The ground was soaked red and made an all too familiar squish as Elizeus walked up to the prisoners. They'd won of course; while the warlords' hordes were numerous and vicious, Elizeus' caravan was well trained and worked together better than clockwork. But their greatest weapon was surprise. The hordes had gotten used to placid, worn-down, frightened people that were easy to control and could be taken advantage of without protest.

They were no such people. They fought back, and fought hard. Almost ten years of easy targets left most of the hordes lazy. It wasn't difficult to get the drop on them.

There had been a lot of horde members and a few of their own had fallen. It was common, but Elizeus still felt the news of the dead weight on him as if each death placed a stone on his shoulders. It made the work he was about to do all too easy.

The caravan didn't like killing unless they had to, but they also couldn't leave men who knew who they were out in the world to tell other warlords and hordes. The caravan liked to let themselves think that they weren't cruel, so they used the doctors to put the prisoners to sleep and to take away their pain while some of the less squeamish caravan members and the doctors did the work. Kirsi said it was an easy, quick death they gave them. It made her feel better about killing them, though Elizeus knew that Kirsi cried after every death and begged the Saints for forgiveness.

Elizeus knew he should probably care, but he didn't feel much as he injected the drugs into the prisoners' awaiting arms. He used to care, he remembered crying for hours over the first person he killed. But Elizeus wasn't that little boy anymore. Everyone of those people if let free could be a threat to Elizeus, to his squad, this caravan and more than anyone else, to Altin. Elizeus became who he was so his baby brother wouldn't have to. He was happy to do it so Altin would not weep, as he had, over the body of a man who would have killed him.

"You know," Elizeus turned. It was Kirsi, voice ever gentle, but her lip wobbled a bit and tears welled in her eyes. "It's okay to feel it."

"It isn't." Elizeus' voice was taunt and stern. After the fight and dealing with the prisoners, he was near snapping, but reined in his temper. A deep breath filled Elizeus' lungs. "You can't feel, Kirsi. I don't feel bad for killing those men. If we hadn't we could all die."

Kirsi raised her grassy-green eyes to his own dark brown ones. "You can understand that an action is necessary to do and still feel remorse." She laid a hand on his shoulder, her skin looked so light against his own ebony complexion.

In her eyes, Elizeus saw how he must look: callous and cold, but he didn't care. Everything he did was for Altin and countless innocents. If he had to lose his own innocence to protect someone else's, he could live with that. And if all the Saints and Saintesses found Elizeus guilty in the end and damned him forever, well he could live with that too.

"This is war, Kirsi. We don't have the luxury of feeling."