Free Chaos Unleashed by Drew Karpyshyn Page A

she’d always been the one to challenge Jerrod’s fanaticism whenever he said something abhorrent. But she wasn’t part of the conversation anymore. Instead, her attention was wholly focused on the burned bodies tied to the stakes.
    “This is not admirable,” Keegan finally spat out. “Whoever did this deserves to die!”
    “A lot of people deserve to die,” Scythe muttered, not bothering to turn toward them as she spoke. “But not all of them will. And many who deserve to live will not.”
    She didn’t say anything else, and in the ensuing silence Keegan could barely hold himself back from screaming at her.
    Snap out if it, Scythe! This isn’t like you! This isn’t who you are! This isn’t who Norr wanted you to be!
    Somehow, he held his tongue. Her lover’s death had caused her to shut down, to close herself off from the world. But it was hard to believe she wasn’t outraged by what had happened here, even if that outrage was buried beneath an ocean of numbing grief. Keegan had hoped this atrocity would trigger something in her—any kind of reaction would have been a welcome sign. But obviously she still needed more time. And shouting at her wasn’t likely to help.
    “How long ago did this happen?” Keegan wanted to know.
    “A day or two at most,” Jerrod guessed. “Judging by the decomposition of the livestock. But whoever was here is gone now.”
    “Any idea why they left?” Scythe wondered.
    “Their work here was done,” Jerrod simply replied. “It’s almost sundown,” the monk added. “I doubt we will find any provisions in the farmhouse, but the walls will give us some shelter from the wind and cold.”
    “We’re not spending the night in this place,” Keegan declared.
    “The Order is unlikely to return,” Jerrod assured him.
    “I won’t sit down and rest in the house of an innocent family while their bodies are still smoking only a few feet away!”
    “We don’t have time to bury them,” Scythe chimed in.
    “If we press on, we are unlikely to come across another farm before dark,” Jerrod warned. “And the Order could still be patrolling the surrounding area. Finding another safe place to stop could be difficult.”
    “Then we keep walking through the night,” Keegan insisted. “Right, Scythe?” he added, looking for support.
    “It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
    At least she answered me. A few days ago she would have just shrugged.
    “Then we keep going,” Keegan insisted.
    After a brief hesitation, Jerrod nodded, and they set off again, heading west and giving the farm a wide berth.

T HE NIGHT SKY was clear and the moon was three-quarters full, giving the three of them just enough light to press onward.
    Really it’s only Keegan who needs to see,
Scythe thought to herself. Jerrod was able to call on his otherworldly perception, and since she’d taken up Daemron’s Sword, Scythe had found her own senses acutely heightened. Like some nocturnal predator, the faint light of the stars was all she needed to make out their surroundings.
    The Sword was strapped diagonally across her back, held in place by a thin cloth binding around the blade just below the hilt and another near the tip. The bindings were secure enough to keep the weapon from slipping loose as she walked, but she knew if she needed to free it in a hurry, the Sword could slice through them with minimal effort.
    Scythe honestly hadn’t cared whether they stayed at the burned-out farmhouse for the night or if they kept going. But once the decision was made to press on, she realized she wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight, and for that she was grateful. The pain of dreaming she was with Norr, then waking to find it wasn’t true, was something she didn’t need.
    “We can’t keep going,” Jerrod suddenly declared, drawing Scythe out of her introspective musings. “It’s time to stop for the night. Gather our strength. We’ll need it tomorrow if we run into the Inquisitors who burned down