taking honest jobs away from humans, just like all denborn seem to do nowadays. I have no reason to care for her on either side of the Thicket. Her or her kind."
        A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead and I felt it stop at a bulging vein there. At that point I knew I was too angry, and sighed. "When your parents die, remind me not to cry for you."
        Fenrey glowered at me but the pain showed clearly on his face, and it hurt me to see it there. Neither of us I’d consider awful people, especially when compared to some, but our emotions clearly got the better of both of us. Fenrey himself rarely lets them overtake his actions, but considering the situation he’s understandably tense. However he’s quick to cool off and admit his faults, so I could expect him to apologize even before I get the chance to.
        But that’s still to come. For now, he brushed off the comment and looked elsewhere. “Speaking of the girl, there she goes.” He nodded in a direction behind me, to the orphan girl who had been asleep not a minute before who was now walking through the scarred buildings. “Best get her back on your teat before she starts wailing again.”
        I didn’t respond to his quip. I barely had the mind to think about it. I raced after Kelna, cursing myself for letting her out of my sight for so long. I cursed out loud for a lot of things, for ever bringing her along in the first place. If she had already seen the wreckage of her hometown as it burned, how would she act when she sees the aftermath?
        When I reached her, she took no notice of me. Even when I grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her to face me she wouldn’t take her eyes off the scene around her. There was an eerie fascination in those eyes only overpowered by the fear glazing them over.
        “Kelna, get back. Go back to the horses and wait for me there,” I urged her, pulling her with me. But her heels dug into the scorched earth, resisting me with every step. She tried to wriggle from my grasp and nearly did thanks to my sweaty palm. Her other hand tried to grab mine to shove it off but her awkward grip found little purchase and she resorted to beating me with it. “Enough, Kelna. There are things here you shouldn’t see.”
        And yet she struggled. I dragged her behind me as she continued her escape attempts, spinning and flailing about like a demon possessed. She lost her footing and refused to regain it until I stood her up and half-carried her onward. Her age grew apparent then, as noticeable as the tears staining her face. She was a young girl who had seen death not once but twice. I didn't blame her for her actions. I couldn't.
        "Let me go! -Let me go!-" she cried. It was all I could do not to lose my grip on her arm; the scales were slippery and her arm thick, leaving little to grab hold of. She wanted so dearly to see the town for a reason, but speculation on what reason it could be left me dismayed. It would not be good, at any rate. For a girl who had screamed her throat to bloody ribbons the night before over a small cut I could only imagine what she'd do in a land of death.
        But those thoughts quickly fled when I hit the ground. All of a sudden my legs felt watery and numb and I dropped to my knees on the gravel below. Pain flared from my kneecaps upward and the sickly feeling of landing so suddenly made my grip weaken and before I could react the arm I had held slipped out of my range. I picked myself up slowly and watched helplessly as Kelna ran off through the smouldering ruins.
        -Curse her, she's only going to find more pain.- It was her tail that felled me, I realized. She had swung it into the backs of my knees and dropped me. For once her monstrous limbs proved to be of use instead of being a liability. For her, at least. -She'll be screaming all over again, that much I'll warrant. Blast me, I never should have left her out of my sight.-
        I followed her, weaving in and around the labyrinthine shells of buildings and losing sight of her more times than I hoped. She ran without direction or a destination, so it was impossible to figure out where she was going, or why. -Did someone she know live here?- The idea struck me. She could have some relative living here in Scurge. -Would the gods be so cruel as to take more from this girl?- I hoped not.
        She wasn't easy to follow, but the seemingly senseless path she took actually had an ending, and after one last scare I found her again, this time standing still in a small home. Like the rest, it was less a home and more a mausoleum. Three burned bodies and a possible fourth decorated the floor, each in a more horrifying pose than the last.
        I expected to find Kelna bawling, or even in some catatonic state, but she only stood silent and statue-like. Her face was somber yet dry, but her eyes were puffy and threatening to burst at any moment. Her arms hung limply off her and her clothes limply off them, they looked like they had been pulled over a skeleton. I had noticed how thin she was in the bath the night before, she had not eaten much in the past fortnight, but even then she hadn't looked this unhealthy. It was as if during the night more weight had slipped off her body, leaving her half of what she should be. Her skin still clung tight to her but the bones showed through; her cheekbones in particular rose out in stark contrast to the dark pits of her eyes, where even her diamond-coloured irises that once glittered when the light caught them seemed to shine a little less today.
        She was still just a girl, not a woman, but you'd never guess it by looking at her. She had seen too much in too little of time. Her childhood was over yet her life had only just begun. It happened to a lot of men in the garrison around my age thanks to the War. Many had lost their fathers or relatives in the fighting, though only a couple had seen it firsthand like she had.
        I placed my hand on her shoulder, feeling the hardness of her bones under her cloak. "It's best if we get you back to the outpost. Come, you shouldn't look at this," I murmured. The small crackles of dying embers answered each other in the ruins, but Kelna never made a sound. She stayed rooted to the ground as well and made no sign of moving.
