by the road. "I did not want these men killed," he remarked sharply.
Ivan looked to Danica. "Better to let that one get away," the dwarf whispered with obvious sarcasm.
Cadderly heard the comment and locked a deep frown on the yellow-bearded dwarf.
Chapter Twenty
"It was a fight, ye . . ." Ivan began to protest, but he threw his thick hands up in disgust, snorted, "Bah!" and stomped away. A few strides off, beyond the nearest corner of the house, he caught sight of the lone living Night Mask, wedged tightly in the kitchen window and no longer struggling against the pressing weight.
"There ye go, lad," the dwarf bellowed. "Me brother held out some mercy for yer foolhardy wishes." The other three moved over to join Ivan, to see what the dwarf had discovered.
"What'U ye do with him?" Ivan asked Cadderly when the young priest saw the trapped man. "Do ye have some questions ye need to ask this one? Or are ye going to give him to the city guard, ye merciful fool?"
Cadderly regarded the dwarf curiously, not understanding Ivan's anger. His ensuing question sounded clearly as an accusation. "Are you so eager to kill?"
"What do ye think the city guard'U do with him?" Ivan balked. "Ye forgetting yer fat friend, sprawled across a table with his heart cut out? And what of them that lived in this place? Do ye think the fanner and his family'll be coming back anytime soon?"
Cadderly averted his gaze, stung by the honest words. He preferred mercy, hated killing, but he could not deny Ivan's observations.
"Ye bring us out here and ask us to fight with half our hearts " Ivan blustered, spittle glistening the bottom edges of his thick mustache. "If ye're thinking that I'm one to risk me own neck to give a few more days of life to that scum, then ye're thinking wrong!"
Confusion dictated Cadderly's next move. He brought the song up in the recesses of his mind, heard the flow of Deneirian magic, and found a point where he could join in that sweet river. He had stepped fully into the spirit world several times - in Shilmista Forest, to bid farewell to Elbereth's gallant horse; in the Dragon's Codpiece, to find Brennan's wandering spirit and learn the truth of Avery's heavenly bliss - and now he found the journey short and not so difficult.
As soon as he arrived, as soon as the material world faded into indistinct grayness behind him, he heard the desperate screams of lost souls.
Leaving his corporeal body standing with his unknowing friends, Cadderly willed his spirit toward the corpse lying in the road, the man Danica had shot from the horse. The young priest ended his trek abruptly, though, terrified by the images. Huddled, shadowy things, shapes akin to those growling pools of darkness he had seen on the shoulders of evil men, encircled the doomed assassin's spirit. The dead man noticed Cadderly then and looked to him desperately.
Help me, came his silent plea.
Cadderly did not know what to do. The growling, shadowy things tightened their ring, dark claws reaching out for their victim.
Help me!
Cadderly willed his spirit toward the man, but something, his fears, perhaps, or his knowledge that it was not his place to interfere, held the young priest's spirit firmly in place.
Shadows grabbed the doomed assassin. He twisted and jerked about frantically, but the dark grip did not relent, did not release him.
Help me! The cry tore at Cadderly's heart, horrified him and filled him with sorrow all at once.
The shadows melted into the ground, taking the man's spirit with them. Only the spirit's legs remained visible, kicking futilely.
Then they, too, were gone, pulled down to eternal hell.
Cadderly found himself back in his corporeal form, his eyes open wide, sweat beaded on his forehead.
"What're ye thinking?" Ivan demanded.
"Maybe I was wrong," Cadderly admitted, looking at Danica as he spoke the words, looking for judgment in her knowing gaze.
Danica grabbed him by the arm and put her head on his shoulder. She understood the trial Cadderly had just undergone, the realization once again that war precipitated cruel actions, that their survival against this unmerciful foe demanded a resolve equally vicious.
"But he goes back to the town," Cadderly went on firmly, pointing to the man trapped in the window. "The city guard will decide his fate. He cannot harm us now, and we have no cause to kill him."
Ivan, deadly in battle but certainly no merciless killer, readily agreed. He and Pikel immediately started