“I know what you’re thinking,” he continued quickly, still amazingly on the same breath, “that I should have stood trial already, but since one of the murders involved a man suspected of being a Dragon Knight, I was to report to the Citadel to stand trial there. That’s why I was traveling south from Mintas.” He gasped for air and prepared to continue his verbose explanation.
“Eh, wait a minute,” one of them interrupted, scratching at his beard. “You, lad? You saying you’re a murderer on the lam?” He leaned back and gestured to his colleague, “You believing this Garth?”
“Well, uh,” more beard scratching and tugging, “he seems to believe it himself, but I’ll be honest, I just don’t see it in him. His aura seems as clean as a whistle. No sense of malice or darkness in him, at least that I can tell.” Garth shrugged, “If he’s a killer Druckner, he’s the coldest one I ever met. And I met my fair share, you know.”
“Aye,” Druckner nodded, still scratching his chin, “we both have, and he ain’t like them.”
Kre’s inner voice seemed to panic for a moment, ‘You’re losing them… you must gain their trust. You need them to trust you.’
Kre nodded enthusiastically, partly to take back the conversation and partly to get the whisper out of his ear. “Exactly. I only killed Ser Sandiscoot, but that was a mercy kill. He begged me to do it. He’s the one that killed the assassin.”
The fire crackled in the chill air, the only sound breaking the quiet of the clearing. Even the normal forest noises seemed to fade away as everyone started to process what Kre had just said.
“So, eh… you did kill someone?” Garth finally asked. “A mercy kill, so you say… but still, a kill.”
Kre looked around at the assembled faces staring him down, each one curious how he would respond. “I mean, yeah?”
“That a question boy?” Druckner growled. “We don’t know, that’s why we’re asking you!”
“Yes,” Kre said firmly. “Yes, I killed a man. One of my dearest friends, because he begged me to do it. He was dying painfully from some sort of a poison, and he and his… um… well, he asked me to help end his suffering. He had that look, so I knew he was ready.
“That look?” Ras asked, his eyes wide.
Nodding, Kre closed his eyes and thought back. “We had a merchant caravan come to the village once. As they were unhitching the horses from the wagons, one of the horses got spooked by something and he jumped sideways, knocking over a couple of barrels of salted meats, ruining them for the most part.
“As soon as that caravan master saw what happened, he beat that horse more than half to death before anyone could stop him. When our villagers finally got that vile man pinned down, the horse was lying on the ground with a cracked skull and a broken leg. Luckily, my dad was there. He knows horses. He put that horse’s head in his lap, comforted him, and did what he had to do. That’s the first time I ever saw that look. The look that begged for release from the pain and suffering. The look that knows there’s no coming back.
“Strangely,” he concluded with a grim shake of his head, “that look is the same on a horse as it is on a person.”