5-37. A Sapper's Burden
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” said Kurik, his eyes downcast.
Elijah understood the dwarf’s emotions, largely because he had a complicated relationship with killing as well. He’d wrestled with the realities of his own actions often enough to know that he couldn’t really say much that Kurik probably hadn’t told himself a hundred times over. Still, he owed it to the dwarf to try. After all, they were companions, weren’t they? On the verge of becoming friends. That came with certain responsibilities.
“It’s necessary,” he said, gazing out over the fields. It was easy to see those crops as commodities – which they were – but Elijah saw them as more than that. They’d been grown with the purpose of being consumed, but that didn’t make them any less deserving of life than any other natural creature. It reminded him a bit of how livestock was treated before Earth had been touched by the World Tree, save that he knew those plants were incapable of feeling pain. If they had been, he might have found himself unable to go through with his plan of harvesting every last crop.
“We came here,” Kurik said. “Not the other way ‘round. We’re the aggressors. They was just sittin’ here mindin’ their own business until we came along.”
“I…I know.”
Elijah wanted to believe they were in the right, and in that desire, his mind kept playing tricks on him. There was a sliver of thought telling him that the yetis had made the first move, but that just wasn’t true, was it? He’d come barreling into their fortress, and they’d reacted. Would things have turned out differently if he’d approached in peace? Probably not. They didn’t seem like the welcoming types, and what’s more, the challenge assigned to them was very clear about the terms of completion.
| You have reached the The Frozen Fortress. To conquer the Challenge of Pruina, destroy the betrayer. Reward: Trunk of the Frozen Oak
|