I am not good

	"I don't apologize for who I am."

	Sir Dalton stepped forward swiftly, swinging his arm out towards the man looking over the balcony in exasperation. "How can you not?" he demanded, stopping his advancement before he could get too close. In his frustration, Dalton began pacing back and forth, catching the sideways glance thrown at him by the other man. The plates of his armor clinked along with his frantic shuffle.

	Shifting his weight, the man turned halfway to glare at the knight. "I simply have nothing that I can claim I did wrong," he said calmly. "I have made no decision that goes against my morals."

	Dalton swung around to point an accusatory finger in his direction. "Damn what you call morals!" he bellowed. "You have no right to even hear that word. What you have done here is a curse on this world. You have produced a debt signed in blood that can only be repaid in kind!"

	If the man was affected by the knight's words he did not show it. Instead, he lifted his neck up to catch the gust of wind that rose above the blackened hill, closing his eyes so that he could enjoy the peace of the air cooling his skin. Dalton found the calmness sickening. It produced an unease that twisted his stomach into knots of disgust and hate. How a man could stand so still, covered in blood that did not belong to him and surrounded by the cacophony of noise produced by the raging fires of war, he did not know. He did not want to know.

	"I would not dare call you weak, Sir Dalton," the man said. "I could not lie to even myself so expertly. You have shown that your metal is forged for stronger and tempered far hotter than any man in the king's army." He opened his eyes slowly, peering at the knight from across the rampart coldly. "Even now you boast of your prowess in battle without even having to utter a word. You do not need to, as it is as clear as day just by the state of your dress."

	Dalton sneered loudly, loud enough that the man could not mistake it for anything less than pure hatred. It was all he could do not to charge him and throw him over the edge when he heard the amused chuckle escape the man's mouth.

	"I would not dare call you weak," he echoed. Turning fully around, the man began a circular stalk around the knight, both of his hands comfortably linked behind his back. "However, I would not call you strong. I have found far too many times that you are not capable of doing what often must be done. You have accused me of producing an evil that will fester until repaid, but I do not see it that way. I have done nothing but quench the thirsts of those who so joyously plunged themselves into war, for what purpose it does not matter.

	"This rebellion would have spread throughout the lowlands until it burned out ports, our food, our people. I am not the perpetrator of these so-called 'cursed' deeds, they are. The moment they took up arms against peace, however fragile you wish to claim it was, they became the heralds that beckoned travesty. I will have you know that they would have slaughtered any number of our legion, not in the pursuit of their goals, but in an effort to fatigue us, to make us grow weary of their ability to whittle us down into nothing."

	The man had more to say, but he paused for a moment to turn back away from Sir Dalton. His arcing movement around the knight had taken him to the other side of the rampart, and he looked down into the sullied soil indifferently, studying the splintered wood and bodies strewn about.

	"How can you say these words so callously, Shaw?" Dalton said, stepping closer to his former friend. "How can you say that with what you see with your own two eyes? Those are not soldiers. They're peasants with dented metal and sharpened tools."

	"I gave every man the opportunity to lay down their arms and accept defeat," Shaw replied, showing no signs of emotion as his eyes drifted over the masses below, muddied faces catching his attention for only brief moments. "I was not discriminate between peasants and fallen knights. They all had the chance."

	Dalton shook his head. "You knew they would not."

	"What would you have had me done, old friend?" he asked, lifting his head to gaze at the knight. "Wait outside the gates until they starved?"

	"Not this," he whispered, shaking his head more as he took careful steps backwards. "The blight you have put on our soldiers' souls with your orders will carry on to the next life. You have doomed us, and yet you stand triumphant in your false glory, as if you have done a righteous deed. Standing before me is not the man I knew, but surely a demon who has taken his skin."

	Sir Shaw, the commander of the king's ninth legion, did not react to the words spat at him. His eyes were frigid and direct, no amount of hateful condemnation bringing about even the slightest change in his features. Several moments passed before he turned back to look at the myriad of bodies that littered the streets below. For every fallen legion soldier, there was ten dead peasants, all dressed in their finest cloths and covered in blood and dirt. They knew they were going to die that day, and had adorned what they would take with them after their fate had been signed in razor-sharp steel.

	"War is much more than a trivial conflict," Shaw said reflectively. "It is, in its purest form, a contract that demands death. In Bvultiar, there is a saying, 'death for a price has always two payments'. These men signed the contract of war and happily paid the first price, their lives. The second price is what we had to pay to fulfill said contract." Taking in a large breath of air, Shaw straightened up to look over the plumes of black smoke rising above the burning buildings.

	"Truly," he said, letting his eyes roam over the wreckage. "Signing a contract for death is the most evil thing you can do. You do not only take the lives of those promised, but you inflict the debt of sacrifice onto someone else. Only wretched beings with no more pieces of their souls to spare would take such a bargain." Shaw turned to glare at Sir Dalton, who looked on in abject disgust to his former friend.

	"Demons," Sir Shaw clarified. "War is a dinner-bell for those who would exploit the contract, as with no soul to give up, they take the price of blood without charge." One final time, Shaw looked over the fields of land stained red and black. A hollow gust of wind had him closing his eyes to enjoy the sensation, and he relaxed into the stillness of a war ended. "Those who would sign such a contract should not be surprised when a demon answers the bell."