22.5 Sacrifice
I had no choice in the matter, didn't I... Lise would surely try and crash the fight through any means necessary. The Primzahl was nothing if not honorable. I was sure that he'd keep his word if only to preserve his weird sense of justice, which meant that I had to fight.
"Stop it, both of you," I called out, though the fight was already over by the time I intervened. "The choice is clear. We can't afford to lose too many so soon after our last defeat."
Our overall morale was only now slowly recovering, but another crushing defeat like last time would break the back of the many Nenners that were already struggling to move on. Despair would hang over the settlement like a guillotine poised to behead its victim. In the end, losing here would make everyone fall into despair and the town would fall. Everything would collapse and the progress that we made would amount to nothing if nobody was motivated enough to continue on living.