They advanced slowly, pushing the broken remnants of the warlord’s fighters ahead of them until the common soldiers took them prisoner. Mari stopped when they reached the armored man she had seen Alli kill.
“It’s not a pretty thing,” Alli said. “But I’m glad I nailed that guy. He didn’t get away to cause more hurt.”
Mari didn’t know what she had expected the warlord to look like. Monstrous, maybe. But Raul looked distressingly average. A little tall. A little heavy. Nothing in his face or in the eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky that would indicate this was someone who took pleasure in inflicting pain.
That was more frightening than if he had appeared hideous. “Monsters should look like monsters,” Mari said.
“His sort of monsters do not,” Alain said.
Before she could speak again three men came running out of a tent, holding their hands high. None of them wore armor or carried weapons. “We surrender! Don’t turn us over to the commons!” one pleaded.
“But aren’t you commons?” Bev asked.
“We’re part of the Order! We know Mechanic skills!”
Mari glared at the three, thinking of the evil they had abetted by helping Raul. The presence of these Dark Mechanics explained how Raul’s ballista had been repaired after the damage inflicted by the Pride’s deck gun. But the idea of ordering the deaths of the Dark Mechanics repelled her. “We will turn you over to the authorities of Tiae. They can decide what punishment your crimes merit.”
“There are no authorities in Tiae!” one of the Dark Mechanics protested.
“Yes, there are, and you’d better be prepared to beg mercy from them.” Mari took a step away from the three and stumbled slightly.
Alain was right there, grasping her arm to steady Mari. He eyed her closely. “How are you feeling?”
“Sick,” Mari said, feeling an odd buzzing in her ears. “Sick to my stomach, sick at heart, and sick of death.” The surge of excitement that had kept her going during the battle was fading, replaced with weariness and something that felt like depression. Then she heard a strange sound filled with anguish, which yanked her out of her mood for a moment. “What’s that?”
Alain looked in the direction of the sound. “The troll. It is not yet dead, but it is no longer a threat.”
Mari got to her feet, pushing past Alain, drawn to the noise even though she wasn’t sure why. Looking past the bodies of the warlord’s fighters littering the ground, Mari saw the shape of the troll, not lying in the dirt but seeming shorter than it should and not moving.
Despite a reflexive burst of fear at the sight of the monster, Mari walked closer and stood watching the troll in the light of the burning ballista. The creature was on its knees, arms hanging uselessly, its thick blood coating heavy, rough skin ripped and torn by the weapons of the soldiers it had fought. The troll was so badly hurt it could no longer move, but it kept moaning. Mari could easily hear the pain in the inarticulate sounds coming from the troll’s malformed mouth.
“There is nothing we can do,” Alain told her, standing beside Mari. “If anyone gets within reach it will still attempt to kill. That is all it knows. It will cease in time.”
“Alain, it is in pain. That creature hurts and it doesn’t understand why, it doesn’t understand anything except that it’s in pain.” Mari still held her rifle, but she rubbed tears roughly from her eyes with her free hand. “It didn’t ask for this. It didn’t choose this fate. That Dark Mage created it to be nothing more than… than a monster. It couldn’t be anything else.”
Alain stood next to her, searching for words. “There is nothing we can do,” he finally repeated.
Mari shook her head. “I will never believe that there’s nothing to be done.” She walked toward the monster again, hearing Alain following, and stopped near it, so close it could almost reach her with one of those long arms. So close, a short lunge from the troll would have doomed her. But the troll was beyond lunging. It just stared at her, its eyes dark with pain and, Mari thought, perhaps puzzlement. The creature had just enough intelligence to kill, but not enough to understand what it had done and what was happening to it. “This is so wrong, Alain. To create a living creature as a weapon.”
“It is not truly living, Mari.”
“It lives enough to feel pain!” She raised her rifle, aiming at one of those eyes. Her hands trembled, making the rifle wobble, but she steadied them. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “this is all I can do.” Then she squeezed the trigger.
From this close she couldn’t miss her unmoving target. The bullet went into the troll’s eye. It stiffened and the moaning sound finally stopped, then it fell forward, its bulk slamming to the ground at Mari’s feet to lie silent and finally bereft of the illusion of life. She looked down at it, then shook her head and turned away, pausing to stare at Alain. “It’s wrong,” she repeated, tears coming again. She rubbed them away, flinging the tears from her hand so that they fell to the ground, mixing with the blood everywhere.
Alain nodded. “I understand.”
Late on the afternoon of the next day Mari entered the grandly named, sparsely furnished, and slightly cramped suite of the Princess of Tiae on the third floor of the city hall.
Princess Sien stood next to a window, gazing out over the town, her back to Mari. From the streets below muted sounds of celebration could be heard. “Please be seated.”
Mari, still worn out from the exertions of the previous night, did not object. She took a comfortable-looking chair and sat back, wondering why the chair looked and felt familiar.
“Your Captain Banda provided us with a number of chairs,” Sien said. “He said that he understood we had need of them, and that those who had once used them no longer required them. Are you displeased?”
So that was why the chair felt familiar and was so comfortable. It had been one of those made for the Senior Mechanics and looted from the Mechanics Guild Hall in Edinton. Mari took another look, realizing that this particular chair must have come from the Guild Hall Supervisor’s office. “Displeased? Not at all. I’m glad that Captain Banda found them a good home.”
The Princess turned to face Mari, her expression somber. “It’s odd how hard it can be, accepting charity even there is almost nothing left to us. Where is your Mage?”
“Alain is helping make sure no one from Raul’s army got away. We don’t want any of the scum who terrorized people to hide in the woods or elsewhere and go on to cause more trouble.”
“A wise measure,” Princess Sien said. “You’ve won a notable victory. Raul has been terrorizing this area for a long time. With him dead and his army destroyed, a major threat to the surrounding area has been removed, and other people in this region will be more inclined to deal with us rather than hide and hope to avoid further danger. I’d wondered if you could really help us, if you would really risk yourself to help Tiae, but you’ve proven that you can and will.”
Mari just nodded.
“Why aren’t you celebrating, Lady Mari?” Princess Sien asked.
This time Mari shrugged. “I don’t particularly feel like it. We have a Mage who can send messages. I’ve asked him to contact a General Flyn, who operates around the Free Cities.”
“You think that this Flyn will come?”
“He’s, um, already sworn himself to my service,” Mari said. “He’s a good commander, and I’ll be more than happy to turn over fighting battles to him. I’m not actually that good at it.”