Death After Death-Chapter 369 - Off the Beaten Path (part 2)

Sir Derinholt stopped the merchant right then and there, and when he did so, he had a look in his eyes that Simon hadn’t seen there before. The knight was past his prime, for sure, but Simon had triggered something with his words, and now there was a look of determination there, in place of the fatigue or boredom Simon usually saw.

After a brief conversation with the merchant, Sir Derinholt announced that his man was wanted for murder. That made the drover go white even as the merchant blustered.

“By what right do you—” the wealthy man started. Simon didn’t hear the rest of their discussion because as soon as the murderer realized this was actually happening, he fled. He didn’t make it far, though. Simon gave chase immediately, and halfway through the field, he tackled the man, beating him into submission with his fists in a fight that was brief but bloody.

“I didn’t do it!” the man insisted. “Whatever they said I did, it wasn’t me!”

Simon might have been tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt if he couldn’t see the evil dripping off his fingertips. He was a weasley little man. The drover wasn’t quite harmless, but he seemed too cowardly to have committed any real violence.

The realization that his victims would have had to be even weaker than the man himself made Simon’s stomach drop as he realized who fit into that category. Women, children… the flashes of the way he’d done it, too.

He returned his captive to Sir Derinholt at swordpoint, but by the time he did so, he was so angry and disgusted at his crimes that Simon wanted nothing more than to strike him down himself. His sight was all but gone by the time they reached the road.

By then, whatever disagreements the merchant had raised had been handled because the man was thoroughly cowed. Sir Derinholt hung the drover right there from the nearest tree and then ordered the merchant not to cut him down before sending him on his way.

“He’ll be a good warning to those who can’t see the world the way you and I do,” the knight said before returning to his horse, as if Simon needed any sort of explanation.

Over the next couple of days, the drover was Simon’s first real test, but it was far from his last. However, no matter how many other men and women, Sir Derinholt asked him about on that trip, the only one they executed was the first one.

Simon waited until he was good and drunk two nights later before he asked why. He spent the time in between contemplating it, but he kept waiting for the knight to volunteer the answer, and when that didn’t happen, he got impatient.

“You seem… different, lately,” Simon said, trying to make it casual, but the annoyed look the knight gave him made it clear that he saw right through the verbal feint from the very first word.

“Go on then,” Sir Derinholt instructed. “You tell me why you think I killed him.”

“I just wanted to know if I did something to—” Simon answered, trying to deflect.

“Surprise me,” Sir Derinholt insisted.

Simon thought about it for a moment, remembering the way the shadows coiled around the drover. Especially his hands. There’d been nothing in his aura that had said, ‘the man enjoys killing people,’ and yet Simon had said it anyway. Why? Why had he done that?

Because it takes a certain sadism to strangle people to death with your hands, he decided after contemplating it. That’s why he’d said it. Because the evil had been focused enough that the patterns were clear even to his slightly foggy gaze.

Eventually, he gave that explanation to Sir Derinholt in a stuttering, stammering way. The man listened to the whole thing and then answered by tapping his tankard to Simon’s and saying, “I’ll drink to that.”

For a moment, Simon worried that was all he was going to get, but after a few seconds, the man continued. “If you can see the sorts of things that I see, then eventually it wears on you. You spend your whole life putting down monsters, but there’s always more to be found, and it’s the ones that look like anyone else that are the worst of all.”

“Well, why don’t you just retire and…” Simon’s words trailed off as Sir Derinholt fixed him with a glare. The statement had been naive, but intentionally so.

“One doesn’t retire from the Order,” he said with all seriousness. “If you live fighting evil, then you die fighting evil, but sometimes you just get tired when evil never runs out. That’s all.”

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He looked at his tankard as if confused by the fact that it was empty. “Drinks always run out, but evil never does. Remember that. That’s one of the reasons I know that beer is a good and holy thing. Because if it wasn’t, it would never run out.”

As the evening went on, and Sir Derinholt got drunker, he confessed that the reason he didn’t think Simon would make a good holy warrior was because of his temperament. “Youh ahct like a tough guy,” he said. “Bhut deep down, you’re more like a noble or a ssscholar. You sshould persshue that instead of this. You’ll be happier.”

