Chương 18: Idol, Part 7

CLANK!

The sound of the guards' metal boots on the stone rang out across the square, soon followed by the rattle of chains.

CLANK!

One of the men behind him smacked Morne with the butt of his spear, tearing into Morne's sack-cloth shirt and causing him to take a step to steady himself.

"Move it," the man barked.

Morne straightened, his steps resuming their brisk pace as he was marched to the site of his execution.

Climbing up the wooden stairs was a bit difficult with the chains binding his legs, but the less-than-gentle grips of those flanking him hoisted him up and tossed him onto the platform.

Morne let out a grunt as he fell flat on his face, trying to put his hands under himself to push himself up only to remember the shackles around his wrists.

Suddenly, he was hoisted up by the same two guards that had thrown him. Normally such a task would be difficult due to Morne's immense size, but the previously burly man was little more than skin and bones.

He kept his gaze straight ahead, not giving the guards or the crowd the satisfaction.

He was hauled over to a stone chopping block and pushed to his knees. The priestess stood to his left, garbed in more decently than her standard attire and shining with the rays of the rising sun behind them.

As she started to tell the audience of the oath Morne had broken, of the blasphemy and murder he was responsible for, gasps overtook the onlookers, which were quickly snuffed out by shouts of outrage.

"Kill him already!" One man shouted.

"He deserves to die!" shouted another.

'So much for valuing love and life,' thought Morne with a flicker of grim amusement.

"It's always the quiet ones," muttered Hamlen ruefully. He was one of the guards overseeing the event, having requested to be there.

He had known Anthem well and had considered the man a brother. Seeing his killer put to the axe would give him a sense of closure.

"Lop his head!" shouted a man amid the crowd, starting a chant that the others soon joined in on.

"Lop his head!"

Morne just couldn't help himself; a chuckle left his mouth, hoarse and ragged from his lack of proper hydration. They were going to kill him anyway, what use would a chant serve?

But that only redoubled the fanaticism of the crowd, their screams becoming louder as Morne's head was slowly lowered onto the chopping block.

"Let this be a lesson to all blasphemers!" the priestess yelled over the chants of her fervent audience. "Though our Goddess is benevolent, she does not condone blasphemy, nor the heresy displayed by this man and his Jiklok collaborators!"

Oh? How did she figure that out?

Not that it mattered. He'd be dead soon either way.

All that running, the eight years of servitude and cruelty, a literal deal with a demon, all of it culminated in this. His life would be taken before his goals were achieved. Before justice was brought to those that massacred his village.

His story would end here, alone in the realm of a demon. No one would remember him, no one would be left to remember his village.

The priestess gestured at the headman that had stepped up sometime before.

'Fine,' Morne thought. 'Kill me.'

As the headsman raised his axe, a sort of peace came over Morne. It was not the peace that came with accepting death. No, it was something else.

The steel of the polished axe glinted in the sun as it reached its apex.

Morne tilted his head, squinting at the silhouette of his executioner.

His hazel eyes regarded his killer with all the emotion of a man regarding a stone by the side of a road. The headsman met Morne's gaze, at first with the same indifference, but then he noticed the light in Morne's eyes.

And he flinched.

Morne's gaze wasn't just one of apathy. There was something else there, hidden behind a wall of indifference so thick that the executioner only noticed it due to their proximity.

It was the same emotions that made Morne's mind as tranquil as a lake.

Determination. Vengeance.

More didn't look away. He wanted to see his killer's eyes as the death blow landed, he wanted to make sure this man remembered Morne for the rest of his life.

Somehow, someway, these people would fall by Morne's hand. Even if Morne had to claw his way out from the pits of hell itself, he'd be there to return the favor one day.

The headsman's face hardened when the priestess glanced his way critically.

When the blade started its descent, the fanatical crowd silenced, satisfaction and a sense of victory filling them.

One less heretic.

CHOP!

.......

"Congratulations!" a man said, shocking Morne awake.

Morne's eyelids flung open, and he looked around confusedly.

He was in a stretch of space resembling the night sky. The nearly inaudible screams for a second made him think the headsman had failed his task, that Morne's head still held life in it and he was hearing the self-righteous cheers of the crowd.

That belief was quickly dismantled as he realized where he was, and the owner appearing just then confirmed it.

The cold blue flames that Brej-N'Ha-Frikt called eyes regarded Morne silently for a moment, that grin on his face as always.

Morne casually met the eyes of the Coltha, causing the grin on the demon's face to widen to inhuman proportions.

"For what?" Morne asked.

The strength of his own voice surprised him. He raised his hand to his face, finding that his previous bulk had been restored. He also felt more lucid than earlier, the effects of dehydration and starvation gone.

"For passing the trial," the Coltha said. "You see, the contract those worshippers gave you was only part of it."

Brej-N'Ha-Frikt waved a hand, and two images appeared.

The first was Morne, less than a second before the priestess had paralyzed him, and right after the cultist of Jiklok had escaped.

The second was Morne as he was mere minutes ago, kneeling against a stone as the implement of his death descended.

"The first part, resolve, passed," the Coltha declared.

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