96 No Graves

Thomas sat up and wiped the water from his face. When he wiped the wet hair out of his eyes, he saw Frey and Doevm with a bucket. He nearly cursed at them but remembered where he was – a battlefield. The spear was still held in his hands. The blood was still wet. The thieves were still. He tried to wipe his hands off on the ground, but only managed to dirty them more. Doevm tossed him a wet rag.

"The blood dried a little, so it's harder to remove. Use this instead." Thomas squeezed the rag tight over his hands, digging it into his raw blisters to get every little bit in sight. The nails were the hardest to clean. He tried to fit the rag under, but it was too thick. He resorted to picking at it with his other nails. "Slow down," Doevm threw the rag over Thomas's head. "First, take some deep breaths before you pass out again."

"I'm…" Thomas tried to say anything, but he could barely get a word out. His nails clicked together, unable to stop shaking. He took a deep breath. When he expelled the air, his lungs shook around - restless just like his heart. "I can't." Thomas tried to stand but feel back to the dirt. "What's…happening?" His mind was calm, but his body everything but. He tasted copper. He touched a hand to his lip to find he had bitten a small wound in it that he couldn't feel.

"You're in a rush from the battle. You can't feel much pain yet." Doevm said as he went to loot the bodies with Frey. "Just wait for it to pass. No matter how much you want to calm down, you won't for at least another minute or so." Thomas listened, trying to lengthen his shallow breaths into long ones and sitting as still as he could. Doevm and Frey didn't offer him anything apart from the rag, simply looting. Apart from their weapons, they hadn't taken the time to wash their blood off, nor the dirt

Thomas looked at his own victims. Their eyes were still wide open like the holes in their chests. 'I'm sure they had families, or they used to,' he thought. 'What could drive someone to live a life like this?' He crawled to them and shut their eyes. He wasn't that religious, but he did a quick prayer for them. Having somewhat calmed down, he scooped up some dirt.

Doevm and Frey stopped and looked at him. After some whispers, Frey walked over to Thomas and put a hand on his shoulder. "What are you doing?" He asked.

"Digging graves," Thomas replied as he scooped up another handful of dirt.

Frey's hand wasn't shaking. His breathing was normal, like he had just taken a walk: "Is this your first time killing someone?" Thomas nodded and scooped another handful of dirt. The three bodies were so large in comparison to his tiny hole. It would take all day to scoop out enough dirt for them. He glanced at all the other thieves, who he would also need to make graves for. He stood up and faced the stranger he once knew.

"Yes." Thomas felt another round of vomit rising from his stomach. Frey's eyes were a void of numbness. "Why aren't you guys digging?"

"They're not getting a grave." Frey kicked the dirt back into Thomas's hole. "We're looting them and returning to the mansion. Come help us so we can get back. Your father must be worried."

"But," Thomas fought through his tiredness. The rush washed off him along with the heat of his body. His breathing destabilized once again. "They're people. They deserve a grave. We can't just let them rot out here. This is wrong. Doevm, back me up here." Doevm walked to Frey's side, an even darker look surfacing. Compared to Frey's, his were pitch-black, that kind that hides even your own hand if it were right in front of your face.

"Whether they do or do not deserve a grave is something we don't know." Doevm poked one of the bodies: "They're dead. These bodies will rot away whether they are above ground or not. These men were not our comrades so we will not care for them. Life is cruel, death even more so."

Thomas tried to interrupt but Doevm spoke louder, nearly screaming over the quiet forest: "Hopi was a good man who fought and died in the war. His body burned away with a section of the forest; his grave forever unmarked despite his deeds during his life. That doesn't change where his spirit goes, nor will burying these men change whatever hell they end up in. It's a waste of time. If you don't want to help loot them, then at least be a lookout." Doevm crouched next to the closest corpse and turned its pockets inside out.

Thomas backed away from them, nearly tripping back into the bush but managing to stay on his feet. "I can't be a part of this." He stormed off, shoving branches and leaves out of his way.

…

"Weren't you a little harsh on him?" Frey asked as he threw one of the bodies in a pile on the ashes of the campfire, its pockets cleaned of anything valuable. "He just killed people for the first time in his life."

"So?" Doevm shrugged. "What does that mean? Yes, he killed people. They were enemies that he had to kill to live. What is wrong with that? He should be helping us instead of trying to force his morals on us."

Frey frowned as he threw another body into the pile. "I mean, you remember the first person you killed, right? Remember how you felt afterwards, that sinking feeling in your gut and that little bit of darkness in the corner of your mind?"

Doevm stuffed some gold in his spatial ring as he thought about Rena's worried expression as she twitched on the floor. "I remember it, but there was nothing special about it. She was living and now she is dead because of me. The world still spins in the same direction and I have one less obstacle in my way."

Frey looked at Doevm's expressionless face, caught between disbelief and, in a deeper part of himself, understanding. "You felt nothing? Come on, even I feel something when I killed these thieves." Upon receiving Doevm's silence, he threw another body in the pile and walked out of the camp: "I'll go talk to him while you finish up. You can keep the rest of whatever's here except for the roses."

It wasn't hard to find Thomas. He was sitting against a tree, facing the road. As Frey closed in, Thomas put his hand on his spear, only to loosen it. Frey stood a little bit away from him, waiting for the inevitable complaints. Thomas took a breath: "My favorite book is about the hero, Arthur. Do you know about him?" Frey nodded. "He vanquished all sorts of evil beings and evil people. My father read it all to me and did voices for each of the characters. Whenever we got to a fight scene, I cheered. It sounded awesome; fighting someone for your own survival, getting ambushed and having your back against a wall, or that time he fought the demon king. This..." He held up his spear, still covered in blood. "Isn't glorious. All they did was steal some roses. Does that deserve this kind of punishment?"

"No," Frey said as he stared across the road, at a simple farmer tending to his wheat field. "But they tried to kill you, tried to kill us. Do you think they would just give us the roses if we asked nicely?"

Thomas shook his head. "Why can't they just be a farmer? There is plenty of land out there. My father has plenty of open positions available. They can live a happy life."

'Happy, that's one way to call it.' Frey shook his head, knowing Thomas wouldn't understand commoner life. "It doesn't get that much easier, taking lives, but you learn to bear with it. At least here, it's easier than war." Thomas brought his head out. Frey leaned against a nearby tree.

"In war, you're killing innocents. Sure they have a sword, but they didn't do anything wrong by trying to defend their country, just like I am not in prison for defending the Acrin Kingdom. I saw my comrades die right in front of me. Hopi died because of my failure. We can't throw around morals when there is a sword to our throat. Thieves are evil because they stole from your family so we killed them. If we captured them, they would just be publicly executed. We don't have a jail."

"But at least a grave," Thomas threw his spear away from him. "That's basic. If there's no grave, how are they going to move on in peace?"

'It'll take too long to bury everyone we kill.' He looked through the trees and bushes at Doevm, who didn't have a care in the world as he set the pile of bodies aflame. "You're separate from us. You won't live your life on the battlefield. Out here is different. It's colder. When either I or Doevm are killed one day at some far away place, we won't get graves either. It's just how it works."

...

"Are you sure about this?" Jameson asked as he put on a white mask. His old equipment, despite not being in use in over a decade, was still shiny. He had borrowed a blunt spear, similar in size and weight to the golden one he had given to Doevm.

"No," Reginald replied. "Just don't kill or maim them. I can't even watch this. I'll be back at the mansion." He walked back down the road with a fifteen-guard escort. "This is just a test," he told himself. "It's necessary, right?"