        I sighed. My breath came out like a thousand stinging needles were caught in my throat. The ride had been long and I was tired, the questions piled up and their answers still sat in shadows. Scurge was a sorrowful sight, so much that it hurt to look up at anything that isn’t the dirt in front of you. The smell of ashes still lingered and reminded me with every breath what had happened here, as if I somehow forgot. My mind was still racing, but it was tired, tired and on the verge of collapsing, and several times my weariness almost overtook my grief.
        Although Kelna had been sleeping most of the trip she looked no less exhausted. Her hair was black as jet and still shimmered defiantly, but everything else about her looked years older. The curled body in front of her held all her attention and she stared unblinking at it until I knelt in front of her, cutting off her line of sight. “Did you know these denborn, Kelna?” I asked.
        She struggled to find words. "My friend lived here," she said in a cracked voice. "My mother and I would visit every summer."
        I listened to her words but it took a second to understand them. "Then . . ." I glanced at the dead behind me. The one that was curled up was no doubt a child around the same age as Kelna, and the other two were more adult sized. I grimaced and felt more pain lance through me. "I'm sorry."
        It wasn't much to say, but there wasn't anything else that could be done. This whole trip had been nothing but despair stacked upon despair. I wondered how much more would come before we would finally leave this hell.
        "We would come here to trade," Kelna said suddenly, startling me. "Scurge used its land to grow wheat while Engal grew other crops. Every summer my mother and I and half of Engal would travel out here to trade our vegetables for wheat." The land had been burned just as much as the town itself was so any trace of any sort of crop had been destroyed. I found as much as I looked out at the desolate fields.
        "I remember that. We'd always get a lot of traffic during the summer months from Engal." The summer months were always busy along the stretch of road our outpost sat by. The main road leading to Titanspring from the west, Aldin Road, may see more travellers in one day than we see all summer, but any other month and we'd mistake their trip as an exodus. A lot of us figured it was some sort of festival they traveled for, some non-jokingly mistook it for some kind of demonic denborn ritual they plan every year, with sacrifices and the drinking of blood and mass orgies. To think it was something as normal as crop trading . . . but I suppose that would normally be one’s first guess, right?
        “We would stay here and trade for three nights. We would set up our tents at the front of town, but I’d always sleep over at Thana’s house. Thana and I would always stay up late and watch the bonfires and her parents would always welcome me. We were only able to see each other once a year so they let us do anything.”
        I didn’t have to ask to know which house was Thana’s. I had a creeping suspicion said girl was one of the bodies behind me, too. “And what about your mother? Did she let you do anything you wanted?”
        “Yes. She always wanted me to spend as much time with her as I could, since we saw so little of each other.”
        “But your mother was a farmer, aye? She came along to trade her goods?”
        "We didn't have a lot of our own food, so there wasn't much we could trade," Kelna admitted solemnly. "My mother both worked at the inn and in the fields so she always had enough to feed us, but not much more."
        "Sounds like she was pretty tough for raising a child by herself."
        "My mother would trade whatever vegetables she had right away, and after that she’d gather up as much wheat as she could in the short time we had.”
        “That’s hard to do if you don’t have any more vegetables, right?”
        Kelna shook her head. “The people here are . . . were very nice,” Kelna squeaked, her voice wavering as she corrected herself “the men especially. She’d talk to them for a while and they’d give her some more wheat and sometimes other things.”
        “She talked with these men? What did you do when your mother talked to them?”
        “I’d stay with Thana and her mother until we went back to Engal. I’d see my mom every once in a while around town but she was usually busy talking.”
        It wasn’t difficult to figure out what her mother was really doing during the festival. With a small amount of vegetables, she must have used other resources to procure more crops, resources the men of the town would have been glad to trade wheat for. It was why Kelna spent most of her time with at her friend’s house here, as her own mother couldn’t spend time with her, not that she’d want Kelna to see what she was doing after she talked with these men.
        My chest tightened at her story, perhaps out of sadness and sympathy for the broken denborn girl I had found, or perhaps out of anger for the ones that had destroyed not only her town but her friend’s. Or perhaps for both. I picked up a blackened stone and rolled it in my fingers, not caring about the soot that coated my hands wherever the stone touched. I dropped it and it became lost amongst every other pebble on the ground.
        Moments passed in silence. It wasn’t that I couldn’t think up anything to say, more like I didn’t want to say anything. It occurred to me that she was in a world completely different from mine, in many more ways than I could theorize. She was denborn, female, poor, her family and town were murdered and destroyed, and she was still only a child. My family was still alive and too well-off to be concerned about and I have a somewhat steady career here in the garrison with a decent chance to move up with promotions.
        West of the Thicket Mountains, here in the kingdoms of Veradan, denborn are discriminated against and loathed by almost all humans. Their rights are all but stripped away, they are shunned by every society but their own and they are treated less than livestock in many cases. Yet they choose to live here of their own volitions, accepting (or ignoring) the degradation and sift away into the underbrush of each kingdom to live out in the shadows of empires.
