For The Decisions You Make.

The door split open with a crack. Old wood splintered into three or four great pieces as the ogre of a man on the other side dropped his maul into it; the sound of an old tree snapping with the wind and lightning of a storm.

As they crossed the threshold they revealed themselves. They were a company of three:

The Warrior, who had been younger once but was now scarred and worn. His armor rattled like a catacomb as he walked. What hair of his remained was brown with scattered grey streaks.

The Wanderer, who was still young and graceful. She was dressed plainly for woodsman's work. Linens, ties, tunics, belt at the waist. Her hair was braided back into a bun. The quiver at her hip bounced gently as she walked with an arrow knocked, and sounded like dice cast.

The Wizard, whose black veil, robes, and staff gave her death's visage. Prayer beads dangled from the staff, clattering with each step as they swung. It was the sound of gnawing that followed her.

And then The Foe.

The Warrior had sliced the foe's thigh some hours ago when they stormed her last hiding place. She had not the time to mend it. What was an inconvenience in battle and a deathly concern for later became troublesome under The Wanderer's eyes. Blood and the trails of bleeding animals were easy to see on the forest floor for those with the eye for the pursuit. The Foe was not certain that The Wanderer's absence would have bought her more time, as she stared up at them from the fireplace of the small home, with its dirt floors and mud-and-thatch walls. Where The Wanderer failed there was a certainty that the death-shroud calling itself a person in their company would have found some cruel intention or carefully carved sigil to evoke The Foe's location.

On the ground, in the center of the room, drawn in blood, was a small sigil. The will to kill in a single symbol, with its killing power triplicated to ensure that the hounds on her tail would die. A single glance to it was all The Foe offered.

The Foe's eyes were tired, green, and bloodshot. She always seemed to have black eyes. Bruised. Her hair was pulled back into a failing braid, with flyaway hairs in every direction. Her own staff, not unlike The Wizard's, had broken hours ago during their first confrontation. She held onto only a few prayer beads, which were strung now around her neck. Silently. When they had driven her from their camp they had done so in the early morning, such that she had no time to don her things and care for herself. They held her in a moment of indignity, wearing only a breechcloth and the oversized linen tunic she used as a night gown on the road.

Like three dogs they began to bay, grunt, howl, bark. A dying alligator, cornered.

She watched them carefully as they closed in, joking between themselves. Smiling with black-pit eyes. They seemed not to register her humanity, and she hoped that would be her advantage. Each step closer brought her closer to salvation. Hope. Peace.

As The Warrior drew his final step, he did not drop his foot. He watched The Foe's eyes. He followed them down. The Wizard waved her staff, rattling like laughing bones, over the sigil and struck the dirt. And the sigil was gone. And the hope was gone.

"We need to read the offenses."

"She needs t'die."

"She will. Let her read the offenses."

The Warrior stepped carefully to one side. He scanned the room carefully, taking in every detail. This moment needed to be remembered. They had been chasing her for a fortnight. Every creeping day a new crime against humanity. A new horror.

"Forty-five hands and three fingers of unconsenting necromancy." The Wanderer was reciting without reading. She stowed her bow and continued reading from the parchment that had previously been stuffed in her belt. "For this crime you would face death. This is not your only crime."

"You will face death. Duyu." The Wizard, faceless, incanted. Her hands white-knuckle gripped her staff.

"Two knuckles compulsions by magic of the living."

"You will face death. Duyu."

"Three knuckles attempted slaying of agents of the Council-Regency. For this crime you would face servitude numbering three hands, thrice."

"You will face death. Duyu."

He shifted, scraping plates and chain against each other. "Charges were service there."

Veiled, her gaze turned to him. "I do not will this service. It esc—"

"One knuckle escaping entombment by agents of the Council-Regency. For this crime you would face servitude numbering one life, which you live now."

"You will face death. Duyu."

"We need t'move this. She'll find a way to worm her way out again I figure, if we don't."

"I'm almost done." She neatly folded the parchment and put it back to her belt. She drew her bow from her back, and unstrung it. The wood rung. She retrieved a new string from a side pouch on her backpack, which she grabbed blindly and with ease; she restrung the bow. "One hand murders, three fingers and one slaying by compelled dead."

His heavy boot slammed into the ground. "One hand and two murders." He nodded down to the ground. The sigil had not been drawn in her own blood.

