Role

Chapter 6

Uthiln slid down the wall of the Hall of Marans with a heavy sigh, looking at
the moonlit courtyard before him. A freezing gust of wind brought a swirling
scattering of fine snow off one of the watchtowers, glittering around him
quietly.

How? How had it happened? He replayed the details of the fight over and over
in his mind - the choking sand of the Sorrows whirling around them, the
Marshall's back pressed to his as they fought both the demon and the orc
chieftain simultaneously. They had been blinded then, as the orc kicked dirt
in a sweeping arc, and Uthiln had raised his shield, gritting his teeth for
the blow that never came.

But the sounds did. The wet, unmistakable sounds of blade biting flesh, and
then cries in a language he did not understand. He had rubbed his eyes
furiously while waving his shield and when his eyes blurrily opened, saw it.

Two lost soldiers, crumpled, unmoving, unmistakably dead. The ones they had
heard calling out for help as they had furiously chased after the orc. And
they, the supposed defenders of Light, had killed them. In their fury to end
an evil, they had committed one.

Uthiln covered his scarred face with his hands, rubbing at phantom sand in his
eyes. He had not struck the blow, it was true. But he and the Marshall had
both desperately been swinging at anything moving in the battle that had raged
across the blinding desert. It could have been him. It was just pure chance it
hadn't been.

He had visited his Goddess's shrine, and prayed, and when he was blessed with
her presence, he had brashly boasted of becoming the "Roar of the Jaguar". She
had wisely and gently told him to seek humility. And now here he was, not fit
to even be in her presence. Looking back on his younger self, he was ashamed.
Had he really thought himself worthy?

He looked up at the walls of the Fortress. He had bled for it, fighting those
who would bring it down and what it stood for. And now he brought it shame by
merely existing.

He felt broken again. But unlike the torture by the goblins, it was a crushing
of his spirit. He had stayed strong back then, not because he was the
toughest, or the best with a blade. But because he thought he travelled with
the Light.

He wasn't so sure of that now.