        And here there was a child alone in such a world.
        I stretched my arms out, unsure of what I was planning on doing. I had a notion of embracing her, it was a small notion but it was there all the same at the back of my mind, but I ignored it. My hand came to rest on her head, and I patted out a few stray hairs absentmindedly, still unaware of my true intentions, whatever they may have been. She looked up, not at me but at my hand as if it were the first display of sympathy she had seen since her mother was killed, and as far as I could remember it probably was, and she cried, and she cried, and she cried and sobbed and sniffled until her face was no longer pale but red and puffy from the constant tears that had run their courses down her face, and I stood and turned her towards Blare, not the horses and urged her as gently as I could and she obeyed and we walked together in the ruins of the town of her dead friend towards the graves of a family she may have remembered were they not buried.
        Commander Blare’s job was finished, and he looked as if it had taken him twenty years to do it. His age was not only apparent but exaggerated, this was a coarse, ancient old man that had seen death much too many times to not be able to hide it in his eyes. He regarded us as a dead man would the sky and the words he spoke completed the simile, that is to say he never spoke at all. He simply watched us approach him with a shovel still clutched in a dirty gloved hand.
        “Commander, I’m going to take Kelna back to the outpost, if it’s all right with you,” I said. Blare looked at me, or rather, looked -past- me, into the dark ruins of the town, but said nothing. He was a man looking at everything but seeing nothing, he was a husk. I felt he had done something like this before, burying strangers, children, even if they were denborn it still had an effect on him. Or perhaps it was because they -were- denborn that he was acting this way. “This isn’t a good place for her to be, not right now.”
        Blare only watched me, the bags under his eyes seeming darker than the last time I saw him. Then he nodded, the smallest, barely noticeable nod that might have been nothing, but I took it as acceptance and never heard any complaint afterward. I walked with Kelna to the horse's side by side without a word. Fenrey still stood there, the remnants of tears long since wiped away were still present on his face in the form of a pink puffiness around his eyes. He said nothing as I prepared the horse, for a time, at least.
        “Am I to stay here with the commander?” he finally said. There was no irritation in his voice, just a question.
        “I didn’t hear any different.” I pushed Kelna up onto the saddle first then followed right after. Fenrey didn’t bother to help, but he didn’t seem as standoffish as he was before. “He’s done with the graves, so that’s one thing you won’t have to worry about.”
        Fenrey looked at his feet as meekly as he could manage. He wasn’t a terribly fragile man but he still seemed very shook up. “What is there I can do?” He asked without looking up at me.
        “Do? I told you what you could do not an hour ago. You could have helped Blare dig those graves, but instead you decided to sulk and lick the wounds you gave yourself,” I spoke harshly at him, and he cringed. He may have only been a few years younger than me, but when you hit his weak spot, he was quick to show pain. Though he had shown enough pain for one day. This entire ordeal, both Engal and Scurge together had cut a scar deep on all four of us, Kelna included. He probably wondered why he of all the other soldiers in the garrison was chosen not once but twice for these excursions much like I had wondered about myself, but it seemed like he was coming to an answer. I understood him, and yet I pitied him in spite of my own position with Kelna. “Blare will most likely wait here until the guard from Titanspring arrive. If you had any sympathy for the old man, you’d take his place.”
        He didn’t respond to me but he accepted all the same. I could see it in the way he shuffled his weight and looked towards the town. If there was one person that needed the sleep right now, it was the commander. Fenrey probably realized that, and for that alone I was somewhat grateful.
        Without any more words between us, I snapped my reins and broke my horse into a trot. It was as tired as we all were, so I set out to stop at the next inn for the day and rest up. Kelna rode awake the entire time, the sight of passing trees and flowers and other foliage keeping her attention in the silence. Kelna couldn’t have been all too tired herself, seeing how she had slept throughout most of the ride to Scurge, but when I reached the first inn and ordered the cheapest room I could she lumbered up the steps just as slowly as me and yawned when I did. Her eyes were still swollen from crying but her irises still shone through like fiery diamonds.
        The pillow was rough and wiry but when my head hit it I fell asleep almost instantly. When I closed my eyes Scurge flared up before me like a ghost parting its last words before vanishing into the winds. It struck me as odd that Scurge seemed to have cut deeper in us than Engal did. Fenrey was struck half-insane at one point, Kelna had broken down, Blare was visibly upset and even I, with all my worrying over Kelna had enough emotion left over to weep for the children I had seen. With Engal we had a survivor, and I had a constitution. This time, there was nothing but ashes.
        I could have brooded some more, but I felt my blanket shift a little and I came to a realisation. Ever since Kelna's rescue, I had not slept in my own bed, instead taking to the floor as she slept on my mattress. This was the first time in almost a fortnight that I had slept in a bed. I intended to move below, but was stopped by a pair of club-like arms that folded over me and held me close to a small body. Again Kelna cried, this time silently yet I could tell all the same, and accepted her place beside me for the night, and eventually fell into the deepest sleep I had had since Engal.