“Flora, aim at the horse!” I shouted out. Seeing as how none of the riders that were over here were downed, both Tasha and Flora must not have been trying as hard as they could. As they started galloping away, Flora did as I said and shot off an arrow at one of the horses. It whinnied as the arrow stuck into its flank. The horse faltered in its gallop and then tripped and tumbled into the ground.

I continued the chase as I saw the rider trying to get his horse back up, but it was useless. The other riders that had gone ahead had now stopped, but the downed rider yelled at the others to get away. After a second of hesitation, the riders continued their retreat. The rider got off his horse just as I arrived, and Tasha was not far behind. He brandished his scimitar as I slowly got in closer now. He looked like he was whispering something to his horse before he suddenly slashed at its neck, killing it. It was easy to see how he expected the fight to go. I knew it would be pretty easy to take him down, but the fatigue from using my ability and doing that all-out sprint was starting to set in. Before I moved in for the attack, Tasha ran past me. She easily disarmed the soldier and knocked him to the ground.

“Don’t move or else!” Tasha yelled out at the soldier, pointing her sword at the soldier on his back. I wondered if he knew just how big of a bluff that was.

“You think you can threaten me? The True-Bloods will rid every last one of you Battle-Hardened!” he snarled at her. Well, there’s the confirmation. I walked up next to Tasha.

“No, we are going to put a stop to all of your killing!” The soldier laughed hysterically at her remark.

“You may think you’re some great heroes or something, but you are dreaming of the impossible.”

“No, we are going to find where you all are hiding and beat you all!” Tasha was shouting even louder now, as if that would make her words more persuasive.

“You want to come to our base and fight us?” he asked, an incredulous look on his face and voice shaking a bit from laughter.

“That’s right! Now, tell us where it is!” Even I almost laughed. Watching Tasha trying to interrogate someone to have them divulge military information when they had no risk of being killed by her …I mean…just wow. He seemed to agree with my thoughts as he continued to laugh.

“That would be like walking right to your deaths!” I agree, it was a stupid idea and I thank you in advance for being a good soldier and keeping your mouth shut. Now that I think about it, though, even though I want to kick all of your asses for picking a fight with me, I probably should have just let them go if this was how it was going to turn out.

“We’re not afraid of you!” Tasha declared. I’m not afraid of most of them but…no, no, I’m not afraid either.

“Alright, I’ll tell you.” I stared at him in disbelief. What did he just say? “It’ll save us the trouble of hunting you down later.”

“Good, so, where is it?” Tasha asked, clearly quite pleased with herself.

“If you continue going due east, you’ll come across a small canyon. It should be about two days by foot. Stay north of the canyon and you’ll eventually see what looks like ruins. Underneath the ruins is our base.” I simply could not believe that he would just tell us all of this so willingly. Just what is waiting for us for him to be so confident?

“Alright, then.” Tasha stepped back a bit to give the soldier some room. “Leave your weapon behind and get out of here.” The man let out another laugh as he got onto his feet.

“Doing me the favour of delaying my…punishment?” he said condescendingly.

“No, you’re dying here right now.” I stepped forward to attack but Tasha slashed her sword right in front of me.

“We’re letting him live, dad.” She stared hard into my eyes.

“Do you have any idea how much more difficult things will get if he warns them all?” I grabbed onto Tasha’s arm to pull it away, but she wouldn’t budge.

“What a funny sight,” the soldier commented, stifling another laugh.

“Hurry up and get out of here. You’ll end up regretting it if you don’t stop what you’ve been doing.” I shoved at Tasha hard to push her out of my way. Then, the soldier suddenly dove for his scimitar and I leapt in to cut him down. Tasha knocked me to the side from behind and jumped ahead of me. Just as the soldier was getting back up with his weapon, Tasha attempted to disarm him again, but he kept his grip, both hands clutched to the handle. He pushed back at Tasha, but it didn’t even make her footing falter. Tasha pushed back and easily knocked him to the ground, but he still held onto the scimitar. I came in from the side and slashed at him, but Tasha got in the way again by blocking my attack. In this opening, the soldier tried to slash at Tasha, but she dodged out of the way. I then slashed downwards at the soldier as he performed the attack, and cut deep into the side of his chest. He tumbled to the ground, but quickly got back on one knee, still one hand gripping his scimitar. I went in to finish him off, but Tasha cut me off again.

“Tasha, stop getting in the way!”

“No, we are not going to kill him!” I could see how genuinely angry she was at me right now, but I wouldn’t back down.

“He probably won’t live through a wound like that anyways,” I reasoned.

“Then you shouldn’t have done that!” If Tasha were a Farseer instead, I wouldn’t be surprised if her gaze alone could set my entire body on fire.

“Bit late for that,” I stated coldly. After struggling for a bit, the soldier got back on his feet, most of the left side of his torso soaked in blood.

“It’s not too late. We can heal him. We still have those apples!” Now, my anger was starting to peak.

“We are not using our precious resources to save someone who wanted to kill us!” I declared. He came running at us again, but Tasha moved in before I did and knocked the weapon out of his hand, his strength clearly fading. He then tried to throw a punch at Tasha instead of retrieving the scimitar, but Tasha easily evaded and then tripped him. He slammed into the ground with a loud grunt.