Simon told him how wrong that was in no uncertain terms. He told the knight that all he wanted to do was make the world a better place, but deep down, there was no denying that his happiest lives had involved the least fighting. In fact, his best lives were all marred by fighting, and there was no doubt he’d be happier if he could spend a life or two doing good with art and medicine instead of a sword, but that wasn’t what he needed right now.

More important than his own happiness, though, was his assessment of the knight he accompanied. He’d gotten that wrong twice. First, he’d thought of Sir Derinholt as a jaded veteran well past his prime, and later he’d thought of him as a slacker who didn’t really care. While both of those were facets of him, the truth was he was a man who had cared a lot, but seen too much.

Simon could resonate with that a lot. He’d come close to being that guy in a few lives, and could easily imagine that that’s how most heroes ended up when you had lifetime after lifetime to burn out on. In that moment, as much as he hated the idea of losing all of his memories if the Goddess ever reincarnated him, he finally understood.

Most people will stay that same person forever, in every life if they aren’t given a fresh start, he told himself. And those that rise above it all will eventually be ground down to nothing, like Sir Derinholt.

Is that my fate then? He wondered as he lay there sleeplessly. To be ground down to nothing? Simon hadn’t been doing anything to actively prevent that. He’d been more worried about getting his soul wounded so badly he never recovered, or getting on the wrong side of a demon and ending up in hell. What if he simply died a spiritual death of a thousand cuts instead?

That question haunted him for hours the following day. It would have done so even longer, but when they met a bloodied band of refugees on the road, all metaphysical concerns went out the window.

Simon spent the better part of the afternoon treating the men and women who were the most likely to be saved with the few supplies he could gather together. Not that there were many men to speak of. The group was half children, which spoke to the desperate nature of their flight. Even given the nice weather this time of year, people didn’t flee their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs if they had another choice.

Simon did some good with bandages, along with stitches done with needle and thread. He didn’t have many herbs on him, and he hadn’t made a healing icon yet this life, though even if he had one on him, he couldn’t very well have used it with Sir Derinholt around. That was unlikely to end well for him.

Still, for cuts and burns, there was a lot that could be done to save lives, at least for a few days or a few weeks. Given enough time, infection would set in, but there were other settlements in the area; they’d be able to find other help. In moments like this, all you need to do is stop the bleeding, he told himself.

While Simon treated the wounded, the knight performed a handful of mercy killings on those who couldn’t be saved. Those frightened the children he’d just spent so much time trying to calm, but Simon didn’t protest; he agreed with the man’s assessment. They also gave up the refugees what food and alcohol they had as the story came out.

It had been orcs that did this. Big ugly bastards, and the fact that there were no strong young men among the wounded meant that they’d probably died fighting in the village in question.

At sunset, Sir Derinholt informed Simon that he’d be going north to deal with them, “Before their violence can spread,” he explained. “You’re welcome to come with me if you like, but you’re under no obligation, you understand. Orcs are twice as big as goblins, but at least five times as dangerous. These aren’t bandits. I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“I’m going,” Simon answered. “I just want to know how they got this far north.”

“The world’s a big place,” the knight said, not even acknowledging his answer. “Two or three orcs survive some battle, and before you know it, there’s ten or twenty.”

Simon considered orcs more of a mountain menace, and while there were plenty of forests in this area, there weren’t any real mountains in a hundred miles. So, he thought it was a valid question, but it didn’t really matter. He’d lived through this era of history plenty of times, and if there were a giant orcish horde on the loose, he’d know about it.

Sir Derinholt was probably right. These were just a few stragglers that got brave.

“The townspeople said a dozen, but I doubt there are that many,” Simon countered, as the two of them started walking ot the knight’s horse.

“Might be half, might be double,” Sir Derinholt answered as he mounted. “There’s really no way to know until we get there.”

“If you think there’s double, we should probably go for help, or wait for daylight at least,” Simon suggested, but Sir Derinholt shook his head.

“Every night we delay, another family dies. Probably more than one,” he answered. “We kill these bastards or we die trying.”

Simon couldn’t really disagree with that, in sentiment at least. He hadn’t been planning to throw this life away, but he was a sucker for lost causes. As long as I don’t cast any spells, I can always pick up where I left off, he reminded himself as they made their way to the home of those they’d just done their best to help.