Judgement
----
The trio had settled down by their campfire, stressed out by the events of a long day. The lazy crackling of the wood and the chirping of crickets were the only sounds that could be heard as the night sky shone bright under a canopy of trees. Talos stared morosely into the flames as Alanna looked on him with a frown. Casiama was playing with a silver Imperial between her fingers absentmindedly.
"They were bad people, Talos," Alanna told him unconvincingly, reading his fears as he created them in his head. She wrung her hands as she looked him over, "They deserved to die." She was troubled to note that she couldn't even convince herself of the last statement.
His eyes didn't move away from the fire. "People are idiots," he stated tersely as he finally spoke up in a low tone. He paused for a moment before looking at the girl.
"A
person
," stressing the singularity of the statement, "is rarely bad on their own. People, on the other hand, convince each other to be dangerous or fearful for one reason or another," he continued sadly. The two women didn't immediately catch the double meaning to his words.
"A thousand years ago, people sacrificed their own to dragons because they thought they were gods. Three hundred years ago, people attacked and slaughtered nearly an entire race of beings because their ears looked different." Casiama's ears perked up and swiveled at the statement. "Only fifteen years ago, people practiced slavery because one god said it was okay at some point. Think of what people will do tomorrow." It was Alanna's turn to look into the firelight.
"These guys were only out here because they had convinced each other it was the right idea," Talos said, applying his monologue to the present day. "So yeah. They were bad people. But get them alone? They probably weren't," the man finished as he thought back to the events of the day once more.
--
Casiama had spotted the fire the previous day while scouting their camp's perimeter, an action she always performed at sunfall. A large group of bandits were camped just under a mile from the trio, and the elf had convinced her new friends to strike on the party before they could be discovered.
Talos was looking over the band of outlaws from behind a fallen tree trunk, the once great timber now returning to the soil as fungus grew on its mass. Alanna, to his left, held his loaded crossbow as she mentally prepared herself.
Talos never liked starting a conversation with his crossbow. You don't get their point of view if you do, never give the accused a chance to redeem themselves. Some days he wished he was religious, to get the pressure of a life or death mortal judgement off his chest. He knew, however, that the weapon across from him and beyond the group of drinking men was worse.
He waited for the signal. Alanna would tap him on the shoulder when the elf fired her first shot, the sorceress already deep within Casiama's mind. Four seconds later and he'd attack, giving the princess a second shot before announcing his presence.
He found himself wondering if the men before him still had families back home. Grieving mothers, unknowing why their sons would leave their familiar home to instead plunder and rape. Tearful wives having to take care of their children without a man's stablility.
Alanna tapped his shoulder as the world went slow. She leveled the crossbow on the tree trunk. Talos counted calmly to four in his clear head before charging the group of sixteen men, sword in hand.