“Stop fighting! Do you want to die?!” Tasha asked, angry and confused. The soldier coughed up some blood as he tried pushing himself back up, only to collapse again from the injury on his left side.

“Are you trying to shame me with mercy…?” he asked as blood trickled through his teeth.

“We don’t want to kill you.” Speak for yourself, Tasha. “Just lie down there and we can treat your wounds.” He gave out a pained laugh in between a couple more bloody coughs.

“Are you trying to…reform me? I live to fight for the True-Bloods…and I shall die with honour.” He pushed at the ground again with his hands and got into a push up position, his arms trembling. He willed his legs to move again and stood back up. Honestly, if he wasn’t some genocidal fanatic hell-bent on fighting to the death, it might have actually looked noble.

“W-why do you go so far? You attack and kill others without mercy, and even on the verge of death, you don’t stop fighting? Just why do you go so far?!” I could see tears in Tasha’s eyes as this situation made her go through the range of the most extreme emotions. With an unsteady hand, he reached into his overcoat and pulled out a small knife.

“Because that’s just who we are.” He lunged at Tasha, knife aimed at her throat. Tasha evaded the attack and he crashed into the ground, worsening his injury. Just like the last time, in between bloody coughs, he pushed himself back up and onto his feet again with a content grimace on his face. He shakily walked towards Tasha and she backed away from him. This man clearly had the plans to drive himself to the death. There was now little reason for me to intervene. In fact, this might even serve to be a good lesson.

“Tasha, do you understand the situation you are in right now? This man has absolutely no intentions of reforming and he will fight you until his dying breath. How do you intend to deal with an army of people like this?” Realize this, Tasha. There are times when we must kill, and this is one of those times.

“I- I…” Tasha struggled to think of what to say. The bloodied soldier’s persistence was a terrifying thing, and not because of any kind of perceived personal threat. There was next to no chance of him succeeding in actually injuring Tasha. But the conundrum of trying to resolve this with non-lethal force seemed to be a problem with no possible answer.

“Enough…of your arguing…and running around…fight me!” He lunged again, but this time, Tasha chose to try to block him. She succeeded in knocking the knife out of his hand, but he bulldozed her into the ground. Panicked, I quickly went over to pull him off. The man lay on top of her, his face right up next to hers, as he grabbed at her with one arm and tried to either claw or punch at her with the other. It was hard to tell since he was neither making a proper fist or a clawing motion. I grabbed him from the neck of his overcoat and tore him off of her. For an instant, I had him dangling from one hand before I finished tossing him over to the side. He collided with the ground noisily, blood droplets making a trail to his landing spot. Tasha was on her back, her face white with horror alongside tears and drops of blood marking her face. The front of her armour was also smeared in some of the soldier’s blood. I went over to the soldier, and sure enough, he was still alive and was in the middle of getting back up.

“You’re going to pay for that,” I said, seething with anger.

“So…the man finally shows up…to finish the job…” He got back into a standing position, the entire front and left side of his body now stained in blood. Judging by the blood pooled around his mouth, I couldn’t be certain if it was him choking on blood that was hindering his speech more than all the pain he was clearly in.

“I’m going to take out every last one of you True-Bloods.” In my rage, I ended up saying something unexpected. He gave me a disgusting smile.

“What a cute thing to say…be sure to remember it.” With difficulty, he bent his knees, and tried to charge in and throw a punch at me. I side stepped him and stuck my blade deep into the non-bleeding side of his chest. His arms immediately dropped, and his knees buckled. I bent down to let his knees touch the ground with my sword still jammed in his chest. Then, I pulled it out while kicking his body away from me. The resultant blood splatter was more than I expected, but I managed to avoid most of it. I then walked over to his body and verified he was finally dead. Then, I went back to Tasha who was still lying on the ground.

“Tasha…can you get up?” I asked, extending one hand towards her. She continued to stare ahead of her, as if lost in her own little world. Having to be up close and personal to a dying, bleeding man trying to kill you would probably have that kind of effect. Eventually, she brought one hand to her face, and felt the mix of blood and tears. She put her hand in front of her face to look at the mixture, and then looked at me.

“Where is he?” she asked softly.

“Over there,” I replied, without any emotion, or even pointing. “Come on, I’ll help you up.” I shook my hand in front of her, as if the problem was that she simply couldn’t see it. Slowly, she grasped it, and I gently brought her to her feet. She looked around and spotted the dead soldier.

“So, you killed him…” she said, rather absent-mindedly.

“Yes. He wasn’t going to quit until he died.” She pulled away from my grip and started walking back towards the rock outcropping. Instead of following her, I went over to the dead horse and checked the saddlebag. No use in letting traveling supplies go to waste. We continued traveling eastwards, not necessarily because we wanted to find their base, but because the Dridam Plains were in that direction. A lot had happened since setting off, but I had still not forgotten about that objective. However, if it was going to be along the way anyways, I figured I’d at least want to make sure it was there.