"One hand and two murders. For these crimes you will face death."

"You will face death. Duyu."

The Foe was cold. The Wizard's incanting, the Wanderer's evocation of law, and the agitation in the clattering warrior felt inappropriate to her.

Worse was the sigil the Wizard was carving into the dirt at her feet with the end of her staff. It did not matter what plan she had. A death sign was a death sign.

"C—" and a knife at her throat. Despite his size, despite his age, he was fast. He had crossed the room in the time she had began to move her mouth, and his hammer had been abandoned in favor of a far more personal, far more agile, knife.

"Nay, I don'think you can."

"You will face death. Duyu."

"Let her speak for her actions. We know what magic sounds like."

His hand came up hard into her jaw, clutching it hard and pushing her neck back. The stones of the fireplace scraped against her. Punishment from the land, she mused. The knife pressed against the veins in her neck— the ones she really ought to remember the name of but could not for the life of her recall— as The Warrior grunted his assent like a pig. "Fine. Quick."

"I just wanted to say that I was right, and I would do it all again."

They did not respond. She let it hang. She needed to let her own righteousness linger f—

"You will face death. Duyu."

For a moment.

"That it?"

"No. The council was failing. Every person in that council house deserved the death they earned, and they earned the corpses they became. They did more good under my will than they ever did with the resources of River-Town."

They did not entertain her.

"And you know it, too." She shifted slightly, nearly earning early the slice waiting for her at the end of the conversation. "Every one of those fools was old, callous, and stupid. I replaced them with something better. Something with vision, and purpose, and a direction for its sails. There was no injustice in the brief time I commanded—"

"You will face death. Duyu."

"The time I commanded what I deserved!" She was boiling, now. Red in the face. Tears in her eyes. She looked a mess. She looked pitiable. "We thrived. It was peace. You saw goodness as far as the eye could see. You will remember me for all your lasting days. Everyone will. My name will be written, and I will be remembered. They will say my name, and in the same breath they will remember that time we were at peace and we were wealthy. We were strong. I was strong. That is what people will remember."

"You will face death. Duyu."

"What matters is the good I did. It doesn't matter what it costs. There are children out there with bread on their tables because I did something I deserved to do anyway. I am owed the power I wield, and no one can convince me otherwise. Some people are meant to serve, some people are meant to lead. I am the one who gets to choose who is which. It is in my nature. This is what it means to be righteous, to be good, to be kind. To know when to bury the worst parts of a dying city and its dying people in order to make something worth living in. People will be better for me, and they would continue being better if you let me go."

"You will face death. Duyu."

"But you are fools, and mice, and stupid, and you cannot see that this is the right way. My way is the right way. There is no other way to take. No paths. No options. I did the only thing that could be done."

A breath.

She was embarrassed. They said nothing. Their eyes, those eyes she could see, were cold.

"You done?"

"What?"

"Are you done?"

"I— Yes. I am. I said what I needed to s—"

"Do it."

He tilted his knife upwards, gripping her face and jaw tighter. He pulled back, and The Foe bled. His hand twisted to clamp down on her whole face, not just her jaw. She could not speak if she wanted to.

And he kept stabbing.

Buck tossed The Warm Carcass he held by its face to the ground. He was bloodied. Covered in it. He regretted using his knife.

Mel drew one arrow and buried it into the carcass, for symbolic purposes mostly. She appreciated symbols.

Rav'na bent down and wiped away the sigil she had been incanting on the ground. It was not needed anymore. She pulled her veil back and showed her age. Crows feet dancing at her brown-blue eyes. Wrinkles everywhere they could be. She was beautiful and worn, not unlike her staff.

"Let's bury these two." Buck pointed to the young, dead farmers that had been a secondary concern up until now. "We're lucky she didn't have time't'bring them to war for her."

"I will go mark suitable graves for them." Rav'na brought her weathered hands to her eyes, and for the first time in years took a breath without the stress of magic or subterfuge breathing down her neck.

"This was right, was it not?" Mel took her hair back and tied it off before she began to help Buck in tending to the bodies.

"Of course, niece. Do not let a fool's words get into your head."

"Yeah, you're too smart for that bullshit." Buck grabbed the cold young man by the ankles. Mel already had his shoulders.

"She got what she deserved." Rav'na looked at The Warm Carcass as the others backed out the front door.

"Consequences."